Awakening the Crisis Self: How Brain-Body Connection Shapes Family Leadership

In the latest episode of the Brain's Body podcast, Dr. Christopher Kevin Slaton examines the relationship between brain development, sensory organization, and family leadership. He presents perspectives that challenge conventional views on parent-child dynamics and discusses approaches to supporting children's neurological development from birth. Central to Dr. Slaton's framework is the concept of the "crisis of self," which he defines as a state arising when individuals are conditioned to behave predictably without developing neural pathways for reflection and self-awareness. He identifies three levels of brain development: training the brain, preparing the brain, and organizing the brain. According to his model, meaningful development occurs when children learn to organize their neural systems to process experiences effectively, rather than simply being trained for predictable behavior.

Dr. Slaton further addresses the potential for children to demonstrate leadership qualities from an early age. He proposes that infants possess inherent cognitive abilities and suggests that parents can support these by engaging with the child's neural development, rather than imposing fixed behavioral expectations. This perspective repositions parental authority as a responsive interaction meant to facilitate children's growth toward their full potential.

Dr. Slaton introduces the term "neurological holding" to describe connecting with a child's brain through attentive communication and engagement, as opposed to focusing only on physical comfort. He contends that such interactions foster intellectual and emotional development by addressing the child's experiences and encouraging neural connections. The practice of "brain talk" is presented as a method of communicating directly with the developing brain to support mental health and self-awareness.

He illustrates his ideas with a personal account regarding his son diagnosed with schizophrenia, describing how practices consistent with neurological holding appeared to contribute positively to his son's well-being over an extended period. Dr. Slaton's approach emphasizes the importance of acknowledging children's efforts to communicate and the value of supporting a developmental trajectory that avoids rigidity, referred to as the "static state of mind." He associates this condition with limited growth and links it to the origins of certain mental health issues.

Overall, the episode presents various concepts related to brain development and family leadership, offering definitions and examples intended to clarify these ideas for families interested in fostering effective communication and development within their family system.

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The Neural Connection: Understanding the Brain's Body and Family Leadership

In the latest episode of the Brain's Body podcast, Dr. Christopher Kevin Slayton delves into the fascinating relationship between brain development, sensory organization, and family leadership. His insights challenge conventional wisdom about parent-child dynamics and offer a transformative perspective on how we can better nurture the neurological development of children from birth.

At the core of Dr. Slayton's philosophy is the concept of the "crisis self" - a state that emerges when individuals have been programmed to behave in predictable ways without developing the neural pathways needed for reflection and self-awareness. He outlines three critical levels of brain development: training the brain, preparing the brain, and organizing the brain. Through this framework, Dr. Slayton emphasizes that true development comes not from training children to be predictable, but from helping them organize their neural systems to process experiences meaningfully. This distinction is crucial because predictability often supersedes the natural formulation of thought and reflection that children need to develop insight and self-aw

Transcript

Welcome to Brain's Body Podcast

Speaker 1 0:08

So you wish Welcome to the Brain's Body podcast with Dr Christopher Kevin Slayton, your host and author of Brain Talk books, my current book, humanism, science and the Best Interests of the Child's, mental Health and Self-Awareness. And I'm saying that if you're here it's because you're concerned with either family leadership, child development, because they both involve our talk about the brain Three levels about the brain, three levels Training the brain, preparing the brain and organizing the brain. Because what we're talking about is how do we reduce the crisis self? We're talking about sense and receive path damage, and I like to always go back to where you are, in your reflective capacity to tell your own story.

Three Levels of Brain Organization

Speaker 1 1:09

As I began to talk about that experience, how did you enter the world Head first or foot first? Was your brain in the lead or was your body physics directing the course of interaction between you, the doctor and the environment? Because we're talking about sensory organization. We're talking about how the crisis self evolves from the breath of life, because when you come out of the womb, how are you held? Are you held as an experience or are you held as an effect? Because what I'm talking about is being trained to participate from the breath of life forward, without a sense of feel, for the experience of self, because when you come out of the womb the first thing you're supposed to experience is care, because the person has to grasp a sense of feel for you, a connection, a neural connection, not a physical connection, and the physical connection is the body. But you're more than just physics, you're neurophysics, you're a neural system, and so sensing, received path functioning begins when you realize the way you came into the world was with action, to receive that interaction. I mean you were looking for the interaction, not the contact, because the brain learns from interaction, with contact. And so when I talk to you about training the brain, I'm saying there's nothing wrong with training states of mind, but when you train states of mind, you want that individual to become predictable, and that supersedes the natural formulation of thought and reflection, because an infant is born to learn how to live in the environment through contact, interaction. And you have to embrace these variables because they're connecting the memory and emotion witnessed at birth and then processed throughout the stages of human development sense and receive path functioning to think, reflect experience and develop insight, self-awareness over the experience of self and others. And so I'm talking about sensory organization, because I moved through level one, level two and level three. Give them to you again. Level one training the brain. Level two preparing the brain. Level three organizing the brain. Level three organizing the brain.

Sense and Receive Path Functioning

Speaker 1 4:12

And what I'm talking about is system science and how you organize the sense of feel for self to incorporate the neural systems of the brain and the body so that, even if you've been trained and you're predictable, all I need to do is teach you how to transform your neural systems in the lead of your body to process the program, because that's the hang-up in a crisis cell. You're upset because you've been programmed and you don't know how to think your way through it, because that is how you've been taught to live and behave. And what I'm talking about is processing those experiences so that your brain is now in the body and now you have reflection, which involves the memory and involves the emotional effect, of where you are right now in the crisis of self, and then moving through it with insight, because you've got to accept that pain, hurt and sadness. You've got to move through it with a sense of feel for who and what you're becoming, now that you're becoming more informed and flexible in the way you choose to make contact and interact, knowing that when you make contact, you want to understand and comprehend the neurophysics of that interaction, because your sense of feel for self is alive and's awakened and now it's transforming. Now the insight is coming. Get accustomed to that. It's what I'm saying to you Sense to feel, to focus the organization of the brain's body working to enhance your ability to become more effective as a leader and as a mental, composed individual with insight. I understand what happened. I understand what happened. I understand what happened Because something happens on that continuum of the breath of life to where you are right now, and there's nothing wrong with it, unless you cannot accept the consequences of the mistakes that you made in your family system, the mistakes that you made in your child development system.

Speaker 1 6:46

But a child wants you to hold them neurologically, not physically. They want that connection, they want to know that you have the capacity to interact and the insight to realize that they are a higher technology, that you are an emerging technology still, and that's why you don't fall behind when I'm talking about this. You have to understand that we balance these things out because wisdom and experience counts. But in family leadership you must learn how to follow, to lead, and so that infant at the breath of life. I'm saying you're supposed to follow that infant because that infant is the breath of life. I'm saying you're supposed to follow that infant because that infant is a new technology. You embrace that infant through a sense of feel for their experience forward. Now you got to up your game. You got to up your game because now you got to learn a new technology and how to lead that technology to a higher level of processing than you were able to experience through your system at the breath of life. Because you're becoming more informed and that's the whole key Progressive investing, learning how to live each day, to become more informed on what it's going to take for you to process this information and, at the same time, experience the experience of experiencing emotion, thought and reflection, balancing as you're learning how to understand the brain and the body network. That's what Doc Slade has been talking about. That's what the brain's body is about.

Children Born to Lead

Speaker 1 8:29

Now, when I talk about brain talk, I'm talking about you had it at the breath of life brain talk. This is your example. You have children. They come out speaking what? What type of baby talk? What is baby talk? You can't understand baby talk, but then you learn how to understand baby talk, but you're training the child to talk and not receiving the infant's language system and helping them emerge through direction to talking to the brain, because that's what you're trying to do when you try to teach them how to talk. You're trying to talk to their brain, but you're not trying to talk to their brain. You are talking to their body because you want their body to be the measurement of how they receive your interaction and it's backwards. You talk to the brain because you want the child to elevate their intellectual capacity to decode your physics and comprehend the noise and sounds coming out of you. Now they're talking, but they're talking from the inside out. Baby talk, brain talk, and you're right there with that neural connection, reading and interpreting their brain's body interacting with you. Now you're on a plane, you are technology, your child's a technology. This is not no joke. Test it, practice it.

Speaker 1 9:56

My son has schizophrenia. That's where it came from. He was supposed to have passed in three years. We held him in grace and pleasure and enjoyment and fun for over 10.

Speaker 1 10:12

I'm saying to you that when you talk to a child's brain, the brain responds and if you're a parent and you're neurologically connected, you go to another level because you're leading the transaction Without you. There is less engagement because your child moves through you and if you're not giving that child signs of care, then what you're doing is reducing their capacity to comprehend the experience of you. And that's what mental illness originates out of when your child cannot experience comfort, moving through you and that's what I'm talking about Sends and receives path to function, it only takes the negative experience, the negative experience, the negative experience, to transcend into a static state of mind. Now the kid is blocked. They will not process information because they've been trained not to. Because you don't understand. You are dealing with a processor and not a program. A processor infants process the experience of interaction.

Closing Thoughts

Speaker 1 11:33

I said come out of the womb to learn how to live, process the interaction to become more informed and to take the lead. But look, go back, reflect, reflect, go back and reflect. When you think about what I'm talking about and you reflect on the experience, weren't you trying to lead? I don't care what age you were, you were trying to lead your parents to understand and comprehend you. That's what children do. But you're trying to ignore that and say wait a minute. I'm the parent Not realizing. This is new technology. They're trying to reach their human potential through you and they're not ignoring your ability or capacity to lead. They are born to lead. They are born to do better than you. They are born to think better than you. Born to think better than you. They are born to build things more effective than you, unless something sidetracks their brain, body, sense systems and they don't have that coordination. This is Brain Talk. This is Dr Slade. Live. Keeping it real. Brain Talk. Keeping it real. Speak the truth. Yes, I'll be back shortly. Thank you very much.