Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Hey there and
welcome back to Family Twist.
(00:02):
I'm Corey.
Today's episode is a little bitdifferent because this wasn't
just a podcast interview, it wasreally a therapy session for
Kendall.
Our guest is Brian Post, one ofthe world's leading experts in
trauma and adoption.
He's also unadoptee himself.
And that combination makes forsome incredibly human insight.
Brian brought so much compassionand thoughtfulness to this
(00:24):
conversation.
He really saw Kendall, not justas a podcast host or a story,
but as a person still navigatingwhat it means to be adopted,
found, and still sometimes lost.
If you've struggled withidentity, regulation, or how to
love your people without losingyourself, please stick around.
Brian doesn't just havetheories, he has answers and
(00:45):
grace.
Let's go.
SPEAKER_02 (00:48):
Well, welcome to
Family Twist, Brian.
SPEAKER_00 (00:50):
Thank you.
Glad to be here.
SPEAKER_02 (00:53):
I want our listeners
to get a feel for your uh kind
of specialty in therapy and whatgot you there.
SPEAKER_00 (01:03):
Okay.
Well, my fundamental specialtyis around the area of children
who've been adopted or in fostercare, significant trauma
histories that lead to severebehavior challenges.
And then that creates a lot offamily stress.
And so for probably the last 25years, my whole focus has been
(01:23):
around helping parentsunderstand themselves
differently so they canunderstand their children
differently and createbreakthroughs in their
relationships and their homes tosave placements because
high-risk adoptive and fosterplacements usually end up in
either disruptions or childrengetting into being passed around
in foster care.
(01:44):
And so that's pretty much beenmy entire life's work.
And it started because this iswhat God intended for me to do.
I was conceived to a woman outof wedlock.
She could not keep me, so sheplaced me into foster care, and
subsequently I was adopted.
And then my parents, who lovedmy sister and I, who was also
adopted, loved us very much,very consistent, very
(02:06):
predictable, but they were alsovery traditional, and they both
had really extreme traumahistories themselves, which no
one during the 70s knew anythingabout trauma, really knew
anything about adoption oranything like that.
So my parents, both children ofalcoholics, my dad, a Vietnam
(02:26):
veteran with severepost-traumatic stress disorder.
My mom, her dad, when she wasnine years old, had a heart
attack, fell over in front ofher dad at the kitchen table.
All of her younger siblings allhad different stories for how he
died because no one ever talkedabout it.
And so my parents were also theoldest.
And this is important when itcomes to realizing some of the
(02:48):
challenges that they had,because my dad was the oldest
son of a sibling group of nine.
My mom was the oldest daughterof a sibling group of 10.
And so they grew up in a veryparentified way.
They were basically parentfigures because their mothers
were busy working, mygrandmothers busy working,
trying to keep a roof over thechildren's head, food on the
(03:09):
table.
My parents became parent figuresto their siblings, which led
them to be veryhyper-responsible.
So that was great in one handbecause my parents didn't drink,
they didn't smoke, they didn'tparty, they worked hard.
You know, my dad worked in arock quarry for 35 years.
I have many experiences of himcoming home covered in limestone
(03:30):
dust.
And my mom was a head startinstructor.
She drove two hours roundthrough up every single day.
They were very consistent thatway.
But what they weren't isemotionally present because they
had never grown up with parentsable to be emotionally present.
Also, they didn't understand thestress of adopted children.
(03:51):
So my sister and I having a lotof sensitivities, we had a lot
of struggles.
I wrote a book called The GreatBehavior Breakdown, which
chronicles 26 severe behaviorsthat children have.
And I had almost all of those.
My sister and I had verydrastically different inuter
(04:14):
experiences.
And this is where it starts forall of us.
My biological mother, when I mether at the age of 37, said one
of the first things to me, Iloved being pregnant.
I didn't drink, I didn't smoke,I exercised, I ate all the right
foods.
And she said it was the hardestthing for me to have to place
you for a doctor.
I had three half siblings olderthan me, but my inuter
(04:38):
experience was good.
It was solid.
So my brain developed in adifferent way.
My sister, on the other hand,was three months premature.
Her mother drank alcohol, mayhave used drugs.
She weighed three and a halfpounds when she was born and
spent the first three months ofher life in an incubator.
So her her, and this is in the70s.
So her early experience wascompletely different.
(05:01):
So then what happens is thatleads to an infant's brain from
the very beginning stages ableto tolerate stress in a
different way.
Now we were bothstress-sensitive, and this is
how I dissimilate all, Iassimilate all this for parents
to understand.
And my work is not just foradopted and foster children.
(05:23):
It actually applies to humanbehavior all across the board.
But the way I assimilate thisand to simplify it is that if
you have a child who's beenadopted, you have a child who's
been in foster care, you have astress-sensitive and fearful
child.
So once the child becomesstressed, which is easy to do
when your brain is wired thatway, then you have a difficult
(05:45):
time regulating that stress.
From my utero experience, I wasable to regulate it more
effectively.
So then I could also recoverfrom stress.
So what's stress?
Well, stress is any external orinternal event which knocks the
body out of balance.
So for a child, that could besomething as simple as being
hungry.
(06:05):
That could be something assimple as doing something you're
not supposed to.
Your parent gets onto you andyou have a stress reaction.
It could be going to school, youknow, those are all stressful
environments.
So for me, I was able toregulate that stress better.
I could get in trouble, whichwas stressful.
And getting in trouble for us,for my sister and I, was usually
(06:26):
getting yelled at or beingwhipped or being sent to our
room or having something takenaway.
Very traditional, mind you.
But given a couple of hours Icould regulate, my sister could
not because of her experience.
So within that couple of hourswhere I can regulate that
stress, that overwhelming stressand recover, that couple of
(06:49):
hours would go past.
And instead of being able toregulate her stress, my sister
would still be in a dysregulatedplace, which would cause her to
not respond as quickly, wouldcause her to continue doing some
of the things that she had justgotten in trouble for, and then
she would get in trouble again.
So I could recover, not get introuble, and so that helped
(07:11):
navigate me through my familyand through school.
I could go into that stressfulenvironment regulated enough,
and then I had very healthysocial and emotional
relationships.
Although I had all thesebehavior problems.
I could get in trouble, I couldrecover.
My sister could not.
She would get in trouble, shecouldn't recover, she was
emotionally stunted.
So the difference for she and Iwas night and day, was only
(07:35):
because my brain was able tohandle stress differently than
her brain.
And so then that just navigatedus throughout our childhood.
And that really every moment Ihad growing up informed me and
informs me now for everythingthat I do and that I try to
teach parents.
So I have over 25 yearsdeveloped what I call a
(08:00):
love-based approach toparenting, as opposed to what I
believe is a very traditional,common fear-based approach to
parenting, which we don'tunderstand.
But I also believe that thatfear-based approach to parenting
is generationally programmed.
I believe that's programmed inour DNA, and it also is rooted
(08:20):
in trauma.
And I can go so deep into thisstuff because it's all I do.
I love it.
I'll let you decide where youwant to go with that.
SPEAKER_02 (08:28):
For like I am
fascinated by this concept.
And if you know anything aboutmy story, I didn't know anything
about my birth um until 2017.
Well, what I did know was that Iwas premature, but I have since
learned mothers, my biologicalmother's family, that my mother
(08:50):
smoked, that she didn't, youknow, like a lot of the things
that you just described for yoursister.
And I always wondered about thatbecause you know, that concept,
um, I wasn't terribly familiarwith it, but I at least had
heard of that, what you justdescribed.
And I always in the back of mymind was like, wow, I never
(09:11):
seemed to react to thingsexactly like my adoptive parents
did, you know, and I thought,oh, well, that's just because
I'm not their child.
But now I see that there's somuch research out there about
what happens in utero and howimportant that is for the child,
you know.
And quote, I didn't really havebehavioral issues, but I
(09:32):
definitely wasn't with myadoptive parents.
And yeah, they were moretraditional as, you know, they
were born in the treated thesame way by the both sets of
parents.
They were it was a veryutilitarian sort of part of the
society.
And my dad used to joke and sayhe was 12th of 13, and he said,
(09:56):
by the time I'm along, I thinkthey were just creating farm.
You know, he never got the warmand fuzzies from and that sort
of thing.
But my adoptive parents were, Ithink, quite the opposite with
me.
I feel like they were so lovingand so, you know, they they had
been trying to have a child forseven years by the came by the
(10:18):
time they got me, you know.
So it was such a positive forthem that they were like, we're
gonna defy all of those thingsthat happened in our past and
we're gonna raise himdifferently.
They I I have so much.
SPEAKER_00 (10:32):
Can I speak to that,
Kindle?
Because I would wager to believethat your parents didn't have
severely traumatized parentsthemselves.
Now they had parents whoprobably weren't as emotionally
present because that was a timeof survival, so there wasn't a
lot of time for warm andfuzzies.
But what they had was acontained life.
(10:53):
There was lots of siblings, theyworked the farm, so they had
food, they survived with love,and that helped them to grow up
in what I call a more regulatedfashion.
If you contrast that with myparents, my parents basically
grew up with single parents, youknow, in the 50s, and fathers
(11:14):
who were alcoholics, and mothershad to work two and three jobs,
and their experience of survivalwas different.
So you had parents who grew upwith parents who actually
parented and siblings and theyfelt connected.
And so when you came into thathome, you said you didn't have
behavior problems.
The reason you didn't havebehavior problems is because you
(11:36):
had parents who were regulatedand attuned to you so that the
experience of stress for youwasn't as heightened.
And when you did get in trouble,even if you may have gotten
punished traditionally, you had90% of the rest of the
environment to help you tosoothe and to calm down so that
(11:58):
you could recover.
It's very important that weunderstand those very early
nuances that occur in the livesof individuals.
John Bowlby said the first threeyears of your life established
the blueprints for all yourfuture social and emotional
relationships.
But after the 90s, which was thedecade of the brain, we now know
(12:19):
it was from conception to theage of five.
And Nadine Burke Harris, in herbook, The Deepest Well, says
that in the first year of life,the human brain forms one
million neural connections persecond.
Even though in utero there mayhave been some challenges, you
had a lot of good stuff from thevery beginning helping to rewire
(12:42):
and reshape your brain in a waythat it could tolerate stress
more effectively.
SPEAKER_02 (12:48):
Yeah, I think that's
a really great point.
Um, I've always found it sofascinating, just in talking
with friends and experiencing myfriends' families growing up.
I thought always, but I was inmy mind always comparing and
contrasting because my adoptiveparents, they were so close with
(13:09):
their subject, just spoke on thephone as often as they could,
you know, just very wellconnected.
Yet my best friend, whose name Iwon't mention, you'll know who
I'm talking about.
Uh, his whole family was rightin our town.
And I felt like they never evenyou know, it was just it was so
different.
The dynamics were so different.
(13:30):
Being raised as an only child, Iloved that my parents were so
connected to their siblings andthat I got to know all my
extended, you know, crazy numberof cousins, and it was
fantastic.
And having now met my biologicalfamily on both sides, I can tell
that they are not, they're not,they don't engage the same way,
(13:53):
you know.
And I try not to be critical ofthat, but I wish it, I wish it
for them, I wish it for myselfwith them, and it's just never
gonna be the the way it was whenI grew up.
SPEAKER_00 (14:07):
Generational trauma,
I mean, trauma can be passed
down through the DNA.
Research now says up to 15generations, and so when you
have traumatic events that occurin the in the generations, that
gets passed forward, and that'show one family can stay really
close-knit, and another familywho grows up together can
actually be warring with oneanother the whole time because
(14:30):
they have some significantbreakdown in the attachment bond
of their lineage that justdoesn't get healed, and it's not
until some person, and Ed Miletcalls it the one, the one comes
along and says, Hey, I'm gonnado this differently, that they
actually start shifting that.
And I see it in my adoptiveparents in their in their
(14:53):
siblings, their sibling groups.
You know, there's one, my dad'ssibling group, they they had a
lot of alcoholism, they hadsexual abuse, they loved one
another, but they were prettymuch disconnected.
And then my mom's sibling group,they were pretty connected, but
they had siblings who branchedoff because they had their own
traumas and had not ever beenhealed.
(15:14):
And now, even as adults, theyhave challenges in their
relationships.
So it's just an observation,it's not a critique, and it just
helps us understand ourselvesbetter.
SPEAKER_02 (15:25):
Think of my I joke
and say that I'm just selfish
because I want back what I feellike I used to have.
Um, and you know, you can'tforce it, right?
Like, I I can't tell you howmany times in my biological
family I've heard people say,that's just not the way we, you
know, act.
And I was like, to me, it itjust I want to like you just
(15:47):
mentioned, I want to be the onethat says, can we just fix this?
Can we can we yeah, but it's notthat simple, and I get it.
And they're comfortable withtheir approach to each other.
Um, but I just dreamt that itwould be different.
I thought, you know, uh becauseI was so tight with my adoptive
(16:10):
family, you know, so I justwished that I still and you
know, it may or may happen.
I I have resolved myself.
It's been I it's I just had theeighth anniversary of finding
all these people.
And I don't know.
I I have delusions of grandeurtoo.
I thought I'm the oldest, I'mgonna walk in and everybody's
(16:31):
gonna respect me, and I'm gonnabe the patriarch.
And you know, I would I I'm Itry to be optimistic, and I
think I set myself up for somedisappointment.
Um thank you so much forexplaining like how you got to
you know where you your your ownresearch, your own books.
(16:52):
Uh, I find it fascinating.
I always we always say this uhpodcast, uh we purposely don't
want to know too much about thework uh for everybody, and it's
gonna be on our show notes.
Uh the book that firstinterested me, uh, is From Fear
to Love.
And so I can't wait to um readthat.
(17:12):
But I'm also really curiousabout, and I'm not a parent,
everybody knows that.
Um, I am really curious aboutBondify AI.
Can you talk about the Yeah, I'dlove to.
SPEAKER_00 (17:25):
I have a belief that
after, especially after COVID,
most mental health professionalsstarted doing virtual therapy.
And I've spent my entireprofessional career working with
families in their homes, intheir living rooms.
So I traveled all around theworld for 15 years just working
(17:46):
very intensely with people intheir living rooms.
The concept of working withsomeone, even in an office, is
pretty foreign to me, much lessworking with someone virtually.
I feel like you just miss 80% ofthe dynamics.
And so after COVID, all thesemental health professionals just
started doing virtual therapyall the time.
(18:06):
And we've really moved away, andI don't think it's going to
change.
We've really moved away frombeing in person, much less being
in someone's home.
So I'm like, once I developed mylove-based parenting model and
kind of my models and theorieson regulation and relationships,
I realized that I can probablycreate an app where, because
(18:28):
over the years, lecturing andeverything else, parents were
always like, Can you come homewith me?
And I was like, I would love to.
And I used to do that, but Icould probably create an app
where you can you can talk to meon your phone, just like you're
talking to me.
And this is what AI allowed.
I can program it.
Bondify is programmed with allof my knowledge base, and it's
(18:50):
basically like a textcommunication where in a time of
escalation or crisis oruncertainty, all you've got to
do is open Bondify and you canask me any question and I'm
gonna give you a response.
And I had a parent tell me theother day at Electric, I've gone
in my bathroom and talked toyou, and I feel like I'm talking
to you because I believe that ifI can give you before a crisis
(19:14):
really hits, if I can just giveyou one opportunity to see it
differently, I can completelychange the direction of that
outcome or where it's headed.
And so that's what Bondify is.
Bondify is an AI-poweredparenting support app, which
gives parents an opportunity totalk to me and get guidance in a
love-based way, in a regulatedway to completely change how
(19:37):
they may have handled asituation before.
And then we wrap that aroundeducational tools and resources
as well as a community of otherparents who are going through
some of the same challenges.
And, you know, it's reallytraining with this.
I'll have parents come into thecommunity, they'll post a
question or a challenge that'sgoing on, and they completely
forget to ask the AI.
(19:58):
So then I'll go in.
I'll copy and paste.
I'll ask the AI, get the AI'sanswer and put it back into the
chat.
Because it's that good.
Because I think that iftherapists are intent on doing
virtual therapy, eventuallythey're going to be out of jobs
because AI is just faster.
It's just better.
And it's just going to continueto get better.
(20:20):
And so I think that being inperson with someone is going to
become a premium service becauseso many mental health
professionals aren't going to becomfortable in doing it anymore.
I just love being in someone'shome.
I mean, I'll go next week, I'llbe in the home of three or four
families simply because I havean agency and that's what we do.
(20:40):
We go in homes and work withhigh-risk families.
SPEAKER_02 (20:45):
I'm so glad that
you're able and willing to still
do that because I've been intherapy for years.
I support everybody, you know,using that platform.
And for me, uh, when it can bein person, it's so much more
meaningful.
I feel like my gains are so muchmore pronounced than they would
(21:08):
be, you know.
And I'm I don't want to, I don'twant to discredit, you know,
having virtual options because,you know, we we live in a
fast-paced society, and for somepeople, that's all they can
handle, you know.
I get it.
But I I know I have benefited somuch from in-person um
experiences.
So so was there any pivotals uhwhen you realized that
(21:34):
love-based parenting was the wayfor uh was there like an
epiphany moment?
SPEAKER_00 (21:39):
I had lots of
epiphany moments throughout my
life that you know I call themthe light bulb moments of God
tapping me on my head.
And uh, there's just been somany, and probably one of the
biggest is that I had studiedwith a psychiatrist for several
years and got really immersed inher model of working with
families and was gonna write abook.
(22:00):
In fact, did write a book andwas gonna publish it, it was
based on her work.
And for a number of reasons, Inever published that book.
And a couple of years later,after I'd done more research and
more practice, I went back andreviewed it and realized that
even though her approach wasdifferent from the other
approaches in attachment andbonding work with children, it
(22:21):
was still a fear-based approach.
Understanding that there is abig difference between a
fear-based approach and alove-based approach, yet it's a
very thin line.
And that was a significantmoment for me.
The other moments werereflections when I realized how
my own sister growing up, herbiggest challenges and struggles
(22:45):
had come from the fact thatnobody understood her.
They didn't understand that shewas stress-sensitive, they
didn't understand that she wasoverwhelmed, they didn't
understand that she wasemotionally arrested and she was
doing the best that she can.
So they would just increase morestress because that's what we do
in our society.
If something's not working, youjust do more of it.
(23:05):
So if one whip's not enough, youdo enough, you whip more.
If yelling at one dust bulletisn't loud enough, you up the
ante.
And I realized that approach wasactually working against us.
There's been so many pivotalmoments to get me to a deeper
understanding, but really itcame from within me.
Just understanding my lifeexperience and how the things I
(23:29):
experienced and how I showed upinformed me to see other people.
And when I really had thebiggest shift was I read a book
by Alan Shore, who wrote thistrilogy on affect regulation and
the origin of the self.
It was all about understandingself-regulation.
And I had been asking thequestion for years what is it
(23:51):
that leads to attachments?
Because we have this concept ofattachment and bonding, but what
people miss is that attachmentis the behavior of the child to
the parent.
Bonding is the behavior of theparent towards the child.
And so one morning I was inCanada, I'd been running a
residential treatment facility.
I was driving, it was early.
(24:12):
That question popped back up inmy head, what leads to
attachment?
And God tapped me on the headand said, Stress.
In that moment, I realized thatas long as you're stressed, you
cannot develop secureattachment.
As long as the child isstressed, they cannot attach to
the parent in a secure way.
However, as long as the parentis stressed, they cannot create
(24:36):
the open system that the childneeds to attach to.
The bonding system is disrupted.
So it's a two-way street.
The most important work was inhelping children have prolonged
experiences of regulation, ofcalm.
And then when there's stress,the most important thing to do
is to repair it because that'show you strengthen the system.
(24:59):
See, it's not that stress is theproblem, it's our failure to
repair the stress that becomesthe problem.
And that's what we get wrong intraditional parenting practices.
When a child acts out, we givethem a timeout.
I believe children act outbecause they're stressed out.
I believe children don't act outfor attention.
I believe children act outbecause they need attention.
(25:21):
But when you believe a childacts out for attention, then
you've been programmed to notgive them positive attention.
So you give them a timeout,which means you're sending them
away.
So if they're acting out becausethey're stressed out, which
means they've gone outside oftheir window tolerance, and then
you send them away, you're notactually helping their
(25:41):
regulatory system to recover.
All you're doing is sending themaway till they can settle, so
till their stress can settle,and then they come back to the
dynamic.
See, that's not helping theirregulatory system to grow and
mature.
Because in order for theirregulatory system to grow and
mature, here's something reallyimportant that has to happen.
(26:02):
When children experience stress,they release a hormone called
cortisol in their brain.
Cortisol is the brain's primarystress hormone.
So that is the root of stressand fear in the brain.
When the cortisol hits thehypothalamus of the child's
brain, the hypothalamus is to issupposed to release a hormone
called oxytocin.
Oxytocin is the brain'santi-stress hormone.
Here's the problem (26:24):
cortisol is
an automatic reaction in the
brain because we get stressedall the time.
Oxytocin is a learned responsein the brain.
So when children are stressedout and acting out, if the
parent figure doesn't help themto turn on oxytocin, then the
(26:45):
child stays in a constant stateof stress.
And then what happens is they'renot developing an effective
oxytocin response.
Well, the parent is the only onewho can teach the child the
effective oxytocin response.
But if the parent has beenprogrammed traditionally that
when the child is acting out,you actually create more stress
(27:06):
through punishment or you sendthem away, then you're never
helping them to develop.
Because when the child getsstressed out, the parent gets
stressed out.
And so then the parentoftentimes doesn't realize that
they hold the keys to the castleof the child's development.
So then in our traditionalpractices of time out, banking,
(27:27):
consequences, behaviormodification, points of rewards,
restraint, medication, whathappens is children end up
growing older, but not growingbetter.
Because no one's actuallyteaching their brain how to
regulate the stress.
We're just punishing them forthe behavior, and the behavior
(27:51):
is a byproduct of the stress.
So that's what fear to love isall about.
Fear to love is really all basedaround one theoretical model
that I developed 20 almost 25years ago.
It's called the stress model,and it says all behavior arises
from a state of stress.
In between the behavior and thestress is the presence of a
(28:12):
primary emotion.
There are only two primaryemotions, love and fear.
It's through the expression, theprocess, and the understanding
of the fear that you calm thestress and diminish the
behavior.
So I started over 20 years ago,I started not focusing on
behaviors because behaviors arean outcome.
(28:33):
I started focusing on stress andthe fear that drives the
behavior.
When you regulate the source,then the outcome changes.
And that's what all my work hasbeen based on.
Helping parents learn how tostay regulated.
And I'm going to give you anexample to illustrate this.
The other day I got a phonecall.
It was from an older daughterwho's helping her mom raise a
(28:56):
couple of autistic children.
One's eight years old, and he'sreally aggressive and has been
violent.
The daughter called me and shesaid he's got my mom down on the
couch, pulled down on the couch,and he has two handfuls of hair.
Okay, for them, this is a prettynormal process.
But mom, and bless this kid'sheart and bless their hearts,
(29:18):
she's actually trying to handleit in the most calm way that she
can, but she doesn't know whatto do.
And this is, I find parents, Ithey get into this valley when
they start exploring my work.
They get into this valley wherethey know mom knows she's not
going to fight the kid, right?
She knows that's not the waybecause that just increases the
stress, but she's not sure whatto do.
(29:41):
So this eight-year-old has herdown on the couch, two handfuls
full of hair.
Older daughter calls me.
I said, okay, put the phone onspeakerphone, go over to mom.
And so what I do, because I'mnot worried about the child, I'm
not worried about the behavior.
The behavior is concerning.
I'm aware of it, but I know onething has to happen.
And one of the most importantthings that has to happen, the
(30:03):
first thing I've got to do is Ihave got to get the mom to calm
down.
Now that's the exact opposite ofwhat most people do.
But I know that that stress isdriving that behavior.
I know that that child has beenhijacked.
So I know that I can talk to mombecause she can hear me.
I know that that child is in aregressed emotional state.
(30:24):
He's not eight.
He's an aggressive two-year-old.
So I start talking to the mom.
She's on speakerphone.
I said, Mom, I need you to takesome deep breaths.
I said, I need you to put yourhands on top of his because I
don't want him to pull out allyour hair, right?
So I'm acknowledging thebehavior is occurring.
But I need you to breathe.
I need you to calm down.
I need you to relax your body.
(30:45):
So she's doing this.
He's got these handfuls of hair.
This is an intense situation.
But the only way this happens isthat I'm not getting hijacked.
I'm not scared in this moment.
So I'm talking to mom, and thisis my voice.
Mom, I need you to breathe.
Put your hands on top of hishead.
I need you to calm yourselfdown, relax your body.
Because even though she's notfighting with him, she's
(31:07):
anxious.
She's scared.
She doesn't know what to do.
I need to change that vibration.
She relaxes.
And then I said, now tell himhe's going to be okay.
Just say those words.
You're going to be okay.
We're going to be all right.
We're going to be all right.
Now I said, relax your hands andput them around him and say,
I've got you.
Complete opposite of what mostpeople would do.
(31:29):
Because fear causes you to dothe exact opposite.
Fear is a paradox.
Fear causes you to do the exactopposite of what of what you
should do.
Mom relaxes her hands.
She wraps him around.
She says, I got you.
She says, I'm going to be okay.
I said, hang on to him for amoment.
Again, complete opposite.
I said, hang on to him for amoment.
Tell him you, I say, I've gotyou.
(31:49):
I can keep you safe.
So now he's let go of the hairand now he wants her to let him
go.
And I said, okay, now you canlet him go.
So then he gets up because he'sstill escalated, he's still
dysregulated, he's stillregressed.
He goes into the kitchen and hestarts spraying water.
And the older daughter, I hearhim saying, she's spraying
water.
I said, that's fine.
(32:10):
Go into his bedroom.
And she says he doesn't likebeing alone.
I said, that's even betterbecause that means he's going to
follow you.
Because what I need to do is Ineed to get them to contain
this.
I need him in a contained space.
I don't need him having the wideopen house creating all this
stress, sensitivity, andoverwhelm.
(32:30):
I need you to go in his roombecause that's contained space.
So she says, okay, go in theroom.
Because also in my mind, see,this is what a fear-based brain
does.
A fear-based brain says, I can'tlet him spray the water.
Oh my God, he's gonna flood thehouse.
It's gonna be horrible.
There's water everywhere.
See, that's what a fear-basedbrain does.
A regulated brain doesn't dothat.
A regulated brain says, Yeah,that water's terrible.
(32:52):
We really don't want it, but acouple of big towels you'll have
it cleaned up.
Go into his bedroom.
Soon as she goes into hisbedroom, he follows her to his
bedroom.
I say to the older daughter, Ineed you to leave the bedroom.
Again, I need to reduce thestress.
Mom, close the door, stay inthere with him.
And she's and he says, I wantout.
And I said, Mom, tell him youcan't let him out because it's
(33:15):
too stressful out there and youcan't keep him safe.
So you need to stay in here.
We're gonna stay in here untilyou feel better.
Literally, Kendall, withinseconds, he said, I'm really
sorry.
I want to I want to go clean upmy mess.
And I said to her, I said, keepbreathing.
(33:37):
Tell him he's okay.
Tell him we're gonna get throughit, and you'll help him clean
the mess up.
And we waited another half aminute, minute, and I said,
Okay, call me back if you needto, if it escalates.
That was it.
Now I want to explain somethingbecause I know what the
traditional approach is, thetraditional mindset is.
The traditional mindset says,Well, you didn't teach him
(33:59):
anything, right?
Bruce Perry says, and BrucePerry's a neuroscientist and a
psychiatrist, he's written a lotof books with Oprah.
He says the brain always returnsto the way the event was handled
the last time.
That is really important.
So what I did is I interruptedthe dynamic.
(34:22):
I created a situation where thechild realized that in his
stress, he was not at risk, momwas not a threat, and everything
was gonna be okay.
So we navigated that wholedynamic.
So the next time he getsstressed in that way, the first
memory his brain is gonna hit isthe memory of how it worked out
(34:43):
the last time.
Now, because the brain isconditioned, it may not hold up,
it may not stop there.
But what happens is it has onelevel that slows the intensity
down based on the memory of howit was handled the last time.
Now, mom has a memory of how itwas handled the last time.
So that's setting them up tocompletely navigate the
(35:04):
situation in a different way.
Three to five times, because I'mnot saying it's not going to
happen again because it might.
But remember, this has beenhappening for years, right?
So this is what people don'trealize.
These behaviors have beenhappening for years.
I'm guaranteeing that if you dothe same approach in three to
five times, he will completelystop doing that.
(35:26):
He will stop attacking mombecause now I've got her seeing
a stressed-out two-year-old.
This is how you change theparadigm.
Because when I could get momfrom seeing an eight-year-old
who's a predator, and I did thesame thing with a mom and a
16-year-old literally in thesame day.
I got the mom to see thestressed out, it completely
shifts the perspective.
And when you shift theperspective, you shift your
(35:48):
energy.
When you shift your energy,instead of sending off a
vibration of fear and stress,now you're creating an
opportunity to generate avibration of love and oxytocin.
That is what has got to happen.
The brain changes in two ways,it changes through repetition
and emotional impact.
So mom has got to repeat thisprocess, but two, most
(36:12):
importantly, this is what peopledon't realize.
The feeling is the path to thehealing.
So you've got to have the badmoments, you've got to have them
because the bad moments reflectthat the child is in their
brainstem.
Bad moments reflect that thechild was in their pain, they're
(36:33):
in their trauma.
But the only way you feel thatis through the intensity.
The vehicle to the healing isthe feeling.
So that's the emotional impact.
So I actually need more of thosesituations so that mom can walk
through it in a different waybecause that is the vehicle to
healing.
See, traditionally, we don'twant children to have feelings.
(36:55):
We're wired that if children areupset, you got to tell them you
don't yell, you don't talk to methat way, you know, that's not
okay.
So we are literally suppressingthe vehicle to healing at every
turn.
And that's because it'sgenerationally conditioned.
You know, that's just ourmindset.
SPEAKER_02 (37:13):
Thank you for
describing that.
I find it fascinating.
Shout out to my adoptive parentswho accidentally approached me
correctly, but way well beforeyour research or even got
started.
Uh, it gives me a lot of respectfor parents who are trying to do
it right.
(37:34):
And uh, I just urge people uh totake advantage of you know, not
only your books, but also thisreally cool concept that I think
you developed with the uhbondify app.
I think that's just amazing.
Um, I could have used it thisweek, not in relation to
children.
I had to de-escalate myself, andthat's rare, but I was just
(37:56):
triggered and uh pissed off.
And I was like, Kendall, justbite your tongue.
Just speak now.
I did go back to the situationlater in the week and you know,
politely confronted theaggressor.
We can all learn some lessonsfrom even though I'm not a
parent, I feel like uh I couldstill learn some psychological
(38:17):
lessons that would be beneficialin my daily life.
SPEAKER_00 (38:20):
I'm gonna can I give
you can I give you a little
homework assignment?
And this is I'm just you know,for giggles.
You could download Bondify anduse that.
Everyone can bond, you can tryfor 14 days free, and there's no
obligation.
And even after that, if youchoose to continue Bondify, it's
literally less than$20 a month.
So for a year, 20, you get 24hours, seven-day access to me
(38:42):
for less than a couple oftherapy sessions.
But here's what I would ask youto do: go to Chat GPT, and I
want you to say, I want you tobe Brian Post, right?
And put it in because it'salready pro chat GPT knows the
man.
Yeah, I want you to be BrianPost.
Here's the scenario I had.
How would Brian Post advise meon dealing with this scenario
(39:05):
and watch what happened?
SPEAKER_02 (39:07):
I will do it.
I do use AI.
I'm very curious because um Iwas surprised by myself and I
joke about this.
Should not, this is this is acop out, but I've I've found
myself saying a couple of timesrecently that the older I get,
the less patient I am.
I don't know that that's true,but I do feel like sometimes I
(39:30):
have these visceral reactions toyeah, to think and I'm saying
internally, like I should win anEmmy for my you know behavior
every day because I'm an HR andI need to hold my shit together,
and you know that's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00 (39:44):
I pretty much can't
have a conversation without
seeing it in this lens becausethis is just kind of my
paradigm.
But there are two reallyimportant things.
Number one, Joseph Ledeau is aNew York University
neuroscientist, and this isreally important for HR.
I have an HR director, I knowshe's up.
Or eyeballs all the time.
He wrote a book called TheEmotional Brain.
He says one really importantthing.
(40:06):
He says, in times of stress, ourthinking becomes confused and
distorted, and our short-termmemory is suppressed.
So the moment we becomestressed, we're no longer
thinking clearly and we can'tremember.
So what that tells us is thatthe most important thing that we
can do in any given moment isstop and breathe.
(40:29):
Stop and take three to ten deepbreaths in any given moment.
Because when you're breathing,you're actually turning on
oxytocin.
When you're breathing, you'regiving your brain an opportunity
to reduce the stress, which isgiving yourself a chance for
your thinking to come backonline and for your short-term
memory to turn over.
(40:50):
If we are mindfully practicing,the hypothalamus is open for
development throughout thelifespan.
Through a mindfulness practiceof breathing and becoming
conditioned to breathe, we canincrease our opportunity to turn
on oxytocin in the moment ofstress.
And when we do that, itcompletely changes our response.
(41:14):
Now, the other thing I'llencourage you to do is when
someone's being stressful, andthen you start breathing, ask
yourself, what age are theyright now?
See them at a different agebecause when we when we're
stressed, we regress.
So we regress to a deeperemotional age.
(41:35):
See people at a youngeremotional age, which takes away
the perceived threat.
Calm down even more.
And then you can just becurious.
You don't have to do anything.
You can observe and say, Oh,it's interesting.
And then regulating yourself wascomplete which completely
changes the dynamic.
SPEAKER_02 (41:56):
Very cool.
Well, I will definitely takeadvantage of this because I was
surprised.
Makes sense.
Makes sense.
Yeah.
Sometimes I shouldn't say Imight edit this out, but
sometimes I joke about uh athome, I joke.
(42:18):
Uh I I may not, we may not havechildren, but sometimes I feel
like I have 106 of them at work.
SPEAKER_00 (42:24):
It's true.
When we're stressed, we regress.
So we're not adults.
When you're stressed, youregress.
So we literally are children.
And so that's why it's soimportant to see the emotional
age.
In Alan Shore's research, he dida meta-analysis of adults, and
he said some adults in stresshave the ability to revert to
(42:45):
infancy.
So it's an actual biologicalthing.
When you become stressed, youregress.
It's metaphorical, right?
Well, I have 106 children, butit's all biological reality.
And the key is that we have tostay in our adult brain while
they're in their child brain sowe can help them to regulate and
(43:05):
navigate back up to their adultbrain.
SPEAKER_02 (43:07):
And I usually do
really quite well.
But this week there was that onemoment of I need to take I need
to take a walk.
I need to not react in themoment.
Uh, because I was, yeah, I wasready.
I was like, whoo, you said thewrong thing to me on a Monday,
you know.
That's right.
Anyway, um, well, thank you somuch.
(43:30):
Uh, I hope you'll uh and I'm nottrying to get free uh therapy
sessions out of you, um, but I'dlove to now go and read from
fear to love.
And if we could invite you backon, you know, maybe we can dive
even more deeply and I'll havemuch more informed questions.
SPEAKER_00 (43:47):
I'd love to.
I'd love to.
SPEAKER_02 (43:50):
Very cool.
Well, thank you, Brian, so much.
Well, wish Corey had gotten tobe here, but he will enjoy this
episode and he'll enjoy to meetyou.
SPEAKER_00 (43:58):
Fantastic.
Thank you, Kendall.
SPEAKER_01 (44:01):
You know, sometimes
an interview surprises you.
Brian didn't just come here totalk about trauma, he came to
hold space for it.
This conversation was emotionalfor Kendall and really for me
too.
Because healing isn't alwaysabout the big dramatic reunions,
it's about how you carry thestuff that no one else sees.
Brian offered language, insight,and care, and I hope you felt
(44:22):
that too.
You can find more of his work,including the Bondi app and his
books, in our show notes.
And if today's episode sparkssomething in you, don't ignore
it.
That's your story asking to beheard.
You're not alone.
Thanks for being with us, andremember, Family Secrets are the
ultimate plot twist.
Family Twist Podcast ispresented by Savois Air
(44:44):
Marketing Communications andproduced by Halba Kali the
Cabbage LLC.