Inner Martial Arts: Exploring Nervous System Regulation in Autism and Trauma with Holly Bridges

Inner Martial Arts: Exploring Nervous System Regulation in Autism and Trauma with Holly Bridges

In this revealing episode of the 'What Really Makes a Difference' podcast, Dr. Becca Whittaker and her guest, Holly Bridges, uncover the transformative power of nervous system regulation for individuals suffering from trauma, autism, PTSD, and more. Through a mix of personal narrative and professional expertise, the conversation enlighten us on how regulating the nervous system can profoundly influence health, vitality, and recovery. Holly shares her journey and insights into developing the Anxiety Reframe Technique and the integration of modern science with timeless wisdom. Delving into the polyvagal theory, epigenetics, and the importance of viewing individuals beyond their diagnoses, this episode offers a hopeful perspective on achieving balance and health through 'internal martial arts,' therapy, and self-empowerment. It's a compelling discussion for anyone interested in the intersection of autism, trauma recovery, and holistic approaches to well-being.

00:00 Welcome to the Final Episode: A Journey of Health and Vitality

01:51 Introducing Holly Bridges: A Pioneer in Nervous System Regulation

03:50 Deep Dive into the Polyvagal Theory and Autism Spectrum

29:40 Understanding Social Engagement and Nervous System Regulation

42:05 Exploring Techniques for Nervous System Balance and Recovery

48:59 Exploring the Power of Gentle Engagement

49:38 The Transformative Effects of Sensory Exercises

51:15 Understanding Trauma and Nervous System Regulation

53:20 The Journey of Healing and Empowerment

54:52 Deepening Safety Through Permission and Respect

57:01 Expanding the Conversation: From Autism to Broader Applications

58:11 The Role of the Therapist in Facilitating Change

59:53 Sharing Success Stories and the Impact of Therapy

01:15:30 Courses, Training, and the Future of Therapy

01:27:12 Reflections and Takeaways from the Conversation

Holly's book, Reframe Your Thinking Around Autism can be found here:

https://zebr.co/shop/reframe-your-thinking-around-autism-2nd-edition/

Holly's Anxiety Reframe Course: (A.R.T. Express Course)

https://zebr.co/shop/a-r-t-express/

Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome to the What Really Makes a Difference podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Becca Whittaker. I've been a doctor of natural health care for over 20 years and a professional speaker on health and vitality, but everything I thought I knew about health was tested when my own health hit a landslide and I became a very sick patient. I've learned that showing up for our own health and vitality is a step by step journey that we take for the rest of our lives. And this podcast is about sharing some of the things that really make a difference on that journey with you. So grab your explorer's hat while we get ready to check out today's topic. My incredible guest network and I will be sharing some practical tools, current science and ancient wisdom that we all need, no matter what stage we are at in our health and vitality. I've already got my hat on and my hand out, so let's dive in and we can all start walking each other home. Welcome to our final episode in season one of our show. I can just hardly believe that it's episode 24. I've enjoyed so much having a professional excuse to reach out to some of these people to have a wonderful conversation and to be able to share it with you. The people that we have had on the show have shared their time. And their talents and perspectives in a way that was vulnerable. And that was real. And I hope it has improved your life as it has improved mine. Many of them I knew before and have collected their friendships through different stages of my life, but some of them were new. And today is one of those people that the podcast enabled me to reach out to for more information and it's a growing friendship. So I'm grateful for that. Today we hear from Holly Bridges. She has done so much in the field of nervous system regulation and rehabilitation, and especially for groups of people that are often overlooked or underserved. She works a lot with people that are on the autistic spectrum that cannot handle a lot of sensory stimulation, and she took some very complicated work, the polyvagal theory, condensed it down and simplified it to make it easier to understand and not only taught that, but also went on to create her own techniques around anxiety. It's called the anxiety reframe technique. And she teaches therapists or body workers all around the country, how to do that and to help these people. So I read her book having to do from the perspective of working with people that were on the realm of the autistic spectrum. But what I discovered in that was it overlapped in such a surprising way with the other information I had come across about trauma recovery, or about nervous system disorders and regulation. We have so many different camps of people that are struggling with nervous system regulation just from different reasons. And often we don't communicate very well from camp to camp. And what I noticed in her book was how big the overlap was and I reached out to her. Simply to state my observations and what was happening in myself and other people I knew struggling in those different areas. She reached back, she shared some research, and it ended up being a really valuable exchange that culminated in this podcast episode. So I'm excited to share it with you, and we will talk more about it in the end, give you the keynotes, and say adieu until next summer. Welcome to our final episode and here is Holly Bridges.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 3:36

Heh.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 3:39

to have you on the pod today, Holly. it's tomorrow for you, tomorrow morning, and I'm in the evening tonight, and I love coordinating that. It's kind of trippy for my brain to think about. So as you heard in the introduction, I have Holly here because we are talking about. How to help our autonomic nervous systems and what that really does for us, Holly. I'm so grateful for the work you've done with autism. I'm so grateful. We're going to be able to tie that into trauma and into just a general sense of us being able to live a more embodied life. Where we're understanding what is happening in our bodies, how to work with them, how to calm our own nervous systems. And this is your forte. I'm like a geek at your feet. So happy for our time today.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 4:25

I was looking forward to this. I think we're going to have a final chat. I really like talking to chiropractors because they understand what I'm talking about. And you have that level of intricacy of the body. And I, With no disrespect to other professions, a lot don't and they're working in mental health kind of fields, but they, but they haven't learned that. And so I like my name, my, it's my married name, but Bridges, it's quite a good name because I'm kind of pulling all of that together in that sense. But it's

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 4:56

That was actually how I got into the polyvagal theory, which is something that you write about and we will explain, but as I was reading Stephen Porteous's book, the polyvagal theory, and it was talking about the importance of someone feeling safe. In order to go into a healing space or in order to be able to receive feedback or have changes either physically or mentally, I was thinking about what it's like for a patient when they walk in, they meet someone new. That person is going to have to touch them in order to do their job. I mean, as a chiropractor, I touch the back, I touch the muscles and often they have to lie face down first, so they can't even see what I'm going to do. And as I read that book, I, I already Was interested in having a calm demeanor and in helping people feel safe in general, because that's just who I am as a provider and a person. But that gave me the words to understand how important what I was doing was. And now, especially if I sniff any sort of trauma history or any sort of anxiety, then there's a constant dialogue that is intended to help someone feel safe. And. Wow. The more that we learn to feel safe within our own bodies and with each other. It's been fascinating to read your book and, and remember the social cues we're giving each other that help us feel safe or not safe and what can be happening inside ourselves and what that does to us on the outside and how we interact with the outside world.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 6:24

Exactly. And it's, it's, it's so simple on the one hand and so complicated on the other. You know, so you can be focusing on your social cues, and, and I, I know that you would know this, but it's, I think it's really important to say, you can be doing all the right things on the outside, but if you're dysregulated, the other person, especially if they've got autism or trauma or something, will pick it up quicker than you can blink, so you actually have to be authentic, even if you're authentically going, not pretending that you're not, is actually safer for the other person

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 6:57

Mm.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 6:58

the, a veneer, a veneer is very difficult because there's a mismatch there and it's that level of authenticity and connection and then proper co regulation that is very important to me. So I, like I'm teaching my work now and we'll go into it later, but it's, it's that aspect of things and that aspect of connection with people is, is, you know, underpins everything. Okay. That I'm doing. Yeah, it's really important.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 7:27

I love that you pointed that out first and foremost. So Holly, I know you do a lot of work with autism, so we'll reference autism a lot. I also have done a lot of work with trauma, with people who disassociate or dysregulate. And I also am quite an empathic person. Like I pick up emotions around in the room. In all three of those arenas. It's so frustrating for me and for other people I know with those, when people have a veneer that is a mismatch, it's just endlessly frustrating. Like if people are upset, but they're smiling and saying they're fine. And you know, they're not the sense of anxiety goes way up. And lots of people think when they're looking at an autist face and it might be a little bit more blank, then lots of people misinterpret that they. Might not understand that someone is putting up a double front. And I

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 8:22

Oh, yeah. Yes.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 8:25

most and, but it's just what to like do about it that they're

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 8:30

And then their face might grow even more shut down,

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 8:33

Yes.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 8:33

including the rest of their system,

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 8:35

Yes, not because they're not picking it up, but because they are, and it's a, and it's a complicated process to figure out what to do about it. In fact there are autists in my life that are very, very dear to me, friends, my son, people I work with, and just people that I love. And I would say that has been one of the things that surprised me the most when I actually jumped in their world is how deeply they are often feeling, but how alone they feel in the feelings. And same thing with disassociation. Most of the people I know that disassociate a lot. It's not because they're vapid, silly creatures. It's because there's so much that sometimes you just don't know what to do with all of that feeling. So thank you for naming that.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 9:23

And what I think's really fun is that those states, whether you've been born in that state You know, so then that can be akin to very, very shut down autism, you know, that, or, or a trauma induced disassociated state. If you have prolonged time with those things, it makes you really smart. It makes you really aware. I spend a lot of time going a bit left of center with the polyvagal theory, because I like the dorsal vagus and I like talking about that. But if you're in a dorsal vagal state you're, there is a level of heightened awareness. And so you, you have connection to all sorts of other things. And that gets missed if your face is blank or you're a little wigged out, people, people just see that because that's what they're used to reading. And that's where they're. Vicinity lies, but there's all this other space and spaciousness that's there. And I, when, when you can acknowledge that personally, it's the same thing we were saying at the beginning. It, not as a platitude, but as a knowing, then you connect very deeply with the other person without having to say a word. because your eyes and your face are actually emitting a truth of awareness of. The person behind that stuff without trying to pacify them or placate them or all that sort of stuff. It's fascinating.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 10:50

I try to be what is the word? Vulnerable and honest in things if I'm going through something, but truthfully with no one more than my son who has autism because when he, he will pick it up, I was the other day having a rare moment of emotional eating. I'm not saying I never did that before, but I'm sensitive to sugar, so I don't do it very much now, but it was. A day. And I had some gluten free Oreos, and I just wanted to dunk them in milk, like I did in college when things were normal. Hence. Yes, so I was sitting there, I got my three Oreos out of the package so I wouldn't binge them, also like I did in college. Sitting there and as my three people had walked through, and no one had noticed that anything was off about me. He walked in the door, he stopped, stared at me and said, Okay. Mom is dunking Oreos in milk and she has that look on her face. And truthfully, I thought number one, thank you for seeing me and you're correct. And number two, I thought people think you don't notice you notice everything.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 11:58

Exactly.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 11:59

And number three, I'm not going to lie to you. It's been a very bad day. So,

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 12:04

this huge level of reality. And connection and which is the whole empathy issue, isn't it? There's all that stuff going on, this perception and connection, but because it's not ventral wired in quite, you know, the same way, it's seen as a disconnect. Whereas there's actually a much, much deeper purveyance, I think is, I think the right word.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 12:28

So I'm just imagining some of some people I know who may be listening to this podcast. I have a friend who has an autistic son and he is one that is a little further into the spectrum. where he's in his own world a lot. And he probably wouldn't notice if his mother was dumping cookies in milk. Maybe he would, probably he wouldn't because he's in his own world. So I'm not trying to, to discount that part of the spectrum. Can you, do you know any more about what would be happening about

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 12:59

Oh, yeah. Well, because that's my favorite topic.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 13:03

okay, well, let's talk about it.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 13:05

One. One of them. It's, it's very, there's sort of all these levels of being a human being, isn't there? So, when you're, I draw a triangle for this, so I'll send you a picture of it. And I have ventral vagal at the top. And then I have two lines, one for immobilization with fear, one without. And I try not to go too far away so I can answer your question, but there's a way in which the further down you go, the more diffusely connected you are. So the less apparent, as we're saying your, your outer connection is. And so. With someone that is, you know, potentially, you know, non verbal, non speaking, and they seem much more disconnected. While they might not be able to come up and say, Oh, mum's doing this and I can witness it and have a level of perception and connection to the situation. It still doesn't mean they're not involved in what's happening. And why I think that the most is because, do you know Diane Powell? She's doing, she's a psychiatrist, a biologist, she's got a lot of degrees. But she does studies on telepathy and autistic savants. And it's really good fun, because she does double blind studies, and the science community poo poo her and say she isn't real, but she's worked in, she's American, and she's worked in Russia, America, England, she's very highbrow scientifically. But she does these double blind studies, and she'll have someone who's you know, heavily shut down, always has been, wouldn't think there was much going on. And very hard to regulate. So one of her stories is going to this, this chap's house, and he's probably, I don't know, 30, 40, so I can't remember how old he was, but it took him about 45 minutes to calm down because there was someone new in his house, and that's the level of, you know lack of ability to regulate the system to the point where she thought, Oh, look, this just isn't going to work. And then he goes, gets on his typewriter and goes, yeah, all right. I'm okay now. What do you want? And she goes, I want to measure whether you can read your mom's mind if we stick her in another room. And he's like, fine, let's go. She does this all the time, by the way, lots of different people. And you know, it came, it came out with a, you know, from 99 percent success rate or something. And it's that. There's. We have dismissed this as a reality as human beings for a really long time. And when you're in certain physiological states, it's more accessible. So it's fascinating to start doing that. In terms of appreciating it and letting it be true. And then what I find therapeutically, if you let that be true, and I'm working with people and I'm, you know, someone at that level, it's very hard for them to operate their body. So I have two main things with exercises that I start with and one is like a fit ball, put your feet on it and push it's a soft ball with there's a whole sort of momentum to it to stimulate metareceptors to send signals of safety to the body, et cetera, et cetera. We do it very nicely, but I also do acupressure points and I'll have people who are. That, and not me working on them, but we're both together seeing what's okay, what can you tolerate, that kind of thing. If you come in and do that with someone who's distinctly in their own world, they're really interested in the work. If you come in with the right presence and you give enough time for them to do it, you start playing and they can feel the physiology change hugely. But then it starts waking up their system, which has been in chronic shock and for so long. And so it starts to mobilize and they have such a, I think, an extreme awareness of what's going on in their body because it hurts so much because it's always stuck in fifth gear, screeching around the, you know. universe or the house. And one example of this is a kid I've worked with. And when I say kid, he's like 17 ish with autism and pandas. So extremely locked myself in a cupboard for most days. When I met him, he would be just running his hands underwater for most of the day, naked in the bath. Like that's his day.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 17:43

Gracious.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 17:44

basically cry when I talk about this, which I'm allowed

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 17:47

Mm.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 17:47

you know, from them, their point of view, but he took quite a while to, with home visits at that time when I was working to, Let me into his space and understand it what I was trying to do and I did that in a variety of ways like I Talked to his mum first and draw pictures with him in the room so he could absorb the information Then we tried to do the work and we did this over a series of sessions and that you know It was a bit hairy at points because he wasn't able to control himself But then when he got the point of it, we It was incredible. He, A, you know, once we'd really started working, because you can go around all the points on the finger like this, right, and hold them for however long, you know, maybe count to 20 or something, whatever you can handle. But if I get it wrong, the order, he'd be like, push my hand and go, do it right, which I think is fascinating. But also his toes were blue. Because he would be standing on his feet or his toes for his whole day. Like it's huge the level of physical, like you only do that if you're in physical distress, and then it's even more physical distress. But it must shut down because the feet have so much sensory information coming through that you want to stop it. But as we'd work, and this is where I cry, his feet would uncurl.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 19:11

Mm.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 19:11

his toes would go pink and they'd go flat and his face would go get flushed and like his whole Facial system would start to breathe his whole whole system would start to be connected and then he's got a different sense of himself And then he has a higher ability to regulate and connect with the world And this is where

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 19:30

How different

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 19:31

you come back to the polyvagal theory and just go. Thank you Steven Porges It's just beautiful. It's such a beautiful, simple way of understanding all of that. And then you come in and do some lovely work.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 19:44

what did, I'm so sorry. I was interrupting you. What a different way to handle that than, Hey, put your heels down. Like, cause I know so many autists that stand up or like, Hey, uncurl your toes, uncurl your toes right

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 19:58

look at me. Look at me.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 19:59

different. Yeah. Then the respect that it is to understand what's happening. So let's go back and give the listeners a few different definitions. So first of all in the polyvagal theory, and by the way, in your book, so I haven't even really said the name of it yet. It's called reframe your thinking around autism. It is a a pretty small book and you distilled this big complex theory into something that is actually easy to hand to someone to ask them to read it. They will be able to understand it. If they are not a scientist, they will probably understand it. Intuitively, if they've been around anybody with trauma, difficulty, regulating autism and be like, yes, this is what is happening. So thank you for this book. If anyone is even mildly interested, please get this book on, on Amazon or wherever you get them. But one of the first things you talk about is Stephen Porteous's work. With with what I just call FFI. So it's fight or flight, but also adding in the I part was, which is immobilization. We're used to thinking of when people kind of ramp up, they go out of their parasympathetic or their rest and digest system and into a sympathetic overdrive. But what I really think gained some attention that needed some attention was the tendency to immobilize. So I would call that freezing, shutting down, disassociating, or in an autist often they start to stim or flap. But truthfully, I mean, animals shake it off to do that. Other people begin to shake too. We just have different words in different buckets of which we're looking. Can you go over What happens in that? And then let's, and then I'll ask the next question that I think we need some basic understanding around before we talk about some more stuff.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 21:46

What I, what I've done is I last, Yeah, the year before I've, I did a second edition of my book because I took it back from the publishers. So I could have more control over it and play around with it a bit more. So I've done a second edition. So it's got a new cover, which is really sad cause I really love the old cover. But in that I changed it. There's so much since I wrote it. Like when I wrote it, it was, you know, when I started writing, it was a decade ago and no one had done this, which is why I went, why isn't anyone doing it? And so it is very simple. It's like a Dr. Seuss version of the polyvagal theory. So it's accessible. And I have people, clients who take it around everywhere. They take it to school with them. They take it everywhere because it's like, this is me. And it helps them feel, like someone understands what's going on for them. It's really cool. The FFI, I've shifted to FFFI. The reason being, you have flight flight freeze, and we have such a ingrained understanding of what freeze is. So if you're a neurotypical, which, I don't love language like that. I find it dismissive of people and I don't like to do that, but if you want to take that kind of thing. If you're someone that hasn't experienced the level of shutdown or immobilization that someone has for a prolonged space of time, then your idea of freeze is, is highly simplistic in a sense. It's like stage fright or I couldn't move, but there's, it's, it's light, it's light on in a sense. And Porges is speaking to something quite different. So where you might be a gazelle in the, Forest and there's a lion in the distance, you might have these options at a sympathetic nervous system level of being, you know, moving or fighting or, you know, running away or, or that freeze is sort of stop still and then, and then think again, you have, there's this level of choice. But what he's talking about, and the distinction is so big, is the immobilization is where there isn't choice. If that line gets too close, that gazelle's down and out, because the only option, and the body's taken over, and there is no complicit, I can't say the right word, complicity of the, of the, The individual, which is why it's so interesting for trauma and such a useful model and a truth that we haven't spoken to for a long time is that the system takes over and makes the decision and then you're out. And until that line goes away or the body deems it safe enough or someone comes in and helps you in some respect and the body warms up again, then you can tiptoe away from the lion. As a little gazelle. And that's what I teach people how to do. But it's in there, is the, that, that shutdown is 100 percent involuntary. Involuntary at a certain point. And so I, I like to delineate it even more than I tried to in the first edition. So that we can really be clear about what we're talking about. Because otherwise people go, oh yeah, I know how you're feeling. It's like, no you don't,

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 25:00

no no, no. and after you've been in a freeze, you know, I actually had a person on the, on my podcast a couple of weeks ago named Shuna Morelli. And she does, she talks about body mind bridge and she wrote a book called survival trances, which is when you get in a mode for survival and that's what survival is about. And that's another word that I feel like. You inherently know once you've been in it, right? A freeze that you couldn't control. And you may come out of it after and judge yourself. Like, um, I mean, why didn't I stop that? Why didn't I do something? Why didn't I, whatever. But at some point your body is a mechanism that is designed to keep you alive. So what's interesting to think about in the autists arena or in the PTSD arena or in any of those is the level of nervous system stress is so high, the body must shut down sometimes. And when you are at a level that is that high, like I think about, you know, having static on the radio or something like that in my head all the time. If I had like a normal day where I felt fine and there were You know Maybe different nutrition that came in or surprise sounds that came in or my clothes were a little scratchy. I could handle it. But if it's the end of the day and I'm tired and there's been meetings and someone's on re at me and I'm getting to feel more and more kind of like static on the radio in my head, then I don't have as much space in my system for any of those. I mean, we kind of all know what that feels like, how you are on a day where it's smooth, how you are on a day when there's a lot. And it was interesting for me to realize that that was how lots of autists feel all the time or lots of PTSD people feel All the time. And you can't really know that's happening under the, I dear people. I know with autism, you wouldn't know by looking at them unless you are in the world for a while, and then you start to know our PTSD. Any of that. So it's interesting what people can be dealing with on the inside. And you talk about the, the kind of like defense mode shutdown that autism does being based on their systems already being amped. Not vacant amped.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 27:19

Their baseline is high, high amp, all the time. Yeah. So that's their norm. A good day is a really high level and then a bad day is off the charts. So, so there's an extremity in the system all of the time. So we've just done a study on in reference to a study on autistic inertia, and I'm finding that really good language in a sense, because it gets so complicated to talk about autism in a sense. When you start talking about inertia and the polyvagal theory, you can go into trauma and stuff as well. It's like the body goes into shutdown. It's very hard to mobilize. It's very hard to think. There's all this executive functioning and, and working memory and everything that goes offline when you are in sensory bombardment, when your body is in a state of, it doesn't even feel like distress necessarily to people on the spectrum. And this is what I think people don't understand. The distress is when their high baseline gets overloaded, otherwise it's just normal. Doesn't feel great, but they've been born with it. So it's just what it is. It's just that it's very hard to then interface with the world because your bandwidth isn't, you know big. And your your vagal system, I like to think of a, a really well functioning vagal system and Even if I say that language, I start getting into trouble, but I'll say it. It's like a good piece of bamboo, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It's really flexible, and it can go taut if it needs to, but then it can go soft, and it, it's, it's able to reflexively, Unconsciously reflexively deal with the world and then you can you don't have to think about it Whereas people on the spectrum there's is I think like and I consider myself on the spectrum I understand this very well from a personal point of view. And it's a lot less difficult these days, but I think it's like a talk catastrophe Where it's, and that's your normal. And so every day you're walking around like that, and it's not like it's all bad, because, you know, and we'll talk about this later maybe, but there's a whole sort of confluence of other cool things that can come with that. But, but at a systems level, at a body level, you've, you've got a taut catastrophe. And it inhibits, and it, it, your connection with the world in ways, in ways.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 29:38

Yeah. One of those ways that you talk about that I loved how you, how you explained it in a simple way is our social engagement system. And I think that's so valuable to talk about. So can you explain how your vagal system, so I probably should get basics for that. Your vagal nerve is your 10th cranial nerve and it wanders. Vagal means wanderer. Vagus means wanderer. But it wanders all through your body. It is, it helps your basically entire rest and digest system and helps us navigate between fight and flight and rest and digest and all that in between. And like you said, it should be flexible and easily bendable. And when it gets taught, then we have a hard time regulating. So now that we have the vagal system kind of basics down. Can you tell me how that relates to our social engagement system and what that even is? Because I think that's a really important piece for why it's sometimes hard to read people in PTSD or in autism. So what is our social engagement system? How does it relate to our vagal tone?

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 30:45

your social engagement system is, I always have to just put it in my words.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 30:51

Please, please.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 30:53

It's always, and I, and you always have to sort of talk in metaphor in some respects because it's actually just easier, but it's like your veneer, it's, it's how you meet the world. It's your interface. But then again, what it is, is your ability to use your eyes, ears. mouth, lips, tongue, body to communicate. So it's it's an aspect of humanity. It's an aspect of being a mammal because all mammals have an ability to use their physiology to engage with others. You know, and so human beings are, excel at this on the whole, where we speak, and we make eye contact, and we attune to people, and we use facial expressions, and we localize, and we mobilize our heads, and we are expressive, and wave our arms around in conjunction, and all of this choreography of, of connection, is allowed by our physiology, being in a certain place. So The best thing for me with Porgy's stuff and I went, Oh, that's me. I was just like, Oh, there is, it has to be in a certain place. When your body is operating at optimum, your digestive system's in a good place. Your heart rate's down, your cortisol's down. You're in a sympathetic nervous system state where it's operating nicely. So you're mobilizing and then you have a, A, a confluence of it's language is the ventral vagal state is then allowed, but it's the vagus nerve, which is the biggest nerve in our body that goes into all your major organs. So it can put you in a flight or fight state. It can put you in an immobilized state. You, you can use it yourself when you're in a, strong kind of position. And you don't when you're mobilized, which is what we're saying. But when it's, when everything's operating nicely or well enough, your big, the biggest cranial nerve, the vagus nerve then connects to all the other cranial nerves, which are eyes, ears, tongue. Taste all of that sort of thing and so you're able to move your face and to operate that system It's a system at the end of the day. We are embodied We live in a body and I don't if it always works you it's very hard to unpack this as well as when you know It doesn't work. Then you have to know who you are separate to it, which is why I think it's all very Buddhist You know, that's that sort of thing in the day, but you're Your ability to use it depends on the state of the system. So when you're in a highly immobilized shutdown state, it's hard to talk, it's hard to eat because your tongue shuts down, your gut shuts down. When you're in a highly immobilized state, your, your digestive system seizes. And so, that, when that happens, it, it affects your vestibular system, it affects your, everything goes into a contraction. And when we're in a contracted state, the brain choreography shifts, because the brain isn't this piece of wood, it is again a confluence of things, so that it mobilizes, you can use aspects of it depending on what's going on. So when you're in a flight or fight state and everything's heightened, your ears, via the vagus nerve, via all the cranial nerves attune to danger. Your eyes will narrow and attune to danger, your face will go rigid, your throat will seize, your digestive system will seize, all of that tract will go in, your, you have a totally different channels of communication to your arms and legs and your back, and you're ready to go. And so, if you've been born like that, that's all you know. And so you might have always had trouble eating and always had trouble seeing the peas on your plate because your eyes are Not able that they they're not chatting to the body in a really open fluid way And so all sorts of things get shut off and shut down and it's just normal And then that there's gradients and gradients of that down to total shutdown and a coma Or the other op, the other way, you know, and this is the thing, it's, it's, it's just this fluidity of being a human in a, in a mammalian body in a human body is the other way is it can all start to open up and then you have greater and greater access to your, physical system, and your mental system, and your emotional system, because you lose connection with your heart when you're in a contracted state at levels. there's this way in which your social engagement system is your, your, your connection to the world. It's our highest evolutionary function. So we, we have learned to play with it over a fairly long time. Which I should do, is that good enough?

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 35:40

That's a beautiful

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 35:41

Oh, good.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 35:42

in your, in your, I'm going to add to it. And then I'm going to go back to what you said in your book. You talk about how it is one of the ways that we co regulate with each other the most, like watching each other's eyes, watching each other's faces. So it can be Let me back up. We watch each other for that, but also we talked about how amped and, and highly, we talked about how amped an autist brain could be, or a trauma brain can be, or I, you know, the, the experiences that I have had in that state that were the most pronounced were I, my nervous system was at such a high level that I shut down completely. I had autoimmune disease. I had brain poisoning. I had all this stuff. And I would go into episodes where I could not move. I could not speak. And I would just, wherever it happened was where I had to It was terrifying, but I was fully in there. Just could not have control. of my body until my nervous system learned to calm. I couldn't handle like light. I couldn't handle sound. And I remember when I was out of an episode, I started to gather just soft, calming music that wouldn't have beats that were too loud and wouldn't have any sort of drumming, which I usually like, but stuff to soothe, because I started to notice. The faster that I could soothe and bring my nervous system down, the more I could sort of take the strings back over in my body. I felt like a, like a marionette that had lost the connection point for my muscles, which made me think, okay, nervous system disorder or something attacking my spine, which it was, I had Lyme disease. But I try, I think what is creating the biggest stress on the system can depend on the person. So it can be a trauma from childhood. Mine, I thought was an illness, but truthfully, I was working with doctors and all kinds of nutrition and stuff to try to get my guts back online. And every system that you talked about on in my body was down and it was not until I started working with a mentor and we began to untangle the perfectionism and the constant drive and the belief systems that were in my head that were driving the whole thing. When I. learned more that helped me shift my emotional state and my way of viewing the world, then my nervous system could calm down. And then I could get my feet under me, but going from the outside and didn't work at all. And. I actually got to see some of that this morning. I mean, when we are in a spot where our nervous systems have been ramping for a long time, I love how you talked about how we shift to just looking for danger or threat. So it can be, someone can say something to you. And all we can see is the threat in it. I, I have a dear one in my life that I was with this morning when that happened. And it was interesting to see a brilliant person start to shut down and to realize that in my own self and in the self of just so many people that I've seen. When we go in behavioral therapy mode and we try to coach people in that state. And we're like, blink your eyes, look at me, do this. Why are you talking? Why are you yelling? I'm like, Oh my good. When you, once you have been in that state, you know, there is no sort of outside coaching that is going to help. It is just learning to regulate. And I love what you said about there is a way out. There is the other end where we learn how to feel our bodies and we learn what the cues mean that are coming from our bodies and how to actually feel them. Care for them, like care about ourselves, learn what this means, learn that we have to regulate. And it is a whole world that opens up. So you talk about how in autism, it can start from really small, some trauma when they are small. I know I've heard it comes from vaccines. I've heard it comes from lots of other things. I think the truth is if that nervous system is fragile, It can be many things. My son started exhibiting behaviors. Actually, when he was young, it was the first time I left him alone. We went to a Harry Potter movie and I had told the sitter where the Milk was for him, but about five minutes after I left, he started crying for the milk and she couldn't find it. It was right in the fridge. I'm not really sure what the disconnect was, but he screamed for two solid hours. And when I came home, man, it took me. a long time. He wasn't really his self days or weeks. And that was just one little thing. So kids that are born in trauma, I know autist friend of mine, a couple of them had a lot of problems with bowel problems or bladder problems, and then, you know, If they were in abusive situation, it got worse just more and more and more. So maybe not a neurobiologic thing, maybe a nervous system regulation

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 40:37

They're the, they're, they're the same thing. They're

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 40:40

Ah, true, true, true.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 40:43

You can't have one, you can't have a head without a body and vice versa. They're the same thing, aren't they? And so, yeah, it's, Oh, again, you're, I love listening to you and then I get right into what you're saying. So now I'm trying to pull back out of that to respond. Let me think. I got lost. I got lost in where you, what's, what's the main thing then, if, if all of that stuff you just said is true, what would be the main thing that you want to ask?

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 41:17

guess in what I just said, I'm saying here, here to that. You don't really understand that feeling of not being able to access your body, not being able to access your voice, your face, your bowel function, all of it until you're really in it. And what I'm hoping that we can get into with your work is how do you help people? Open that level back up. So now that we understand what it can feel like to be trapped in there and to be constantly scanning for danger, but also once you're only seeing danger, you're not really reading the environment all that well either. So you might not understand your social cues that you're watching for to try to help the thing that you know is coming, which is infuriating. So. What do you do now? I know you have moved your focus more into, uh, you've made a whole technique, right? For how to help people balance their systems. Please tell me what you do.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 42:15

So I'm, I'm going to link now back to where you were. Sorry, I usually scribble and then I remember things while you're talking and I lost my pen. So,

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 42:25

can pause and find it if you would like.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 42:28

it's all good. It's fine. What I wanted to catch was. I think that was really relevant in what you were saying. We don't know why. You can, there can be lots of reasons why you have a dysregulated system. And so I tend not to focus on any of that. Because I, Would rather go the other way and as you know where your questions leading as to what what do you do? I I think there are many many reasons for this to happen and I think historically You know, we've gone down weird roads like Freud and refrigerator mother if we want to start talking autism all that sort of stuff But at the end of the day, it's an is And, and so all possibilities are on the table, in a sense, as opposed to it can't be or it is or, you know, all of that sort of stuff. I just find for me that takes so much attention when, you know, and I, I like to sit with where's your system at? What does it know? What can it learn? And then the other aspect is that. Even when you were talking and you're talking about we can re learn sensory stuff or teach you There's a level at which what I loved about the Polyvagal Theory the most was that it's not about consciousness. It's secondarily about consciousness. It's about, you know, it, it becomes your physiological state allows consciousness and it allows social engagement. It allows capacity. And so you know, what we haven't said is neuroception, which I think is useful to bring in here is when you, when you are scanning the environment, your body's doing that. It's a, it's a innate thing that your body does and it will do it more or less depending on whether it feels safe. If your body doesn't feel safe it will be continually scanning and then it becomes a mental state and then it can become anxiety if you've got too much. The body's scanning, scanning, scanning and it is highly complex in the sense of what you were talking about before of how do you unpack that, how therapeutically, there's all sorts of variables to this. that we don't want to oversimplify but you can simple it down in the sense that this is what the body's doing and it it's when it feels safe it does it less when it feels unsafe it does it more but it's literally got a a filigree of information that is tracking all of the time because that's its job and if it thinks that things are not safe it will contract and send you into a flight or flight state and you can learn how to bring yourself out of that state. And then if you go too far, you're in a very shut down state. But so much of who we are, this anxiety is a big deal for me because we, we see it as a mental issue. I see it as a physical, physiological issue first. And so where my work comes in and why I think it's vastly different to what other people are doing is I'm, I'm, I'm, I call it an internal martial art now because it's much more about learning the subtleties of your system and, and bringing it down out of a conscious sphere and, and playing around with how do we make the body feel safe with a variety of tools that I've either created or I've, you know, utilized that other people have done, but I bring it into, into into this space with a high degree of awareness and a high degree of artistry or sophistication. It's ART, anxiety reframe technique, but it's a, it's a way of gently playing with sensory information. Meta receptors in the body, if you like. But see, that doesn't make sense to people. So there's sometimes no point in saying it. But the, you're teaching the body. If you've got someone who's never felt safe in their body and then you, you can, you can play at a conscious level with all the things. But they'll still stay at their baseline, because that's what their body knows. So for me, you'll get them down to their best, but if you want to teach the body something else, you have to make a different space. And if you ask for their consciousness to do it, they can't because their consciousness only understands the space they've been living in. So you have to do something else. You have to come in at a different level. And then to come in at a different level, you have to be very gentle and soft yeah, and then again, you have to be meaningful. So, and then examples are the best way to say this because it just becomes so abstract so quickly. I always talk about it like it's Doctor Who's TARDIS, which doesn't necessarily make sense to Americans.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 47:11

Oh, no. So many Americans know

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 47:13

Oh, there we go. Then we're fine. Sometimes it doesn't, but it's that thing of, it looks little, but when you go in, there's doors and doors and doors and doors and doors and rooms and rooms. And that's what the body's like. It all looks really basic and then it isn't, but it is. And it's, you know, it's multi dimensionality. It's, it's both at the same time. So an example is I work with a 40 year old woman with A brain, a brain injury from birth, like I can't remember what the proper term is for what she lives with, but, you know, chronic, chronic brain injury. So it had been totally shut down her whole life, etc, etc. From oh, from that, from that drug we used to give women that we don't do anymore.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 47:54

Fen Fen or I don't know. There's

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 47:56

an R, but anyway, it was really chronic and, and so it just completely totaled people's nervous systems. And then, and then they're not able to function particularly well. So this woman has gone, you know, I work with her and I work with her mom, I, you know, but she's, she's gone from, and it's hilarious because I'm five foot and she's huge. So we look like a Clydesdale and a Welsh pony. It's really funny. It amuses me. No. And hilarious. But her mom said even on the first session, wow, she never, ever usually. responds that way to people, especially for the first time. And she was so open to you and she was shocked. And then the work that we did was so fast for, for things that unraveled, which I'll describe. But what I did was I treated her like I knew she was in there. And people don't. Because she's totally shut down and you've been told, Oh, she's got brain injuries. So there's no one home. So then we teach her how to pick up a spoon. Or, yeah, whatever. But I don't. I go, Hi. And let me tell you, let me show you what What I want to do and I talk enough so that it's not overly complicated, depending on the, the ability of the brain to take in information depending on where it's set, depending on the nervous system set. But there's a person in there who's completely witnessing and absorbing as long as you don't trigger their nervous system. Or, or annoy it by being patronizing and silly. And so, I'll, I'll go, this is what I think, and I'll talk to the mum and I know she's listening. And say, this is what I think I'm doing, and then I get the mum to do the exercises. Because if you have a pretty regulated system, the, the ball exercise I've created can bring you into a deeply meditative state in about five minutes. 10, 15, 20 minutes, like, you know, I did this thing in New York with all these women and they're like, Oh my God, it's better than Botox because your whole face softens and everything, you know, there's this way in which the, the system when it is in a safe place will soften and then be connected in nice, easy ways. So, yeah,

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 50:07

Are you talking about the thing you were doing where you put the foot where your feet on the ball? The reason I was making a relaxing sound when you said that the first time is I know. That feels so good to me on my hands and on my feet. So like that, that kind of like kneading dough on my hands, if it's like soft and nice and I can smoosh it or on my feet, if there's something that I can just sort of move nicely with my toes, huge difference.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 50:35

you play there. I also call it a kitten on a fat belly which I'm playing with at the moment because I have a ten week old kitten. So it's really fun playing Polly Bagel games with my kitten. But essentially it's that and that feels nice to you and it might feel nice to someone else depending on how much sensory inflammation they can take in. So, It, it's where, where I can, I can get someone with a fairly robust system and show them this exercise and you know, you do, you push, stop, close your eyes, rest, feet long, do it three times. There's so much to it. Again, it's like the TARDIS where it's easy, but if you can't do it. We have to teach your body how to be able to move into a safe space because it doesn't know. It can easily get dysregulated. If you've had trauma, you're used to having your defenses up. We don't want to take your defenses away too quickly. So the body might happily move it, or happily, it might move into a softer state, but that might be very vulnerable, which then triggers it. And then you have a cascade of, of challenges in the same way. So, I don't know if I'm explaining it well, but it's very intricate. So, there's gradients of getting good at moving the body into a safe space. So, like with this woman, we did that, and then I, I can't remember. It was years ago. We I, I would have, Perhaps put her feet on the ball and that's all and just see if she can handle it. I wouldn't have even touched her hand on that day. But what we've progressed to is she can do all of my most of my exercises. Not all of them. she's getting better. I like it. There's points in which I can't do when I think someone's all the way through they can do a full body scan like a yoga thing where they can go and notice the toe bones and go all the way up the bones and all the way up to the Blah blah blah People can't do that because they're totally been immobilized forever. They can't feel their body. That's the other thing is when you're immobilized, you can't feel you don't know if you're hot or you're cold. All this stuff turns off, but it can turn on again. So we're, we're, we're inviting the body to move into a space of safety that it can handle, and then you can't go too fast. So it's not a matter of teaching it something. It's about inviting it to be in that space and what will it take. So it takes the, the I think that word's not right. It takes the curiosity of the person. It, they have to, I can't go comply. It's a complicit, it's different. It's like they're choosing to. They, they have to want to do it. You have to make sense to them. You have to be, you know, there has to be an openness. And then you can slowly teach them how to do this if it makes enough sense. But this woman, who, when I met her, would just sit there and sort of go, Yes, and no, and do what she was told, and that's her whole life. Is now, her mum just keeps going. I've got different, one or two snippets on my website of the mum, because she just keeps saying, She's in her seventies. I keep having a totally different relationship with her. She keeps changing. It used to be she was just in the, and this isn't rude, but dragging along aside her mom. Whereas now she says it's a partnership. This woman is. Cleaning the kitchen and choosing her own clothes and they're looking at her moving into the back building a room for her out the back, like a little house because she's getting more and more efficacy in her outside life. She's speaking more. She's, there's a whole way that her Her brain, which we didn't think because it's brain trauma, so it can't change, is stuck with it, is starting to wake, wake up, re imagine itself, because her internal physiology is safe, and when it's safe, it allows reconnection to the brain, reconnection to the heart, in those more external ways, but she's always in there, and the only reason she works with me, and she loves me, is because I saw her first. And I asked her permission and this is where a lot of our therapies are just heinous because we just come in and go, well, you're stupid and I know best. And even if you're really nice about it, that's your inference and you can't get anywhere if you, if you do it like that. So I wrote,

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 54:49

I'm going to pause you because I want, I think that bears repeating. I've been thinking as you're speaking about what makes safety really, there's, there's so many things, but when you just said, because I saw her and I asked her permission, those are two such huge things in safety. I, I've, I know all of us have experienced the feeling of being seen or not seen and have been pushed or asked and our answer has been invalued. Or not valued so important to safety. What are some other

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 55:24

can I, can I stay there then first? Because I, it's to unpack that's really important.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 55:30

please.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 55:30

There's two tiers at least to that. One is the personal. Permission and the, the connection and the, the, the respect. of the fellow human being. The other is the permission of the system and this is where I will play. You can do all of those right things but if that system, which I just call an octopus because I think it's a great metaphor for your internal system and it's more than the vagal system, it's the whole nervous system is sentient because it makes decisions and it opens and it contracts and it thinks and so you're, you're asking the permission of the person then you have to ask the permission of the system. And it might still say no. It's made a decision to shut down. It had a jolly good reason a really long time ago, or last week, depending on what's going on, for, to be in that lockdown. And it's not going to give it up just because you're nice. And it's not going to give it up because even if external things shift and, and people are nicer, or even if the, the safety issue is changed or, you know, there's, there's a level of safety, which is, they're all really good things. And so I'm not negating any, any therapies that work here, but for me, there's a point at which that body's still going to go, no. And if it's known it since birth, it's going to go, I don't even know what you're talking about. I'll, I'm going to be staying here. Thanks. I know this is my choreography. This is me. And this is where we get into hookups with the autism advocacy saying, this is me pride. I totally understand it. I respect it, but there's a level at which actually you're, you're more than your body contraction. You're, you're more than that experience in a sense, because I, I'm not religious, but I think we have a soul. I think there's sentience, but I think there's all sorts of things that we get to play with being embodied humans. And so. It's more interesting than that and in that I think Autism is very interesting. It allows all sorts of things and I, I write and speak to that a lot. If you, if you want that person, they, at the person empowered outer level, they have to say yes and then you have to ask the system. And that's where you have to go, fine, you said yes, I can make you now comply. I can go fine now we're going to do this and now we're going to do this and we're going to do this and and that's what most of our therapies still do even they're really nice but they go okay now now let's go and I'm like no now we don't now we stop now where do we start that's just the beginning And each session, you have to get that yes from both and then go, what can we have? And you make a space and you're, you're learning to, you know, in this, I'm teaching my therapist, you're, you're learning to hold that space so that it's really safe. And then the octopus, I get quite emotional talking about this because it's beautiful. But it's like the octopus might put a little tentacle out. and test the water and then I might go back in again. And it's the body going, maybe I can. And then you don't jump on it and drag it out and go, fine, we're going to go sit in a chair and have a tea party and talk to lots of people. You go, that was clever.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 58:46

And tell your parents how much I did that I fixed you. Let's go tell them all in big noises.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 58:52

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I can justify my existence as a professional. No. What you do is you go, I can tolerate that I didn't do anything in this session for other people. As a, as a therapist, you know, but in session, if that octopus is opened a bit, you know, quantum physics, anything you look at changes, you have a slightly different shift in choreography of the body goes, I might think about that. And then you leave it alone. The trill of shifting information flow allows an entirely different understanding. And then you leave it and you, you let the body and the brain have time to make sense of itself in a new way. And it opens. And then it goes, I just did that. And then the person may or may not notice, depending on how, you know, much they can notice, they'll, it still influences and other people will notice. Other people, mums will go, he came and gave me a big cuddle. And this could be a big 17 year old shut down kid. He came, I got, I got a message the other day, this lady just, just did my six week course. and she went, I've got a really, you know, shut down, 17 year old down syndrome chap. We've just been doing the hand points but he really likes it and he just came up the other day and gave me the biggest, softest cuddle. You know, and she's so emotional and she's so proud of herself because they've both done this together. So it's, it's cool, but it's it has to be done well and it has to be done with all this level of respect and then because that octopus has put a little tentacle out and you didn't jump on it and make it do something and perform it can go back in and then it and the next time you go hi Maybe we could try a little bit more. So it does a little bit more, and it comes out a little bit more, and then it, you know, and then it just keeps coming out, and then it might come fully out. You know, and this can take sometimes five days. I do intensives, and they're eight sessions, and the five days are consecutive. In five days, it might fully come out, and know what that means. And then, It allows the person to fully know themselves in a completely different way. I've got testimonials in the back of my book, and they're fun as really from like 40-year-old autistic women who are, you know, computer analysts. Like, it's really fun. But it's the, it's the letting the system make the decisions and then holding it well so that it can, and then it experience itself. And then the person has an experience. So I say it's like you're seeing a hero, a new hero emerge with a person couldn't possibly have understood what it, what it can be like to be in a body that's more open and it's a delicate

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:01:40

what I was going to say. Yeah. What does it look like when the octopus comes out? What would that look like? Like the The body safety

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:01:51

Well, again, let me, I'll, I'll, I'll go examples, everyone that I talk about I, I have permission to discuss. It's things like a 17 year old big burly kid would come and see me and he was so shut down that for the first session he was asleep. Because the body just immobilizes and people go, Oh, you're just switching off. You're lazy. No, no, no. He just goes to sleep. He can't help it. It's no choice. And I'm like, well, okay, I don't, that's not going to work. So the second session we

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:02:21

Effective locking

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:02:23

yeah, we went, all right, bring the big brother in. It's like, you listen, you check all the family, like what's going on, what's going to help. And the big brother had autism as well. They're not the big burly guy on my tiny little couch and I had two of them and then mum in the room but the big burly one doesn't fall asleep and thought what I was saying was fascinating and did the exercise and so the brother stayed online enough to watch and then he was like yeah okay I can give it a go and then so then they come back the next week which is Then I was doing individual sessions. I don't know each week he would then do more, he would be able to tolerate his feet, feet on the ball. He hated the hand points, so we just didn't do them for a really long time and he could get better and do a little bit and then stand up and go, Oh, that feels really different or really weird. So you'd have to let him, because his whole vestibular system changed because it's used to being in a certain pattern and then everything's. Stems from that but then he would be able to walk down the stairs more easily he would be able to walk down the stairs without leaning people walk down the stairs and hold a cup and chat and things like so a physical level or I'll get people to Do pre and post tests like with a bop bag a punching bag and get them to do it at the beginning and the end And they're far more coordinated because their eyes and their ears and the physiology are all Talking to each other better. But also with that kid it was things like, know, sometime later he got a haircut because he wanted to. He, he just did all these things just happen that he was able to go and sit in a restaurant with his family and he paid for, he got with his mom's car, but he paid for it and then went next door and had a look in a shop while everyone was in the restaurant and they'll come back in and I'll go, so any changes, anything happening? And they'll go, Oh no, not really. And I'll go, okay, fine, whatever. What are we going to do today? And you just keep talking and then they go, Oh, you know, actually, and then they'll tell you these stories. Like the restaurant thing. And I'll go, that's really interesting. Do you think that you would have been able to do that six months ago? And they go, Oh, no. So it's like, it's, the mum might notice. The family will notice because this person's more present, more engaged, more socially. That, you know, have more social desire, and I go capacity, social engagement systems working better. The operational system, the desire to be in it is because the body's in a better place and it's safer and it can stay online for longer. And they don't even necessarily know because it feels so normal. You know, I did an intensive years ago with a, I work online most of the time. 90% of my work's online. This woman was in the us she was in her twenties at college, and at the end of it, she not only said, I feel far more spiritually connected to myself, which also, if you wanna go, religious function requires physiology to be in a certain way for safety so that you, you know, it's really fun. My mom's been playing with this. She's quite excited. She's theologian. So we have a good chat, but.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:05:36

so your physical life can also help your spiritual life when you become more embodied and learn how to feel better. And interact with your own physiology. Isn't that beautiful? We spend so much time thinking we have to leave our bodies and be some like guru on a mountain and truthfully go in, go in, go in, but go in and learn how to help it feel.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:06:00

You can't. This is, we cauterize, we make the brain everything. The, you know, whether it's that kind of thing that you're discussing or just all of our psychology. Like, this is why Paul just works so cool. In order to be in a, it's back to that triangle thing I was talking about, you have mobilization with fear, mobilization without fear. I draw a little guru at the without fear one because the, the end of that, the end of that line in a sense is that you're in a highly attuned state. state to be able to access higher order consciousness. Your body has to be in that place. The, the my favorite thing in the whole world is that we've got 12 cranial nerves, right? So they're all the eyes and ears and everything. There's actually 14. There's at least 13 and there is physiologically it's

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:06:54

What? This is amazing.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:06:56

we don't

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:06:57

Listeners can't see my face, but it's very intricately moving right now.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:07:02

It's there I was like, oh this is fun It's called zero cranial nerve the 13th, which I love this because 15 as well, but it's the 13th cranial nerve It's the zero. It's the 13th first one, it's unmyelinated. So our newest evolutionary function is all about new vagal system. They're all myelinated and which means you have really good coding on your nerves. And so when you, when they're all functioning well, you've got strength and robustness and good nervous system. You've got coding, you've got protection,

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:07:31

fast along the

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:07:32

efficient, swift.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:07:33

like electrical

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:07:34

Yes, yes, exactly. And you can utilize it. Unmyelinated is different because it doesn't have that. So it's our older system. This is where I grow octopus. It's like it's our older system that develops first in utero. It's our older wisdom. It's our, it's our body noise, everything. All our arms and legs and head grow second. This stuff grows first. And then we come into form. So we're already in form in ways at a, at a presence level, as a sentience, as we're developing in the womb. And so this 13th or zero, first in a sense, but not number one, number zero cranial point goes, it has to go into that system, but it also goes up to your third eye. Which I think is really fun because you can't go into a deeply meditative state unless your body's in the right place. You can't be frenetic. And we, all of our stuff is like, At the meditation, you have to drive the body into a state of relaxation. Whereas I think, you do it the other way around, it's way quicker. You bring the body into a state of Felt like using the word submission, but I don't think it's the right word, because of the connotations that we use it as. But, and this is the thing, we're often so bossy to the body. you know, would make it do

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:08:51

presence, respect, listening.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:08:54

The, the Eastern understanding would be Dantian or Dantian will, you know, the, the, the whole gut area has to soften, has to be open. And then when it's open, I think it allows this other, Lines of communication like this zero cranial nerve to be activated because the other ones have gone quiet in an immobilized way, but not with fear without fear. So they turn off because when you're in a deeply meditative state, you're not using your face. You're not chatting to people. You might be chanting, but that's different. Again, you're accessing different parts of the brain, but you're not in full frontal lobe thinking, engaging eye contact, doing all that stuff. You're in this alternate space. Which people on spectrum hang out in all the time, in lots of ways, but their bodies are a bit more cantankerous. But you, you move instead the person into this open state where they, there's a sense of peace. And harmony and then the brain gives way and it will go into that open the space and then you can have higher order thinking connection to higher order states. It's it's still polyvagal. We just don't talk about it. We don't play with it. And I'm not allowed to say so because it's zero credit would open like same board is just like, I'm not going there. It's it's

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:10:10

I, I am just

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:10:12

It's it's because you have to hold some kind of line. Otherwise it'll. Okay.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:10:18

perhaps. Yes, but I'm grateful for people who speak the truth and say it as it is. Do you know how happy I am that. Though this podcast is work to produce, that means that right now I'm talking about consciousness and meditation and neurology and cranial nerves like this is just a Becca absolute playground. Thank you, Holly.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:10:42

best fun. Oh, yeah. I'm so glad. Yeah.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:10:45

You said one thing that we skipped over, but I keep thinking about it. Your client who's son, um, or I guess the son was your client. She was taking the course and he had down syndrome and gave her the softest, cuddliest hug. That is beautiful. I have had many hugs from down syndrome. Kids, and especially if they are big teenagers, they are not the softest thing on the planet. I had never thought about that as being disconnected from their body and perhaps nervous system dysregulation. A result of that is that we go in too fast and hard or too soft. And then if we notice people are not responding well, then that can make it seem difficult. More confusing, right? I'm saying we, I mean, like if, if I was a person with down syndrome and I was trying to gauge going in or coming back out or with autism gauging how much to say, how much to emote. And if I go in fast and hard and then people are confused or frustrated by it, then I have to pull back and try to figure out what that is like a constant, very stressful game that probably does not help the nervous system in the

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:11:54

If, your body's working efficiently enough, enough. You're not thinking about it. You just do it. It's not shall I, you know, shall I, shouldn't I, how am I going to make this happen? That's when, that's when you're pretty shut down, that you've got to do that operational style, or you're trying to meet a situation that isn't flowing. The point was it was just, he could. His system was in a better place and he experienced some trauma and so, you know, I think especially with Downs, we're really good at blocking it into that's what it is. Whereas you know, fabulous things happening with Down syndrome, which is just so exciting because of the. the capacity of these people to actually open the system and then open social engagement, open brain spaces, et cetera, et cetera. So for him, yeah, he just, I think, It, it, it allowed them to have co regulation because, because of the work she was doing with him. But no, essentially how I, I, I just come right back to Polyvagal 101. His body's in a better place, therefore he can. He doesn't have to think about it. That's the bamboo, like, or the taut guitar string. Our nervous systems are just, allow or disallow us a continuity with our world. It's that, it's that.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:13:21

Yeah. And I think down syndrome is a perfect segue to talk about that because That is a genetic chromosome disorder, right? We look at that and we think there's nothing to be done. You just sort of put up with it, but what you're seeing so that that's the genetics, but the phenotype, which is how we express our genetics, how we move and operate in the world, that Or, and the epigenetics, basically, if people have heard that phrase, that is even more important. And I think so much with labels, right? With PTSD, with someone who has been through abuse, with someone who has autism, with someone who has Lyme disease. One of my diagnosis was myalgic encephalitis. And if you want to be really depressed about your life, just get a diagnosis. It basically means you will be a vegetable that is in pain forever. And what I've learned and why I'm so passionate about the nervous system regulation is whatever you call this pattern, right? The diagnosis that is a pattern of, of typical behaviors or feelings or thoughts, our nervous system is running us the whole time with whatever we call it. So there is an opportunity for opening within that. I made a decision within my illness after, after I had been diagnosed with enough things that were terrible and gone on to the group websites and seeing that everyone there felt terrible. I just thought I can't live this way. Like, I can't tell myself that it's going to be like this forever, or I just. I just won't, I just won't want to. So when, when nervous system regulation found me, I mean, I, I was a geek about it before I got sick, but when it found me again as a patient, I thought, no, no, we can live without water for days. We can live without food for weeks. We can only live without our nervous system a couple of seconds and we're done. Like you stop that connection high enough in your neck and out you go. So master master system, we work with it as chiropractors. Lots of people work with it, but if you can learn to regulate it and. Move with it. That's a huge gift. So tell me how people can learn more about what you do. You said you have created courses. Is this just for clinicians? Is this for people that know they are a bit disconnected from their body and want to make a change? How can we learn more?

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:15:41

So, I can't help myself. I have to go back to what you were saying just quickly. I'm

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:15:47

Perfect.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:15:48

I probably should run out of time, but the whole point is that we have just gone hard with fixed brain pathology and diagnoses and this is a truth and the truth is what you're saying is that we're not. It's far more interesting than that. There's far more flow. And then if you add on to that, everyone's. I go click clack in their high heels needing to have a an identity of working with that. Everyone adheres to that and there's a glass ceiling of how much change we can have. So I'm in this unique position where I have a psychology degree and I have played it. You can tell I just love this stuff. I've been looking at it since I was a kid. Just my best, best one, but I don't have to hold to any doctrine. So I get to look at it and I get to look at it from my own personal spaces. One of which is autism. So the, there's this, there's this delicacy of the system and it can be so fluid. And then there's also, chaos. And you have to learn to play with both. And as a world, especially a very Western world, we like to control chaos and make things neat so that we're safe. It's all about safety at the end of the day, whichever way you want to look at it. So you want to start teaching people at a, like I call my work in internal martial art, because you're teaching them how to be safe. Just because It's not dependent on external things and it's and so it's very interesting with trauma You know, I'll work with people with trauma a lot But I always make sure they have a psychologist with them so they can do that debrief hold safe space in the cognitive consciousness way, which I do but just But we, I like to really play in that, in that lower space of can, can we teach the body to be safe just because? What does that feel like? What is that? And they're not, what can you do with it? But just get better at that. Get better and better and better and better and better at that. So you get really robust just because. It's fun. So what I did is I, once I wrote the book, which I didn't mean to write, it just came to me. So I wrote it, which is what happened.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:18:00

It's so beautiful.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:18:01

if you, I never tell people this, but I will tell you, cause I think it will actually be quite interesting for you. Prior to writing the book, my husband does soil sampling and we were doing homeschooling and we'd taken the kids. We often I would, we would go with him and so it's right out into the desert in the West, West Australian desert. It's beautiful. But I, I woke up in the middle of the night in a tent, which we don't usually sleep in, but we were in a caravan park at that point. Usually we're just in swags. And I had this art paper and I wrote this thing on this art paper. It's it. And I didn't know what it meant. It was long, you know, quite a number of paragraphs. It was beautiful. So I read it the next morning and went, oh, that's, I don't, what, that's weird. And I didn't know what to do with it. It took me a long time and I had to go and see someone and say, And she went, well, if I'd written that, I'd be really happy. And I went, it just felt too conflated. But the last, it's, it's beautiful, but it is what I'm doing now. It, it's, it I'm trying to think of the last line of it. You're here to, it's something like you're here to bring light to the people who are going to help the world to come. Something like that. Like it was cool. I was like, Oh, that's a bit big. But now that I'm doing this work, I, No, but I just followed my string ever since and it's why I don't care what people say I'm just like well, I can look at the science. I can back it up. I've I Once I wrote the book, I went and worked in autism services for ages and that's when I went. Oh, that's me That's just me on a much more extreme level You know, and then I could see it could only go so far. So you can see how the system will shift depending on if people are safe, that we don't do anything with that, we don't play with it. So then I started developing this therapy which is beautiful. What I've done

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:19:56

May I pause you before you, before you tell me about the therapy just so I can say, if you are helping people like this, with this depth of feeling. People that are in my experience on the autistic spectrum or have been through lots of other things are also deep thinkers, feelers, thought leaders, but they're stuck, like stuck in their body, stuck in their experience or stuck in their anxiety. If you are helping people to be able to come out of that and expand into a place where they are able to share the messages that they Of, of the thoughts that they're marinating in there anyway, that is a huge and beautiful and so worthwhile. It's just so worthwhile. Anyone I know who's really worked with these people or who loves these people knows they have an integral piece in this world and it can be hard and really sad to watch them be stuck and what a miracle it is to watch them begin to open. So I just fully support your work. How do people learn more about it?

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:21:02

on that. I'm so sorry. I keep doing this to you. I just want to add in. I mean, I'm working with trauma as well, like people with chronic PTSD, so they might not have autism, but the system is still that they and so again, they might only be able to put their feet on the ball. And they can't even move it because the minute that gets, it sets off a cascade of information and then the body has to learn to hold that. But then they'll come back and they'll go, this and this and this and this happened, you know. So it's, and then Parkinson's, like you, you start playing with neurosensory stuff. And so it's the, the efficacy of the work I'm, I'm watching. My, my person who's fully through as a trainee is in New South Wales, his, his he's a mental health nurse. So he's he's been, he's got he also does counseling and he's, he's working with schizophrenics and he's been working with some people for long enough before he started doing this and now he started doing this with them and there's all this change. So it's unbelievably interesting to me.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:22:06

Schizophrenia is my apex example of someone that is trapped. just trapped in there.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:22:12

in a very, very trigger happy shutdown system, it's

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:22:16

yeah.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:22:17

so beautiful. It's so kind. And then you have to teach it well, you have to be light, you have to make enough science. I draw stick figures, like I'm, you know, like in the book I do, but I, so I've made these courses. I've got a six week course there, there's, there's two, but they're basically the same. It's just one is for professionals in the sense that they can have a CPD accredited. a certificate as well and to prove they've done it with tests whereas the other one is people can just run through it up and down as they need to, because a lot of people can't. I work in a linear fashion, so I have a whole range of people that access this and love it from families to adult autistics to clinicians at a variety of levels. I've got a I've got a UK psychiatrist that's starting to learn my work, which is really, you know, it's like it's because it makes sense what I'm actually saying. Everyone knows it's and I think, you know, bridges is a great word. for my surname, which is my husband's because it it's bridging that and I, I, I'm just good at it. I've made those two courses. They're on my website. And then I have a year long course, which is the first year, but a separate thing in its own of the three year training to do therapist training. So the first one is just do that on your own. And then, then we see what you want. Cause what I found is that It's such a deep dive. It takes people, you know, you can hear from our conversation that look what it is, how deep and wide and vast. It's enough sometimes for people to have that much and then they go back into their real world. And they re inform their real world. Which is when I'm asking someone to do the therapy training and come out the other end, they come out somewhere quite different. You know, like really, it's

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:24:02

That's life.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:24:02

lot. Yeah. So, so yeah, so there's my courses, there's my book, you know I had to make them available because my, my wait list I had to close. You know, I open it up every now and again, but it's I, I, I don't oversee clients. I make sure I have a lot of space. I need a lot of downtime after I've worked, when I'm too intensive, because you're, I feel almost like it's midwifing people. That's what it feels like. And when I was talking I was talking in New York actually quite a few years ago, there was this woman, who is a midwife and her husband's on the spectrum and all the kids are on the spectrum and she said the way you're talking is exactly textbook what a midwife does, which I just thought was beautiful but people say they'll go, you know, we did a study last year and you know, Nine year olds and a 59 year old woman with, with autism, ADHD, chronic PTSD and a whole lot of other physical stuff and what she couldn't stop explaining, exclaiming. At the end of, you know, we did five days and then we did the follow ups. That was it. So it's eight sessions. She's going, I'm in my body for the first time. She said, I'm married to my body. She said, it's not like being reborn. I'm in it for the first time. It was, it was phenomenal. And then not, you know, we, we did some follow up sessions, which weren't part of the study, but she can't feel heat or cold. And with one of the sessions, She went hang on a sec I just have to go upstairs and get some socks because my feet are cold and then she went Oh, that's weird. And then she went past and she looked at the temperature gauge on her way up. She came back down She sat back down. She went I just have to check because I think it's got even colder and she went back and it had gone down by a degree

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:25:47

Wow.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:25:48

how much does that influence your life? You don't think any of that stuff. It's just there so much fun.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:25:59

Holly, your work is amazing. I think the way that you have gone in your life, I know we didn't talk about it, but moved from a homesteading mom into the things that you just really love to geek out about and incorporated, you know, everything from your past that That moves you toward being able to see people in this way that is not stuck in a system and be able to help them come out of it. I just respect that so much. And I enjoy you. So it's probably time for us to cut it loose, but I will put all of the links for how people can get ahold of you, how they can look at your courses and the link for your book. It's still called reframe your thinking around autism. Correct? Okay. I'm just so grateful for your time and for your work in the world. Thank you so much for what you do, Holly.

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:26:45

It's so much fun to have someone to talk to who knows exactly what I'm saying. It's best fun. So I think I've had a lovely time. Thank you very much.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:26:53

I think we should be really good friends. Let's just

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:26:55

think it's happened. It's happened.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:27:00

I want to go to Australia anyway. Let's do

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:27:02

Awesome.

dr-becca-whittaker_3_04-01-2024_181307: 1:27:03

Okay. Thank

squadcaster-4j41_3_04-02-2024_081305: 1:27:03

See ya.

1:27:11

So that's Holly Bridges. See what I mean? I'm so glad to be able to share this conversation with you. My takeaways, my top three takeaways would be this. Number one, if you've never experienced the feeling of being locked in your body, it's hard to explain, but Holly did a good job. If you have ever experienced the feeling of being locked in your body, You will never forget it. And when she talks about the states of fight, flight, or freeze, or fawn, I love how she describes it, that it's important information about the state of your nervous system. It's not a personal failing. Most people I know that have gone into trauma, PTSD, or some kind of meltdown on the, if they're on the autistic spectrum, we take it personally. It feels like a thing that we should be able to control, and that we should be able to stop. It's important. and come back to normal. And it can be incredibly difficult to do that. You can get more space and it can be incredibly, and it can be incredibly difficult to do that because it is information that your nervous system is giving you. I love that perspective because your nervous system is trying to regulate and get back to baseline. So it will often tell you what it needs from you. It might want you to shut your eyes. It might want you to block the sound coming in from your ears. So there just isn't so much sensation on top of an overload. It might ask you to shake or to flap is what it looks like in the autistic realm. Shaking off the trauma is what it looks like in the trauma realm, but sometimes it asks you just to immobilize. Until you feel safe. And again, not a personal feeling. It's information from your nervous system. I love that reframe because if we can learn to listen to our nervous systems, we'll understand what they're trying to get us to do. And then we can help instead of feeling like we are taken over by them. Number two, she talked about neuroception, and I love that geeky word. How she described it was our physiologic state. Actually, how she described it was your physiologic state actually allows your level of consciousness, Which allows your social engagement and your capacity often, especially in autism. But in many other things like PTSD, we look at it backwards. We look at it as we're trying to train social behaviors in or force people to have more capacity than they really have. And that's working in a backward state. If you go to the physiologic state, then their consciousness, We'll change as it gets more safe, and that level of consciousness is what makes it so we are actually able to allow. When I learned that was a really key factor in helping people that are very close to me, that are on the autistic spectrum instead of constantly nagging about behaviors. If we go to the physiologic state and the sense of safety. Then their nervous system has more capacity, their consciousness can open up, and then they actually want to engage more, or even have the capacity to engage more. Us that if it doesn't feel safe to you, you will be continually scanning your environment. That is just a thing that we do, it's a survival mechanism. But that continual scanning of the environment can lead to a lot of anxiety. And in a lot of us that struggle with nervous system regulation, the baseline of our nervous system state is already so overloaded that it can be hard to handle any more sensation, which leads us to number three. Take away is that you can learn how to give your baseline a little bit more room. You can learn how to bring yourself out of a state of continual scanning for threat. And a feeling like you're close to overwhelm all the time anyway, I love to the quote. She said that we see anxiety as a mental issue, but she sees it as a physiological issue first, and that she works on teaching a body that maybe has never felt safe, how to get itself into a state of safety. I love how she talked about that in her work, she could be teaching a body that maybe has never felt safe, how to get itself into a place of safety. I love that imagery of like an internal martial art, where you're learning how to flow. With what's there. If you would like more information and more hands on information about how she does nervous system regulation through the senses, look up her website, which I have all of the links posted in the show notes, but it is ART, art, but anxiety, reframe technique, or get a copy of her book. It is an easy read and it's such great information that is reframe your thinking around autism. That is Reframe Your Thinking Around Autism again by Holly Bridges. It has been my honor to guide you through this season and to host and facilitate, edit and produce these conversations that make it so that we can have these people's voices in our head guiding us towards a better life. I hope it has made a difference in your life. It certainly has in me and I'll see you next season. Thank you. Bye. Okay.