All Behavior Makes Sense {EP 198}

Robyn: What we're going to talk about today is a concept that's really underneath everything, everything. I mean, I start my book with this concept. One of my very first podcast was called no behavior is maladaptive. And I kind of go back and forth between saying, all behavior makes sense and no behavior is maladaptive, and they kind of mean the same thing. There's a slightly nuanced differences, but just probably last week, maybe the week before in the club, we got into a more in depth discussion around, what does this actually mean? And I brought back some of kind of the core theory that we probably don't talk about very much, like that, all behavior makes sense. No behavior is maladaptive. How we, you know, create our own realities and how, yes, this applies to everyone and all behaviors, because I get those questions a lot too, like, well, but what about this or well? But what about that? So let's get back to basics. Let's get down to really dissecting this, all behavior makes sense, concept.    

Robyn: It is a core tenet of everything that I do. It is a core tenant of the club of being with of this podcast, of Raising Kids With Big Baffling Behaviors, is a core tenant of the way that I work with people, not just how I teach people to work with other people, but how I work with people, and it absolutely can feel really tricky to wrap your brain around. I mean, it certainly was for me, right? If you've read the book, you've heard a little bit of the story, right? That I heard my mentor, now, Bonnie Badenoch, say, "No Behavior Is Maladaptive," at a conference. It was a huge conference. I was one of hundreds of people. I was sitting in the back row with my friends, right? And I remember kind of like, my eyebrows, like going up, and I remember paying attention in this moment, and I remember thinking like, wow, I really trust this lady. I believe her, but this doesn't make any sense to me. The idea that no behavior is maladaptive doesn't make any sense. Like these kids have very maladaptive behavior, right? And so that day kicked off my relationship with Bonnie. I asked her, she does consultation. That was like 10 years ago. And of course, now at this point, I mean, I wouldn't say I agree with her. It's not my job to agree with her or not, but I understand the science that led her to create this conclusion, to like state this conclusion so boldly and especially to a room- it was a play therapy conference. It was a room full of of therapists who work with kids with some pretty, what felt like pretty maladaptive behaviors, right?    

Robyn: And I understand that this is, again a tricky concept, so I want to re explore this with y'all again. And I think this is like the linchpin of the work, so to speak, believing this is how everything that we talk about, all the tools, all the co-regulation, the connection, the felt safety, believing that all behavior makes sense, is what makes all of this work. It's what it's what may it's what prevents these ideas from becoming just another behavior management technique, which is so easy to do whenever we kind of progressively come up with new ideas to support folks with behavior difficulties. If we don't address the underlying core tenets and theories about what the behavior is and why kids are behaving that way, we are going to turn even the best ideas like, co-regulation into just another behavior management technique, which I've talked about a lot previously on the podcast. And the reality is y'all that you know this. Your kids, kids with vulnerable nervous systems, they aren't getting better, quote-unquote, from behavior management systems. Well, maybe they their behaviors are getting a little better, I don't know. For the most part people tell me there really aren't, but it's not even that I'm focused on the fact that their behaviors aren't getting better.    

Robyn: What I'm saying is that what's driving their behaviors that's not getting better, they're not feeling better, they're not feeling more at ease, they're not more in connection mode, feeling less vulnerability in their own nervous system. And when it comes right now to it, I'm not trying to change people, but I do think it's kind to see if we can find ways to help people feel better, feel more like them, in their world, in their bodies, in relationships, like if we can help people find more ease rest, more into connection mode really allow that ventral vagal brake to more engage, which we know it's longing to ventral vagal brake engagement, connection mode, Owl brain, like the body and the nervous system is really longing for that. If we can find ways to support folks resting more into that space in the nervous system, I think that that's just kind and, yeah, when folks spend more time resting into connection mode, their behaviors often shift. So this is why I think it's super important to shift away from something becoming a behavior management approach, one, it tends to leave people feeling pretty objectified, and in most cases, the experience of being relatively objectified is contributed to that vulnerability in their nervous system. And so we do have to find ways to shift out of that. But I also think when we stay focused on behaviors, we are not seeing people for who they really are. We're seeing their behaviors. We want to see them for who they really are, right? Folks who are longing to grow and strengthen their Owl brain and are longing to spend more time in connection mode, and yes, behaviors of connection the behaviors that we like more and aren't trying to change are going to emerge more when we help folks rest more into connection mode.    

Robyn: Now again, before I go any further, please remember like parenting is just one path towards this, there's many, many, many other pieces that need to come together to help our kids rest more into connection mode. What I'm meaning here is this is not all our responsibility. It isn't possible for us to control our kids nervous system and their ability to like kind of shift and rest into connection mode. There are certainly some things we can do, certainly some things we can offer, right? But it isn't our responsibility, and it isn't possible for us to control that in our kids. So please always remember whenever I'm talking about the things that we can do to help our kids feel safer, feel more in connection mode. I'm not saying that you're actually in charge of that, or it's actually even your response. Ability, but I do think that is kind and helpful and supportive and loving to see what we can do that would create more connection, more safety, more regulation for the folks that we love.    

Robyn: So anyway, this conversation came up really intensely in the club recently. We kind of re-needled on it. We had some but what abouts? But even this kind of conversations, and I actually had my graphic designer make a quick little one pager about it, so folks could have, like this visual little one pager, maybe share it with folks if they need to. And so since creating and releasing that into the club, we've had even more conversations. So it just made sense for me to pull together this this podcast episode I'm going to sit here in the next 20-ish minutes or so and really scaffold you through how I feel confident that all behavior makes sense at the time the behavior emerges, it makes sense and it is not maladaptive. Now that doesn't necessarily apply to the impact of the behavior, of course, right? Like many, many, many behaviors and many of the behaviors that are driving you here to listen to me in this podcast and read my book. The impact of those behaviors are certainly maladaptive, right? They are not helping our kids get their needs met. They are not helping us grow in our connection relationship with our kids. They are hurting our kids. They are maybe hurting other people. And so yes, the impact of those behaviors can certainly be maladaptive, but what we want to talk about, because I believe it matters fiercely, is that the moment the behavior emerges, it makes sense and it is adaptive, and the moment something emerges, and the moment it has impact, the moment in between those two could be minuscule, right? And they could feel like they're almost the same moment, but there is this difference between the moment of behavior emerges and the moment it has impact.    

Robyn: And I know it sounds like I'm splitting hairs, and it really, really, really does matter. I promise it does, or wouldn't waste your time with it. So that's the first thing to really hold on to and remember, right? We just really rarely think about the difference between a behavior emerging and the behavior having impact. We almost are always talking about the impact of behavior, the consequence of the behavior, but before behavior as an impact, it emerges. It could be a millisecond before, but it's still before, and that truly is a more useful place to focus. We have a lot more potential to get that behavior to shift if it needs to, if we think about how that behavior emerges. But again, even more than that, if a behavior is emerging that's hurting that person or someone else, it's emerging from a place of protection mode, and spending chronic time in protection mode isn't good. So when I'm in my most adult brain, that's really what I'm thinking about. How do we help nervous systems be more in connection mode? Of course, of course, of course. Please hear me trying to say, I'm not saying that some danger, that some behavior isn't dangerous, right? Some behavior violates other people's boundaries. It hurts other people, right? It hurts the person exhibiting the behavior, I am definitely not saying it doesn't have a very harmful impact. I am not trying to gaslight you out of the true impact of harmful behavior. I promise. I'm saying that it has changed my life to get curious about where behavior emerges from.   

Robyn: A couple important things to note about the brain. Number one, the brain is preoccupied with one primary thing, and that is keeping us alive. Nothing else matters if we're not alive. So the brain is super preoccupied like number one job keep us alive. One of the ways it does this is by attempting to predict the future, and I mean like the future a half a second from now, and when the brain is attempting to predict what's about to happen in one milliseconds. What, what that means is happening is that the brain is like initiating the electrical and chemical impulses that would create a behavior that would respond to this future prediction. It's initiating these impulses before the future that they are responding to even happens. The Brain paints a lot of broad strokes about how it believes the world works and it develops these really broad assumptions. For example, people are trustworthy or not, or I can trust my caregivers or not, right? It's painting these really broad strokes, making these really broad assumptions based on previous experiences, and those big, broad assumptions very, very, very much color the way we see or interpret the world and predict what's about to happen next.    

Robyn: If I expect people, for example, to be critical, I'm going to hear their words even if they're neutral or sometimes even positive words. I'm more likely to hear their words as criticism because I have been predicting what they're going to say, predicting how I'm going to react to it before they actually even finish saying it, and if so, my prediction, based on my broad strokes about how I believe the world works, is that people are going to be critical. I'm hearing their words through that lens. I'm interpreting it that way, and I've actually even started responding before they've even stopped talking, and by responding, it could just mean I've braced my body. I've put myself into protection mode, right, like I've put my guards up to protect myself from their criticism.    

Robyn: If I believe that I should be able to meet people's needs before they even tell me what their needs are. Basically, I hold an implicit belief that says I should be able to read people's minds and respond and meet their needs before they even know they have a need, let alone before they tell me about it. If I have that need, or I'm sorry if I have that belief, then when I don't do that and someone has to tell me their need, I believe I've done something not just wrong, y'all, but like dangerously wrong, right? So someone telling me what they need or what they want, can create a real danger, danger response in me, right? My initial thought is, I should have known better. Okay, so hold these thoughts that the brain's number one job is to predict the future keep us alive. It is predicting the future before the future happens, and responding to that predicted future whether it actually happens or not, because the behavioral impulse in the brain is actually initiated, it begins before the quote-unquote future, this is a millisecond from now happens, okay? And it is predicting those things based on these broad stroke assumptions that we have about the world, that, generally speaking, we have learned from experience. Okay, hold all of that, like, kind of just hold all of that in, like, one- in your left hand.    

Robyn: Okay, now let's shift our attention over to the concept of neuroception. Neuroception is a below conscious awareness process that is constantly assessing everything that's happening, everything that's happening, to determine if we are safe or not, neuroception is taking in cues and data from our inner world, from the environment and from the relational space. I think of it as like three buckets, the inner world, the environment and the relational space. Neuroception is assessing 11 million bits of sensory data in every moment, 11 million, and usually we are aware of somewhere between five and 50 of those bits of data. And the point in that little factoid is just to point out that there is much, much, much more going on that is shifting our neuroception from safe or not safe, one or the other. There's so much more going on that our neuroception is assessing that we could possibly be aware of, and possibly be aware of in other folks. So when there are more accused of safety than there are accused of danger, we rest into connection mode, the ventral vagal break engages. From there, behaviors of connection will emerge. The behavioral impulses that get initiated from a ventral vagal state, from the Owl brain, from connection mode are going to be behaviors of connection, when then, there are more cues of danger than cues of safety, the nervous system rests into protection mode, and behaviors of protection emerge.    

Robyn: So what are behaviors of protection? Well, behaviors of protection are why y'all are listening to this show, to this podcast, generally speaking, folks are not listening to parenting podcasts to figure out how to respond to behaviors of connection, because those behaviors are ones that are increasing relationship, they make sense. They're coherent. They're not baffling. We like those behaviors. We wish there was more of those kinds of behaviors. Behaviors of connection include things like empathy, cooperation, pausing before reacting, respecting other people's boundaries, things like that. So it's protection mode, it's danger, danger. It's too many cues of danger that are contributing, or, let's just say, causing, these behaviors that we don't like, right? Because the state of the nervous system is contributing to how we're making sense of what's happening around us. The state of the nervous system is contributing to our predictions about what's about to happen next, and it's the state of our nervous system that creates that behavioral impulse, right? The behavioral impulse that is initiated before a behavior happens and before the reality that we're responding to with our behavior even happens. Okay, so, neuroception is this non-conscious way. We're assessing 11 million bits of data from three places, and most of that info that's being assessed is outside of our awareness, right? And the behavioral impulse starts from the state of the nervous system from connection or protection, and now there is one more piece to layer in. Everyone's brain creates its own reality, and this is related to the six layers of the cortex, what they are processing and how they come together to create reality. But I'm not going to get into talking about the six layers of the cortex. We talk about that with my professional students, but I just think we don't need to really hash that out here on this podcast, instead of saying, instead of talking about the six layers of the cortex, we're going to use metaphor.   

Robyn: We're going to imagine that reality is a river, and it's created when two streams come together. One stream is the stream of the here and now. It contains everything that's happening in this exact moment. And one stream is the stream of the past. It includes everything that's happened in the past. Now, that's not necessarily trauma, right? This is just everything that's happened to us, all of our memories, the stream of the past means I can brush my teeth every day without really thinking about it. I can drive my car right? Because I have done these things so much in the past that my memories just sort of move me through the world. And this is good. It would be impossible to do life if we didn't have this stream of the past.    

Robyn: My stream of the past also contains all of my experiences that have taught me about relationships. It holds the memories that leave me believing relationships are safe or not, that people care about me or not, that relationships are mutually satisfying, and therefore I should care about the other person or not. The stream of the past, y'all remember, there's two streams, the now and the past. They come together create a river. The stream of the past is much larger than the stream of the now. The stream of the past contributes 80% to the river and the stream of the now is only 20% and y'all this is all brains. I am not talking about trauma. This is how the human brain constructs reality, 20% present, 80% past. And again, this is a good thing. It's super good for the brain to work this way. It keeps us alive. It makes relationships less clunky. Our procedural memories are there. I mean, it's just really, really important that the brain works this way.    

Robyn: Okay. Now remember 11 million bits of data from inside, outside, in between? Well, essentially, that's in both streams. In the past, we were assessing 11 million bits of data from inside, outside, in between, and making meaning out of that, sometimes accurately, sometimes not, but regardless that all lives in the past stream. So we are all creating our own reality based on the now and the past, and from there our 'now' nervous system makes an overall safe or not safe assessment, and from there, then the nervous system shifts in accordance with that decision, and then a behavioral impulse emerges from there. And again, we haven't even yet talked about trauma, essentially, what trauma or toxic stress does is two things. It really messes with the 80-20 ratio and turns the past stream into more like a tsunami. The past floods the river of subjective reality, making the past, present, and the now. Okay, so again, we've still got the two rivers, but the past one isn't just an 80% stream that's connecting up with the 20% now, that past stream becomes more like a tsunami, and because of that intensity and that force, that tsunami, kind of just like takes over, right? It takes over. It becomes the dominant force in the stream of subjective reality. Right? It's got all that past information in it. And not only does that stream of the past take over the subjective reality in the now, but it doesn't feel like the past. It feels like now.    

Robyn: So danger in the past floods our river of subjective reality in the now, making now feel dangerous, even if, objectively speaking, it's safe, right? And also we have no felt sense at all that we are reacting to the past. It really, really truly feels that the here and now is what's dangerous, and if the here and now isn't objectively dangerous, but it feels like the here and now is objectively dangerous. We are going to make up a story about why it's dangerous. We just are. That's how the brain works. We're story-making machines. It's really not an intention to be lying, but we are going to just make up a story about reality that matches our in-the-moment, felt sense of now. Now, if you know a person who experiences something like fetal alcohol syndrome, or a TBI, traumatic brain injury, or their brain just processes information differently than, quote-unquote, expected, that's the stream of the now, okay, that's impacting the brain's experience in the here and now, but also, of course, the past, because their brain didn't just start processing info like that this very second, it's been processing information in that in that unique way that they process information because of their traumatic brain injury, or the way that their mind processes information differently, right? It's been processing information that way since, well, since it started. So all of that lives in the stream of their past.    

Robyn: And if the brain processes information differently than the neurotypical counterpart brain. It's very possible that their experience of processing the world differently wasn't experienced by them, or isn't experienced by them as like a neutral difference, right? Most people with neurodivergent brains, with brains that process the world differently, have learned that their neurodivergent brain is wrong or bad, and that they are wrong or weird or bad, and they learned this because people have won either told them that explicitly, but mostly be they've learned that because the way that neurotypical folks have responded to them with confusion or misunderstanding, and not necessarily with an intent to harm or judge, but even just the misattunement that happens with someone who's processing the world differently than you, and if you have a neurodivergent brain, you spend most of your time, especially in your developmental years, with folks whose brains process the world differently than yours does, and that is going to lead to some misattunement, and the almost inevitable byproducts of that kind of chronic misattunement, it shifts into the belief of there's something wrong with me and all of that lives in the stream of the past.    

Robyn: So a neurodivergent brain that processes the world differently is processing the world differently in their stream of the now, of course, right, but all of the experiences of what it's meant to live in a world where you're almost certainly kind of chronically misattuned to even from the most well meaning of folks, that's all living in the stream of the past. The stream of the past for all of us, impacts everything. It would be impossible for memory to not be related to what's happening now to behaviors, even if we're talking about someone with a neurodivergent brain whose stream of the now is also, you know, processing the world in their own unique way. There's still the memories in the stream of the past are absolutely related to what's happening in the now. This is true about all brains. So these two streams come together. Sometimes the stream of the past is full of cues of safety. Sometimes it's full of cues of danger. And that impacts how reality is experienced in the now, and that impacts the state of the autonomic nervous system, and that is where the behavioral impulse starts. The behavioral impulse always matches the subjective reality that's been created. It's always adaptive. It's always matches. It's always adaptive. It always makes sense. It is simply how the brain works. The behavioral impulse is going to match the way the brain is creating reality in that moment.    

Robyn: Actually, the behavioral impulse is going to match how the brain is creating the reality in a future moment, because we are reacting to things that haven't even happened yet. That's how the brain works. Of course, the impact of that behavior is obviously not always adaptive, of course, of course, of course. So once again, let's just look at why am I splitting these hairs? Why am I now half an hour into a podcast and uh oh, I've probably got 10 more minutes to go. This wasn't my intention. Y'all, I do my best, right? Why does it matter? It doesn't just matter. Y'all, it matters a lot. When someone who's struggling meets someone who believes that their behavior makes sense, that moment of meeting, the moment those two people come together, it's different. The struggling person sees something different in that other person's eyes. And that means that other person can probably stay a little bit more regulated, unless they are in a seriously dangerous, you know, experience. And then, of course, they need to react to that. But when two people come together, right? And one is having struggling behaviors, if the other person who's coming into relationship with them believes that their behavior makes sense, that other person is more likely to be able to stay in connection mode themselves because of coherence, because making sense of something and believing something makes sense brings coherence, that brings cues of safety, even if the behavior isn't good, and even if it really does need to change.    

Robyn: Without exaggeration, y'all, meeting folks who believe what I just described has changed my life, and I do believe it has become the most important tool in my toolbox. People tell me a lot that I'm teaching things that they knew, that it's the same things that they already knew, but different. People tell me that they knew the science before I taught it to them, but still something about how I taught it made it different, maybe made it more useful, made it make more sense. Now I'm going to own the fact that I also create my own reality and make my own meaning out of other people's behaviors. Okay, so I can't, you know, separate myself from that truth, but what I believe people are saying when they come to me with this expression, that that's like, "I already knew these things, but something, somehow, how you said, it was different, and it made it made more sense." I believe that what they're expressing is that they can feel this part. They can feel that I bring coherence to what feels incoherent, that that changes the energy in my body. And folks feel that, they feel in me, and then they resonate within it, and they can then feel it in themselves.   

Robyn: Eventually, new data is in the stream of the past then, right, right? Because we have these experiences in the now. So people who say, Gosh, learning for me has been so different, they have a lot of those experiences in their stream of the now. And eventually, of course, the now becomes a past, right? So what they are experiencing in the now eventually shifts into their stream of the past. So not only does new data enter into the stream of the past, but coherence in the now, making sense of something, is what we call integration, integration of the now, but also integration of the past and the complexities of integration and complex systems. And while that matters, it goes way beyond today's podcast, but let's just say that integration slows down the tsunami of the past, so what's happening in the now can be experienced. So folks who are having safe experiences in the now can actually feel safe in the now, because they won't be so flooded with all the not-safe that's coming from the stream of the past. Of course, this doesn't actually change anyone's stream of the past. We can't go back and rewrite history. We don't have time machines. We can't change the stream of the past and what's in it. But integration lets the stream of the past be the past. It doesn't flood the stream of the now, there can be a sense of, I was unsafe in the past, but I am safe now.    

Robyn: The way that brain processes information can slow down enough that the prediction the brain is about to make about the future can feel a little more open-ended. It can feel like there's more possibilities. It can feel like there is a possibility that what's about to happen next will be safe instead of not. Y'all, it is my understanding that how the brain constructs reality and the brain the behaviors that emerge from this applies to all of us. Okay, there is nothing or nobody that this doesn't apply to, all behavior makes sense and is adaptive in the moment it emerges the next moment when it has impact. Well, of course, that could very well be maladaptive. Understanding all behavior makes sense doesn't mean we don't try to make changes. It also doesn't mean we excuse bad behavior, okay, but what it does mean is we stop trying so hard to just change the behavior, and instead focus more of our energy on what comes before the behavior, the construction of reality and the behavioral impulses that emerge from that. This is why I teach about co-regulation connection, and felt safety, because we offer co-regulation connection felt safety in the now, and that becomes someone's in someone's stream of the now. And it might not be enough. It might not be enough to stop this flood, the tsunami of the past, but eventually, the more we offer in the now, the now becomes the past, and now we can start to impact the stream of the past. Put more cues of safety in the past, create more opportunities from integration. That's what y'all are doing.    

Robyn: Y'all are out there trying to pump up your kids streams of the now with connection felt safety and co-regulation, and eventually that now is going to become their past. So the work in the now eventually impacts what's in the stream of the past, and that stream is the 80% and if we put more cues of safety into the stream of the past, we are also more likely to prompt the experience called integration that makes the stream of the past, simply just be the stream of the past. It's memories, instead of intruding on and impacting our felt sense of reality. Y'all, that's what we're doing when me and you come together, it's hard. It's hard because we have streams of the past, right? Everything I just said is true about us, too. Our streams of the past are flooding us in the moment, especially when we're dysregulated, because that's the nature of how it works, right? We shift into protection mode. We get more dysregulated. We get more disintegrated. Our streams of the past start to flood us, okay? And we're responding to that instead of the here and now, and that's why this is so so so hard, it's hard, but we're doing it. You're doing it. We're doing it here together. It is my deepest honor, my deepest privilege. I can't believe this is what I do, and I go to work every day. Is offer this new opportunity for folks to be with themselves and their own streams of the past and also to be with the people that they love and offer them new experiences in the now that eventually do become the past.    

Robyn: Y'all, this is a lot of metaphor to attempt to do in an auditory format, right? Like when I teach, I have oodles and oodles of image-based slides that helps this metaphor make so much more sense. So I'd love to have the opportunity to get to connect with you in a real life experience where I have slides and graphics and all that kind of good stuff. So do come and see me in real life if you ever do get the opportunity to do that. This episode is going to air October 8, and at the end of this month, October, think it's October 25, it's a Friday. I'm going to be in the Nashville, Tennessee area at an event that is open, open to the public, but restricted to counseling students or folks working in the counseling field. 

Robyn: So if that describes you and you're in the Nashville area, head to my website, RobynGobbel.com/trainings, and check out that training. And maybe I could come there, and you can come see some of some of my visual depictions. Of course, of course, of course. For most of you, it might be most accessible to come and join me in The Club where we've got scads of resources, like scads of image-based resources, downloadables, infographics, all the things you know, fridge sheets, binder sheets, and then lots and lots and lots of master classes where I have slides and put those images as the slides. And that can be helpful. Okay, this episode got way longer than it was supposed to. I've been trying to promise my Podcast Producer, that's my son, that I'll keep these episodes to 30 minutes. So buddy, I'm so sorry. All right, y'all I will see you back here, next week, on another episode of The Baffling Behavior Show, bye. Bye!