Modeling Regulation & Managing Overwhelm - Michelle Grosser

23:29Yeah. So I think before we're even aware of the outward signs, I think it's really important for us to become aware of the inward signs, right? What are our somatic cues? How does our body tell us that we're starting to get activated before we're in full-blown Hulk mode or shutdown or whatever it feels like in the moment? And, you know, like when we're kids, we're taught we have five senses. We actually have more than five senses, right? We have a sense called interoception, which is actually the sensations of our body. And when we can start growing an awareness of like how our body communicates, okay, we're starting to get frustrated here.

24:04We're starting to get annoyed. We're starting to get angry. We're starting to get anxious. If we can notice when our body starts to tell us that, then we can actually use the tools that we have to help us come back to a regulated state before we feel like we're so far gone. So noticing your somatic cues. I know for me, when I'm starting to feel stressed or overwhelmed or a dysregulated state, the first thing that happens is that my jaw clenches. My tongue is pressed to the roof of my mouth. I wake up. My jaw just kind of feels sore. sore. I have tension in my shoulders and my neck and I kind of like wear them up by my ears all day long and I'm just going about it.

24:44I'll start to feel like a tightness in my stomach, right? Like kind of like a pit. I don't really have much of an appetite. Even my tone of voice will change. Like when I'm starting to get really frustrated with my kids, I'll like start speaking really slowly. Put your shoes on, right? Like it's like I can feel all of that happening. And we all have somatic cues are different. So just starting to notice what yours are, for me, that's my little red flag, like, okay, Michelle, you need to regulate, like, you got to go use the tools that you have to bring yourself to a place before you snap or check out or what have you.

25:18So that's first. And then I think some cues that we are dysregulated or ways that it shows up. It depends on which circuit of our nervous system we're operating in. So if we're in the fight or flight response or sympathetic nervous system, that might look like feeling really edgy and irritable and kind of snappy. Those moments where everything kind of feels annoying and no one seems to be helping and we can lose it in an instant. Someone looks at us sideways and we're snapping at them. Maybe it's a lot of anxiety. Maybe you're feeling like you're stuck in this scarcity mindset where there's not enough help and there's not enough time and there's too much to do and it's really overwhelming.

25:58Those are all signs. We're busy all the time. Those are all signs we're in our fight or flight response. And then on the other end of the spectrum, when we're in a freeze response, what we call a dorsal vagal collapse, in that state, there's been so much going on that our body's best response in that moment is just to kind of tap out, right? We're just going to check out. So when we're in that state, we might notice that we're really zoning out a lot, spacing out. We're just staring off into space. Maybe our kids are telling us something. And then this has happened to me. They're like, mom, mom.

26:31I'm like, oh, yeah. What? What were you saying? Can you say that again? I was somewhere else. We can scroll mindlessly, right? We can drive home from work at the end of the day. And we don't even, we pull into our driveway. We don't even remember how we got there. We were gone kind of the whole drive. We're procrastinating a lot. We feel burnt out. Maybe we are getting eight hours of sleep, but we're still tired when we wake up in the morning. Those are symptoms that were in a freeze response. So noticing what's going on in my body that's cuing me that I'm becoming dysregulated. And when I'm there, what does that kind of look like?

27:03How does it feel, right? What do I say? What do I think? What do I do? And then being able to use the tools that we have to bring us back to a place of presence.

27:14Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah, it's so important to just recognize this not as like, this is life. The way life always is as a parent, right? This is dysregulation. And this is a sign that you may not be able to access your whole brain, that you may not be able to respond in the ways you want to respond, that doing more, reading another book, listening to another podcast may not be helpful at this time. But you may need something else. So I know what I do. I mean, for me, this regulation as like a highly sensitive person, seeing how dysregulated early motherhood brought me, you know, how it really dysregulated me early motherhood and just the intensity of it, etc.

28:08Hunter Clarke-Fields:And just seeing that, okay, I really need to do the things I need to do to regulate myself. Like, you know, sorry, kiddo, I know you don't love childcare, but you're going to the YMCA childcare while I work out. And I'm making my time for my mindfulness practice. I'm doing a little bit of yoga here and there, releasing tension, those things. What do you do to get yourself regulated? Yeah. So I have, you know, I guess what I would call like foundational things that I try to incorporate every day just to help my nervous system be more resilient, right? Yes, I get frustrated, but I'm able to come back a lot more quickly than I would otherwise, right?

28:51So these are things that I try to do every day. and then I also have in the moment things right when that red flag is waving like Michelle you're getting close there are things that I can do in that moment that take you know 90 seconds two minutes that can help me come back so the three things ultimately that I try to do every day that really help support the health of my nervous system and grow my resilience I try to move my body every day there's like there's no way around it um if you guys are listening movement is the number one most efficient way to close that stress cycle and get us back to our baseline, right?

29:26Get us back to a regulated state. We've got to move our body. I'm not talking about going to CrossFit. I'm not talking about this really long, high-intensity workout. I'm talking about can you get outside and go for a 20-minute walk every day, right? Can you not have lunch at your desk and sit on the floor and do some Pilates or yoga and stretch? You just can't get around it. Movement is so powerful in helping us stay regulated. We're made to move. We're made to move. Yeah. And if you think about it, I mean, even just fight or flight, the term, right? When we're in fight or flight, every cell in our being is wired for movement.

30:00We want to run or we want to fight. So sometimes when we first go to trying to be still, it feels really uncomfortable because we're going against every impulse in our body. Go walk and then meditate. And I promise you, you're going to have a different experience, Let that energy discharge and then bring in something that feels really soothing.

30:19Hunter Clarke-Fields:All of yoga were practices that were developed to make our bodies more comfortable in meditation. Brilliant. Yeah, this is not something new that we're discovering. This is ancient. Yeah, so the first thing is movement. The second thing is stillness, right? This is a lot of what you teach. Our brain and our body require moments of stillness. We cannot be going from the moment that we wake up until the moment that we go to sleep at night. It's so detrimental to the function of our brain. We don't have time to clean our brain. We don't have time to, you know, or our brain doesn't have time to organize things.

30:54There's not time to be creative. So really finding creative ways to bring in stillness. You talked about you used to go on your walks without your headphones. And that was like an early form of mindfulness for you. So many opportunities in our day for that, right? Can you sit in the carpool lane without listening to a podcast or an audio book? Can you go for a walk without your phone? Can you fold laundry just in silence instead of having a show on in the background? Meditation practice, absolutely. So that's the second thing. And then the third big picture thing that I try to incorporate every day is play.

31:29Play is one of the greatest regulators of our nervous system. It signals safety, which is what our body ultimately needs to come out of fight, flight, or freeze. And when I say play, it could be playing with your kids, but it's really the things that you do that excite you, that you could do and you lose track time of, right? That you do for the sake of pleasure instead of some end, right? Maybe it's playing an instrument or skateboarding or just going to the beach or journaling or I don't know what. But man, getting 10, 15 minutes of that a day and something that doesn't feel overwhelming. You don't have to go out and buy this whole thing, but like just keeping it simple.

32:09but doing things that light you up every day is a powerful regulation practice.

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33:33Hunter Clarke-Fields:and it really gets all those little nipples and straws and things so you don't have to worry about it. If you're in the infant stage or know someone who is, you need these Mom Cozy products in your life. Right now, you can get 10 % off the Night Pro Bottle Warmer and 10 % when you pre-order the Deep Clean Bottle Washer 8 at momcozy.com with the code MINDFULMAMA. So head to momcozy.com and use code MINDFULMAMA for 10 % off my favorite Mom Cozy product. garden, go plant some flowers or yeah, whatever that is. I love that movement, stillness, and play. And I love that these are not, these are things that we do just for you, right?

34:19Hunter Clarke-Fields:Like as your listener, it's not something you do in service of somebody else or in somebody, you know, in someone else in your family, doing things just for you, ultimately in service of everybody in your life, but just for you. And it's interesting, those stillness things, they require us to kind of, I don't know, get over a hump of discomfort, right? Yes. I don't know. I think of that as my, sometimes I think about my meditation practice is what gives me then permission to listen to podcasts while I get ready because I've earned this. I've had my vegetables right and now I can have my junk food oh my gosh that's funny I see that yeah yeah it helps you know like you just you get your your nutrition in at some point but um yeah and and these are things that help us stay grounded when it's inevitably I think when we can have like things like exercise, right?

35:23Hunter Clarke-Fields:Like it can be painful to do squats, right? In a way that like your muscle tension is building and things like that, but that ultimately makes you feel good, right? Like sitting still can be feel uncomfortable. You feel, you know, oh, I would rather be distracted. I feel fidgety, right? But it ultimately makes us sort of feel good. And then play there can be like a you know inertia about actually doing that I was thinking about that with my sketchbook last night like I've been having some inertia about sketching in my sketchbook because my technical skill has like dropped out because I've been out of practice but then it felt so good to do this little drawing of a teacup last night and I love that anyway um these are so beautiful.

36:12Hunter Clarke-Fields:I love them. Okay, but let's talk about when they help you, when the beep hits the fan. When it gets real. When it gets real, right? It's a roller coaster. It's an emotional roller coaster. So you talk about regulation and co-regulation, right? We know that we inter-are with our children, that we unfortunately feel a lot of the things we feel, they feel what we feel. we know that we're modeling for them all the time, right? So let's think about some of those high stress moments. What are some practical ways that we can model emotional regulation for our children? We're practicing it daily, and then we get to this moment.

36:58Hunter Clarke-Fields:What do we do? I think when it comes to our emotions in particular, I think letting them witness and see us experience the full spectrum of emotions can be such a powerful teacher in and of itself. And I say that, especially for the uncomfortable emotions, like letting them see us be really sad or really disappointed or see us cry or see us be angry about something, how can we let them in on that in a way that is healthy and productive, I think, for them as kids, right? So depending on how old they are. And I think, you know, I've had this happen where my kids will walk in and I'm crying about something.

37:42And my instinct is always to just like wipe my tears and then tell them like, oh, I'm fine. Everything's good. Don't worry about it and try to distract them or soothe, you know, turn it around and then soothe them and make sure that they're good. And what I've learned in those moments is that I'm sending a message that it's not okay for me to feel how I'm feeling and I'm trying to hide it from them. That's shameful. And I'm also creating, yeah, a dissonance, right? Because my kids can tell that I'm sad. They're so wise and they're so perceptive. So if I'm telling them that I'm not and that I'm good, there's something there where they're going to think, well, maybe I'm misreading this, cue or what I'm seeing isn't what I'm being told that I'm seeing.

38:27And there's something, there's a dissonance there. So I think if we can just let them witness our emotions in a way that feels safe for them, can be a really powerful teacher. And two things I guess I like to keep in mind when it comes to them feeling safe around my emotions, especially the uncomfortable ones, is first telling them that they are safe, right? Hey, yeah, I'm crying because I'm really sad right now or I'm crying because I'm really disappointed about something or I'm frustrated about something. And you know what? It's okay for me to do this. Everyone gets, you know, just normalizing it and then teaching them that they can, that they're safe.

39:06It's everyone's okay. You're safe. I'm safe. Even though I'm sitting here crying because I'm sad or disappointed. I like that. And then the second thing I really like to teach when it comes to this is affirming to our children that they don't have to make us feel better. Because I think so often that's a beautiful instinct, right? It's compassion. They want to sit there with us in our pain. And there's so much value in that. Hey, would you like to sit next to me while I cry? And you don't have to make me feel better, right? I'm your mom and you're my child. And it's okay for me to feel like this.

39:39And I promise once I just feel it, I'm actually going to feel better in a little bit. But you don't have to do anything to make me happy right now. we can just sit together and you can hold my hand for five minutes and then we can go play or whatever it is that's coming next. But I think just that, because I think a lot of us can intellectualize our sadness and our rage and our anger, and we can do the same with our kids, right? Yeah, I tell my kids it's okay to feel their feelings. I tell my kids it's okay to be angry. I teach them these things, but they never actually witness us doing it in a way that feels safe.

40:12Hunter Clarke-Fields:I really like that because it's, you know, I often, sometimes I, when I talk about things like iMessages, or I get the pushback that, oh, I don't want to put my emotions on my kids. But the way you're describing this process is, you know, what I always say is like, our kids know our emotions anyway, right? Yeah, they do. We're not, you know, it's not, we're not fooling them. But this idea of that added layer of, and you don't have to make it better. That's really lovely, because then you're really not being very explicit about this is not your responsibility. Thank you for being here. I love you.

40:52Hunter Clarke-Fields:I'm sad. And that's okay that I'm sad. Just that normalization, I think, is really helpful. Yeah. And then we can do the same for them. When they're sad or they're whatever, I think, and this was me when my kids were really young before I really learned about this, is the minute they were uncomfortable, I was uncomfortable. And then my immediate response was to try to oversoothe, to distract, to take them out of the discomfort they were experiencing so they could be, I don't know, happy again was my aim. But I was really robbing them of the experience of like, how do I sit through discomfort? And again, being there with them in a way that's safe and supportive, but teaching them how to ride that emotional wave without robbing them from that practice so they don't end up becoming 25-year-olds who are so avoidant of anything uncomfortable because they've just never practiced being sad or disappointed or angry or whatever with someone that can teach them and sit with them in that.

41:53Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah, yeah. I think that's so astute. Of course they need that, right? And we're seeing the effects of too much protectiveness from emotions. Like when kids get to college, there's an uptick in suicide, things like that. I mean, it can have big effects to just protect your kids too much and then have them get out in the world. So, yes, they need to feel all the uncomfortable feelings. And we need to feel some discomfort in our life. I had a really fascinating conversation with Anna Lemke, author of Dopamine Nation, and just talking about how the pleasure-pain system is the same system. And so that if we're not ever feeling the discomforts, you know, it actually robs us ultimately of the pleasure of our life.

42:49Hunter Clarke-Fields:It's so fascinating. But yes, and that is co-regulation. I mean, that's a process of co-regulation that you're describing is like, I'm here with you and it's okay to feel these feelings. Can you bring us into an example of like a real life parenting experience and talk to us about how that would work? Yeah. So I think the research is actually showing that we share a nervous system with our kids until they're about seven, which is so fascinating. Wow. And it also requires us to be, to the extent that we can co-regulate with our kids, we obviously have to be regulated, right? We're going to be the bar against which they either are regulated or dysregulated.

43:34Hunter Clarke-Fields:You cannot give what you do not have. You cannot give what you do not have. Yeah, you can only hold to the extent that you're able to do so 100%. So how might this look practically? Okay, let's say, I don't know, let's say my three-year-old is having a temper tantrum about something and, you know, whatever emotion, big emotion is coming at whatever age your young children are. So the first thing would be to try to get ourselves regulated, right? What kind of breath can I do in this moment? And sometimes I don't have the time or the wherewithal to even regulate before I jump in. I don't have two minutes right now.

44:11Hunter Clarke-Fields:My kids are pulling up the same toys. I got to jump in now. I'll acknowledge what's going on and actually have us all do the same thing together to regulate. I'll walk into a room and they're fighting about a toy. Wow, I can hear you guys fighting from the other room. It seems like you both really want that toy. Are you guys feeling angry about this? You can already tell. Their faces are red and their fists are clenched and their little somatic cues that they're becoming dysregulated. Here, everyone grab a pillow together 10 times. We're going to hold it over our heads and we're going to slam it to the ground and just scream, are you ready?

44:48One. And then we just hold it up and then we do it 10 times together. Okay, everyone wiggle. Okay, I'm going to put on our favorite song in two minutes. We're going to dance and then we're going to sit down, you know, figure out what's going on here. And every time we do that together, right, by the time we get to like, I don't know, 30 seconds into this thing, someone's laughing because someone's doing something silly and they don't even know what's happening, but their ability to regulate is happening in the moment. They've felt the highs, right? And because I've gotten them out of their head and into their body, that's the number one thing if we're going to co-regulate with our kids, we can't talk to them about it.

45:26We've got to get out of our heads and into our bodies and move together, breathe together, experience temperature changes together, right? Touch, right? Gentle and appropriate touch, pressure changes, a weighted blanket, get a tight hug. Those are the ways that we regulate, not through talking about what just happened. And then when everyone's back down to a place of regulation, we can have a conversation that needs to happen and we can figure it out. But I think that when it comes to co-regulating, if we can do it first and then be there for them, gold standard, right? And if we can just have the wherewithal to just all get out of our heads and into our bodies together, 90 seconds, two minutes, we'll recognize the shift.

46:08And again, everyone will have access to that prefrontal cortex, right? And we'll be able to have a conversation that goes somewhere. So one, and then the second thing I'll say with that is that it's so helpful to have a very short list, like a handful of regulation tools in your back pocket, right? Not a whole list of things that work, but do you have three things that you know really help your kids get out of that fight or flight mode when they're in it and come back to their baseline stress level. So maybe it is, you know, putting on their favorite crazy song, or maybe they're allowed to jump on their beds or jump on the couch when this happens and you all get up there together.

46:48Maybe you keep, I don't know, a pool noodle in your garage and everyone grabs one and they just start smacking the ground or trees in your backyard or what have you. But having those tools, body-based somatic tools, right, that can help them regulate is really, really helpful.

47:02Hunter Clarke-Fields:I love that. I'm hearing that you're prioritizing your nervous system, A, sort of in general throughout the day, but you're prioritizing your nervous system as a parent and their nervous system. And then, yeah, then after that, we can communicate. Then we can listen. This is so great. I love the way you share everything and, you know, the wisdom that you're bringing to this. Your kids are really lucky, which is great. Michelle, it's been such a pleasure to talk to you. And I've really, really enjoyed. I'm so pleased that you could come on. Michelle's podcast is the Calm Mom podcast. And where can people find you?

47:49Yeah. So if you already listen to podcasts, that's the best place to find me. That's my favorite place to be. And we don't have as many episodes as you have, Hunter, but we have, I think we're all coming up on 350. So there's a ton of resources there for you guys. The focus being on nervous system solutions for anxiety, overwhelm and burnout. So if that feels like it would be helpful, come hang out with us there. And then my website, michellegrosser.com. It's just my name. There's a bunch of resources and all the information that you would want to have access to is there.

48:22Hunter Clarke-Fields:Well, this has been such a pleasure. I really appreciate you coming on the Mindful Mama podcast and sharing and everything that, you know, your story has, I'm sure it has massive impact. And I really, really appreciate you coming here. Thank you so much for having me. You make it easy.

48:44Hunter Clarke-Fields:Thank you so much for listening. I hope you appreciated this episode. Please let me know what you think. I'm on socials, not on my phone. I check out my desktop. I'm on the socials at mindfulmommamentor.com. Tell me what you thought. If you appreciate it, text or tell one friend about it today. It makes such a difference. And yeah, I hope you're having a good summer. I hope you're enjoying your time and traveling and not getting too stressed. And hopefully all the things in this episode will help make it a little bit better. Anyway, I will be back in your ears right again next week. And I'll talk to you soon.

49:26Hunter Clarke-Fields:Namaste.

49:38Hunter Clarke-Fields:is now streaming on Disney+. What are you waiting for? Hop on. The must-see galactic adventure comes home on Disney+. This is the way. Our only chance is to work together. I like this kid. Always wear your seatbelt. Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu, now streaming on Disney+. Read PG-13.