Transcript:

Emma: Welcome to Positive Disintegration: A Path to Authenticity. This episode is the second episode of a two-part conversation, and Chris and I are again talking to Autum Romano about polyvagal theory and how our nervous system plays a part in our development and relationships. We delve into personal examples of polyvagal theory, neuroception and sensitivity to the states of others, PDA, creating cues of safety, and top-down and bottom-up ways to help us regulate our nervous systems.

Hello, lovely listeners. This is the second part of our conversation with Autum Romano on polyvagal theory. At the end of the last episode, Autum was talking about polyvagal theory informing how we interact in relationships, particularly during arguments or disagreements. This episode picks up the thread of the conversation, and Chris brings up the topic of picking up the energy of others.

Chris: That's a great point, and it actually is leading me to bring up something that I feel is connected here. I'm at a fork in the road—in one direction I want to ask this question of personal energy, and then the other road is: don't let me forget about PDA in this conversation.

But I think these things are connected because one thing I've learned in adulthood that I've really been paying attention to in recent years is how much I can detect people's energy, how much it impacts me, and how careful I have to be about my connections with people virtually or in person. I'm very sensitive to energy. I feel it really strongly, and I realize now how much that impacts my interactions with people and my emotional regulation. I didn't realize that when I was young. If someone who's very upset sits down next to me—before I was aware of this, I might start thinking that I was really anxious or there was something really wrong with me because I'm picking up on their energy. Now that I know this, I'm like, “Ah, shields up on this.” But it's the kind of thing if you don't know that you need to do that, it dysregulates you too.

Autum: Yeah, absolutely. Neuroception is detection without awareness. This is how the body is picking up cues of threat or cues of safety. If another person's body is in a protection mode, your body is going to neurocept that. I think we're still learning about the neurodivergence of that. We know that autistic folks have greater neuroception—not always the same for all people—and like you said, Chris, you have a wide neuroceptive field.

I also have a wide neuroceptive field. Sometimes there are certain things—for me, I know I'm very acoustically sensitive. It's one of the ways I can know if I'm in more general dysregulation versus acute. Say you wake up and your nervous system isn't as resilient that day as another day—for me, I'll have what they call hyperacusis, some sound sensitivities. That's one of the ways I know I'm struggling a little bit more. My poor husband—it's always him. It's always like, “Oh, he's got the spoon again with the bowl.” The way he scrapes bowls with his spoons will get to me.

But say I have to go to the store. If I bring my noise-canceling headphones and I'm listening to music that really helps support my nervous system, I can change my neuroceptive field a bunch just by being in control of my sound environment. Does that make sense?

Chris: Yes. I've never done that at the store, but I can say that at home, I pretty much live in headphones. If I'm in my office or just working, or if I'm not engaging with somebody else—I don't wear them if I'm around my husband or my son. But yeah, sometimes I do.

Autum: It's really interesting. There are so many things. Our sensory integration system is totally dependent—it's the foundation of how our sensory integration system in our brain works, built on what our autonomic nervous system is doing. If your body is in connection mode, your sensory integration system is going to work better; it will filter out more of your sensory environment. If your body is already in protection mode, it will filter out less of the sensory environment.

Our ears function differently whether we're in connection mode or protection mode. Being able to influence our neuroceptive field just a tiny bit is really powerful. Being aware of that—we were both talking about preparing for our interview today. Sometimes it's a simple meditation, but really it's mindfulness. For someone, that might be just being in a shower. A shower is one of the ways to help shift our autonomic nervous system state. For someone else, it could be listening to their favorite song, or sitting in their favorite chair and looking out the window, or reading a book.

There are different ways we can singularly understand ourselves before we come into a relational experience with another person. Then we can start to understand how we're impacted.

Emma: That's a really good point. Chris, when you were talking about being very sensitive to other people's emotional states, I'm also thinking to myself: yeah, and you're also very intense too. I often think that about myself. I'm sensitive to other people's states, but if I've got emotional overexcitability, my emotions feel really loud to me. I know for a fact from feedback from other people, they're loud to everybody else as well. I'm shouting at a thousand decibels emotionally at people.

It's not just about being conscious of your own sensitivity to other people's emotional states, but also saying: if I'm hearing everything on that frequency, perhaps I'm also projecting that frequency as well. I had to do a lot of work getting out of my own headspace and going from “I'm sensitive to this and other people are impacting me this way” to “Hang on, have you thought about the other people around you too and how you are impacting them?” Again, it comes back to focusing on the relationship part of it.

When you get more into that space of “How am I making the other person feel as well?” it does something to you. I think it's because you're trying to force yourself into that green space where everything just becomes a lot easier all of a sudden, because you've gone into that curiosity space. You force yourself there.

Chris: But don't you realize that what you're describing right now is overexcitabilities operating as dynamisms and taking you to where you need to be? This is what he meant when he said that overexcitabilities or this intensity is the tragic gift.

It's interesting—there have been so many things about the theory going through my head while we've been talking about this. One of them is overcoming this propensity we have to react in one way and learning how to manage that and live in harmony internally and bring it under control. This is the whole thrust of the theory and moving into a multilevel state, which is in connection. Emotional overexcitability is tied to relationships, and it's absolutely what we've been talking about—the power of connection. It literally is powerful.

Like you said, Autum, it has an impact on your health, on your wellbeing to be in connection. This is an undeniable, obvious fact. Learning how to move into connection is huge, but if you don't have safe people in your environment to connect with, it can feel like torture. That's the problem.

Autum: You can't—it's so sad, but you cannot do this by yourself. It's not like you have faulty wiring.

Chris: That's right.

Autum: If you think about a kid—thank God, Chris, you had people you could rage against that could hold that for you.

Chris: Oh, totally. But those are the people who—years later, in our episode on autoethnography, I'm sure I've talked about this—11 years ago now, when I was first exploring my past as a researcher and interviewing people who knew me when I was young, it's exactly what you said, Emma. They were like, “You're so intense.” For the first time in my life, I woke up to the fact that I was intense, and I was like 40. Which is hilarious. I remember this one teacher was like, “Listen, you are intense. When you were a kid, you were so intense. On a scale of one to 10, you were a 10.” I was unaware of how different that was. So discovering the theory, when I saw this book Living With Intensity, I laughed and was like, “Ha, who knew there was a manual about this?”

You have to learn how to be in relationships. A lot of the work with Michael—when I talk about Michael as a mentor, you're wrong if you think it's just about intellectual work and studying a theory. So much of it has been the relationship and learning how to be a person with him. Because he's so safe that I could work through all these dynamisms with him. It's amazing. He really can tolerate me without making me feel bad about it too. Whereas everybody else—nobody meant to be like, “You're too much, Chris,” but they couldn't handle me, and that's what they said time and time again. They couldn't cope with me. Michael has been able to cope with me, and my husband too. There are a few people in the world who can, but it's a lot.

This is what overexcitability is all about. That's why people misunderstand it. I think there are levels of overexcitability, not only developmentally where they're impacting you differently, but of different degrees of intensity. I know I'm extremely intense, and part of it is my profound giftedness and my intellect. It's really hard to be this way. I realize that I really intimidate people. This is a tragic gift—to be this way and also be unapproachable in some ways. Now that I have a safe nervous system, it's much better for people to try and be close to me.

Autum: Well, I'm guessing that's the less tragic part of the current gift—that you can hold that capacity. I'm guessing when you're at camp with the kids too, you're not easily dysregulated by any intensity.

Chris: It's changed my life to be able to be the way I am now. And I'm still growing. It's not like I've reached some endpoint. I'm constantly learning better ways to operate my body and live in it.

I realize now that part of my personal challenge in life has been to live in my body and live in the present moment. My whole life until the past 10 years, I wasn't living in my body or in the moment. I was living in another world in my head. Now I live in the moment.

Autum: It's so beautiful.

Chris: It's amazing.

Autum: Right? That kind of integration is—to me, that's what we're here to do.

Chris: Yes, definitely.

Autum: To build moments of integration. It's interesting—when you were talking about this intensity, I studied the neurobiology of shame, and we talked about how for children, when they have a caregiver that gets dysregulated by their emotions, that is the birthplace of shame in that child's body.

As we grow and learn to understand ourselves, it's a really big deal that we can build capacity and resilience to hold space for people who are maybe generally intense or having moments of intensity, and be able to hold that for them and be okay.

I think about this difference between: is it a threat or not? Especially if you think about children—if a child is having a big response, maybe because of OEs, can we just let that happen without that saying anything about us? A lot of times in a caregiver situation, if you have a child that is having big behavior and that's not understood…

Let's say—this is a good segue into PDA—if you have a kiddo that fits a PDA profile and they're not wanting, they're not able to meet any demands placed on them, and they're like, “No, no, no, no, no.” Say you're out in public and the kid is like “no,” you can have that caregiver, that parent, be triggered by that and then respond to that.

If we're going to think about neuroception, if they become dysregulated, then that child is only going to be getting more cues of threat. They're getting it from the environment; now they're getting it from their caregiver. If you're able to stay regulated and rooted, but hold that for someone and not let it upend your sense of safety, that is—I'm guessing—what dynamisms are?

When you're talking, Chris, about you and Michael, that's what's happening. We're talking about two adults, but it is that dynamic between two people. When we're able to move into that place where we can hold that for another person who's having an intense experience and let that not dysregulate us—so we're not increasing this neuroceptive field of threat—then it changes everything for the other person. For us too, but for the other person who's struggling.

Chris: Yeah, it's really interesting to me because when you think about it, the neurological exam was part of Dabrowski's method. He was assessing developmental level that way—he could do his neurological exam and tell you where someone was developmentally based on what he was observing in their exam.

When I meet somebody, I can tell a lot about where they are developmentally by their nervous system and how they are able to connect with me. If I find I can't connect with someone energetically, it's usually because there's something keeping us from being able to connect authentically.

I realize now that part of what I consider authenticity is an emotional honesty and an ability to be in the moment and face reality. But not everybody can do that.

Autum: Well, but that's that integration you're talking about.

Chris: So, PDA—I was at the PDA North America conference earlier this month, and I was so happy to see how much they were talking about the nervous system in sessions that I was in and in discussion sessions too. It was an interesting format—one day it was more presentations, and then the next day was discussions around topics. It wasn't a lot of new information for me.

PDA—pathological demand avoidance. We haven't really talked about it on the podcast yet, but I identify as a PDAer. This is something I've figured out. I personally prefer “pervasive drive for autonomy.”

But the things we've been talking about, these things are all connected for me. My very sensitive nervous system is a part of being a PDAer—at least that's how it seems to me. Even being at that conference, it was so interesting to be around a bunch of other people who identify as PDAers because they're intense. We all have this intensity. Autum, it's so interesting to me because your family is a family that I know resonates with PDA.

Autum: Yeah, I definitely can't speak as an expert on this, but I've been thinking about it for a few years. My current thoughts on PDA are that it's a very precise balance—there's a different neuroceptive field. I think those bodies are even more than is typical tuned to cues of threat or danger from the environment.

That might be sensory, that might be people. A lot of times we think about people's energy as being the big thing we notice, but we don't know how much of it is sensory until we start being able to change or control or impact our sensory environment. It can be sounds, it could be temperature, it can be light—all of that is sensory information that might be overloading the nervous system, and then it comes out as behavior.

What I'm guessing is that some of it can be more anatomical. For instance, with autism, there's just more neuronal development. Autistic neurons—this is part of the intense world theory—autistic neurons respond more to input. Just that will change your interoceptive field. But I do think what we're noticing with someone who has PDA tendencies is that when you say “persistent demand for autonomy”—I want to come up with a clever way to say that we need to really prioritize cues of safety.

Because we're so focused on behavior. But if we focus on really prioritizing cues of safety specific to each body, I'm guessing that body that has a tendency for PDA will have a little bit more flexibility and resilience if we're prioritizing cues of safety.

Chris: Yeah. I'm thinking about PDA—I'm looking at the page now because I have notes, because I'm actually going to be starting a PDA podcast with Marni Kammersell. We're calling it PDA: Resistance and Resilience. I'm looking at the notes she made because Marni knows so much more about PDA than I do, even though I've known for a while that I'm a PDAer since discovering it. It's another one of those things like non-binary where when I learned about it, I was like, “Oh yes, that's me.”

PDAers experience a lack of autonomy in everyday perceived demands as inherently debilitating in their lives. That's me. It's debilitating for me to not have autonomy in situations. School was debilitating for me. I could not operate like a normal student and just do what I was told in class. I realized now that my giftedness really helped me navigate school because they just let me read or write or whatever. I was very intellectual, so I was pretty easy to deal with. It was like, “Here's a computer, program all day,” fine. They just accommodated me intellectually, so I didn't really have real issues in school. I didn't want to be there necessarily. I didn't have a lot of friends when I was young until I was in middle school.

Another thing is that PDAers are pretty adept socially. They use it to their advantage in order to cope with this debilitating issue. It's hard to explain, but for me, I was really social once I figured it out. But part of figuring out being social for me was being a real wise ass and class clown. I had to really betray myself in order to be friends with other kids when I was young, because intellectually I was so advanced. I was in another world, living in my mind. I always wondered, “God, why am I so different and why am I struggling so much?” Then I'm like, “Oh well, I'm gifted and PDA,” and now I realize that I identify as AuDHD. How did I not know I was autistic until I was like 50?

Autum: But when you're talking about how the struggle is a little bit different as you start to come into yourself in middle school, we're talking about autonomy and sovereignty. I still feel like it fits with this theory that I have—it's about prioritizing safety. Maybe safety isn't the right word, but if we're just going to use polyvagal terms, it's still: what works for you? Anytime a PDAer gets to be in charge more, they have autonomy. Because what they're going to do is prioritize whatever is easier for their body. And that's always going to be safety and connection, I'm guessing. If you researched people and went down to it, that's what would be at the bottom.

Chris: Well, this is the perfect example. What did I do? I would forge connections with these trusted adults that I had. I would have teachers that I connected with and I would end up having lunch with them. In my senior year of high school, I seriously had lunch every day with this teacher. He wasn't even my teacher. It's hilarious. He was the city's drug prevention coordinator. But I was the president of students against drugs while also—drugs were my special interest. I liked to get high, and I was full of contradictions like that.

Autum: But you were doing research?

Chris: I was always doing research.

Autum: Gathering intel.

Chris: And I always had adults who I could be in a relationship with, who I felt like they cared about me and I cared about them, and those relationships were lifesaving to me. I cannot emphasize enough—in high school, the vice principal, I would go to his office and hang out with him. He loved to talk to me, and so I interviewed him too during the autoethnography.

It was fascinating to hear what these people said about me. They just knew what to do, but they also found it overwhelming and a burden, some of them. The pressure of that was a lot.

But this is the PDA thing too. You can tell from the parents at the conference how intense it is to be the parent of a PDAer. I did my dissertation on parenting stress in twice-exceptional kids, so I know that's true. If you have a kid that has these differences, it's more stressful because you don't have mirroring from other parents, and you're looking at other children and you're like, “What am I doing wrong? This has got to be something I'm doing.”

Until you understand this nervous system difference, it's hard to make progress.

Autum: Right. And honestly, sometimes when I work with parents in a coaching capacity on this—if the kiddos have PDA profiles, we talk about what I just said. You prioritize the cues of safety and you really try to minimize the threat. And honestly, I think you kind of wait for them to get older because so much of the variable that needs to change is autonomy. Give them as much autonomy as possible and then wait until more autonomy is available because they age. We know that developmentally, kids—or people—can have these explosions of growth.

Say you have a PDA kid who just hasn't had the opportunity to make really great relationships with a peer—so the peers are teachers, right? That's maybe an intellectual peer but not an age peer. And then at one point, somehow there is enough autonomy or just the world kind of catches up. You become older, and all of a sudden you now have the availability to have a relationship with someone. Your capacity for learning what that looks like and what good, healthy relationship skills are will expand exponentially during maybe a few months or a year when that opportunity's finally given.

The most important thing when I think of a PDA profile, especially kids, is really focusing on learning that specific nervous system and doing everything you can in your power to take care of it. Knowing that is the best way forward—you have to tend to that individual nervous system. If your goal is greater wellbeing, trying to force them into something just won't work. I think that's true for everybody. It's just undeniable with a PDA profile.

Chris: Part of the reason why I went to adults when I was a kid in school—those relationships, part of what made them so lifesaving for me is that even though there were other kids I liked at school and I learned to have age-peer relationships, the adult relationships were the ones that had the emotional depth that I needed.

I realize now that I have a need for emotional depth that other children couldn't provide. Unless I could find adults who could connect with me that way when I was a child, I needed that. It was like air to me, and when I didn't have it, I suffered. This is something we don't acknowledge about gifted children. Not all intellectually gifted kids need that, but I did. This is a difference of profound giftedness that is like torture when kids don't get to have it and need it.

Autum: Well, it's interesting because—do you see the through line to our earlier conversation? It's still relationship.

Chris: Yes, that's right.

Autum: Just a unique relationship. And why not? Why not it be the staff? We talk about that as being so surprising because it's surprising in a school setting. It's not—don't you have friends that are—look at Michael, hello. I have friend-mentorships that are different ages.

That's the funny thing about school. It doesn't make any sense that you're like, “Oh hey, guess what? The people you can totally relate with are the people who are the exact age as you.” That doesn't—

Chris: When I was 18, one of my closest friends was a 51-year-old man, which is hilarious to me because I'm 51 right now. He seemed so old to me, but I loved him. He was such a great guy.

Autum: Well, it doesn't make any sense that we can only relate to people who are our exact age. That is the school—it is not weird that you connected with all those people. It's the most natural thing in the world, I think, personally.

Chris: Well, right. I think that now. But at the time, it was a source of shame and what was wrong with me when I was a kid. It was like I couldn't make the right connections with kids my age, so I had to find adults to hang out with. It's a weird thing.

Autum: It's one of the things that schools get wrong.

Chris: It is. I wish I had known those things about myself when I was young.

Emma: The funny thing about me is my childhood experience was almost the opposite of Chris's. Due to circumstance or whatever, my fear or my lack of safety came from what happens when I said no to things. Fear of fiery damnation and going to hell, fear of corporal punishment, fear of being abandoned by people kept me in a space where all I wanted to do was make other people happy. But it led to some of the same behaviors because I used to seek out adults as friends, because they were the ones that set the rules. They were the ones I had to please the most, and I understood that.

Ironically, if Chris and I had met when we were kids, we probably wouldn't have been friends because I would've been looking and going, “How can you not want to make them happy? How can you not want to follow the rules? Because that's how you avoid getting in serious fucking trouble and the dire consequences coming on your head.” We've got very different perspectives on that, but it resulted in some of the same things—having to seek out different relationships.

It also brings me back to this place of: whatever your kid is doing, you have to figure out where their safety cues are coming from. Because my lack of safety wasn't from being told what to do or having my autonomy taken away; my lack of safety was from the consequences of what happened if I didn't.

If someone had said to me, “It's okay to fail, it's okay to make mistakes, it's okay to say no sometimes,” that would've led to vastly different life experiences for me. Because that mentality of having to be a people pleaser also gets you into a shit ton of trouble down the track.

Chris: Well, that's where the part where my father was drinking all this time definitely comes into play. My parents were kind of counterculture, young—my father was 16 when I was born. So yeah, totally different. It is true. Very different experiences. But listening to you, Emma, I'm thinking to myself, I would've tried to turn you and get you to my—that's what I would've done. I would've been like, “Hey, Emma…”

Emma: Yeah, and I had that. I actually had that experience with my stepsiblings, and then I ended up getting in trouble for it. So it just taught me that I can't be friends with other kids because they're going to lead me down a path that's going to get my ass smacked.

Chris: Wow.

Autum: That can be explained, Emma, with polyvagal theory. That's fawning. Fawning is typically how the social engagement system is accessed when the body is under threat. It's more of that dorsal response, but then you're able to use the social engagement system to create some stability and safety. That's by you saying, “Oh, what do they need me to be? I'll do that.” The people-pleasing can be explained through this window of polyvagal theory by fawning.

Emma: Interesting. And also important because when you react in other ways—like you put up a fight or you freeze or you run away—the other person's going to go, “Hey, what the fuck's going on?” But when you are trying to please them, they're like, “Oh well, I'm happy.” They probably aren't even conscious of the fact that this is actually a bad response from you.

Autum: It's an interesting skill. Dr. Porges, author of polyvagal theory, talks a bit about it as an adaptive response that few people are able to fawn, and it's not a choice. It's an adaptive survival strategy. Sometimes if I'm talking to people and we're trying to figure out if they fawn or not, I'll say, “Okay, you're at a convenience store and it suddenly becomes an active shooter situation. Somebody comes in to rob the place. Who are you? Are you the person that hides? Are you the person that fights them? Are you the person that starts talking to them to calm them?” So what do you guys think? What's your answer?

Chris: I think I'm trying to talk to them. It's a good question.

Autum: Do you know what you would do, Emma?

Emma: I would probably hide. I'm not going to risk antagonizing them by saying the wrong thing, so I'm going to hide.

Autum: If you knew the shooter, would you talk to them?

Emma: Probably, yes.

Autum: That's interesting. I don't know. I think I would talk to the shooter. I'd be like, “Hey, how can I help you?”

Chris: Yeah, exactly.

Autum: I would put on my best—

Chris: I would do my best to try to connect with them.

Autum: Right. That's a tricky question too because some of that is a learned adaptation and some of it I think is a natural instinct.

Emma: I think the underlying reason though is telling. I don't want to talk to them because if I say the wrong thing, I'll make them angry and make it worse. I don't want to stuff this up.

Autum: Yeah.

Emma: When we're talking about creating those cues of safety and doing the regulation—this is probably going down the esoteric energy path a little bit, but I noticed that Safe and Sound Protocol was actually around listening to sound and trying to, as you said, go for a walk, take a shower, listen to music, trying to regulate ourselves. I wonder if you had any further thoughts on that, because obviously it's not always possible to get other people to create cues of safety for us, outside of that curiosity and having those “put the coffee mug aside” conversations and trying to foster that. But that's not always possible. So what can we do for ourselves to notice when we're going into these states to try and help regulate ourselves so we can make better behavioral decisions?

Autum: Yeah, that's great. I think sometimes it's a lifelong understanding. For me, one of my simple things will be: move my body. As a super active kid, some of my favorite things I remember when I was little was I loved to climb trees and ride my bike, so it still holds true. Any kind of movement for me will be really good when I can think about that as preventative.

If I just have a regular routine of working out or hiking or whatever, that is always going to make things better for me. Again, as I was prepping for this, I did a still meditation, but I also just did a lot of stretching because that's a really important thing for me. Oh, and I took a nap. For me, sleep—if I'm tired, that's it. It is the biggest physiological Achilles heel for me. I just cannot—I can't grab those runaway trains if I'm tired. Sleep is really big for me, and movement. So I think about body things first.

Anything we can do to help support our sensory environment—even if we start about it in a super basic way, having comfortable clothes. This sounds small, but it's a big deal. If you know that a certain day is going to be hard, make sure you are wearing anything that is going to best support you in that day. When I say comfortable, that might not be cozy comfortable. If maybe you have imposter syndrome stuff and you really need to feel confident, then you wear your boss lady suit because you're like, “Yeah, I feel super smart when I wear that.” So sometimes—I always start with the body though.

A lot of times we talk about top-down interventions versus bottom-up. Top-down is using the mind to calm the body. Bottom-up is using the body to calm the mind. The top-down stuff—those are great, we just know more about them: journaling or prayers or meditation or affirmations.

I think more of the bottom-up stuff. Making sure you're rested, making sure you have the right food at the right times. Some people do better with high protein. Some people do better with high fat. Some people are more sensitive to foods that are inflammatory. Sugar's really not good for anybody, but some people are just more sensitive to it than others. Some people, it is their kryptonite.

I just think starting with the body, the basics—eat, sleep, poop. Anything we can do to make sure our digestive systems are working. We have enough water, we have good food, we have good rest, that we're moving our bodies. Those are the first things I think about.

Safe and Sound Protocol is a fantastic auditory intervention that was created by Dr. Porges in his lab. It is different than just music, but also just music is great. I'll tell people to create playlists for themselves and then use it for certain things. If you have a more dorsal tendency and you need to try and stay engaged and lean on that sympathetic fight or flight, make yourself an angry playlist, like your Rocky soundtrack, and listen to it before you have to go into some conflict situation. Say you're getting divorced and you have to go into mediation and you have a tendency to collapse—listen to something that makes you feel like a badass before you go.

Or if you're a hothead, maybe you're listening to some Brahms lullaby before you go in. Music is a wonderful way. The Safe and Sound Protocol is different because it's created by Dr. Porges in his lab. It strengthens the middle ear muscle, the stapedius muscle, and it helps bring in the sound of the human voice and deflect those low-frequency sounds, which are sounds of danger.

It's an acoustic vagal stimulator, so it does increase the vagus's capacity to work well, but it's like an actual workout for the auditory system and the nervous system. Some vagal stimulators are only helping support the vagus while you're listening to it. SSP is different because your middle ear muscle will be stronger after you've completed the five-hour protocol.

I'm a huge believer in SSP. I've been a provider for six years, and that was one of the things I did to prepare for our interview today—I listened to an hour of SSP today. There There are things out there like SSP that typically work for everyone if it's delivered in the just-right way.

If that's not it, sometimes supplements. If you're listening and you're struggling, just keep trying. Sometimes I remember when my family was really struggling. It was so hard—God, it was so hard to keep looking when you're treading water and you're spending some time under the water surface. But you have to keep searching because you'll eventually find something that will give you a little bit of ground. And then when you have more ground to stand on, you get to just keep strengthening and supporting the nervous system. We'll all continue to struggle always, but when we have more resilience and we have a deeper understanding of how we work, then we have more tools to help us.

One of the biggest things I try to help people understand when they're really learning about their nervous system is that it's the most natural thing in the world to think, “Oh, I'm going to prevent dysregulation.” Well, we can't unfortunately, because again, neuroception is detection without awareness—we don't know. Our body moves into a protection space before we have an opinion about it.

The best thing we can do is know where we are. Just like Chris was saying, when they know they're mad, they're like, “Ooh, maybe be careful about what you're going to say next.”

It's really important for us to know what our own dysregulation looks like and, if we're raising kids, to help them understand that and then know what helps support them from there. Some people, it's best to hug them or talk to them. Then some people need a break. Being curious and learning.

I think always studying is good, but also just being perceptive and curious about the body. I've said it so many times during this conversation—our bodies are really smart. Yes, it's good to learn from information from other environments, but really if we're just studying either ourselves or the person we're caring for, we'll learn if we just study them. They're giving us information all the time.

That's my long-winded answer: get to know ourselves better, or the people we're caring for.

Chris: I am loving this because you're helping me make so many connections that I'm having a hard time holding them all.

Emma: Well, I'm just going to jump in and say real quick that top-down, bottom-up is honestly the best thing. Sometimes you can't—you're not in a headspace to top-down, to start with the head. If I'm in that space of “I can't meditate, I can't journal, I can't focus on shit,” I'll sit in my massage chair, I'll play some frequencies, or I'll pace and listen to death metal. Or sometimes you need to go for a walk down to the beach or have some fucking Doritos, whatever it is.

Have a nap. Have a shower. And then you are in enough of a better space. Even have a cry. You're in enough of a better space that now I can get my journal out. Now I can do the thing because you'll never—I don't think you'll ever fix any underlying issues if you don't do the top-down thing.

That will, in the long term, help you regulate your system because you've now changed your perspectives on stuff so you don't see as much threat in the world, whatever it is. But you can't always—you can't have one without the other. You need the bottom-up stuff as well to get that immediate regulation and to be able to put you in a space where you can then do the other stuff as well.

Autum: Well, because that's your capital-S Best Self. The thing is, in polyvagal world, we say “story follows state.” Your mind will tell you a lot, but if you move into the mind space—that top-down—when you're in that protective mode, you're just going to hear those old stories that aren't super helpful.

Emma: Oh yeah, right. Your mind's going to give you bullshit.

Autum: So you're trying to get to your wise Best Self, and so the body—you always start with body first. Drink a glass of water, jump up and down 10 times. It's the body—you're trying to get to your wise self, and so we always have to start with the body.

Chris: You were leading toward one of the paths that was in my mind, which was: we have to be careful in our self-talk and what we're playing in our heads because that has such an impact on our nervous system too.

Autum: Oh my God, yes.

Chris: I think that one of the other most important things I figured out in middle age is to be careful in that way and to not be violent toward myself internally.

Autum: Yeah. I do not listen to my very tired self. She has the saddest stories, so when she gets really tired and she gets the microphone, I'm like, “Oh honey, I'll talk to you in the morning.” And I just tuck her in. I will not engage with her. It goes nowhere—it's only harmful, honestly. She's like the drunk friend you don't answer the phone call. I'm like, “Oh, no, no, no, no. Not today. Not talking to you.”

It's really good to acknowledge, but be kind. The compassion—there's a difference. This is kind of like IFS stuff, your parts. It's like to understand that part, but be like, “Okay, you don't get to actually drive us around right now, but alright, I see you. I'm taking care of you.” But maybe not engage with it. Like engage, but not like, “Oh, you get to make all the choices right now.”

For me, if that really tired voice comes in, I'm like, “Oh wow, you're really tired. Okay.” Maybe I'll get myself a soft blanket, cup of tea, be like, “I'll talk to you about this in the morning.” And then when I unpack it after I've slept well, I'm like, “Oh, okay. Yeah, this is fine. This is not an earth-shattering emergency.” It is a concern that we'll keep with us, but this is not a disaster. It will feel like a disaster the night before. But if I've rested, it's okay.

Chris: I was just telling Michael yesterday that it's been eight years this week coming up since I visited him for the first time here in Wisconsin. On those early trips, I didn't do a very good job of taking care of myself. When you talk about bottom-up, I was so sabotaging myself by not making sure I ate right or slept well. Another thing I learned over time with him was self-care, like on trips and just in general. I wasn't connected with the present moment and living in it—it's part of not taking care of yourself. It's just too easy to check out.

Autum: Do you think that this is also part of being a profoundly gifted child with the intellectual overexcitability, that that was what everybody focused on?

Chris: Right. Yeah. Definitely.

Autum: And so you're going to, in a default situation—

Chris: It's true. But my emotional is so strong for me.

Autum: Right, but nobody was focused on that.

Chris: No. That seemed like it was something wrong with me.

Autum: Right? And it's not at all. It just needed care. Imagine if somebody—okay, so if I could go back, what I want to do with your angry child self: I want to play basketball and be like, “Oh yeah, tell me all the things you're mad about” and dribble around. And I want them to tell me everything they're mad about and then be like, “Well, what else? And what else?” And I want them to shout, “Well, and then this happened, and then that happened.” I'll be like, “Yeah, that's bullshit.”

Chris: That's what I needed. Oh my God, that is so what I needed.

Autum: I want to play basketball with them and just let them list angrily.

Chris: My therapist in high school, one of them—that was him. He would just sit there and smile at me and I would tell him, I'd be like, “Fuck you, man. Stop smiling at me.” It's so great to think about the caring people that I had in my life, and I was really blessed.

Autum: But imagine if there was some physical activity with it.

Chris: Oh, it would've been great if there was physical activity with it.

Autum: Like wrestling—you need someone to wrestle with you.

Emma: You can do that. If you want to take a part of yourself and have a conversation with them, there's no reason why you can't do that around an activity. My inner child desperately wanted to do finger painting, and so we did, and we had a conversation about things after she let out all her emotions.

So you can do that with yourself. You can talk to your shadow beast, talk to your inner child, talk to your teenage self, talk to whatever aspect of you you need to talk to, and do some form of activity with them while you're doing it. Preferably one that they like.

Autum: Yeah. That's what I love. I love the activity part of it, really letting that come into manifestation. It's one of the things that when I have somebody come in for bodywork, it seems like a very small thing that doesn't matter. But the first thing I do is I really want to get the sensory environment right for them.

So it's like, “Oh, how's the light in here?” And sometimes they'll come in and they've been too busy. They're like, “I don't know.” So I just shelve it. And then as I can feel them kind of come back into their body 20 minutes later, it's like, “Oh hey, do you like the curtains open or closed?”

I have a fountain in my room. Some people love the fountain and I also play music. Or if they—they usually listen to SSP headphones, but it's like, I'll say, “Oh, fountain on or off? Do you want essential oils?” So it's anything I can do to help. Because what's happening is it's this fawn response with the body.

I'm simply being like, “Oh, do you like this heat or not?” And so being able to prioritize the body and then take action is a really simple way to care for somebody. So we could do that with ourselves.

Chris: These are important things to figure out. I do think that I was in my head so much for most of my life that it's like I was just on automatic pilot. I wasn't thinking about what my body needed or worrying about being grounded in it, but now I really appreciate my somatic experience and I appreciate the details in my environment, and it's nice.

Autum: Well, yeah, if you want to use the boat metaphor, it's like, man, you get all your sails right, and you just catch that wind and you're gone. But you have to know what's happening.

Chris: You do.

Autum: But it's hard. If you have a kid with all these OEs, and they're not in a super safe, stable environment, they're not going to stay in their body. That's just not how it works. That's the trauma response—that's what's really, again, a very intelligent adaptive strategy: to kind of check out and go on. So that's part of the rediscovery of self to come back into the body. That's part of healing work.

Chris: Yeah, that's right. It's important.

Emma: I think that's part of where there's a bit of risk as well. So if you are in a state of threat and you're removed from your body, when you have those moments that you are back in your body fully, they can actually become a little bit addictive.

You've got a kid who's in permanent threat and then all of a sudden you take them on a rollercoaster that puts them full on 100% in their body and they go, “Wow, that was amazing. I want to go back to that.” And whether it's thrill-seeking or sex or drugs or whatever it is that's putting you back in your body, you do have a risk of getting addicted to that.

Autum: That's a good point. That's all sensory-seeking behavior, which is really common. If you have a body that has a more dorsal tendency, as that body is starting to kind of move in, it will seek high sensory input.

I'm a mountain biker, but I don't like riding uphill. I like downhill mountain bike parks, the crazy ones. I don't go down the blacks where you go down huge jumps or cliffs or anything. But I love rock climbing and skiing double black diamonds and riding my bike fast downhills. I love heavy sensory seeking. So you're right, Emma, it's important to understand that there's—I guess I'll call it danger—there's some danger elements in there. It's good to find ways that can help meet those needs.

Like now I go to the gym, to HIIT classes—high intensity interval training. And that helps if I can just run fast and lift heavy weights. Same thing. That's a healthier way for me to meet that request from my body now.

Chris: Right. Yeah. I need to do more. I've actually been trying to decide what's next for me when it comes to physical activity. But one thing I'm really happy about is that I've gone for a walk every day for the past year, and it's been so nice to be outside every day, even in this first Wisconsin winter. It's been good.

Autum: Especially talk about a big, intense sensory environment. There's something so great about bundling up and going outside and going for a walk in the cold.

Chris: It's true. So yeah, I've learned to appreciate it for the first time.

Autum: Yeah. And then you come back and it's like, maybe you have a hot cup of coffee or tea and it's like, “Mmm, feels so good.”

Chris: We should probably wrap up. But it's been amazing.

Autum: So fun, you guys. Thank you.

Emma: It has, and hopefully we're all feeling—after this intellectual stimulation and emotional stimulation and everything we've been through—hopefully our bodies are feeling okay and we're going to go take care of them.

Chris: We are. Yes. But yeah, I do. I feel so calm.

Autum: Yes. All my organs are so happy. I have a really big smile on my face.

Emma: We can't land on a better note than “my organs are happy.” Really?

Autum: I know. I'm not a weirdo at all. Is that what all your guests say when they leave? They're like, “Thank you. My organs are happy now.”

Emma: They might say it now. Yeah. I love it. We're going to have to make that the standing final question now, Chris: “Are your organs happy?” Maybe not say it so creepy like that, but you know. But thank you, Autum. It's been great to learn about all this, and sometimes it's the things that you somehow instinctively kind of know, but you just need to put a framework and a language around it. It's almost like positive disintegration. Once you wrap a framework and a language around it, it helps you take better control of things. So thank you.

Autum: Yeah, I think that's right. This is a lot of intuitive things we've already known. Thank you both for having me. And thank you for this podcast. I listen to it all the time, and I've already learned so much from y'all in the last couple years, so thanks for doing it.

Chris: Well, thank you. Yeah, and thanks for joining us. I appreciate that you're a listener and a friend, and we're so happy that you joined us today.

Emma: And thank you, Chris. It's always a pleasure.

Chris: It is always a pleasure.

Emma: And thank you to listeners. It's great to have you with us. Continue your path to authenticity through the links in the show notes. Subscribe to our Substack newsletter for stacks of cool things delivered straight to your inbox. Explore the Dabrowski Center, email us, or join us on social media. And don't forget to show your love by liking, subscribing, grabbing some Positive Disintegration merch, or leaving us a rating or review on your podcast platform.