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"If your nervous system is dysregulated, you're dysregulated in every role you have... people's marriages fall apart because of their nervous system, people lose custody of their children because of their nervous system." — Dana Hargis
"A team as a whole will be no better than their leader." — Dana Hargis
"Nobody does anything for nothing. If somebody is self-destructive, they are self-destructive because they're trying to calm themselves... literally trying to regulate their own nervous system in the only way they know how." — Dana Hargis
Exploring how humans connect and get stuff done together, with Dan Hammond and Pia Lee from Squadify.
We need groups of humans to help navigate the world of opportunities and challenges, but we don't always work together effectively. This podcast tackles questions such as "What makes a rockstar team?" "How can we work from anywhere?" "What part does connection play in today's world?"
You'll also hear the thoughts and views of those who are running and leading teams across the world.
00:00:00 Dan:
If your nervous system is dysregulated, you're dysregulated in every role you have.
00:00:05 Dan:
These are the words of Dana Hargus, the guest on this episode of We Not Me, where she talks about how nervous system regulation impacts all aspects of your life, including your role as a team leader or team member.
00:00:17 Dan:
And with more people reporting workplace stress, helping yourself and others to maintain regulation is more important than ever.
00:00:23 Dan:
And Dana's 24 years of experience as a professional counsellor sheds light on the issue and also provides guidance on how to get your nervous system steady and on your side.
00:00:47 Pia:
So in a world where we often get triggered and we have emotional response, it is an absolute pleasure to bring in an expert, Dana Hagers, who is the co-founder of Restore of Ada.
00:01:00 Pia:
and to talk to her all about all things regulation.
00:01:04 Pia:
So welcome to the show, Dana.
00:01:06 Dana:
Thank you.
00:01:07 Dana:
I'm glad to be here.
00:01:08 Dan:
Welcome.
00:01:08 Dan:
This just seems like such an important topic.
00:01:10 Pia:
Yeah.
00:01:11 Dan:
There's a lot of stress out there and a lot of challenges for people in the workplace.
00:01:15 Dan:
So Dana, we're looking forward to diving into this.
00:01:18 Dan:
And as ever, I'm hearing your well-researched and all your experience, but also some practical tips for our listener on how to help themselves and their teams and organizations to just take some baby steps in the right direction.
00:01:30 Dana:
I'm glad to share.
00:01:32 Dan:
Excellent.
00:01:32 Dan:
Excellent.
00:01:33 Dan:
Thank you.
00:01:34 Pia:
It seems a little bit sort of strange that we're now about to do something that's quite triggering by asking a crazy question, but I'm about to throw you in the den with Dan and he'll ask you a question and go for your life.
00:01:45 Pia:
See what you think as your response.
00:01:46 Dan:
I've picked a green card.
00:01:48 Dan:
So, you know, they're different grades.
00:01:49 Dan:
This should be an easy one.
00:01:51 Dan:
They're not always, but my guilty pleasure.
00:01:53 Dan:
What guilty pleasure do you have, Dana?
00:01:55 Dan:
Get us started on that.
00:01:56 Dana:
My guilty pleasure.
00:01:59 Dana:
I think probably my guilty
00:02:00 Dana:
guilty pleasure is being alone.
00:02:04 Dana:
I have four adult children and I have 12 grandchildren.
00:02:08 Dana:
And I work all day with people.
00:02:12 Dana:
And I feel like sometimes if I pull up at my house and there's not a car there, I'm so happy.
00:02:21 Dana:
Because I think, oh, I just need a minute.
00:02:24 Dana:
And I do, as somebody who loves people and has so many people who love me, I think, how awful that you just want to go alone.
00:02:33 Dana:
And then I'm like, no, that's not awful.
00:02:36 Dana:
Because I know that my recharging, I am extroverted and I talk for a living, but I recharge alone.
00:02:45 Dana:
And so I have learned the older I get not to feel bad about that, even if it means when I've
00:02:51 Dana:
pull up and there's a lot of cars there, I'll just sit in my car and hope no one notices that I'm there yet, just to have a minute and to listen to a little bit of music or do something to feel like I have recharged enough to go re-engage with my crowd.
00:03:08 Pia:
I think that is an age thing too.
00:03:10 Pia:
So when you're an extrovert, you kind of get that recharge through being with other people.
00:03:14 Pia:
But as you sort of mature through, there's different mechanisms.
00:03:18 Pia:
If you're down, you've always recharged on your own so
00:03:21 Pia:
He's only had one mode.
00:03:22 Dan:
Yes, exactly.
00:03:23 Dan:
As I get older, am I getting a bit more sociable or saying so?
00:03:28 Dan:
I don't know.
00:03:28 Dan:
I'll have to think about that.
00:03:29 Dan:
But Dana, there's a bit of a confession, actually.
00:03:31 Dan:
I like the way people might look out and say, where's Dana?
00:03:34 Dan:
Oh, she's sitting in the car waiting, listening to some music.
00:03:37 Dan:
Yeah, good confession.
00:03:38 Dan:
So Dana, your accent, as we talked before the show, is intriguing.
00:03:42 Dan:
Tell us a bit about you and give us a little bio in the box.
00:03:46 Dana:
From Ada, Oklahoma, which is located in the United States.
00:03:50 Dana:
And I have been a mental health counselor for the last 25 years.
00:03:55 Dana:
And I have currently entered into this new thing I call Restore of Ada.
00:04:01 Dana:
And our mission is to reset the nervous system to improve the quality of people's lives.
00:04:08 Pia:
Wow, there's so much there.
00:04:09 Pia:
So 25 years as a counselor, you would have seen a lot.
00:04:13 Dana:
Yes.
00:04:14 Pia:
And I think you set up your own practice of other practitioners in that period of time.
00:04:19 Dana:
I did.
00:04:19 Pia:
So we're going to talk about the nervous system.
00:04:22 Pia:
Can we start with so that we've got a level playing field?
00:04:25 Pia:
What is the nervous system?
00:04:26 Pia:
I know that might sound a very basic question, but what is it and what role does it play
00:04:31 Pia:
in us as human beings.
00:04:33 Dana:
Okay, so when we look at the nervous system, like you could talk about parasympathetic and the sympathetic and all the components of the nervous system, but I feel like a more practical approach would be the what part does it play in our life and do we have any power to manage it?
00:04:49 Dana:
And I feel like the nervous system is key
00:04:53 Dana:
in everything we do.
00:04:56 Dana:
If your nervous system is dysregulated, you're dysregulated in every role you have.
00:05:02 Dana:
Whether it's the role of an employee, an employer, a mother, a spouse, people's marriages fall apart because of their nervous system.
00:05:10 Dana:
People lose custody of their children because of their nervous system.
00:05:13 Dana:
From a business standpoint, we are made or broken often
00:05:20 Dana:
because of our nervous systems to cope with stress or problems or solve things that would be solvable if you could calm yourself enough to think about what needs to be done.
00:05:32 Dana:
It.
00:05:32 Pia:
Might be an obvious thing to say.
00:05:34 Pia:
I'm assuming that even as humans, we all have different nervous systems.
00:05:38 Pia:
And what impacts our nervous system to be the way that it is?
00:05:41 Dana:
Yes, we all have different nervous systems.
00:05:43 Dana:
And I also think as to what impacts it, everything impacts it.
00:05:48 Dana:
I think the impacts
00:05:50 Dana:
could start at conception or even before.
00:05:54 Dana:
So if you have a long line of trauma in your family, I think that it can change genetics.
00:06:01 Dana:
Therefore, you are already changed before you were even born.
00:06:06 Dana:
We also know that a mother's stress becomes a baby's stress.
00:06:12 Dana:
They tested the urine of pregnant women at six months.
00:06:16 Dana:
And then they tested the baby's urine at six weeks, and the stress hormone profile was the same.
00:06:23 Dana:
Oh, interesting.
00:06:23 Dana:
Yeah, it's astounding that when you look at trauma, and I'm a trauma-informed therapist, and I'm a trauma-informed instructor, and when you look at the fact that even if you never met your mother, her trauma impacted you, and it just rolls on from conception, life can be traumatic.
00:06:44 Dana:
It can be big T traumas like death and loss and rape and molestation.
00:06:50 Dana:
And it can be things that we wouldn't even perceive as a trauma.
00:06:54 Dana:
And somebody might watch an event take place and not even know you're in distress.
00:06:59 Dana:
But internally, if you perceive something as a trauma, if your body perceives it as a trauma, then it was traumatic.
00:07:08 Dana:
So all of life is building our nervous system, whether good
00:07:14 Dana:
good or bad.
00:07:14 Dana:
And the things I've been saying are all things that would be negative things.
00:07:18 Dana:
But also, there are many things that are positive, like loving, kind people.
00:07:24 Dana:
I believe one person who loves well.
00:07:27 Dana:
can change a child's nervous system or an adult's nervous system.
00:07:32 Dana:
I believe that there are so many things that we can learn to do for ourself that will shift our nervous system.
00:07:38 Dana:
So the good news is, there's always hope.
00:07:41 Dana:
I don't care how old you are or how much damage has been done, hope abounds.
00:07:46 Dan:
What is actually happening, Dalem, when it is out of balance, when the nervous system is not, would you mind just digging a, not too deep, but one spadeful deeper on the science?
00:07:56 Dan:
What actually happens?
00:07:57 Dan:
to us.
00:07:58 Dana:
One thing to think about is the idea of fight, flight, or freeze.
00:08:02 Dana:
So when our nervous system is out of balance, when the parts are not working well together, and people, absolutely, we can respond in all three ways.
00:08:12 Dana:
One person could respond in a flight mode one time, a flight mode, or a freeze mode, but we all tend to have what I would call our favorite response.
00:08:21 Dana:
Like, if you push me in a corner, I don't hit people, but I fight with my words.
00:08:25 Dana:
But other people might tend towards flee or freeze.
00:08:29 Dana:
They're going to run away, literally or figuratively, or they're going to just clam up.
00:08:35 Dana:
And you might look at them and think, well, you know, they're rude.
00:08:38 Dana:
And in reality, their nervous system just turned off.
00:08:42 Dana:
Like this train is out of control and I'm done.
00:08:46 Dana:
So it's over, I'm turning off.
00:08:48 Dana:
So that response obviously isn't productive.
00:08:52 Dana:
In the world that we live in, stress is coming and instead of coping,
00:08:55 Dana:
with the stress, I'm going to do one of these less productive actions, instead of coming at this calmly and trying to come up with a solution.
00:09:05 Pia:
And what type of things, particularly in a workplace, might trigger somebody to become dysregulated?
00:09:11 Pia:
Like what are you seeing as things that might happen in the workplace?
00:09:14 Dana:
I feel like the list is endless.
00:09:17 Dana:
When you think about it, like there are people that are triggered by smells.
00:09:22 Dana:
A smell reminds you of somebody, or a smell that has a high chemical content can trigger a brain that isn't stable.
00:09:31 Dana:
Here, if you go into a mall, and then you go into something, I don't know what you have, but the worst one to me is Dillard's, which is like a clothing store.
00:09:42 Dana:
Okay.
00:09:42 Dana:
They have a large counter of makeup and perfumes.
00:09:46 Dana:
And that to me is the most toxic smell.
00:09:49 Dana:
I find it nauseating and I find it triggering.
00:09:52 Dana:
And when I was a little girl and I would be with an adult and they would be like, no, we're going to go in here.
00:09:57 Dana:
I would be like, I hate that store.
00:09:59 Dana:
I never said, I don't like the way it smells.
00:10:01 Dana:
I don't know if I didn't get it.
00:10:03 Dana:
I hate that store.
00:10:04 Dana:
And then finally, one time I thought to say it gives me a headache.
00:10:08 Dana:
That store gives me a headache and it makes me want to be mad.
00:10:11 Dana:
I knew that that was triggering to me, but I couldn't articulate it.
00:10:16 Dana:
environment, things can be very triggering.
00:10:18 Dana:
But also, a person that you work with reminds you of your grandma, and your grandma wasn't kind to you, or feeling like things are unfair, or noting that your boss likes other people better than they like you.
00:10:32 Dana:
That may or may not be true.
00:10:33 Dana:
But if you feel that way, it's triggering.
00:10:36 Pia:
Yeah.
00:10:36 Pia:
And so you're in this environment.
00:10:38 Pia:
And we're also seeing in the corporate environment, people are losing their roles, there's restructures, there's a lot of
00:10:45 Pia:
uncertainty about the future.
00:10:48 Pia:
So what are you seeing about generally when you're looking at people working in the workplace?
00:10:53 Pia:
What are their levels of stress like at the moment?
00:10:55 Pia:
So are they elevated and how does that impact their ability to regulate?
00:11:00 Dana:
I think that stress levels have gotten higher as the years have passed.
00:11:05 Dana:
There is no question whether you're a school teacher or a physician or a pharmacist or a mental health worker, stress levels have gone up.
00:11:14 Dana:
COVID
00:11:16 Dana:
a whole new level of go up.
00:11:18 Dana:
People feel out of control.
00:11:20 Dana:
People feel like they can't predict the future, like things they thought were set are not.
00:11:29 Dana:
So I think that the idea that we can know what to expect and then that happen is no longer on the table for a lot of different fields, and that has aided a lot of fear and a lot of unrest.
00:11:45 Dan:
That's a fascinating insight on COVID, just trying to unpick what actually happened, because something has changed, hasn't it?
00:11:51 Dan:
And I remember we're studying one model of the brains, what the limbic brain likes, and one of them was certainty.
00:11:56 Dan:
And I guess it's that that is just being wiped away by that, but at a really fundamental level that we can no longer rely on the next 10 years being like the last 10 years that we've sort of come to expect.
00:12:07 Dana:
When you think of the politics in our world, the political climate, rightly, some people arrive enraged.
00:12:15 Dana:
I think it's very interesting when people come to therapy and want to talk about politics, obviously it's their choice.
00:12:21 Dana:
Like people can talk about whatever they choose to talk about in therapy, but the fact that they are so angry about something that is obviously happening in our world, but it feels like an anger that would be more reserved for an ongoing event in your own home, as opposed to a grander event in the country, in the world.
00:12:45 Dana:
to be so angry at somebody you don't even know and you never will, is intriguing to me.
00:12:51 Pia:
Is that the projection of your own frustrations, or as you say, maybe your own family dynamics, or a sense of self?
00:12:59 Dana:
Yeah, or even the idea that all the problems can be blamed.
00:13:04 Dana:
I've never really thought about, in my own mind until this last few cycles in America, of what's happening here.
00:13:12 Dana:
It's so interesting that people will
00:13:16 Dana:
act like the problems, or feel like maybe a better word, their problems in their own lives are so directly connected to the political climate.
00:13:26 Pia:
And I think that's a really interesting observation, Dana, because what I also, and I've undergone therapy and found it immensely helpful, but what it transformed for me is that actually you own
00:13:39 Pia:
might be what's happened to you or the situation, but you certainly own your own emotions and what you can do with them.
00:13:45 Pia:
And whereas what you're talking about is, again, it's a sort of slight blame culture that it's other people, which is sometimes when I'm working with teams, there's that predisposition to sometimes pass it off to other people as being their fault rather than actually taking ownership.
00:14:02 Pia:
If we're the masters of our own destiny, how do we regulate?
00:14:06 Pia:
What could we be doing to enable that to happen?
00:14:09 Pia:
And what's a healthy regulation lifestyle, given all these things that we can't control?
00:14:16 Dana:
That's a huge question.
00:14:19 Dana:
There's just so many different ways to look at regulation.
00:14:22 Dana:
One of my favorite interventions for regulation is biofeedback, and that is brain exercise that
00:14:32 Dana:
can regulate you in ways that talking about problems never will.
00:14:36 Dana:
Because I believe there's a lot of things we will never talk better.
00:14:40 Dana:
And I love talk therapy, I'm a therapist.
00:14:42 Dana:
But things that you will not change by discussion, and often you can even make them worse by rehearsing this problem over and over when it feels like it's a problem with my husband or my parents,
00:14:57 Dana:
or somebody else, but in reality, it's a nervous system problem that we are putting all this into, if he would just stop doing that, we're externalizing it.
00:15:08 Dana:
So understanding that if we begin to heal our nervous system, we also heal our relationships.
00:15:15 Dana:
Our nervous system is integral to everything.
00:15:19 Dana:
And if we think about it from the standpoint, oh, there are so many ways to go at it.
00:15:24 Dana:
I mean, one thing is grounding.
00:15:26 Dana:
You know, when we say the word people are not grounded, we're not talking about literally the earth.
00:15:32 Dana:
That if you've never looked into grounding and what grounding can do for your body, literally putting your feet on the earth causes this ionic exchange that does wonderful things to lower inflammation and begin to
00:15:45 Dana:
to improve sleep.
00:15:46 Dana:
If you lower the inflammation in your body, you change everything.
00:15:50 Dana:
Inflammation is the factor that contributes to all disease.
00:15:54 Dana:
If a brain is not inflamed, you don't have dementia.
00:15:57 Dana:
If your joints aren't inflamed, you don't have arthritis.
00:16:00 Dana:
If your cells aren't inflamed, you don't have cancer.
00:16:02 Dana:
Everything about who you are is impacted by your body's inflammatory response and putting your feet on the ground.
00:16:10 Dana:
And if that's not possible, or you live in a place where the climate doesn't allow for that,
00:16:15 Dana:
or grounding mats and grounding sheets and ground.
00:16:17 Dana:
There's lots of ways to ground, but that's just one concrete thing you can do.
00:16:23 Dana:
Another thing is observing your own breath and figuring out how to breathe appropriately.
00:16:30 Dana:
Most of the world is barely breathing.
00:16:33 Dana:
If you start watching how people breathe, or if they get stressed, you look at them and they're holding their breath, and then thinking about what do we eat, you make more of your neurotransmitters in your gut than you
00:16:45 Dana:
do in your brain.
00:16:46 Dana:
Your brain will be no healthier than your gut.
00:16:49 Dana:
That's a topic you could look at all day long.
00:16:52 Dana:
Because if we don't have a good microbiome, we don't have the healthiest mental health that we could have.
00:16:59 Dana:
And people are taking antibiotics, an antibiotic will destroy your microbiome.
00:17:04 Dana:
People are eating food that's not food.
00:17:06 Dana:
It doesn't have a frequency to it.
00:17:08 Dana:
It is dead.
00:17:10 Dana:
And then they don't know why they don't feel good.
00:17:12 Dana:
So our motto is we
00:17:15 Dana:
find as many different ways, and we have a lot of different directions we go, to begin to show the body all the different things that it's capable of, and to begin to heal one piece at a time.
00:17:28 Dana:
And it's almost like a teeter-totter.
00:17:30 Dana:
It's like if you just do one thing, you'll get a little result.
00:17:34 Dana:
It's like you got your teeter-totter all on level, and here's where you don't want to be, and here's where you do.
00:17:39 Dana:
When you begin to put things over here, eventually you tip it, and then it's all you have to do is make
00:17:45 Dana:
maintained.
00:17:46 Dana:
And the maintenance is not near as hard as the tipping, but the tipping could be changing your diet, building a new microbiome, getting some therapy.
00:17:56 Dana:
It's not one thing, it's lots of things.
00:17:59 Dana:
And what we do in our country with medicine is we very much specialize it.
00:18:05 Dana:
So you've got one doctor telling you this and another doctor telling you that.
00:18:09 Dana:
And really none of it is focused on restoring health.
00:18:13 Dana:
It's only focused on managing symptoms.
00:18:17 Dana:
Managing symptoms, it doesn't heal.
00:18:19 Dana:
You just cover up the symptom and now it's not bothering me anymore that I'm itching because I can take this pill and I don't notice.
00:18:28 Dana:
But we didn't change the fact that something's causing.
00:18:31 Dana:
We should recognize that the itch is a problem, not something to be masked.
00:18:36 Pia:
There's such a common theme here, Dana, like what you're talking about of ownership, which, you know, as Dan and I are sort of focused in the world of teamwork and leadership.
00:18:46 Pia:
We actually sometimes see that ownership and that accountability for yourself is dwindling a little bit.
00:18:52 Pia:
There's a lot of focus on me.
00:18:54 Pia:
There's a lot of focus on me, but it's more what I am getting.
00:18:59 Pia:
rather than what am I providing through investing in myself?
00:19:04 Pia:
Quite a different approach.
00:19:05 Dan:
It's an object, not a subject, isn't it?
00:19:07 Dan:
There's less of the action and more about the what's done to me, I think.
00:19:12 Dana:
But then though, I agree with you, there's not enough focus on what is my responsibility.
00:19:17 Dana:
But then when you look at a system like an organization, the tone of the organization comes from the top.
00:19:24 Dana:
And if the top person has a dysregulated nervous system, that is going to roll out health.
00:19:31 Dana:
A department, a system is all
00:19:35 Dana:
Absolutely, just like a household, a child will be no healthier than his primary caregiver.
00:19:41 Dana:
A team as a whole will be no healthier than their leader.
00:19:45 Dana:
And if there's this constant state of dysregulation and urgency about everything, because the leader's unorganized, things aren't flowing like they should, and so everybody feels stressed all the time.
00:19:59 Dana:
I believe that a system
00:20:02 Dana:
or an organization has a nervous system.
00:20:04 Dana:
And if it isn't healthy, the system won't be healthy until you correct it.
00:20:09 Dan:
Yeah, I think your point about the system is so...
00:20:12 Dan:
so important, because you're right, we see people not taking responsibility, but then the system can lead to helplessness, learned helplessness, can't it?
00:20:22 Dan:
If you try to change things and can't, eventually that's going to just loop into, I've tried and I've failed.
00:20:28 Dan:
And you can definitely see how the system creates these challenges and perpetuates them.
00:20:34 Dana:
Right.
00:20:34 Dana:
Because if you're in a system that's not healthy and you attempt to do healthy things, the system will shut you down.
00:20:42 Dana:
Yeah.
00:20:42 Dana:
The system won't allow that because an unhealthy leader is threatened.
00:20:47 Dana:
The thing is, you could be a dysregulated leader and you can look at the system and think that person is really functioning well.
00:20:55 Dana:
So I'm going to pull them in under me so they can help me.
00:20:59 Dana:
That takes a certain level of wisdom and a certain level of confidence to acknowledge
00:21:04 Dana:
I'm not good at this, but she is, so I want her to help me.
00:21:07 Dana:
But if you have an unhealthy system and somebody tries to excel, they get shut down, they get fired, they get blackballed because it's like, oh no, she's making me look bad.
00:21:19 Dan:
Tanya, just thinking further about the workplace, if you think about your patients, I'm talking about sort of in the professional world, if you like, what prompts them to finally pick up the phone and talk to you?
00:21:29 Dan:
I'm not going to use the word trigger in that sense, but what is the sort of moment?
00:21:33 Dan:
Can you generalize this?
00:21:35 Dana:
You can do some generalization according to age groups.
00:21:38 Dan:
Oh, okay.
00:21:39 Dan:
Oh.
00:21:40 Dana:
The older the person is, the more likely that they've struggled with the thought of going to therapy, in particular if they've never been to therapy.
00:21:50 Dan:
Yeah.
00:21:51 Dana:
It feels like a defeat.
00:21:53 Dana:
Like I can't do this myself.
00:21:56 Dana:
And so lots of times they come in and I have to say, this has become less as the years have passed.
00:22:02 Dana:
At the beginning, I mostly saw women and children, and it would have been middle age and younger women and children, and there would be some outliers in there.
00:22:13 Dana:
Now, our demographic is so broad.
00:22:16 Dana:
We schedule over a thousand appointments a month, and our demographic runs from age three
00:22:23 Dana:
all the way into our Medicare years, which would be like 62 and on.
00:22:28 Dana:
So I feel like we have made progress in the last 25 years.
00:22:32 Dana:
But one of the interesting things about demographics is the, I would say 18 to 30 something crowd, they love therapy.
00:22:42 Dana:
They invite their friends to therapy.
00:22:44 Dana:
They, I don't know that it's good.
00:22:46 Dana:
I don't want people to be ashamed, but I also think like, they're like, oh, me and my friends got to bed there last night and we just
00:22:53 Dana:
talked about our therapy, you know, and I want you to see my friend.
00:22:57 Dana:
Like, it's wild to me, the things that they say.
00:23:00 Dana:
I'm like, well, you don't get to decide who I see for me to see your boyfriend.
00:23:05 Dana:
You know, it's like there's other counselors and we'll need to do that.
00:23:08 Dana:
You know, it's just so interesting.
00:23:09 Dana:
And they're like, but you're the best.
00:23:11 Dana:
And boy, they'll build your ego.
00:23:13 Dana:
Like, they're just so happy to be here.
00:23:16 Dana:
They chit chat with everybody in the lobby.
00:23:18 Dana:
They talk about who their counselor is.
00:23:20 Dana:
It's so interesting how
00:23:23 Dana:
different it is.
00:23:24 Dana:
But again, it's that very self-focused, that it's all about me.
00:23:29 Pia:
Yeah.
00:23:30 Pia:
And that is the nature of the work that Dan and I are doing is that we not me.
00:23:35 Pia:
So I guess the intent around this is, yes, being brought up in the 60s, the word compassion was something that I had to learn because it was not part of the table stakes in parenting.
00:23:48 Pia:
So self-compassion and understanding about yourself, but I think marrying that with a
00:23:53 Pia:
with a purpose-driven life in order to.
00:23:56 Pia:
How am I contributing?
00:23:57 Pia:
How am I adding value?
00:23:59 Pia:
All of those other things that are really key.
00:24:01 Pia:
So let's go back down and there's going to be listeners listening to this thinking, wow, maybe I should go and book something.
00:24:08 Pia:
Or maybe this is questioning that actually I can do something constructive around my nervous system as a baby step.
00:24:15 Pia:
For those people who may never have been to therapy and who may be listening to this, whatever demographic you're in, what would be your suggestion around
00:24:23 Pia:
and the next steps.
00:24:24 Dana:
Begin to figure out what your triggers are towards dysregulation.
00:24:29 Dana:
Are they people?
00:24:31 Dana:
Is it something in your environment?
00:24:33 Dana:
When you do something and it leaves you feeling bad, it leaves you feeling negative, there are people that watch horror movies
00:24:43 Dana:
and they have panic attacks all the time.
00:24:46 Dana:
And they talk about what their dreams are.
00:24:49 Dana:
And I'm like, well, it sounds like your dreams are coming from your TV choices.
00:24:53 Dana:
Let's explore that.
00:24:54 Dana:
Well, my family really likes horror movies.
00:24:57 Dana:
And I'm like, but clearly your nervous system can...
00:25:01 Dana:
I think that thought process that our choices
00:25:06 Dana:
And so we should make them carefully.
00:25:08 Dana:
People come here having multiple, they fill out all this paperwork and it's like, three or more panic attacks a day or a week.
00:25:18 Dana:
and they mark that they drink monster drinks twice a day.
00:25:21 Dana:
I don't know what a monster drink is, but I don't think anybody should ever drink a monster drink.
00:25:27 Dana:
But if you're having panic attacks, I'm happy to talk about that with you, but I'm so surprised that the correlation hasn't been made sooner.
00:25:37 Dana:
That doesn't make sense.
00:25:39 Dana:
We need to think about how protein can stabilize our blood sugar.
00:25:43 Dana:
People that have a lot of trauma, their blood sugar is dysregulated more
00:25:48 Dana:
easily.
00:25:48 Dana:
There's lots of studies that show that.
00:25:50 Dana:
So a really great thing to do is make sure that we start our day.
00:25:55 Dana:
I ask people, How do you eat?
00:25:57 Dana:
And they say, Oh, really good.
00:25:58 Dana:
And I say, What'd you have for breakfast?
00:26:00 Dana:
Well, today's not a good day, but I had two nuts, and then I had a Pop-Tart for a snack, and then I had a corn dog for lunch.
00:26:08 Dana:
How can you possibly think
00:26:11 Dana:
that you're going to feel good, and even more so than the term good, that you're going to feel stable.
00:26:18 Dana:
Good sleep is stabilizing.
00:26:20 Dana:
A routine is stabilizing.
00:26:22 Dana:
There are all these things that people do that literally destabilize their body that are changeable, and you can change them yourself for a minimum of effort and money.
00:26:34 Dan:
What struck me is that that moment of want seeking help obviously comes from observing you've got a problem.
00:26:40 Dan:
Imagine there
00:26:41 Dan:
a lot of people out there who just constantly live in a dysregulated state, in a stressed state, and that's normal.
00:26:48 Dan:
If someone's feeling like that and who's listening to the show, how can they change their self-perception to realize that that's not...
00:26:56 Dan:
If you think that, oh, my meter reading is normal, it's always eight, and then you realize, no, no, that is the top of the scale.
00:27:02 Dan:
How can you become more self-aware and say, no, actually, that is not stable, that is not right.
00:27:07 Dana:
That's a difficult issue because you don't know how
00:27:11 Dana:
I feel and I don't know how you feel.
00:27:13 Dana:
So to be able to put ourselves in someone else's shoes, that's what I find when I have a client and we begin to employ these techniques and we begin to calm the brain.
00:27:26 Dana:
I've had people say, I've never felt this way, or I've never felt this way before and not been high.
00:27:33 Dana:
How interesting is that?
00:27:35 Dana:
I've never been addicted to anything.
00:27:37 Dana:
And so my early years, when people would start talking about addiction,
00:27:41 Dana:
I would think, why don't you just stop?
00:27:46 Dana:
Just quit doing this.
00:27:47 Dana:
You know, it's like one time I drank a wine cooler and I thought, I don't like the way this makes me feel.
00:27:52 Dana:
And that was it.
00:27:53 Dana:
I never did that again.
00:27:55 Dana:
But I'm a very controlled button down person.
00:27:58 Dana:
And it just like that didn't make sense for me.
00:28:01 Dana:
I'm like, I don't like that.
00:28:02 Dana:
And that was it.
00:28:03 Dana:
Well, as the years have passed, I have developed great compassion for people and their state that they're in and what they experience.
00:28:13 Dana:
And basically my point now, my point of view is nobody does anything for nothing.
00:28:19 Dana:
If somebody is self-destructive, they are self-destructive because they're trying to calm themselves.
00:28:27 Dana:
Literally, specifically, they're trying to regulate their own nervous system in the only way
00:28:33 Dana:
know how.
00:28:34 Dana:
They've recognized if I drink, if I eat too much, if I take this pill, if I look at *********** if I even consuming sugar, *********** sugar, and cocaine all light up the same part of the brain.
00:28:49 Dana:
Just think about that.
00:28:51 Dana:
How many people would judge somebody for **** and cocaine while they eat their donuts?
00:28:59 Dana:
It's all the same part of the brain.
00:29:01 Dana:
And that hit
00:29:02 Dana:
does something, if even just momentarily, for their nervous system.
00:29:07 Dana:
We are trying to self-regulate from the time we get up until the time we go to bed.
00:29:12 Dana:
And the question is, do we do it in a positive way or a self-destructive way or both?
00:29:18 Pia:
Well, so we are sometimes our worst enemies.
00:29:22 Dana:
Correct.
00:29:23 Dana:
Usually.
00:29:24 Pia:
Usually.
00:29:25 Dana:
Usually the problems we cause ourselves are the greatest problems.
00:29:28 Dana:
We believe it's about what happened to us when we were little or what happened in my marriage or, you know, I got fired.
00:29:36 Dana:
We believe that it's something someone did to us, but in reality, it is the way we are currently responding to what has been done to us.
00:29:44 Dan:
And even externalizing and blaming is great.
00:29:47 Dan:
I mean, it's another way of self-regulating.
00:29:49 Dan:
It's trying to, it's giving you the kick, isn't it?
00:29:51 Dan:
Yeah, it's wonderful.
00:29:52 Dana:
Yeah, if we can look at
00:29:53 Dana:
something and change the way we respond, we can free ourselves from the impact of what happened.
00:30:00 Dana:
But as long as we're in that space of blaming people and being angry and dysregulated and upset about what happened, one is whatever happened and whoever did it to you still has power over you, even though they think nothing of you.
00:30:18 Dana:
They are holding that power position.
00:30:20 Dana:
Yeah, while you suffer.
00:30:21 Dana:
And it's like, I don't want to keep suffering.
00:30:24 Dana:
for what has happened in the past, I want to let that go and be free from that.
00:30:29 Dana:
In essence, be free from the person or the event as well.
00:30:33 Dana:
And a lot of that is about our own personal choice, but we don't like that.
00:30:37 Dana:
I don't want to own, like, I have power here, even though this happened to me and it was wrong.
00:30:43 Dana:
I have the power to change.
00:30:45 Dan:
Dana, before we get to your media recommendation, how can we help each other with this?
00:30:50 Dan:
How can we help people around us without antagonizing people?
00:30:54 Dan:
You know, I'm thinking about a manager or a friend.
00:30:56 Pia:
Or saving, or saving.
00:30:58 Dan:
Yeah, exactly.
00:30:59 Dan:
Doing diving catches, yeah.
00:31:01 Dan:
Is there anything that we can do to help people move in this direction?
00:31:04 Dana:
When you think of a system, we're all a part of a law of systems.
00:31:08 Dana:
Our family, our work, every relationship we're in is, in essence, a system that we're involved in.
00:31:14 Dana:
And you can't get better or worse and not make the system move with you.
00:31:21 Dana:
As the individual improves or declines, so does the system.
00:31:27 Dana:
So one thing to think about is how do I become the best version of myself I can?
00:31:34 Dana:
And as you do that, it is like sending a helper
00:31:38 Dana:
hand into the system and lifting the whole system up.
00:31:42 Dana:
Because the healthier the individual, the healthier the system.
00:31:46 Dana:
No system is ever stagnant.
00:31:48 Dana:
It is changing all the time, for better or for worse.
00:31:51 Pia:
Very true.
00:31:52 Pia:
And I think that sometimes we want it to stay the same because it gives us that degree of security.
00:31:57 Dana:
It will not.
00:31:59 Pia:
No.
00:32:00 Dana:
If you think about it, we don't stay the same.
00:32:02 Dana:
Are you the same as you were yesterday?
00:32:04 Dana:
Are you the same as you were 10 years ago, 20 years ago?
00:32:07 Dana:
Will you be
00:32:07 Dana:
different tomorrow.
00:32:09 Dana:
I think that rather than seeing like, oh, there's a risk involved with change, we need to learn to embrace that.
00:32:16 Dana:
I just think the idea that we should be getting better with each passing day, with each passing week, month, year, we want to look and see like, wow, this is how I grew because I can't get better and the people I love not get better with me.
00:32:33 Dana:
They won't come with me.
00:32:34 Dan:
Because you're in the system.
00:32:36 Dana:
That's right.
00:32:36 Dana:
Maybe not at the rate
00:32:38 Dana:
desire, but my mental health improves theirs.
00:32:42 Dana:
And if I decline, somebody else doesn't come into the system and start to pick things up.
00:32:48 Dana:
You watch this happen in a system that breaks down, whether it's a family, a company, a friendship.
00:32:55 Dana:
If one person goes and everybody else just follows in a negative sense, it's the saddest thing.
00:33:03 Dana:
Because you watch families that were once beautiful become destructive.
00:33:08 Dana:
You watch businesses that used to be productive and provide the community a service, and they got a new boss and the new boss wasn't good.
00:33:16 Dana:
And then things began to get negative and people just piled on to the negative.
00:33:22 Dana:
And before long, they don't have as much to offer as they used to.
00:33:26 Dan:
And that's the system, isn't it, feeding off itself?
00:33:28 Dan:
Yeah, wonderful, Dana.
00:33:30 Dan:
That's some food, with any luck,
00:33:33 Dan:
gut biome, growing food for thought.
00:33:36 Dan:
Dana, leave us with your media recommendation today.
00:33:38 Dan:
What would you recommend that people take a look at or read or listen to?
00:33:43 Dana:
There's a book called The Body Keeps the Score.
00:33:46 Dana:
I feel it's a heavy read, but you won't read it and not be changed by what you learn.
00:33:53 Dana:
I think just taking it in little bites is good because there's so much information there, but it begins to help you understand that everything that's ever
00:34:03 Dana:
happened to you, it still impacts you now.
00:34:06 Dana:
It doesn't mean it has to control you, but it does impact you.
00:34:10 Dana:
And I think at a minimum, it gives compassion for others because everybody has this thought of what are you doing and why are you doing it?
00:34:21 Dana:
That book explains
00:34:23 Dana:
how people wind up in places they never planned to go.
00:34:27 Pia:
I listened to that book on it as an audio book.
00:34:29 Pia:
That would be my recommendation too, because it is quite heavy in places, but actually listening to it is quite soothing.
00:34:36 Pia:
I repainted my office over the course of three days listening to that book, and it was fantastic.
00:34:42 Pia:
And some of the work that's been done, particularly with ex-military personnel and PTSD, is just fascinating.
00:34:49 Pia:
And you really understand that the brain is plastic and can be molded
00:34:53 Pia:
And there are, even when you do suffer some terrible experiences, you can recalibrate over time.
00:35:00 Pia:
And I think that's quite a visionary way to see your own life of what can be done.
00:35:04 Dana:
Yes, neuroplasticity is real and is powerful.
00:35:09 Dana:
And there's never a point at which it is too early to begin to work for change or too late.
00:35:16 Dana:
change is always possible.
00:35:18 Dana:
And as we change our nervous system, we will change our life.
00:35:22 Dan:
Wonderful.
00:35:23 Dan:
Thank you so much, Dana, for joining us.
00:35:26 Dan:
In between patients.
00:35:27 Pia:
Yeah, great conversation.
00:35:29 Dan:
Thank you so much.
00:35:30 Dan:
And I think there's so much food for thought there.
00:35:32 Dan:
For our lovely listener, I'm struggling in the system.
00:35:34 Dan:
So thank you for the time and for being on the show today, Dana.
00:35:37 Dana:
You're welcome.
00:35:38 Dana:
Thanks for having me.
00:35:39 Pia:
Yeah, thank you.
00:35:43 Pia:
I think this is fascinating when you're looking at regulation of this ownership of your own regulation and a blame of others.
00:35:50 Pia:
You know, I think it's a simple sentence like you triggered me and that's apportioning blame.
00:35:56 Pia:
Whereas by saying I was triggered.
00:35:59 Pia:
Now, you can be triggered by specific situations, but you're owning the fact that you're triggered because what triggers you and what triggers me is going to be completely different.
00:36:08 Pia:
And your emotional regulation is going to be completely different to my system.
00:36:12 Dan:
Yes, indeed.
00:36:13 Pia:
I had the situation today in a client situation where things started rapidly running out of control for me, and I could feel myself being triggered.
00:36:22 Pia:
And I could feel the blame coming in.
00:36:25 Pia:
And I thought, nah, it's actually let this run.
00:36:28 Pia:
This person's doing
00:36:29 Pia:
doing what they think is right, I'm having a response to it and I need to actually not say anything and actually take it all in.
00:36:36 Dan:
Yeah, that's so good.
00:36:38 Dan:
Well done, you.
00:36:39 Pia:
But recognizing that actually I was just, whoa, it's like a rage arc that can happen, which is disproportionate to what is going on.
00:36:49 Pia:
And I own that.
00:36:50 Pia:
I own that certain situations do that because I'm just feeling out of control and that's what it does.
00:36:57 Dan:
Yeah, I think that's probably the crucial
00:36:59 Dan:
step, isn't it, and something that Dana was really strong on.
00:37:02 Dan:
And I really like the way she said that, better than a really positive nervous system disposition, steady.
00:37:10 Dan:
is the thing you want.
00:37:11 Dan:
And I think the thing I'm left with is how, when people are almost always feeling precarious or under threat or stressed, having that sense of, actually, let me just check in on myself and just say, like you did, if you think, no, actually, careful, you're blaming people, you're feeling something, but against this backdrop of probably permanent stress to say actually what's happening there so that you can really notice and do something about it.
00:37:36 Dan:
And as you say, it's ownership that happens, not sort of, oh, wow, here I am.
00:37:39 Dan:
There's
00:37:40 Dan:
loads of stupid people triggering me all the time, but hold on a second, I'm feeling something in myself now and I need to just really think about that and then aim to regulate.
00:37:49 Dan:
I love thinking about all those things that you can take responsibility for.
00:37:52 Dan:
You know, I drink monster drinks and I have these daily crises.
00:37:57 Dan:
Well, yeah, you will, you will.
00:37:58 Dan:
And while some of the science that Dana's talking about is still sort of emergent, there's some really good stuff there that she talked through that should indicate, you know, and for taking responsibility for ourselves, are we
00:38:10 Dan:
sleeping enough?
00:38:11 Dan:
Are we eating the right stuff?
00:38:12 Dan:
Are we getting our exercise and our walks?
00:38:14 Dan:
There's sort of a foundation as well that we need to just make sure we're tending to because that's going to lead to that steadiness.
00:38:21 Pia:
A bit of sort of self-care, which is a sort of definitely generationally.
00:38:24 Pia:
We don't really kind of that word.
00:38:26 Pia:
That wasn't in our vocab.
00:38:27 Dan:
No.
00:38:27 Pia:
But actually it was interesting.
00:38:28 Pia:
I read an article about Haaland, the legendary Norwegian striker.
00:38:32 Pia:
Yes.
00:38:32 Pia:
Who hopefully will not be striking out the heart of gold in England on Sunday.
00:38:37 Pia:
But he is relentless around recovery.
00:38:39 Pia:
That's how his regulation.
00:38:40 Pia:
So ice baths, red light, his diet.
00:38:45 Pia:
and a lot of hydration, but the specifics of things.
00:38:48 Pia:
So he does a lot of little things that make a difference around his recovery.
00:38:53 Pia:
And I think that's a big part of regulation.
00:38:55 Pia:
It's not a one hit wonder.
00:38:57 Pia:
It's many things.
00:38:58 Pia:
And everyone is different and everyone likes different things.
00:39:01 Pia:
So you've got to actually probably sample a few to find the one that works for you.
00:39:05 Pia:
But I think as we actually move into this more complex world, we do have to have more awareness and we do need to take responsibility of the ways that we are
00:39:15 Pia:
treating ourselves in order to be optimal with ourselves and with others.
00:39:19 Pia:
It's not a given.
00:39:20 Pia:
It's not a given.
00:39:21 Dan:
And if you're redlining the whole time, then something's wrong and it needs something to run.
00:39:25 Dan:
I must say, I will be in two minds on Sunday because I think Harland is fantastic.
00:39:30 Pia:
He is.
00:39:30 Dan:
But I will put...
00:39:32 Pia:
He was a skinny little kid as well, for anyone who's listening.
00:39:35 Dan:
Oh, interesting.
00:39:37 Pia:
So now that he looks like something out of Lord of the Rings, he was a skinny little kid at the beginning.
00:39:43 Pia:
So he's emerged.
00:39:45 Dan:
Exactly the figure that would have leapt off a long boat, I think, when the Vikings invaded England.
00:39:51 Dan:
You can absolutely see him.
00:39:52 Dan:
But fantastic.
00:39:53 Dan:
So we'll look forward to a good game.
00:39:55 Dan:
But that is it for this episode.
00:39:56 Dan:
You'll find show notes at squadify.net.
00:39:59 Dan:
And if you've enjoyed this show, please share it with one other person who'd benefit.
00:40:03 Dan:
And if it sparked something for you, know the drill.
00:40:05 Dan:
Take a small action with your team this week.
00:40:08 Dan:
We, Not Me is brought to you by Squadify, helping organisations to transform through teams.
00:40:13 Dan:
Thank you so much for listening.
00:40:15 Pia:
It's goodbye from me, and it's goodbye from me.