Kate McAllister | Nervous System Regulation: From Reaction to Response - Self Directed

Episode Transcript
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Jesper Conrad (00:00):
Today we are together again with Kate
McAllister and our first episodewere a little short as we had
some technical difficulties withsome Wi-Fi, but today is
already a lot better.
First of all, welcome Kate.
Good to see you again.

Kate McAllister (00:16):
Thank you very much for having me back.
It's nice to see you.
And I have my fingers crossedthat all of the technology is
gonna work today.

Cecilie Conrad (00:23):
This feels better, doesn't it?
I'm looking forward to that.
I'm sure we're gonna have greatconversations now.

One of the things we talked a little about the
last time was recalibating.
Recalibating, no?
Yeah, let's just make up somewords.
Make up some words.

Who cares?

Yeah.
Thank you.
One of the things we talkedabout last time was recalibrate.
I now get nervous because mywife is teasing me.
No, no.
Okay, okay.

We were talking about recalibrating what?

The nervous system.

The nervous system.

Yeah.
And this is something you havelooked into.
Why?

Oh gosh.
Um, because we arefundamentally animals, and our
nervous systems drive many ofour actions, whether they drive
them consciously or not.
And so if we understand whatdrives us, if we understand when

(01:32):
we, our prefrontal cortex, ourpersonality is in the driving
seat, and when our limbicsystem, our defense mechanism,
is in the driving seat of ourbehaviors, we we can make better
sense of how we are in theworld and how we relate to other
people and how we relate toeverything around us.

(01:53):
So for me, it's fundamentalwhen we think about ourselves as
learners, as creatures who livein community, that we
understand our nervous systemsso that we understand who we are
and why we do as we do.
And the better we understandourselves, the more quickly we
can notice when things needrecalibrating, and we can, you

(02:15):
know, flip a few switches,twiddle a few internal dials,
and get ourselves to the pointwhere we're really making
choices about how we show up inthe world.

It reminds me a little of some of the thoughts
I'm looking into these days fromGordon Newfield, who is making
a big distinction betweenanxiety and alarm systems, where
a lot of people are talkingabout anxiety, where our alarm

(02:49):
system actually is awell-functioning machine if we
knew how to listen to it.

So he wrote a book with Gabo Mate, who is a
big inspiration of mine.
And so, yes, that's where we'rekind of aligned in our thinking
that if we don't if we don'taddress these fundamentals, then
everything that we put on topis on, you know, is on shifting
sand.
And so if we want children tobe self-directing with their

(03:19):
learning when they're young andto grow into adults who can meet
their own needs and movethrough the world responding as
they need to to whatever's goingon around them without having
to be in a panic, withoutfeeling like they're stuck, then
it's really important toaddress the nervous system and
to understand how it works.

I think maybe Jasper is curious as to why it
became important to youpersonally.

My journey to understanding or to believing
that nervous system regulationis at the heart of you know
being a healthy, functioninghuman being who can learn
effectively started in theclassroom when I was a
traditional teacher.
I hadn't learned anything aboutnervous systems or why they
needed to be regulated, or thatone could co-regulate any of

(04:08):
those things.
Standing in a classroom, 30children in front of me, some of
them learning, some of themnot, but all having the same
experience of me in that room atthat moment, speaking the same
words, doing the same things.
So it dawned on me that eventhough they were all having the
same experience, they were allexperiencing it very

(04:29):
differently, depending on whothey were, their background, and
later on looking backwards, nowunderstanding what was
happening inside their bodiesfor them, whether they felt safe
and able to connect, open upand receive, form new thoughts,
learn, or whether they were indefense mode for some reason and

(04:51):
therefore shut down and unableto learn new things because they
were in defense mode.
So I started thinking about howI could make my environment
more safe for my children.
That's where I started.
And then I realized that it'snot my choice.
I don't get to decide whether achild is objectively

(05:13):
psychologically safe.
That's not my choice.
I don't get to move thefurniture around, put soft
furnishings in, play music, andsuddenly their whole life is
fine because maybe it isn't.
Maybe home is very difficult.
Maybe they just had an argumentwith their best friend on the
way into school.
Maybe, maybe, maybe there's amillion different things
impacting on their ability tolisten to me wax lyrical about

(05:37):
French grammar.
And so I just becameincreasingly more interested in
this work.
And then when I left teaching,I ended up working in a refugee
camp for about six months inCalais, in Europe.
And then it became really themost important thing because
their nervous systems, thepeople that I met, their nervous

(06:00):
systems were so dysregulated,they were genuinely in actual
fight flight, really trulyrunning away from lions and
tigers and monsters that weretrying to kill them.
And so that's when it allreally came together.
The understanding that it's notan add-on, it's not something

(06:21):
you can do as an extra lesson.
This is a fundamental part ofbeing a human.
And if we address it early on,then people can grow up being
able to always learn in a moreeffective way, whatever they
choose, even when it'schallenging, even when it feels
scary, they know how to managethose feelings inside themselves

(06:43):
and keep going.

So my brain is going in two directions right
now because we spend not a lotof time in Calais, but we
regularly go to Calais becausewe go to England via the tunnel.
And uh so I'm dead curiousabout your time there because it
has such a weird vibe.

(07:07):
It's such a horrifying realityhiding in the shadows and coming
there with my all my privilegebecause I'm going somewhere
where I want to go, and I canbecause I've got all the right
papers and the right skin color.
It just is very confrontingevery time we go, and we always

(07:27):
become it sounds horrid to saycurious, so the word is not
exactly right, but in a way weare, but with a lot of empathy,
with a lot of what is this?
And yet we're not there towork, we're we're just passing
through, but we do spend atleast 24 hours because we travel

(07:49):
with dogs, so we have to havethem the worm pill, and then we
have to spend 24 hours before wecan go to England, and we just
it's just we're talking aboutnervous system now, and we
wanted to talk about gut feelingand intuition, feel it in your
bones, yeah, and yet on thesurface it's it's not there.

(08:11):
They tore down the camps, youcan't see it.
We all pretend we don't see it.
So maybe should we talk alittle bit about that?

Yeah, how was it to work then?

You want to?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm happy to.
Uh, it's been a long time, it'slike 10 years ago now.
Um that can I ask, was thatwhen there still was big
permanent camps?
It had just started.
When I got there, there werearound 2,000 people.
When I left six months later,there were 10,000 people, so it
really expanded quickly.

(08:42):
Um real permanent camps.
No, they were never realpermanent camps, but it was only
ever an unofficial camp.
So there's a like wastelandjust next door to the port that
would have been a rubbish dump,like a municipal tip, toxic
wasteland.
And so people had started togather there with a few tents

(09:05):
and a few bits and pieces.
There's nothing there, and thenit just slowly grew as more and
more people arrived.
And so there were never any bigNG, no Oxfam, no, no one was
there.
And so in that space, justhumanitarians went.
So I went because I wasshouting at the television.

(09:30):
So years previously, I had donewhat lots of school teachers
do, got my children together,all their winter clothes, got my
community together, winterclothes, and we sent them off
to, I think, Afghanistan tointernally displaced refugees
for the winter.
And then years later, like acouple of years later, I'm
watching the news, and I justsuddenly had this vision of

(09:51):
these young people, three yearslater, now walking towards me in
my children's clothes that I'dsent to Afghanistan, and that
hadn't done that, they werestill coming.
And I just had this sense thatthere needed to be more.
And I remember saying, like,why isn't anybody doing anything
about this?
Why hasn't something happenedfurther down the pathway that

(10:14):
means that people aren't havingto send their children to do
these terribly difficultjourneys to Europe to look for
safety?
And I and it just suddenlydawned on me that I was a
someone and maybe sendingjumpers wasn't enough.
Oh, she's just hating when thathappens.
Oh, right?
Me doing it.
Yeah.
Like, who am I waiting for?

Yeah.

Who am I waiting for?
Like, and so with my just youknow, logical mind that, well,
I've got some time because I'veleft teaching to go into
education consultancy, andthat's like tumbleweed.
Nobody wants to pay me for mythoughts.
Um, and I'm a I'm a mom.
I had a teenage son at thattime, and I thought, if I had to

(10:58):
send him, who would I want himto be received by?
What's the energy that I wouldwant him to meet?
God, it still makes me feelemotional.

Yeah.

Um, and I I wanted somebody's mom to give
him a hug and tell him that itwould be okay.
So I thought, well, I can dothat.
I can give mom hugs and I canspeak French.
So they're in France.
I can give mom hugs, I can bepractical, and I can help them
learn to speak French.
And it with my naive view ofthe world, that will be of

(11:30):
benefit.
And I got there to visitbecause I didn't want to just
assume what people needed.
I wanted to meet them and say,like, what can we do to be
helpful?
And that was when I don't know,I just I had this really
life-changing moment.
I'm a bit of an airhead, and Ileft my backpack behind in one

(11:57):
of the camps, and it had mypassport, it had everything.
It had my passport, it had mymoney, had all my stuff in.
And so I went back to look forit, and I got lost because the
camp at dusk didn't like nothingmade sense anymore.
And I found one area that Irecognized, and so I just stood

(12:19):
in a place and I started callingfor the people that I'd spoken
to earlier that day, justcalling a name into the void and
thinking this could be where Ilike this could be it for me.
This is like how stupid, how'sthis gonna play out in the Daily
Mail?
You know, like stupid blondeschool teacher wanders into

(12:40):
refugee camp in the middle ofthe night looking for her
passport, or at in dark lookingfor her passport, gets murdered.
And then this little personcomes out, and then I came in
and they brought me in, and itwas cold then.
It was like cold winter, youknow what it's like on the north
coast of Calais, it's like abitter wind.
And they brought me in andthey've got a fire going and

(13:02):
gave me a cup of sweet tea, andthey've found my backpack for
me, and everything was insideit.
Everything.
And so these terrible peoplethat get described who would
sooner, you know, all of thosethings that people say, there
was enough money in there forthem to probably get themselves
to safety, and there werepassports in there that could
have gotten them to safety.
And they just put my bagsomewhere safe and figured

(13:24):
they'd find me tomorrow, andthen they got me back to where
I'd left the others, and I justit was like something changed in
my heart.
Like I I felt it kind of crackopen, and I understood that I
don't know, people are peopleeverywhere.
I kind of knew that already,but I guess I didn't fully know

(13:48):
that, and so we talked a lotabout what what people needed,
and they were looking for sortof safe spaces to feel human
again.
It was cold, it was wet, it washard, and so we ended up.
I bought a double decker bus oneBay, and we turned it into a
into a school.

(14:08):
I asked a couple of peoplefirst if they'd give me an old
bus, and nobody would.
So I thought, well, how hardcan it be?
And I went on eBay, and itturns out it's not that hard.
They're like about £5,000.
So I made a fundraiser, and itwas just the right idea at the
right time, you know, it just itwas the right idea at the right

(14:29):
time, and people got behind it,and we bought a book and we
turned it into a mobile school,and it was all just volunteers,
just people like me trying to dotheir bit, and then we trained
volunteers, we designed atraining course all based around
self-regulation.
So understanding that even ifyou have no shared language and

(14:51):
no shared goal, necessarilythat's a long way in the future,
just spending time together andco-regulating is really
supportive.
So we did things like cookingtogether, making music together,
any of those things thatsyncopate your heartbeat and
your breath.
And so you get into the samerhythm of doing.

(15:11):
And so you would we wouldcreate a meal together and then
eat together, and that wouldlead to us slowly learning one
another's language a little bitand just re-humanizing, just
feeling like people sharing amoment in time.
So I look back on my time therevery fondly.
I still have friends who aresome still in France, they never
made it to the UK and they'vemade lives there now, and some

(15:34):
who then moved on to the UK, andwe're still in contact.
So, yeah, it was a very, a veryspecial moment in time.
It was the, you know, what'sthat, the best of times and the
worst of times.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, it's a crazy place.

And thank you for what you have done.
Crazy and impressive.

And it's it's so sad that it's still but at
that point people weren't goingacross in boats.
That was not happening, and nowit is.
Um, and that's just that's justa political decision to not
open a open a safe passage.
You they could just open a safepassage.
They could.

(16:17):
Choosing not to fly, just letthem fly.

All the refugees, just let them fly.

I mean that the money, the amount of money.
I mean, that was the crazything.
I was meeting young men, mostlyyoung men, obviously, because
they're the first one you send,right?
Yes, and they spoke four orfive languages.
Most of them had finished theirschooling.
I was like, hang on a minute,these are the most resourceful,
multilingual, determined youngmen on the planet, and we're

(16:44):
saying we don't need you.
That never made sense to me.

How can we circle back to the regulation?
Because you saw it there, youtalked about how even cooking
together, singing together,doing things together put you
into this sink of yourheartbeats and and your feelings
that help you co-regulate asyou described it.

(17:11):
Where I want to go is I think alot of people know how it is
when their nervous system is insuper defense mode.
Many people most likely live alife where they are on some sort
of stress level all the time.
So, what do we do to bring itdown where we can start relaxing

(17:36):
and start finding ourselvesagain and relearning what the
system is telling us?
Because I think there's twomajor problems.
One is we don't listen, and theother is if we listen, we put
the fear upon something elsethan maybe what is actually

(17:57):
wrong.

Part of the issue is you have like the level
of what's happening inside yournervous system, whether it's
overactivated, under like it'sswitched off, or whether it's
just ticking along nicely in themiddle, you know, like a car,
the engine's revving too hard,or it's conked out, or it's
running smoothly, right?
And then you have what you needto do today.

(18:20):
And so there's this sweet spotwhere they meet, right?
Where you're feeling reallywell regulated, open, you can
look people in the eye, you canchoose your words carefully,
you're not in a rush, you don'tfeel sluggish, everything's
really feeling good, and youhave to do something that needs
your brain power, but not toomuch of your physical energy,

(18:41):
and it meets beautifully.
This very rarely happens inlife.
And so what we tend to do is wehave two choices.
We can either try and changehow we feel, change what's going
on in our body.
So we can move our energy up ifwe have to do something that's
here, or we can bring our energydown if we have to do something

(19:04):
that's here, or we can changewhat we're going to do.
And that's the bit wherepeople's brains often explode.
They go, well, you can't changewhat you have to do because you
have to do this.
You have to get out of bed atseven and get on the bus at 7:30
and arrive to school by 8.30,and then you have to do math,
followed by English, followed byPE, whether you want to or not.
That's what's happening today.

(19:24):
So then we have this that ournervous systems are constantly
being jangled, pushed up, pulleddown, tried to make to meet
what's going to happen.
And so we're nearly always notin balance.
And so we feel that way.
So there's two things that wecan do to ourselves to make life
feel better.
One is be more flexible withwhat you plan to do as much as

(19:48):
possible.
Can you move things around tomeet your mood?
So if you wake up and you justfeel agitated and you have all
of this like energy in yourbody, right?
You can either go for a long,mindful walk, you can meditate,
you can sing, dance, shake itout of your body, or you can
clean out the cupboard under thestairs, right?

(20:09):
And take it out on the box ofthings that needs tidying up and
you know, chop some wood in thegarden.
So we we do have the power tomove these things around.
I think we've just forgottenthat we do, and we're not
mindful enough of what we cando.
So if you don't currently havethe freedom to rearrange your

(20:31):
whole life to fix your, to meetyour mood, then you've got to
look at how you change what'shappening inside your body and
how you feel.
And the good news is thatthat's all of the levers for
doing that are baked into yourhuman body already.
So you can use movement.
So if you are feeling, so wehave a model that's like a

(20:54):
house.
So in the attic is all of thatfight-flight energy.
So you feel frustrated andagitated and fizzy and
constricted, and then down inthe basement is the faint and
freeze energy where you feel abit hopeless or helpless, or you
can't make a decision, you'rekind of stuck and frozen.

(21:15):
And so you can use your breathto move from one extreme to the
other and back into the middlejust by taking two inhales and
one long out exhale.
It's called a physiologicalsigh.
So you breathe in twice.
If you do that two or threetimes, it will bring your

(21:36):
nervous system down reallyquickly.
If you want to speed up yournervous system, you can breathe
quickly through your nose.
Like you're panting, butthrough your nose.
And that will bring you, bringyou up.
And what it does is it connectsyour mind to your body quite
quickly.
Um, if you are feelingcompletely in the grip of a

(21:59):
panic attack, you're about tohave a panic attack, and you
can't even, you don't even knowthat you're breathing, and
that's too much to choose yourbreath.
You can do something like afive, four, three, two, one
technique.
It's like five things I cansee.

Just name five things (22:12):
a pillow, a thing, a weight, my
computer, my legs.
And then four things that youcan hear.
Three things that you cantouch, two things that you can
smell, and one thing that youcan taste.
And it just brings you backfrom the brink of sort of losing

(22:34):
control and going into a panicattack and spiraling, and it
brings you back into your body.
It's like, I'm here, I'm alive,there are things around me,
it's okay.
And then you can take a bigdeep breath.
And then you can slowly bringyourself, bring your body back
into feeling regulated.
And there are hundreds oftechniques like this, and lots

(22:56):
of them are woven into thingslike yoga, things like
mindfulness, things like taichi, like all of these things
have been woven into practicesover time to support human
flourishing and feeling well.
And now we have words todescribe it.
I think there is a need.

I'm just wondering, even maybe we even
need to talk about one stepbefore that, the step where you
realize, oh, I'm off, I'mworking on fear, or I'm actually
too overwhelmed to make gooddecisions, or I feel like that

(23:38):
happens to me, it happens topeople around me.
Somehow it's just a role, it'sjust it's like a train, it just
keeps going.
And this whole I think it'd benice to talk about the markers.
How do we know to stop?
Because it can also be a littlebit too much if it's every
three minutes you take deepbreaths and start thinking about

(23:58):
what you see, and you know, wealso have to be flowy.
Yeah.
When is it?
Let's say it's all good mostly,but sometimes we all some end
up in some weird mindset.
Where's the alarm?

So I say there's kind of three three
areas, three layers.
So one is I've just yelled atsomeone in the street, right?
That's not me.
I don't want to do that.
So there's that one, right?
You've lost it.
You've gone into defense mode,and the monster in you've come
out.
And so that's the point atwhich you need to take the big
breath, go for a walk, takeyourself away, calm down, go

(24:35):
back and apologize.
The next layer down is I feellike I could shout at someone
really soon.
Like you begin to feel, and soI taught when I do train, I do
training on this.
So it's everybody has what Icall a tell.
So you know, if you play pokerwith somebody or you spend a lot
of time with somebody, you knowif they're off or you know if

(24:57):
they're not telling the truth.
And so you can also read theirnervous system when you start to
get to know somebody.
And when you start to reallyobserve yourself, so I know that
if I can't look people in theeye really comfortably, if I
start talking at them over theirleft shoulder or something,
that my nervous system isdysregulated.

(25:19):
It doesn't necessarily meanthat it's something happening
right here, right now for me.
It might be that I haven't donemy tax return or there's a
phone call that I've forgottento return, or something on my
mental dashboard that I am notaware of, and my nervous system
knows it's going, Kate, there'ssomething you've forgotten, but
it's not loud enough for me toknow what it is.

(25:40):
It starts to play out in mybody.
So I then have to take that cueof not being able to look
people in the eye and go homeand go through my mental list of
what it is that I haven't doneor what I've forgotten.
So everybody has a tell.
When I'm feeling threatened bysomebody or something, my

(26:02):
language changes.
So I know that if I'm usingcolourful language that's not
very professional, if I'mswearing a lot more than I
usually would, that is a clue tome that I am feeling, I'm j I'm
feeling jangled.
I'm feeling that's my that's myfight energy coming through.

(26:23):
That's me saying, I'm scary,don't, don't mess with me,
right?
And I don't know why it doesthat, but that's what it does.
And there's a book which isbrilliant, which is called The
Chimp Paradox.
And it talks about exactlythis.
It's a fabulous model fordescribing your limbic system in

(26:44):
your brain.
And your limbic system has apersonality, it has a whole way
of behaving and being that youcan't necessarily control.
You don't get to choose what itdoes.
But if you understand what itdoes, if you understand that it
gets sweary, or it can't lookyou in the eye, or it needs to
go and have a lay down all thetime, or it starts wanting to

(27:07):
eat sugar, or whatever it is,however it manifests in you,
then you can start figuring outhow to manage it.
Like what does it need fromyou, the prefrontal cortex part
of you, to make it kind of feelrelaxed and calm again, which
allows you back into the drivingseat.
It's very subtle as to who isin the driving seat.

(27:28):
Like you said, you don't alwaysknow until you know.
But the more you observeyourself, the more you can begin
to see the behaviors creepingin.
And then the bottom layer ishow do I like you say, you can't
always be going through lifetaking a deep breath.
But actually, you can.

(27:49):
You can start each day with twominutes of breath work.
You can do so.
It's like it's like a like um,you know, that boiling a frog.
They not that this is actuallytrue, but people say that if you
put a frog in hot water, itwill jump straight out.
But if you put it in cold waterand slowly turn up the heat, it
will stay in the pot.

(28:09):
Have you heard that before?
Yeah, yeah.

It's probably not true, but it's a good
analogy.

It's not, I don't think it is true, but I
like it's a great analogy.
So life slowly turns the heatup on us, and if we don't notice
and turn it down, we end upboiling over.
So there are things that youcan do, like take your shoes off
more often than you would thinkthat you want to, take a

(28:35):
mindful breath, things likepracticing yoga, things like
reading a book the hour beforeyou go to bed, just all of these
little things that bring yournervous system down and stop it
from just slowly ramping up.
They're all really helpful.

Sorry that getting to know yourself really
is the clue.
And so, as in many otherthings, there's no quick fix.
I'm still curious to I mean,you and I can easily agree, but
maybe what if this is not yourthing?

(29:14):
You haven't really done itbefore, and you kind of just
want to know.
So, okay, there's no sharedalarm button or lamp.
For you, it could be language,for me it could be stomach ache,
for him, it could be I don'tknow, something for me
personally.
My eyesight goes, I just can'tsee when I'm too overwhelmed.

(29:36):
It's a very clear thing.
I need to sit down now becauseI can't see.
But anyway, it's different foreveryone.
And yeah, get to know the telltakes time.
So you have to make yourmistakes, shout at someone in
the street, realize okay, butwhat went before that?
What went before that?
Could I have seen it coming?
Could I have done something toprevent this?

(29:58):
Yeah, that's a

lot of introspection not everyone loves
doing that so is there simplerit's really hard to do it to
someone you have to do it toyourself yeah so you can
co-regulate you can co-regulatewith someone so the easiest way

(30:23):
that you see this is parenting atoddler for example so a
toddler is having a tantrumbecause they can't get something
whatever it is and so therewill be parents who try and
squash the behavior so theyforce the child out of the attic
down into the basement rightthey squash the behavior with

(30:45):
fear if you carry on doing thatsomething worse is coming for
you and the fear of thesomething worse stops the
behavior instantly because theirnervous system drops into the
basement right they drop intoexistential threat.
I think parents don't realizethat that's what they're doing.
I'm going to be generous andsay parents don't realize that's
what they're doing.
It's hope and that's whatthey're doing.

(31:05):
And then you'll see a differentparent who will drop down to
the child's level and just bethere in connection with the
meltdown.
And they'll hold the energythey'll hold safety around the
child because the world feelsunsafe because the thing that
they thought they were going toget they didn't get and it feels

(31:26):
like the world is collapsing.
And they hold the space forthem and then very quickly the
child can collapse into theparent's arms you can have a big
hug feel better the sobbingcomes right and then the big
breath comes that's they'redoing it naturally they're
regulating their own systemnaturally do you know what I
mean when that the shudder soband then the big breath and then

(31:49):
when all of that is passed theparent can have a conversation
about you know you can't alwayshave chocolate but it's okay.
Like it was a big feeling andit didn't feel good when we said
no but you're going to be okayand another day in the future I
will be able to say yes andthere will be a day that that
chocolate appears again.
And that's co-regulation.

(32:09):
They're sitting with the bigfeeling they're not trying to
change it they're holding it andneutralizing it because they're
you imagine like a lighthouseeverybody's like a lighthouse
and you're radiating somethingout.
And so if the child isradiating out panic and fear and
anger and the parent does thesame then you're just filling up

(32:34):
the world right between the twois this fight this energy.
If the parent radiates out I'vegot all day let it come I can
take it it will wash over me ittakes the power out of it quite
quickly and it can come down.
In an ideal world you wouldwant that relationship to evolve
so that the child knows thatwhen the big feeling passes and

(32:57):
the sob goes they can managethemselves and then slowly
slowly over time you don't getthat far.
But there's I don't I thinkyou're right I don't think there
if there were a quick fixsomebody would have figured it
out by now written a book on itand no one would ever have any
trouble again.

I think it's I my suspicion is that the Dalai
Lama is is working away you knowunderneath underneath the robes
and the and the peacefulexterior some days he probably
wakes up a bit pissed off tooand he has to do something about
that like he has to take aninternal action to not act upon

(33:33):
what's happening inside his bodyI will though still say what
about just paying attentionthat's something everyone can do
I feel like I have a goodhandful of friends who would
find it really annoying if Itold them to do breath work and
yoga and read a book beforebedtime and have herbal tea and

(33:56):
all the things they would belike yeah you do you you know
and shut up which is fair youknow I'm just thinking in my
experience a lot comes from justpaying attention just if taking
away from listening to thispodcast just is to put a sticky
note on the fridge saying what'smy tell and it will sit there

(34:16):
until something come covers itbecause it's more important.
But that will give that back ofthe mind maybe just attention
to hmm what comes right beforethings go wrong.
That's basically it what comesright before I feel like a swear
word.

(34:36):
Yeah maybe we don't all have tojournal and do breath work in
the morning and yoga at thebeach and what maybe we can also
I'm just there's a milliondifferent ways to do it.

Really as many as you can think of so there's
five keys in the model that Ione of the models that I like to
use and they spell the wordmates.
So it stands for mind.
So anything that you do withyour mind.
So we do exercises in thetraining and one of them is you
sit in a chair and you call tomind a challenging situation.

(35:10):
So maybe somebody cut you up intraffic recently or you had an
argument with somebody in yourfamily that's not resolved,
right?
Something that and you call itto mind and it instantly for
lots of people they can feeltheir heart rate change they can
feel their body tense they canfeel their jaw go tight they
pull their feet closer intotheir body as if they're gonna

(35:31):
be able to run away right theyfeel their body change and
everybody goes around the circleand they all say all the things
that happened in their body andthen there's always one person
who says didn't feel a thing Idon't know what you're talking
about.
I could play that and I couldplay that difficult situation
like a movie in my head it hadzero impact on my body they are

(35:53):
so dissociated they just live intheir head and they've probably
not got much awareness of anyof the subtle cues in their body
at all they're not tuned in thetwo are not connected and so
that's really hard often you'llask people who are like that
where are your feet I know itsounds like a silly question but

(36:14):
they have to look like theyliterally don't know where their
body is in physical space.
And so if that's who they areand they're very cerebral and
they're like oh God yoga do Ilook like I could do yoga then
they're going to need to usesome kind of mental exercise to

(36:34):
get themselves back into theirbody.
So there aren't you can startin different places.
So you've got mind air is thebreath tea is for tree like
rooting things like like pushingyour body down into the ground
like grounding express usingyour words so that can be
journaling art but getting thefeeling out of your body into

(36:57):
words changes the form of it andyou move it through your body
and then stretch.
So anything that makes you takeup more physical space or get
moving.
And so everybody will havedifferent things that they can
use.
So something like yoga ishelpful just because it combines
a few of them.
So you get quite a lot for yourbuck.
But if being really quiet andslow moving is the most painful

(37:20):
thing in the universe thensomebody else it might be
something really physical likeboxing running.
That's why you see people whoget almost addicted to severe
physical exercise becausethey're on this constant loop of
trying to get rid of energy andoverwhelm sensations in their
body that running is a reallygood way for them to get rid of

(37:44):
but if you do it knowinglymindfully and as you are running
as fast as you can say and thisis for that idiot who cut me up
at the thing and this is forthat boss that never liked me
and this is for the firstboyfriend that dumped me right
all of those feelings that arestuck in your body you're
releasing them as you run.

That's more helpful than just running I like
him when I was really young Ishared an apartment with two
friends we had the system thatwe would go to the thrift store
and get us a big stack of reallycheap plates really cheap just
the random half broken ones wehad them in a pile right inside

(38:27):
of the kitchen in the firstcupboard and when we got really
really annoyed with somethingwhich well I I can I I get
easily annoyed I also get easilyover it um more easily now that
I'm 50 than back then when Iwas 17 or whatever we would go
into the kitchen grab a plateand throw it to the other end of

(38:50):
the kitchen just get the angerout and someone else one of the
two others would clean it up.
It was a standard rule okay wehad that compassion for each
other that you could get it outbut you didn't have to go get
broom after if someone hadsmashed a plate in the kitchen
it was because it was seriousand there was a serious annoying

(39:11):
thing going on and you justneeded it out and it was
actually really great.
Obviously it didn't happen allthe time actually just knowing
that you got that stack at home.
Yeah go home and break a platethat would was even just
imagining last time I did itwould help me when I got really
annoyed with something.
Yeah then I didn't let it outin the moment because I had a

(39:35):
fuse basically it was great.

That's it that and that would be under M,
right?
It's like a helpful thought thehelpful thought is I know that
this is going to pass and if itdoesn't and I still feel this
angry in half an hour I cansmash a plate when I get home
and I don't have to clean it upI don't even have to clean it up
yeah and that's enough that'senough for you to stay in the

(39:58):
challenging moment beingchallenged by it knowing that
you're challenged by it but notlosing control.
That's self-regulation havingan awareness so we have a a
framework and it starts withself-awareness self-regulation
self-management right sonoticing that something's
impacting on you noticing thatthere's a feeling from that

(40:21):
impact choosing how you respondto that impact rather than just
swearing or smashing or doingwhatever in the moment and then
self-expression so talking itthrough understanding it
understanding that pattern andthen self-reflection what does
it mean like where are the whereare there regular patterns in
my life that all look a bit likethis and is there something

(40:43):
that I can do about that andthen self-direction what do I
want to do next and then it goesround and round.
So you just get used to beingmore aware taking more notice
and going well not everybodybehaves not everybody reacts in
the way that I react so maybethere are more choices out there
for me and I just need to learna few more skills and then

(41:06):
maybe I won't be the angryperson or the sad person or the
nervous person or the boringperson or the whatever it is
right because my behaviors arebeing dictated by my nervous
system and not by my choices.
Kate as people can hear youraccent and I would like to tease

(41:27):
the British a little then whatyou're describing is not my
stereotypical crit no they'reused to just shoving it below
the carpet all of it okay whatwhat made generalization going
on there yes I love togeneralize there's some there's
some history with you know yeahbut still yeah but what what led

(41:53):
you to this path of workingwith these things and exploring
them in your life my justwatching all the things that get
in the way of human beingsbeing able to have joyful
peaceful connected relationshipsand whether that's two
four-year-olds in a playgroundor two 14 year olds or two 40

(42:18):
year olds in a marriage or twostrangers on a bus it's like the
way that we misunderstand eachother causes so much pain in the
world and when thatmisunderstanding is happening on
a world stage it you end upwith atrocities like we're

(42:38):
seeing now and atrocities likeyou know young people having to
walk halfway across the world tobelieve that they're gonna feel
safe when they get there and tothen arrive and realize they're
not safe here either.
And to know that we have thecapacity to choose to feel safe
if we just know how to do itthat feels really important to

(43:01):
me.
Like I can be objectivelyunsafe but feel safe inside my
own body I can be objectivelyvery safe and feel completely
anxious and unsafe and like I'mon the verge of a panic attack
every day.
And that's down to me.
Like I actually do have thepower to understand what's

(43:23):
happening inside my body and andto do something about it.
I can't stop what's happeningin the world I can't stop
somebody driving at me intraffic I can't control what's
going on around me but I cancontrol how quickly that
challenging moment passes andhow well I deal with it.

That's very powerful if you can one thing
I've noticed this might have tobe the last bit because I've got
class is that one mistake thatwe make over and over both of us
is if there's discomfort somesort of irregulation noise

(44:06):
something's off we try to fix itbefore we regulate the emotion
that's a mistake I mean I knowit you don't have to tell me I
shouldn't do it but I still doit try to fix the thing before I
fix myself and for me that's aquite general red flag or if I'm

(44:26):
not balanced and I'm trying todo things it's usually a really
bad idea.
Even though the thing mightstill be quite chaotic it's
better that I find my peacebefore I act unless it's really
urgent obviously sometimesthings actually don't have two
seconds to wait.

Yeah if the if the house is on fire you want to
just jump out the window rightlike you you don't want to take
a breath and think about it toomuch.
No.
But most things in life so wedo this we do an exercise in the
training and it's like we havea an elastic cord the magical
invisible cord that you can seebecause it's an exercise and one

(45:07):
person jangles it really hardand the other person is holding
it and we're in the middle oftraining so we've been talking
about this for two days rightand instantly your nervous
system has a reaction instantlynow it either has a reaction
where you pull at it and you tryand shut them down control it

(45:28):
hold it push the annoyance backor people go floppy and try and
get away from it or they kind ofcheck out and they smile and
pretend that they can be thereall day.
But you watch it happen reallyquickly that they go into this
defensive mode straight awaythey still look like them
they're smiling they're doingsomething but not too much

(45:49):
because they know they're ondisplay but you can see it's
their nervous system.
And then we do it againstraight away afterwards and I
say use the five keys of mates Iwant you to think a helpful
thought I want you to take adeep breath I want you to move
your feet further apart I wantyou to soften your legs and be
able to go with the flow have alittle bit of movement and then

(46:11):
you watch how quickly it shiftsand it normally takes three to
four breaths that's it and soyou're talking 30 seconds is the
difference between screaming atyour kid just get your shoes
and get in the car nah right oractually darling is there

(46:34):
something that I can do thatwill help you get into the car
so that we can get to school ontime right and it's just it's
like 30 seconds and we've nearlyalways got 30 seconds the house
is never really on fire we justour nervous system believes
it's on fire because that's howwe're wired yeah but we do the

(46:56):
mistakes anyway all the time ormany of us I remember Cecilia
and I when the kids were smalleroften talking about that not in
being in a place where we couldregulate ourselves ended up
taking longer time because thenyou ended up maybe yelling off
the children and then you neededto clean up all the emotional

(47:20):
liftover of that it's like okayso I actually got I was late at
work because I was the idiotinstead of just embracing the
child and the feelings.

I think many many people know this feeling and
what I would like now Kate is toinvite people who would love to
know more about the trainingyou're doing and first of all I
would say you should also listento the whole other episode we
have with Kate where we talkabout the hive and all those
things but here now if peoplewant to know about the work you

(47:54):
do in this area can you sharewhere they can learn more about
it and what it is you do forpeople yeah so the the whole
organization is calledthehumanhive.org and so if you
go onto the website there youcan see the different things
there's an online course thatyou can do about which is all

(48:15):
about this about how to be achange maker so how to change
things in your family life or inthe way that whether you want
to be a volunteer whatever it isthat you want to do where you
want to make change or you canbook you can book training with
us depends whether you're anindividual person or an
organization.

So I've got a group coming to Dominican
Republic to do the training withme at the end of next week
actually so you can we can cometo you or you can come to me or
you can do it online.

Wonderful but piece of options yes once again
thank you for your time it was abig pleasure hanging out with
you and I have food for thoughtswhich is why I love making
these podcasts I I I grow everytime it's wonderful.

Yeah stop and breathe yes if you get annoyed
yeah stop and breathe like andmy daughter now makes me do it
when I'm overwhelmed and I'vestopped breathing she holds my
hands and she says breathe and Ido that thing I go I'm too busy
not now and she says no nowright because I I I've got

(49:24):
myself into a flap because nolike it's not like knowing this
stuff makes you immune to lifelike I say yes to too many
things I get too busy I run outof time and I'm panicked looking
for my keys and my daughtersays just breathe and I go on I
can't I've got to go so breatheand then you'll remember where
they are and I'm like oh damnshe's right if I breathe I'll
remember where I put my keysbecause then you know the what

(49:47):
happens is the front of yourbrain comes back online.
It's not online when you're ina panic so you can't think so
there you go.
That's what happens yourchildren co-regulate with you
after a while.

But isn't that great I think it happens with
friends as well sometimes youpassed some information or some
technique or some something fiveyears ago and suddenly this
friend is saying oh you taughtme this and you go did I but you
really needed it back at thatmoment.
It's a little bit the samedynamic happens to me quite
often indeed yeah okay we cankeep chatting or we could let's

(50:23):
end the episode say goodbye whenwe say goodbye.

Yes thanks a lot for your time it was a pleasure
hanging out with you.

Yeah it was very nice.

Thank you for having me.
It's lovely talking to you

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Kate McAllister | Nervous System Regulation: From Reaction to Response

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Kate McAllister | Nervous System Regulation: From Reaction to Response