Sarah (0:00)

Hi, I'm Sarah, and welcome to youo Makesense. I'm a somatic experiencing practitioner and expert on trauma resolution, attachment parts work, and nervous system regulation. This podcast is a manual to understanding your human experience so that you can navigate the world with freedom, ease, empowerment, and create the life that you desire. Remember, you make sense all parts always. So, in the mental health space, there's so much focus on our thinking or the cognitive story attached to the experience that we're having. And in this episode, we're going to talk about why we're actually having the thoughts that we're having. Like, what is the underlying reason for it? And how do we then from that place actually change the negative thoughts we're having and experience more of the positive thinking and the positive stories within our minds that we're wanting? So, of course, like every other episode, we're going to use science to back up everything that we're talking about. Now, polyvagal theory and neuroscience shows us that our autonomic state creates our story. Essentially, what that means is within our autonomic nervous system, we have six primary states and think of a state as an embodied experience. Now, what we know is that our state actually not only creates our thoughts, but it creates the whole totality of our experience itself. Meaning it creates our feelings, the sensations we have, the behaviors we have, our thoughts, our perception of self, others in the world around us. So it's literally creating everything. And as I named a part of that is our thinking. Now, when we're experiencing dysregulation, which is simply active self protection, and if the word dysregulation is new to you, I want you to think about experiences that you might classify as not being good or not being enjoyable. So things like anxiety, depression, hopelessness, apathy, feeling in a funk, so on and so forth, all of those are experiences of dysregulation. Now, I just named feelings, right? Those feelings are a symptom of the dysregulation. And that means that when we're in dysregulation, the thoughts we are having are also a symptom of that dysregulation. Now, the job of our thoughts when we're dysregulated is actually to keep us in dysregulation, or even further, or deepen the dysregulation we are experiencing. Now, that might sound strange, right? Why would our system want to do that? Why would we want to deepen the uncomfortable feeling that we're having or the suffering that we're experiencing? Well, if we're in dysregulation. Our nervous system has decided that we're not safe. And that's either because we are actually not in safety, or it's perceiving danger. And that means that it's projecting something that was dangerous in the past onto the present. So I might be in safety in the here and now, but my nervous system is being reminded of things in the past that weren't safe. So I'm finding myself dysregulated. And if I was in an unsafe experience, it would be really smart for my nervous system to keep me protected. Right? So the job of our thoughts are to come in and ensure that we stay in that state of dysregulation. And the more we listen to our thoughts, the more dysregulated we become. So I want to give examples of the different thoughts that we have based on the autonomic state that we are in so that you can see how wildly different they are based on what's happening in our nervous system. So if. If we find ourselves in our sympathetic nervous system, this is often referred to as fight or flight. Where things like anxiety, worry, frustration, fear, terror, rage live. We have all this overwhelm of energy in our bodies. All of our thoughts are going to be about things like how I have to do it now. If I don't do it now, things aren't going to be okay. There's not enough time. They're probably mad at me. Maybe I did something wrong. I'm so frustrated with them. They never get anything right. This isn't going to work out. If I don't have control over things, things are going to fall apart. I'll be able to relax when I have this amount of money in my bank account. There's so much to. And as you can see, there's an all the flavoring of that. Those thoughts are. I have to control what's happening outside of me and I have to do it now. As you can see, there's kind of a theme there. Now, if we look at the thoughts when we're in our dorsal vagal complex, that's our state of shutdown where apathy, hopelessness, feeling in a funk is. We have low energy, we feel numb. Depression lives here and dissociation. All of the thoughts are going to be about how we can't or we're lacking agency. So when we're here, the thoughts will have flavorings like it's not possible for me. It's too late for me. I'll never find a partner at my age. I'm not going to be able to have a family of my own. I'm not smart enough to do this thing. I don't belong anywhere in the world. I'm different. This is where shame lives. So there's something wrong with me or I'm inherently bad. It's not going to work out no matter how hard I try. This relationship is due doomed. Can you hear in that? There's a lot of an I can't or lacking of agency. And all of the thoughts are going to have that kind of flavoring. Now when we're in our blended state of what's called freeze, which is equal parts that sympathetic system. So lots of energy met with the shutdown of dorsal like I named. It's two equal and opposite forces. Think of it kind of like a deer in headlights. So I feel this urgency, like I have to, but I can't. So the thoughts are gonna be have flavorings of things like, I really need to text that person back, I'll do it later. Or oh, I really need to call my financial advisor to see what's going on. No, it's too overwhelming. I can't do it. I'll do it another time, but I need to do it now. But I can't do it now. Or I wonder if this person's mad at me. They haven't responded back. I should really text them. No, I shouldn't text them because I don't want to irritate them more, but I need to do it, but I can't do it. Or I really want to lean into this relationship, but I can't lean into this relationship because if I lean into it and I lose time, it's going to be too late for me. So maybe I should leave, but maybe I should stay. But maybe I should leave. And maybe I should stay so I'm never actually stepping in the relationship or out of it. And as you can see here, the thoughts are gonna be contradicting. I have to, but I can't. And that's really the flavoring of freeze. Now, when we're in regulation in our ventral vagal complex, the thoughts are all gonna be about how I can so things like I am capable and able. Even if this is challenging, I know things are gonna be okay. I have inherent value in the world. I have curiosity here. So instead of blaming someone else, I'm curious about what on in their experience, just as I am curious about mine. I know that things won't always be challenging, that they change and evolve. I know that I have Inherent worth in the world, and so on and so forth. So as you can see, the story from regulation is wildly different than the story from dysregulation. And as I named, if you listen to the thoughts while you're in any of the states, including the state of regulation, it will always amplify the state you are in. And for so many of us, we don't even realize the thoughts that we're having, number one. So we're just listening to them as if they're truth. We say these things to ourselves all the time. We're constantly saying things to ourselves in our minds without realizing it, and we're listening to them as if they're truth, like, tell me more, tell me more. And every single time you do that, it is amplifying whatever is going on in your nervous system. So it's so vital that we not only understand what's actually occurring, but then we have the tools necessary to actually shift this so we aren't perpetually exacerbating the dysregulation that we are in. So in a moment, I'm going to talk about some of the things that we can do, but I just want to give you a real life example of what it looks like to have wildly different stories dependent on the state we are in. And so I'm going to give you an example from a client I worked with many, many years ago. I'm going to change the. I'm going to use someone's name here again, but I'm going to change the name of that person. So this client that I had had been married for probably about 40 years or so, so quite a long time. And we were navigating with her the different stories that she had about the, about her husband based on the autonomic state that she was in. So when she found herself in her dorsal vagal complex, remember that's the state of shutdown. I can't. When she was in a rupture or disconnection with her husband here, was this the type or flavoring of story that she was having? Obviously I'm this exactly verbatim, but this is the, the, the idea. So the thoughts were about how she married the wrong person and it was too late for her. No one is going to want her. At her age, it's not going to be possible to have a relationship that she desires. Her husband is never going to be the person that she would, she needs or, or he will never be able to meet her needs. And as you can hear from some of those things, that I'm saying, like, wow, there's a lot hopelessness in that. I mean, you know, the first thing I said about I married the wrong person and it's too late for me. Like, could make me. It's not even my story or my experience, and it could make me want to curl under the covers. And so my point is, if she was to listen to that, it would just exacerbate that hopelessness or that lack of agency and the overall shutdown in her nervous system. And she would be believing that as if it was true. So if she was in an argument with her husband while in her sympathetic nervous system, remember, this is where anxiety, worry, frustration, fear, terror, rage, all live. The story was wildly different. And I'm about to swear in a moment, because this is something that she realized she was saying to herself, just in case you have kids in the room. It was wildly different than dorsal. And this, by the way, is a person that didn't swear in her daily life. Of course, there's nothing wrong with swearing, but that's not something that she did regularly. And she didn't even realize the story or the thoughts that were happening when she was dysregulated. Like, most of us, we don't even have awareness around the thoughts that are actually happening. So she. We. I. I'll never forget this session. We were working together, and she was. She realized a thought, and she looked at me almost like just. And she couldn't believe it. And she said, you know what I say when we're in an argument for. From sympathetic. I say, fuck Frank. Fuck that guy. He never does anything that I ask him to do. He's so selfish. I raised the kids. I did everything. I take care of the grandkids, I take care of the hol. I do everything, and I fucking hate him. And ba ba, ba, ba, ba ba. And it was so. You know, in many ways, it was so beautiful to watch her awareness coming of what was actually happening when she was in dysregulation. And I remember her saying, like, Sarah, I don't even, like, swear. I cannot believe that this is what's happening. No wonder when I'm dysregulated from this place and then I go off and I'm like, you know, folding laundry or doing whatever I'm doing. I get more mad. And I never understood why I was getting more and more ramped up by myself. Well, that's because she was listening to this story. And then something that started maybe as a small rupture between the two of Them devolved into this major, you know, two day fight because both parties were listening to the thoughts without realizing it. And that increases the activation for all of us. Now when she was in her state of freeze, remember that's I have to, but I can't. I have to, but I can't. So two equal and opposite forces, her thoughts would be contradicting. So she'd get into an argument with him and then the thoughts would be, I need to leave this relationship, but I won't be able to take care of myself if I do. And I have to get out of here, but nobody's ever gonna want me and I'll be alone by myself forever. So maybe I can't leave, but I need to leave, but I can't leave, but I need to leave, but I can't leave. And that equal and opposite forces is a really exhaustive battle. I also just wanna name those opposing thoughts. They are also a way, protective parts of us keep us from ever actually stepping into something so really tricky and really smart, intelligent way that those protectors that are terrified of us being vulnerable or terrified of us being abandoned or not being loved as we are try to keep us from ever fully, fully stepping in. And the truth is, if we never step in, nothing can ever work right. So many of us find ourselves in that cycling and that's something that I did for a very long time too. So it's important to work with those parts of ourselves if we find that showing up and to remind them of, even if I step in, I always have the agency and ability to step out if this doesn't end up serving me. And there's lots of episodes on parts work you can listen to around that. So from a place of regulation, her thoughts were wildly different. And it was so beautiful to watch her come into her awareness about what her truth was. And I remember watching her come into that awareness and she said, here's what's true. It's not easy to go through life with Frank, but I am so happy that he is my partner. We have had a lot of challenges and our childhood stuff has come up a lot, but we've continued to navigate it together and there isn't anybody else that I'd rather do that with and I actually wouldn't change a thing. And life has been hard and messy and there are things about him that get on my nerves and. But in many ways from regulation, I can see that he loves me in the ways that he can. And he has continued to step into, doing his very best to Meet my needs and love me to the best of his ability. And I'm so grateful for him, and I'm so grateful for the life we have together. So if you look at that, her story was so drastically different based on the state she was in. And I want to name, as you can hear from her story in ventral. It's not just always, you know, this fairy tale story of everything's wonderful. Life isn't that way, right? So she was naming like, I'm so glad to be going through life with him. And it's been hard. We've had some really hard moments. But I love him deeply. And he's my home and he's my family. And many of us don't realize that the thoughts that we are having are coming from dysregulation. And they're coming from dysregulation that is being informed by our past experience that's being projected on to the present moment. And we are listening to those thoughts as if they are our truth today or our adult selves truth. And then we are making decisions in our lives from that place. That means we are making decisions that might not be informed by our truth. And then we are going down roads or avenues in our lives that aren't our right path or our truest path. And for this person, you know, if she had actually followed through on the thought she was having in sympathetic dorsal or freeze, she may have left her husband. And what we find here is when she's in regulation, that's not what she wanted to do at all. And so it's really important to understand here that not every thought that you are having is the truth of your adult self. I will say every thought that you are having is the truth to a particular part of you. And this episode isn't about parts work. But at any given moment there is a version of us inhabiting our system. And it might not be our adult selves. A lot of times we are projecting the past onto our present. So for example, with her in her relationship with her husband, when she was in sympathetic, you know, there was a realization, oh, a lot of this anger that I have is actually at my father for the ways in which he was frightening and controlling. And I wasn't able to be myself in my home. And I have so much anger towards him. And I'm realizing a lot of the things I was saying were actually about my father. And so if we don't understand that, we'll think that everything we're thinking or feeling has to do with the present. Moment. And the only way you can know what your truth is is to anchor in regulation. Because now I'm actually present to the here and now. And then ask myself with curiosity, what's actually true based in this moment today? What is actually true? True. So all that is to say, many of us in our lives are choosing behaviors or choosing things that might not actually be our right road or our right path. I did that for so much in my life, for so much of my life. And in part, that happens because these thoughts have a lot of energy to them, right? There's a lot of feeling involved in it. So we can tend to think, well, if I am having such a strong feeling, it might be, must be my truth. But as I just named and explained for you, that's not necessarily our truth based in today. So it's really important to understand that we cannot change our thinking while we're in dysregulation. So to go back to the story that I. That I gave you here, if this person was. This woman was in her sympathetic nervous system where she's having all of that anger being projected at her husband, and all of those thoughts that I named are coming up, up. If I was to try to work with her and tell her from that state of dysregulation how. Well, that's not actually true. Here are the things that you've said are true about Frank from regulation, or she was to try to tell herself that, like, you know, he's actually, you know, really thoughtful and he's done so much for me and he's comforted me in these ways. Our nervous system will not allow us to actually feel the affect involved with those thoughts that we might actually believe while we're in regular. And that's because the rule of our nervous systems is that each state creates our entire experience. So the state is not only creating the thoughts, the state is creating the sensations and feelings associated with the thoughts, with the thinking. So if you try to cognitively tell yourself a different story while you're in dysregulation, it will be physiologically impossible to believe it. For example, let's say I'm feeling hopeless and shut down, down. And I just. I feel like there's something wrong with me, or maybe I don't belong anywhere in the world. And then I try to tell myself a mantra like, I do belong in the world. Everything belongs in the world. It'll just be words. I won't actually be able to feel it because the underlying sensations I'm going to have are going to be about disconnection and shame, because that's the state I'm in. And we all know this experience, right, Where I'm feeling like there's no love in my life because I'm shut down in dorsal. And then I try to tell myself, well, just be grateful for your family or be grateful for the friends in your life. I can't feel that because I would only be able to feel that gratitude while anchored in regulation. Or when we're in our sympathetic system and we're always on the go and we tell ourselves, I feel calm and present in this moment. No, I actually don't feel calm or present, or I am safe to relax. My system is saying, no, you're not safe. And so. So this is actually why there's such limitation to mindset work or cognitive behavioral therapy. And this is what neuroscience and polyvagal theory shows us, is that if I try to change that cognitive thinking without changing the state of my nervous system, it won't be able to be felt, meaning I won't be able to believe it. And we can go round and round and round in circles until we exhaust ourselves trying to do something. So, like another example, you might tell yourself while in sympathetic. And maybe while in sympathetic, let's say you are feeling like you can't trust your partner. And you are, you know, you feel like they're cheating on you because you haven't seen them all day and you haven't heard back from them. And. And there's a part of you that is so worried about that. If you try to tell yourself, no, I can trust them, and here are all the reasons why I can trust them. You'll just get exhausted by trying to convince yourself into something that you don't feel. Feel. So this is what happens when we're doing mindset work or cognitive behavioral therapy. And I want to talk about what we actually want to do. And the work is not to battle against the thoughts that that is going to be ineffective for us. What we want to do is first turn towards regulation. That is the most important thing. So when you find yourself dysregulated, so experiencing any of those unsavory sensations or feelings that I named, I want you to ask yourself, what thought am I thinking? Because even if you don't have awareness around it, there is likely a cognitive story attached to it. So just ask yourself, what have I been thinking? Once you notice the thought, I'm gonna give you something simple like you're in a mild sympathetic state, and you notice a thought that the thought is, oh, I'll never get all of this done today. That's a pretty sympathetic, evocative thought. It's trying to create more urgency in your system. I'm never gonna get all this done today. I'm never gonna get all this done today. And you're. As you see, I'm saying it as a statement. And the more that I say it, the more it increases the level of activation. So I actually want to do something with you right now. I want you to think of one dysregulating thought that you have had. Anything at all could be about your relationship, your work, your finances. Just think of one for a second. And what I want you to do is I want you to say that thought out loud three times, believing it to be true, because that's what we do when we say it to ourselves in our mind. So I might say there's not enough time to get everything done. There's not enough time to get everything done. There's not enough time to get everything done. So I want you to say it out loud three times, and I just want you to notice what happens in your body. What you're going to notice is that it's going to increase the somatic experience of the dysregulation. So you might notice your chest gets tighter. You feel a pit in your stomach. You feel this hopelessness arise. You feel panicked or scared. All of that is following this rule of our nervous system, meaning not only does our state create our story, but it increases the activation if we listen to it. Now, I want you to try a really simple thing. I want you to now notice the thought. You might see it outside of yourself, or almost like it's in a thought bubble. You might even see it as a color or an energy. So just notice the thought for a moment, like, really see it. And then I want you to use this simple tool. I'm noticing the thought that. And then fill in the blank, whatever the thought is. So I'm noticing the thought that there isn't enough time. Time. And then do that two more times. I'm noticing the thought that there isn't enough time. And what I want you to do is to feel the somatic difference of that. What you should notice is that it actually lessens the charge or the activation of the thought. It helps us to separate from it so that it's not increasing the level of activation. So throughout your day, what I want you to do is just pause throughout the day. And if you're dysregulated, I Want you to ask yourself, yourself, what thoughts are present? What have I been thinking that I didn't realize? And notice the thought? So use that tool. I'm noticing the thought that. And then what we want to do is we don't want to battle with the thought. We want to turn towards regulation. And remind yourself, if I'm in dysregulation, but I'm safe, that means I do not know if this thought I'm thinking is actually my truth. So I do not want to take behaviors from this place because they might not actually be the behaviors that are. That are right for me or the behaviors that I want to be taken taking. Just like that story about that woman I told you about. So we pause and say, I know you sound very believable, very true to the thought, but I'm going to turn towards regulation. And then once I'm in regulation, what I want to ask myself is, what's actually true from this place of regulation? What is true? That is where your truth is. And we want to begin really excavating while in regulation, what is true about all things in my life? What's true about me? Me? What is true about my partnership? What is true about my work? What is true about this world? What is true about my desires? And I also just want to name this. I really don't want you to ask yourself these, like at first, these really big questions like, should I stay in this relationship or should I leave? It might be inquiring and saying, what is something that I love about this relationship? Is there something and what is something that is really hard about this relationship? Or what is something that's not working for me? And feel truth in your body. Body. That's really important. Feel the affect of it. Now, truth will always have a piece to it. It doesn't necessarily mean that it feels good, but there's a peace involved in it. There might be quickly after some dysregulation like, oh, it's scary to know that truth. But there's always a peace at first. And what I also want you to do when you're in regulation is this is the time where things like CBT and mindset work are actually affecting. We want to actually build new neural pathways or new neural networks for positive thinking when we're here. So when you're present, just ask yourself, what is one positive thing that's true about me, about my life, et cetera. And as you name that truth, feel it in your body. So just notice how does that feel? It's going to feel Very solid and anchored and present and unwavering. There might be a piece to it, an opening and so on and so forth. The more that we do this, the more that we really are supporting ourselves to have neural networks for positive thinking, but the more that we actually are very clear on what our truth is as a whole. I even invite people to write all these things down. So it's like my journal of truth. Here's what I know, like I know, like I know is true about true for me. And when I'm in dysregulation, just pick up that journal and look at it, what's actually true. And if the thoughts you're having are not aligned with what's listed there that you've written down, that's a clue that you're dysregulated and it's time to turn towards right regulation. So the more that we do this, the more we gain control of our lives, the more we are able to change our thinking, come into regulation, and actually have the kind of thoughts that are going to support us to not only feel better in our lives, but step towards the life we're wanting with greater ease. Not sure where to start with Somatic Healing. My free quiz, what's keeping you stuck? Will equip you with a personalized guide and tangible trauma informed tools to help you regulate your nervous system. Check out the link in the show notes to get started. So we have Rachel here with us for the Q and A portion of the episode. Hey, Rachel, it's good to see you today.