How Your Nervous System Shapes Reactions, Relationships, and Resilience with Leah Davidson

Episode Transcript
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Tina Gosney (00:02):
Hey, everyone. You might recognize this next guest
if you've listened to thispodcast for very long, Leah
Davidson has been on herebefore, and we've had some
really great eye openingdiscussions for many of the
listeners. I've heard such greatfeedback from these discussions
that I've had with her, and justin the podcast alone, I talk a

(00:22):
lot about pausing beforereacting, and some people tell
me that that is impossible forthem. And if you're one of those
people, you want to listen tothis episode. You want to hear
what Leah says about why it'shappening for you, why it feels
so impossible, and how you canstart making small shifts to
make it less impossible and morepossible to pause before you

(00:46):
react. I hope you enjoy mydiscussion with my friend, Leah
Davidson. I have my friend heretoday, Leah Davidson, and Leah
has recently put together thisamazing journal that I bought,
and have been working through,and I just wanted to share the
the wisdom, the tools, the thewise knowledge that is Leah

(01:11):
Davidson with my audience on thepodcast. And so you'll see why
as we get into this discussionabout why this is going to be a
really, really helpful, usefulpodcast episode that you'll
probably want to come back totime after time. So Leah, it is
so good to have you here, and Iknow you've been here before,
but let's go ahead and do areintroduction for those because

(01:34):
it's been a while. So let's dolike an introduction to who is

Leah Davidson (01:38):
Perfect. Well, I'm Leah Davidson, and I am from
Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I am alife coach, and I have
specialized in nervous systemresilience, but my background is
I'm also a speech languagepathologist, and I worked in the
area of traumatic brain injuryfor it's going on 26 years now,

(01:59):
and I I have since moved moreinto the coaching world and the
nervous system world, but mybackground in the world of
traumatic brain injury is sortof what brought me to have my
passion about brain health andnervous system health, the
neuroplasticity and everythingabout mental health, emotional
well being. So I'm passionateabout the conversation. I'm

(02:21):
passionate. That's why I createdmy journal of helping people to
get to know their nervoussystem, because I believe it is
the foundation of pretty mucheverything that we do. It's the
lens through which we view theworld. So if that is a cloudy
lens, if that is a dark lens, ifthat's a bright lens, it's going

(02:42):
to taint and flavor ourthoughts, our feelings, our
actions, our behaviors, ourrelationships, just everything
that we do.

That's a great way to introduce that, because I
think when we start talkingabout nervous system or brain
health, it can sound kind oftechnical, and it can sound like
maybe to somebody who hasn'tstudied that and has knows as
much as you do that, like,immediate turn off, like, this
is not, I'm not going to knowwhat she talks about, but yeah,

(03:10):
I guarantee you, you willresonate, yeah, and, and, know,
be able to understand some ofthese things that we're talking
about today, because this is thehuman experience. It is,

it is, and there's no getting away from it.
Our nervous system is reallyresponsible for our survival,
and it is running. It's runningthe show. The part I'm we're
going to talk specifically aboutthe autonomic nervous system,
which is responsible for oursurvival, breathing, our
digestion, our heart rate. Likeyou don't have to think of any
of those things. They justhappen behind the scenes for

(03:42):
you, but what the nervous systemis also running behind the
scenes is deciding whether ornot you are in a position of
danger or a position of safety.
And if it feels that you are ina threatened position, it will
take action. And that's, that'swhere the role comes in, that we
don't really realize that it'sit's playing. And for many of

(04:04):
us, we are living in a worldwhere our nervous system thinks
that we're in danger and thatwe're constantly being
threatened by unfamiliar things,by difficult conversations, by
conflict, by what's going on inthe world. And very rarely are
we truly in a dangeroussituation, but to our nervous

(04:28):
system, majority of the time,for many of us, it thinks that
we're in danger and blah.

Give me, I understand what you're saying.
Let's do a couple of examples ofwhat danger would look like
that's not actually dangerous,that our nervous system is
interpreting as dangerous, andthen what that would what we
might see on the outside or feelon the inside when that's
happening.

Yeah. So I'll give you a couple of examples,
and I'll give you an example oflike, the different. Lens,
because the nervous system kindof has like, these different
lenses too. So really, you know,in the the years past, danger
was like a tiger chases me. Iknow I need to get out of the
way, but we don't have thosesituations today. We have

(05:15):
unfamiliar things. So somebodymay ask me to give a
presentation that's going to besomething where I start to feel
the energy rising in my body,which is a sign that my nervous
system is getting activated.
Now, not necessarily a badthing, because I do need to have
energy to perform, but mynervous system can also walk
into a room and there's a bunchof unfamiliar people, and

(05:38):
somebody looks at me, and theydon't smile at me, and right
away, my nervous system thinks,You're not wanted here. Why did
you come here? You've beenexcluded. It will pick up on
danger, or somebody will dosomething that just rubs me the
wrong way, and I'm not reallysure why, and then maybe I'll go

(05:59):
and dissect it down the road andI'll realize, like, oh, that
person reminded me of this kidwho bullied me when I was in
grade two. So the nervous systemalso is scanning. It's looking
at all the external resourcesaround us. It's looking at what
you see, what you hear, what youcan touch. It's listening to

(06:21):
what's happening inside yourbody. So if your breathing
starts getting really shallow oryour heart starts pounding, the
nervous system is like, oh mygosh, she must be in danger,
because her heart is poundingand she's breathing and it's
also looking relationally, whichis really important, like I'm
looking at you right now, eventhough I'm speaking, my nervous
system is like, can you trustTina? She's nodding, so it means

(06:43):
she's following. But what ifshe, you know, gives me a little
side eye. Well, what does thatmean? What does that so the
nervous system is always, alwaysscanning, because it wants to
know whether you can connectwith the person, or do you need
to protect yourself from theperson? And the other thing that
it doesn't recognize is itdoesn't have a time stamp on it.

(07:06):
So I might have encountered thatbully in grade two who's maybe
had the name Tina, who hadblonde hair, and my nervous
system is always searching andit's like Tina blonde hair. We
know about her, she's dangerous,and it could put me in a state
of being more protective. Soit's not always accurate. It's

(07:28):
comparing against pastexperiences. On a very
subconscious level. This is nota cognitive choice. We're not
thinking this. This ishappening, whether you know it
or not, behind the scenes,

and it's happening all the time,

all the time, and then it flavors everything that
you do. So sometimes whathappens, or often what happens
is we get familiar withconstantly being in a zone of
protection. So maybe I have hadexperiences my whole life where

(08:08):
I have felt threatened. And itcould be that, you know, many of
us, all of us have experiencedtrauma in our life. Some of us
have had, you know, moreexplicit trauma, where they look
at it as like big T things thatwe would really identify, but
all of us have had it, and thathas shaped us. And essentially,
trauma is when our nervoussystem gets stuck in a state of

(08:32):
dysregulation, in that state ofProtection. So something
happened. I did not have thecapacity to handle it. There was
nobody there to help me throughit. So I did what I could, and
brilliantly. We're not trying toblame our little selves, but I
did what I could in order tosurvive that environment. Now,
as time has gone on, I startseeing the world through that

(08:55):
lens, and as I see the worldthrough that lens, I start
reading all the situations inthat lens. So if I give you the
example, if I'm stuck in more ofa defensive we call it a hyper
aroused state, which is sort ofthe first, the first activation.
Then if you were to ask me aquestion, something, and the

(09:18):
example I always give is,somebody says, Where did you get
your hair done? Now, if I'mstuck in a hyper aroused state,
I may say, like, why? What'swrong with my hair? You don't
like it. Like, you don't have totalk about my hair. I'm not
going to tell you where I got itdone. You're just that is, like
that defensive a little bit ofthat anger, irritation, the

(09:39):
suspicion, there's like a flavorof danger there. Now, if I'm the
opposite in another protectivezone, which is more of a
depressed, suppressed collapsezone, I may be like, I know, oh
my gosh, my hair is so horrible.
I can't believe I don't want totell you where I got it that has
that lower energy. Now, if I amfeeling. Being safe, confident

(09:59):
in what I call my zone ofresilience, I may be like, Oh,
thank you. I got it on QueenStreet. Her name is Fiona. Would
you like her number? I don'thave a threat. And that is the
power of the nervous system. Andunderstanding your own nervous
system, because you may beperceiving things in your life

(10:19):
through a lens of protection. Somaybe your child comes to you,
and right away, you go in thedefense mode, not necessarily
because of what your child said,but because of your lens and
where you've been for so long.
That's just how you seeeverything.

So these become automatic reactions, to react in
a certain way, according to ourpast that is shaping the lens of
today.

That's right, yeah, like our nervous system,
it's like a prediction machine,and it's brilliant, right? It's
like, I'm doing you a favor. Thedanger is, is we can, we can
start predicting poorly. So forexample, if I grew up in an
environment that maybe wasn'tthe healthiest and I witnessed

(11:16):
maybe some poor examples ofhealthy relationships, maybe
there was abuse involved. Maybethere was something that really
was not healthy, that becomesfamiliar to me, and even though
cognitively, I may know thatthat is not something I want, my

(11:36):
nervous system has becomeacquainted with it and familiar
to it, so that down the road, Imay find myself in a
relationship that is notnecessarily the healthiest
relationship, where cognitively,I may even know, but my nervous
system is like, Yeah, but that'swhat's familiar, right? I don't

(11:57):
know what it would be like. It'salmost unfamiliar and scary for
me to be in a relationship thatwould be healthy, and that's why
we want to get to know what isdriving some of our predictions
based on our past, right?
Because we'll start repeatingsome of those patterns only
because the nervous system islike, I don't care if it's not

(12:19):
healthy, it's familiar. Andfamiliar to me, is safe,

right, right?
You're reminding me of aconversation that my husband I
just had a couple of days agowhere we we have a really large
we both have really largefamilies, and we were talking
about some of the spouses ofsiblings and how the family that
they grew up in shaped the waythat they then have come into
their marriage, and how itdoesn't always Jive very well

(12:46):
with our individual families,and has caused a lot of
friction, but that is what wasfamiliar to them, and coming
into a very different Family wasnot familiar, and so they're
trying to override the familythat they've come into That's
right, their own ways ofresponding and interacting in

(13:07):
the world, and just like thefriction that that's caused. So
you're saying that that's justnormal for them, that feels
safe, even though it's a moreconflictual that a word? Did I
just make up that word? I don'tknow. No, it's very, like very,
very conflictual and causingmore problems. But that's where

(13:27):
they like to push things. Andthey get some pushback from the
family, and it doesn't work verywell. But that's

comfortable.
That's their normal. That'sthey're comfortable. That's how
they they think that this is howI should handle things, because
this is how I've always handledit, and they don't get those
readings. It's what we callneuroception. Is the word that
is the unconscious likesatellite that we have that
scanning all the external cues,the cues between us and

(13:57):
internally. And we call itfaulty neuroception, where I'm
neurocepting things that maybearen't even there, or that I'm
neurocepting safety when it'sactually dangerous. If I've
grown up in an abusive situationor I don't recognize safety, I
don't recognize good things,because I just am so familiar
being the other way around, soit can go both ways, where I

(14:20):
read danger where I'm safe, or Iread safe where I'm danger,
simply because it's familiar

and it's so interesting to me, how we are
very, very blind to ourselvesand our own reactions to people,
but other people can see usbetter than we see ourselves and
but it's really hard to receivethat feedback. When somebody is
saying the way that you'reshowing up is a problem, or
it's, it's not working for me,you that's, that's when your

(14:49):
defenses get kicked up,

right? For sure, for sure. And I mean, like,
we're, we're not going to changethat, per se. Like when somebody
comes after you, it is. Normalfor you to feel energy rising in
your body. It's normal for youto you know all the healthy
emotions that we have, none ofthem are off limits. We just

(15:15):
need to learn when it'sappropriate and how it's
appropriate to express them. SoI always say to people like as
you learn how to regulate yournervous system, it's not that
you're not going to be able orit's not that you're going to be
able to not react at all. It'sjust that you're going to be
able to build the capacity foryourself to handle different

(15:40):
scenarios, different stressors,different emotions, in a healthy
way. Like, I'm still gonna getangry at you, right? But I may,
instead of less like going offand losing my cool, which I'm
still probably gonna do that attimes too, but I will be able
to, all right, let me take apause. Let me just, you know,

(16:03):
breathe. Let me think about whoI want to be, regulate myself
and then decide, okay, what am Igoing to do with this anger?
Because it's it's real, it'sthere. Do I need to set a
healthy boundary? Do I need toexpress it? Do I need to
journal? Do I need to talk tosomebody about it? But I can do
it within a safe environment, sowe're not trying to bypass,

(16:27):
right? Possible

to bypass being human, right? No, you're
bringing up something that Italk about so often on the
podcast, which is, okay, let'sstop and pause instead of
reacting from automaticprogramming, let's start
responding from a thoughtfulplace where we can

and you can't.
Before that's it. You can'trespond from a thoughtful play
like it's just biologically, youcan't respond from a thoughtful
place when you're dysregulated.
One of the things thatbiologically happens when we get
dysregulated, so when ournervous system senses we're in
danger, it goes offline.
Survival Mode is put into place.
When we're in survival mode, allresources are pushed towards

(17:08):
survival. So that means ourthinking skills go offline, and
they're meant to go offline. Theonly way we can access them
again is if we learn how toregulate ourselves, bring
ourselves back into that calmstate. So that's why we're
saying pause and think of howyou want to respond. Well, it's
the pause that allows you accessto think, and that's why, when

(17:31):
you're going crazy with somebodyand you're like, doesn't make
sense what you're saying, ormaybe you're having a fight with
somebody and they're like,you're not even making any
sense. Well, you're not, youlikely are not, because you
don't have access to yourthinking skills. So that pause
becomes so so important, becausenot only does it give you time

(17:51):
as like a cool down time, but itliterally opens up the channel
again that now you can bringyour thinking skills back
online. Otherwise you're doingthings without your thinking
skills, which means you'reprobably going to end up acting
like a toddler or acting in away that doesn't, you know,
follow adult maturity, right?

What would you say to someone who says, Well, I
can't do that. This is just theway that I am. I There's no way
I can pause and think about it,I just shoot off whatever comes
to my mind and us just the waythat I am. I can't control that.

Yeah? I would say, Yeah, you're right. Too
bad, in a sense that is that isthe case, right? I think the
first thing we need to know isthat a lot of our personality
has come from adaptations thatwe made throughout our life due
to our experiences and ournervous system has had

(18:48):
impressions all the way along.
So sometimes when we say, thisis just the way I am, you know,
the slight correction is, thisis how I have adapted to be who
I am today based on myexperience. Now that's not to
say that there's no geneticsinvolved, and that there's
there's not sort of tendenciesthat we have, because that's
also a role, but our nervoussystem has been learning all the

(19:10):
way along, and like I said, webrilliantly did adapt. So we
might have very unconsciously aschildren. Maybe I saw that I got
rewarded when I did really wellat school. That's when I got the
most attention from my parents.
That's when I felt like theyloved me and they praised me,

(19:33):
and I was rewarded. I would havelearned along the way that, oh,
you know, being an achiever is agood thing. I need to do things
well. I need to do thingsperfectly. And as we spend so
much time in that state tryingto achieve, achieve, achieve, it
can become a trait that now allof a sudden, this is who I am.

(19:56):
So it's a mixture. This is thewhole nature. A nurture thing.
There is a mixture. Yeah, wehave personality there. There's
things that are in our DNA.
There's there's thingsgenetically, and then there's
things that we've learned alongthe way. But the beauty of the
nervous system is we continuelearning all the way through. So
yes, this may be how you arenow, but I always say to people,

(20:19):
who would you be if you wereregulated and you got to choose
who you want to be? And that'swhat you're saying. Well, the
pause introduces regulation, andthen I usually say to people,
and it's not your fault ifyou're like, I can't do that. I
can't interrupt myself. I can'tstop. I can't pause. Well, of

(20:42):
course not. You've neverpracticed it before. You can't
expect to be able to deal with acrisis situation if you've never
learned the tools outside of acrisis situation. So I will
often hear people say, who have,like, a lot of anxiety. Often
people will share that, youknow, breathing is, is known as

(21:05):
a way to help people reducetheir anxiety. And I've had many
people come and say, like, yeah,I just had like, a panic attack
and breathing, it just made itworse. It was horrible. It was
just, of course, if you've neverbeen practicing breathing in the
crisis moment is not the time tolearn how to do it, which is why
we need to spend so much timepracticing when nothing big is

(21:30):
going on, practicing that pauseand then breath and that
response, and then it justbecomes a learning you know,
first we'll still respond, butmaybe we'll have the
afterthought, oh, I probablycould have done it this way. And
then as we continue growing, wemay start responding, and then,

(21:52):
oh, pull back and stop whenwe're doing it. So there's lots
of different ways that we canstart growing with our nervous
system and developing thecapacity to handle things, but I
think we have to trust thatthere is a process for that
growth, right, right?

And my guess is I, and I already know the answers
to this, but I'm going to letyou say that we don't practice a
couple of times and then we'regood. I know how to do this.
It's actually a very slowprocess as we teach our nervous
system to to responddifferently. Yeah, that can take
like, what would it look like ifI was going to practice this for

(22:34):
a few weeks? What could Iexpect? Maybe, like, let's say,
one month. What could I expect?
What kind of, what kind ofresults could I expect, versus
with one month of practiceversus one year of practice
versus 10 years of practice?

Yeah. I mean, the easiest example is like, go to a
gym for a month and see whathappens. Go to the gym for the
year, and see what happens go tothe gym for 10 years and see
what happens. Principle it iswe're very clear on seeing what
happens physically. If I eatwell for one week, I'll probably

(23:08):
start to feel a little bitbetter. If I eat well for one
month, I'll probably start tofeel a little bit better. If I
continue doing that, I'll startseeing my body composition
change, my energy change,everything changes. 10 years
from now, I can be completelytransformed. Our nervous system
works very much the same waythat we and in fact, we can

(23:29):
scare it off by going in toohard and too strong. You want to
think of it, I talk about it'slike dropping little pennies in
your bank account. Of nervoussystem regulation and
practicing, we really ideallywant to be practicing hundreds

(23:50):
of times a day, and that canscare people off when you think
of that, but when you learn whatit takes to practice, it's not
such a big deal, like as I'msitting here talking to I could
easily practice relaxing mybody, reminding myself I'm safe,
like 20 times, and you wouldn'teven know, like, this is how
much we want to be. At firstyou're going to have like, an

(24:13):
alarm that goes off to remindyou to check in. But eventually,
like, I'm constantly regulatingmyself, and I do lose it on my
kids or my partner, still ahuman being, that's right,
that's right. But I also there'sa quicker recovery, there's a

(24:34):
self compassion, there's ahumanness, there's that's all
part of regulation, too. I don'tthink regulation is just like
I'm never going to but there's athe there's an understanding of
my ease to return, sort of likegoing to the gym. I know that if
I go to the gym, it's going tohelp me when I carry my
groceries. It's going to help meprevent injuries. If I do fall

(24:57):
and hurt myself, I'm going torecover much. Quicker. So it's
all the same thing with thenervous system, you have to be
investing in it over and over,knowing that it will improve.
But I'm not necessarily going tobe able to look in the mirror
and see the improvement the nextday.

And it is easier to see in that example, because
that's a physical, visual thingthat we can take in and see.
It's harder to notice when ournervous system is becoming
stronger. What are some of thethings that someone might want
to look for in order forimprovement in those areas that
we can't see in the mirror?

Yeah, I think one of the ones like you said before
is the willingness to pause. Theidea that pause comes up in my
mind that, oh, this is asituation that I should probably
pause on. Or I've had clientssay to me, you know, my partner
brought something up, and Irealized, like I just didn't

(25:57):
have the capacity to have theconversation. So I just said to
them, I need to have theconversation tomorrow. And so
being able to advocate foryourself, I think one of you can
have also physical signs thatyour nervous system is healing.
I think what we don't understandis a lot of the illnesses that
we are experiencing in the worldtoday are stress related,

(26:21):
whether they're 100% stressrelated, I'm not going to argue
with that, but almost everysingle illness that we have has
some degree that stress is goingto amplify it. Right? What you
start to see when you learn howto regulate your nervous system
is you start to see a reductionin in things like chronic pain

(26:42):
and chronic illness and all thethings, maybe your sleep starts
improving. Maybe you feel alittle less tense all the time.
Those are some physical signsthat your nervous system is also
healing. So yeah, there's a lotthat you can't see, but I think
there's some physical thingsthat we can see. We just don't

(27:05):
necessarily attribute that itwas to dysregulation and that
we're getting better toregulation through regulation,
right?

Because it's, it's a little, it's, well, actually a
lot more abstract betweenregulating my nervous system and
then, oh, I feel better, like wedon't usually. Our brain doesn't
usually put those two thingstogether. And there's a lot of
the things that you're talkingabout today where working on
this is going to help your lifein other ways, but our brain
doesn't always make thatconnection.

That's right, yeah, I think it's also the way
the nervous system it doesn'twork when you force something.
It's kind of like a kid, right?
Yeah, it doesn't. If you treatyour nervous system like you're
a child, it doesn't work whenyou force it. You really have to
invite it. I know I work with alot, with chronic pain, with
people, and one of the things wetalk about is we do something

(27:55):
called somatic tracking, whichis really getting in your body
and noticing where the pain isand and just observing the pain,
witnessing the pain. And abyproduct of that, a byproduct
of that, is often pain reduces.
But sometimes people go into itand they'll be like, I tried
doing somatic tracking, and thepain didn't go away. And there's

(28:18):
this intensity, there's thispressure, there's this
expectation. And I'm like, whenyour nervous system feels that
there's something wrong and youhave to get rid of it, and
there's you're broken, itactually is going to amplify
things. We need to just let itlike it's like with anxiety. The
more you fight anxiety, thebigger it's going to get, the

(28:39):
more you're like, anxiety ishere today. All right, I've got
my tools. What am I going touse? How am I going to use it?
The more we invite in thenervous system and work with the
nervous system, as opposed totrying to force it and problem
solve and fix it, because Ican't survive if I don't have it
fixed this way, that pushes usinto greater states of

(29:01):
dysregulation,

right? That just doesn't work. Let's I wonder we
want to shift into, how is thisimpacting our families? And so
if we have one person in afamily that becomes
dysregulated, that can be, itcan be a lot of energy in a
family, and energy. Well, doesthat affect the other nervous

(29:24):
systems of the people that livewith that person or around that
person? And what would that looklike? And let's it's, I think
it's easy to see that an exampleof, like, a lot of anxiety or
anger, like, that's a reallyeasy one for all of us to
notice. Like someone shows upangry. It's so easy to react
angrily and then for that energyto carry throughout the family

(29:46):
and the tone of the home, if wego into a different response,
okay, like a freeze response ora fawning response, maybe we
could even like, talk about whatthose look like. But how does
that kind of. Energy than impactthe rest of the family.

Our nervous systems are always communicating
with each other, and that'sessentially what is called co
regulation, is we learn toregulate through each other. So
there are things while I'm notresponsible for your regulation,
I can contribute to you beingregulated or dysregulated. I can

(30:27):
send you signals unconsciously.
I can deliberately do things. Wewere at a restaurant just last
week, and our waiter was soincredible with CO regulation, I
said to my husband, like, oh mygosh, I'm gonna have to do a
podcast episode on this guy. Hejust knew, like it was a buzzing
place, and he just came over.

(30:51):
He's he slowed down. He got downto our level. He was looking
right, like you can tell he wasso present. His speech was just
a little bit slower. And, youknow, answered questions, took
interest, versus anotherexperience you could have with,
like a waiter comes over, just,you know, constantly looking

(31:13):
around, yeah, yeah, we got that,yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, move on,
all right. And you see, evenjust like that, that presence,
and so you can have that in afamily, the speed at which the
family functions, the thecadence of how people speak, the
energy, the language that isused. And that's also a very

(31:35):
fine line, because there aresome people who are naturally
more energetic. So I don't wantto paint the brush. I'm I'm
somebody who's like, faster,more energetic, and I need to be
aware of that. But it's notalways just dysregulation. The
same way fawning that we talkabout as being people pleasing,
not all people pleasing is a badthing. You just maybe want to be

(31:56):
a nice person. It's when it's inresponse to my survival is at
stake. So I think we want to beaware that our nervous systems
are feeding each other, parentto child, and then, as your
children get older, absolutelychild to parent, it's it's going
back, and at any moment, if weregulate ourselves, we

(32:20):
completely change the dance. Wecompletely change how the other
person is going to respond whenwe come down, chances are they
will come down. If we go up,chances are they will go up.
Yeah,

because nature likes homeostasis as well, not
just our nervous system, but theworld that we live in. In fact,
I will go and speak sometimes todifferent groups, and I like to
bring metronomes with me. Do youknow what a metronome is? Yes.
And I bring the one. It's theokay, if no, anybody doesn't
know, it's that mechanicalmusical instrument that keeps a

(32:57):
steady beat for you. So I liketo bring the ones, because they
have digital ones now, but Ilike to bring the one that has
the arm that swings back,because it's a very visual
representation of what'shappening. And so I'll set them
both at the same number, but Iwill start them at different
times. So if you've got twoMetro domes that are both

(33:17):
beating at 100 beats per minute,but they don't start at the same
time. This is a mechanicaldevice. And I always ask people
like, do you think that they'reever going to sync up? Are they
ever going to be together? Andthe musicians in the room always
say, oh, there is no way. Well,I said, get out your watch or
your your phone, and we're goingto time how long it takes? It

(33:38):
takes less than two minutes fortwo metronomes to start beating
in sync with each other, notjust the sound, but the literal
direction of the arm that swingsback and forth will change.
Yeah, and that's our nervoussystems, right? Yeah, yes,
regulating to who. There's aquestion there.

Well, that, that is the question of of the more
and who's in control of whoseregulation? Right? The only
regulation you are in control ofis your own. And we know that
when we change our ownregulation, there's no guarantee
that somebody else's regulationis going to change, per se, but

(34:20):
there is that tendency forpeople, it's contagious, right?
It's kind of like you see that,like you said, with anxiety, I
think that's a great example.
There's, there's a contagious ifyou find, you know, an anxious
child usually has a parent whohas some anxiety not too far
away from them, and we don'twant to go blaming the parent or

(34:42):
anything, because that like, Ilook at some of my kids out of
anxiety. I've definitely hadanxiety. I look at, you know, my
my parents, I look at you startto see and that's part of that
intergenerational we've justpassed that on. We've learned.
And we've just adapted in thoseways. But it does affect the the

(35:03):
presence in a home, but it justrequires one person to throw it
off or to get it back

on track, right, right, to disrupt what is
happening and to go in the otherdirection. Yeah, I like you that
teacher trick that you yourclass is out of control, and you
start whispering, right?

That's right, exactly, exactly. And

all of a sudden they calm down because they want
to hear and they're regulating,or they're co regulating, yeah?
Yeah, I've noticed that it'slike we work in this
individually, right? So you'reworking on this all day long, at
home or wherever you are, andyou get into then you get into a
relationship with or you getinto a conversation that might

(35:51):
be difficult, and you noticeyourself become dysregulated.
You're like, Okay, I need to dosome more work. And you do work
over and over again, and likethe people that you live around,
like, like your spouse or yourchildren or your coworkers, like
you get pretty good at doing,regulating yourself among those
people that you're with all thetime. And then there are times

(36:13):
when you go back to your familyof origin, so your parents, your
siblings, those relationshipsthat you formed at the earliest
part of your life, and all of asudden you turn into a child
again. You notice that, like weall, fall back into your
traditional family roles thatyou took on as you were growing

(36:34):
up. And you see people, not justyourself, but you see everybody
else do the same thing, right,fall into those old traditional
roles. So what's happening therewith our nervous system? Well,

I mean, that's where our nervous system was
formed, like initially. This iswhere we did a lot of our
foundational tools. Now, it'snot to say that we haven't, over
time, learned and grown. Thateven when they look at, you
know, brain development andchild development, they say, by
the time a child is at the ageof seven, there's a lot that has
been formed. So I think it makessense that we we fall back into

(37:08):
those roles, and we spend ourwhole life trying to complete
the cycle and close the loopfrom those roles. So we maybe
have mastered it over here, andthen we go back and we reopen
some of those old wounds again.
And I just think it's a journeylike I know that for some
people, if you can get theperspective through the lens of

(37:31):
the nervous system, introducingsome compassion, and not
necessarily, compassion ispeople get a pass for bad
behavior, but at least somecompassion of understanding why
their lens was the way theirlens was, and then that
compassion for yourself. Oh, ofcourse, when I come back in that

(37:54):
environment, this is the rolethat I go to, and I'm not
presented with the samescenarios over and over in my
everyday life now, but when I goto my family of origin, it all
comes up again. I think it'sjust having that compassion and
normalizing that this is, thisis part of our life's work, is
to be able to work through someof those stories and learn how

(38:18):
to have a different response tothem, like learn that we don't
have to have that activatedresponse. If we confront things
in a more relaxed body, itliterally will change what a
response can be to things thatare very triggering to us.

That, yes, that's great. I love that, that we can
even go back into those oldestrelationships, those first
relationships, where we wereformed, yeah, and begin to
change those as we work on ourown healing.

That's so great, yeah. And I do think the element
of compassion is hugelyimportant that. And again, this
is not to let people off thehook of bad behavior or
certainly not abusive behavioror anything like that, but I
think it does help to be able toput things in perspective that
people do what their nervoussystems are capable of doing at

(39:16):
the Time, and we can't go backand change their experience and
change their nervous system. Wecan change our response for
ourselves now and decide what wewant to do and know that so much
is going on unconsciously behindthe scenes that we don't even

(39:38):
know. We don't even know all thethings that our nervous system
is reacting to right? A lot ofit is pre cognitive or things
that we won't ever remember. Sohaving that grace and compassion
with ourselves like I don't knowwhy I find this so triggering. I
do know that I'm safe and thatI'm in the present moment now.

(40:00):
That this is not happening whatI experienced in the past. And
if I change my reaction andrelax my body now, that changes
the way I interact with thattrigger, and so it lessens, it
lessens the power of the triggerwhen I can confront it with

(40:20):
safety in my body andacknowledge that I'm in the
present moment now,

right? Okay, you said so many things that I want
to talk about right now. First Iwant to I want to talk about
compassion, but then let's goback to the safety that you were
just talking Okay, yeah, becauseI've noticed that in myself as
well, but so many people that Iwork with, and just friends and
family members in general, selfcompassion is a really, really

(40:46):
tough thing to come by. Yeah,it's, it's something that we
talk about and much moredifficult to access. What is
easily accessible is selfjudgment, and that will not
really help us in thissituation, because we're not
trying to open up our ourperspective, and see, how did I

(41:08):
get to this place in the firstplace? How did I get to how I am
today, and why does it maketotal sense that I'm reacting
the way that I am, or seeinganother person through that same
lens, like I don't know what'shappened in that person's life,
I don't know their experience. Idon't know how they've
internalized that, but I knowthat they're probably doing what
they know, how how they know howto handle the situation right

(41:30):
now. So I do think that the morewe practice trying to just pick
apart those little things thatwe have so much judgment for
ourself and for others throughthe more we practice widening
our perspective and talking thatway, the more we can access that
compassion for ourselves, and wewould when we can come, you

(41:54):
know, access it for others, wecan ask, access it for ourselves
as well, absolutely. Yeah, so Ilove that you brought that self
compassion up. Now let's go alittle bit more into safety,
because safety can be it's kindof like a trigger word for this
younger generation, for for usolder ones, like, I don't feel

(42:15):
safe right now. Or you hearabout like the college I was
just listening to this book, andthey were talking about college
students not feeling safe, andso they're boycotting different
speakers from coming in andlike, what really does safety?
What is this safety that you'retalking about? And why is it so
important?

Yeah, so we need to distinguish safety. And I
think this, it gets sort ofblurred together, and it's one
of the things that I do addressin my journal. I call it the
safety sequence, because we gotto break safety down. The first
thing is, there's a differencebetween physical safety. And
then what we talk about ofpsychological safety people
feeling safe physical safety is,are you empirically physically

(42:56):
safe in this moment, even ifyour body doesn't necessarily
feel that way. If you askyourself, Am I safe in this
moment, not what couldpotentially happen, or what has
happened in the past majority ofthe time, unless we're in a
situation that is a war likeimminent danger, we are safe,

(43:20):
right? You're sitting here,you're having this conversation,
we're in a restaurant, we'regoing to school. You're safe. So
empirically, you are safe. Thenext question to really ask
yourself is, okay, I know I'mphysically safe. Does my body
feel safe? And this is where itcomes in that No, it doesn't.
And what does that even mean?
Well, an unsafe body is usuallygoing to communicate to you,

(43:44):
through dis, ease, throughtension, through butterflies,
tightness, nausea, pain, thoseare all things your body is
communicating that I don't feelsafe, and the reason it doesn't
feel safe is because it isperceiving that there are

(44:07):
threats around which we want tocome back to to say, well
actually we know that we'rephysically safe, and then we
come to all right, but my bodydoesn't feel safe. So the brain
and the body start having thisconversation. So the brain is
like, but I already told you,I'm safe, and the body's like,
Yeah, but I don't feel that way.

(44:28):
So what we need to do is we needto acknowledge, where are you
feeling? Dis, ease, even not notspend a lot of time, but just
like, Yeah, I noticed sometightness. I noticed this. And
then we need to relax ourbodies, and once we've relaxed
our bodies in the presence of asafe environment, we have given

(44:51):
ourselves true safety and arelaxed body cannot be the home
for stress. You can't bestressed. Rest when you're in
relaxed body. Just try, tryyelling at your kids. By
completely relaxing your body,you won't be able to there needs
to be tension. So we want to beable to establish that safety

(45:14):
for ourselves. Now, the trickythings, like you said, in this
generation, it comes like, Idon't feel safe with you, right?
And part of that is you don'tfeel safe with yourself. Now, I
don't want to dismiss that ifsomebody is in imminent danger
of there's abuse, but we're nottalking about that. We can be in
the same environment. I may notlike what you're saying. It may

(45:37):
be unfamiliar. I may disagree.
It may cause me to get upset,which tells me I'm not feeling
safe. But you know who hascontrol over the muscles in your
own body? You do. So then youget to I'm safe. I feel it. I
can relax my body, and I stillmay choose to leave. But I think

(45:59):
that that sometimes we'refarming out our safety to
others. You need to make me feelsafe, right? Very hard for a lot
of times for people to make youfeel safe, because it comes down
to, I can't really make you doanything. Trust me, if I could,
I would love to. I would love tomake you feel one way or the

(46:22):
other. And so safety, it comesdown to that as well. I can do
things that promote safety, butI still can't force you to feel
safe. And you can do things topromote safety, because the
other thing I've noticed issometimes when people talk about
like, I don't feel safe withthat person, and then they'll go

(46:42):
to like a friend or a partner.
Did you notice I just don't feelsafe around her? I don't like
her. I don't like that. You'reactually amping up the level of
danger. You're telling yournervous system Don't be safe,
that person, don't be safe. Thatperson, don't be safe that
person. So we always have to beasking, Are we fueling safety or

(47:05):
fueling danger? And by relaxingour bodies, we're fueling
safety. And healing happens whenwe are in a relaxed body, and we
can have our thinking skillscome online and we can be more
compassionate with ourselves.
That's when healing happens.
It's not going to happen whenwe're constantly on alarm

(47:26):
looking out for the threat,because if you look out for the
threat, you will find it. That'sthe way the brain is wired,
right? It's wired to find allthe negative biases and all the
negative threats. So if you'researching for danger, your brain
will find it and confirm it foryou, right?

I know time is short, and I could talk to you
another hour about this. I dowant to go into like a real life
example, and we talked aboutthis before we hit record. And
we'll just go into ahypothetical parent with adult
child that your adult childcomes to you and says, You

(48:05):
caused all these problems in mylife because of the way that you
raised me. You did this, you didthat, and it's all your fault.
And the parent is thenconfronted with this type of
conversation from their adultchild and seeing most of the
time completely clueless as towhat this child is saying and

(48:27):
the things that they arebringing up, and not seeing this
things the same way as thatchild is. And let's talk about
like what's happening in nervoussystem. How are the different
ways that that conversationmight be held depending on what
type of regulation your nervoussystem is in, yeah, and what

(48:48):
might be going on for the childas well, that adult child.

I mean, the first thing I want to say to parents
out there is, if your childcomes to you and confronts you
with stuff like that, it is 100%normal for you to start to feel
activation and for you to startgetting your defenses up. So
don't feel shame if you're justlike, I'm not handling this

(49:15):
well, they confronted me, ofcourse. Yeah, it's normal when
somebody comes because themajority of parents, I'm going
to err on the side of I thinkthe majority of parents do the
best that they can. I agree, andnobody, at least in the circles
I run, nobody is deliberatelyout there trying to harm their
kids. But the majority of usalso have nervous systems, and

(49:41):
our nervous systems were shapedby our experiences, by what we
went through, and we were raisedby people who had nervous
systems, who were shaped and andso there's an ancestry there.
There's that intergenerationalstuff. So we aren't going to be
perfect. And, you know,newsflash. Gosh, for the next
generation, you have nervoussystems, and you're going to be

(50:05):
doing stuff for your kids, whereone day, your kids are probably
going to come to you and say,you know, I really wish you
hadn't have done that. I reallywish you wouldn't so that. I
just want to put that on thetable. I don't think like I know
the feeling I've had it manytimes, where there's
defensiveness, there's shame,there's anger, there's even
parts of me sometimes where Ihear my kids will say something,

(50:26):
and I'll be like, You have noidea what was going on in my
life while I was trying tomanage that, or what this
situation actually looks like,or what was happening behind the
scenes. So this is where Ireally do give a lot of self
compassion and a lot of grace tomyself. The second piece I like

(50:47):
to acknowledge is so we have ablended family of five kids, and
one of the blessings of having abig family is you get to see
that every single kid has theirown unique nervous system and
their own unique interpretation.
So part of what I sit back and Ilook at and I'm like, Isn't it
funny how I have one kid who'slike, I'm so grateful that you

(51:09):
did things this way, and I haveanother kid who's like, I really
wish you hadn't done things thatway. And I'm just but I did the
same thing, because theirnervous systems are shaped
completely differently too, notjust by me, by their genetics,
by the environment, by theirteachers and coaches and friends

(51:29):
and all the things that theywere exposed to. So they're
going to have a differentnervous system. So I also don't
have to take full responsibilityas much as I'm involved in
raising my child like as theyget older, I have come to the
realization, I don't really wantto take any credit for their

(51:50):
amazing accomplishments, becauseI don't want to take credit for
the things that they'restruggling with. Because I have
this, that's it. I had thisrealization, oh my gosh, they're
completely human. They get todecide things on their own. I
did contribute to some things.
So when I have that perspective,then I can look and I say that

(52:12):
was their experience with theirnervous system. It doesn't mean
it was the truth. It was truefor them. That's how they felt.
Your feelings are always valid,but your feelings aren't the be
all and end all of truth. So youcan feel something, and you
could share that you feel thatwith me, and I can express back

(52:35):
to you, and I've had theseconversations with my kids, oh
my gosh. I'm so sorry that youfelt that way. I'm so sorry that
you had to experience that Inever would have intentionally
wanted you to feel that way. Atthe same time, knowing it's part
of your growth, part of yournervous system, part of your

(52:58):
perspective, I can contribute toit now by what can I do? But I
don't want to jump in and try torescue it, or try to make sure
that I'm giving all thevalidation I need, because that
keeps them kind of in adysregulated state. I need you
to validate that I'm right. Ineed you to fix this. I need you

(53:18):
to my role is to be like, Hey,I'm doing the best I can. What
can I do to support you? BecauseI know that you will be able to
figure it out, because you'rethe creator of your life. Now,
even though bad stuff happenedto you at some point, bad stuff
happened to me, bad stuff isgoing to happen to your kids. At
some point, we become thecreators of our own life, and

(53:41):
how do you want to move forwardwith that?

Yeah, such a good, managed nervous system response
that you're describing. Sothat's after you got really,
gotten in shape at the gym for awhile that you can handle. Yeah,

and I still feel when my kids confront me with
stuff, you better believe I feelmy energy go up, and I want to,
I want to defend myself. I wantto, but I also have the channels
where I know that, yeah, youknow what? Defending this is
this kid. And sometimes I will,because I'm human, I'm going to

(54:18):
be like, yeah, no, sorry, thatdidn't happen. That didn't
happen the way, and thenafterwards, I'm like, hey, if
that was their experience, Idon't know what their full lived
experience. I was only with themfor a period of time, right
there, their life is shaped byso many other people. So I do
want to have that compassionwith myself. Did I do things
that that hurt them? Or, ofcourse, I did. Did I do it

(54:42):
intentionally? No, but thatstill doesn't change their
experience, yeah, and it doesn'tchange my experience too,

right, right? And I think that that's such a great
perspective to look at. There isnot one truth. There is my
truth. Truth, there's yourtruth, there's my experience,
there's your experience, andeven through my own experience,
I don't have all the informationbecause you said, like so, much
of this is happeningunconsciously, internally, and

(55:12):
it's coming out, and I'm notunderstanding how all of my past
is shaping my present, the wayI'm seeing things right now and
the way I've seen things in thepast as well. So we need to just
hold that truth. I like to saywe're going to hold the truth
lightly, because it can changeover time, the way that we see
things and the way that weinterpret things, and how we

(55:33):
understand things as we grow andwe develop and we work on these
types of

things, and we're always, constantly growing like
one of my favorite things to askmyself is, what does it look
like to have my own back in thismoment? And sometimes it is
taking accountability forthings, and sometimes it is just
I acknowledge that was yourexperience, and just ended at

(56:00):
that, I acknowledge that wasyour experience, because it's
not up to me to fix something. Ithink sometimes, as parents,
too, we get put in this positionif our child comes to us and
shares something with us, oh, Igot to fix it. I got to make it
better. No, no. Like, I don't. Ican't, first of all, and I

(56:22):
always like to have, you know,hopefully you have us. This is
why community, I think, is soimportant to have of other
people who are going throughsimilar things in your life.
Because sometimes I do need to,you know, I'll just hold it and
say nothing, and then I need tohave a sounding board afterwards
that that's like, yeah. And youknow what the experience was
like for me, maybe I don't wantto share that with my kid,

(56:43):
because they're, you know,they're at different stages.
We've got a lot more wisdom.
We've got a lot more doesn'tnecessarily mean we know it,
right, but we do have adifferent perspective that maybe
I can, I can sit and listen totheirs and still know. And the
reason you did that, Leah, wasbecause you were having your own
back with this. This is going onin your life. This is what you

(57:06):
felt was right. You can havethat self compassion and that
grace for yourself too. I justthink we have to to carry so
much guilt and shame. You didthings wrong as a parent.

Okay? Amen, stop, full stop. We did all of us. Did

all of us. And you, my child, will do things
wrong if you decide to become aparent. This is the cycle of
life. That's right. That'sright. Oh, thank

you so much for this. I really do want to spend
a couple of minutes having youtell everyone about your awesome
journal they created, and thenthe other things that you have
that will help support them inthis process of working on their
nervous system,

perfect. So my journal, it's available on
Amazon, and basically what I didis I pulled together what I see
as like a mini course, almost,that goes over some of the
basics of what your nervoussystem is, how to work with your
nervous system. And then there'slike 90 days where you can start
trying to get into the habit ofworking to befriend your nervous

(58:15):
system and learning about whatyour nervous system is like for
you personally. And then I have,there's a QR code inside that
will take you to, like, an extravideo course that gives you a
little bit more depth. And thenI just recently opened something
called the nervous systemjournaling club. And it is a
mini membership, a very, verylow cost membership with

(58:37):
community. And there, there'ssome more information, but we
also do some journaling as wellas doodling. And doodling is
just a creative outlet, noartistic talent required. We do
know that things like creativityare ways that we can calm our

(59:00):
nervous system, we can accessregulation very, very quickly by
doing something fun and playful,especially within the community.
So that's why I created thecommunity to have like, you
know, we always hear about likebreathing and go meditate and do
the exercise and cold plunge andall those things. And I'm like,

(59:21):
Let's do something fun where,like, let's doodle your family.
Let's doodle shapes. Let'sdoodle and we we do that within,
within the club. I love

that you're doing that in that way, because you
just don't I don't think I'veever heard of a doodling your
nervous system club before, butI know I can on the, like, I
have a handful of people rightnow that I know it's super
benefit from being in your club.
So, yeah, but

it's really, it's amazing the people who have
joined, um, I've said, like, Inoticed within a few minutes of
starting to do it. So I juststarted to relax, like, yeah,
that's what play does. Itremoves you from your worries
and your stress, and it allowsyou to see things on paper,
like, if you were even todoodle, like what goes on in

(01:00:13):
your family. Sometimes you stepback and you just you can see,
like, I have little we create,like your own little doodle
self, and you start to seethings from a different
perspective, it helps you buildthat awareness and that
playfulness and that lightness.
Creativity does a lot of magicfor your nervous system. It

Tina Gosney (01:00:32):
really is, and we don't give it nearly as much
importance in our life as itshould have, but I'm a firm
believer, too, in creativity andbeing able to heal and have us
just be, uh, having a more fullhuman experience, rather than
trying to like that achievementdrive that we the culture that
we live in these days. Yeah, um,we're going to include links in

(01:00:56):
all of those into the shownotes. And I just thank you so
much for being here today, sucha wealth of knowledge, such a
wealth of knowledge. Always lovehaving Leah here. So thank you
so much for sharing that with ustoday. Thanks for having you.

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How Your Nervous System Shapes Reactions, Relationships, and Resilience with Leah Davidson

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