More About Blocked Care- Friday Q&A {EP 130}

Today's Q&A isn't exactly a Q&A because it's not about one specific question I've gotten. But I've gotten so many questions, comments, curiosities, thoughtful emails about the episode from a few weeks back on blocked care, where I interviewed Lisa Qualls and Melissa Corkum, specifically about their new book called Reclaim Compassion, which is a guide about blocked care for Christian adoptive parents. Now, blocked care is not a phenomenon that happens only in adoptive parents by any stretch of the imagination. That's just that Lisa and Melissa have a real passion for supporting adoptive parents of faith. And so that's who they really wrote this book for. If you haven't listened to that episode, you might pause and go do that now. Or you might listen to it next, you just have to scroll back a little bit. It was early in the month of April that that episode aired. 

Now, blocked care isn't a phenomenon that Lisa and Melissa, you know, made up, or came up with, or named. It's actually a phenomenon identified by Dr. Dan Hughes, who is one of the leaders in the field of understanding the neurobiology of basically the behaviors of kids with vulnerable nervous systems. He's a family therapist. So like me, he is super curious about working with family systems, even if what feels like the biggest challenge is one specific person in the system or especially one of our kids. He takes this very family attachment based approach and has decades of experience working with kids with histories of complex trauma, attachment trauma, vulnerable nervous systems. He's really a leader and an expert in the field. Somebody we really can trust in what his thoughts or ideas are, especially about, like treatment or, you know, how do we support kids and families who are really struggling. So in his book, Brain Based Parenting, Dan Hughes describes blocked care as like a neurobiological phenomenon that happens to parents caring for kids who have their own, what he calls like care and trust system impacted. So parenting really involves this mutual dyadic back and forth of care, and delight, and the giving, and the receiving of care. And when parents are parenting kids who really struggled to receive care or behave in ways that are really openly rejecting of care. This, when it is prolonged goes on for a really long time, has a pretty significant impact on the nervous system of parents. And we kind of used to talk about this as parents experiencing secondary trauma, and we've realized that this isn't secondary trauma at all. This is just straight up trauma, continuing to offer care and connection to somebody whose nervous system experiences care and connection as dangerous, ends up becoming traumatic for the caregiver or the continued constant rejection is traumatic. So just like when our kids have experienced trauma, and that has caused their nervous system to move into a state of kind of chronically protecting themselves, this happens to parents too. Their- their nervous system moves into a state of chronically protecting themselves against chronic stress. And in this situation, the chronic stress is the continued rejection of care that's happening in the parent child relationship. And this continued experience and then the parents’ nervous system, getting stuck in what- what we talked about here on the Parenting After Trauma podcast, we talked about it being stuck in a protection mode. This, then, makes it of course, difficult and even impossible for parents to feel love, and care, and empathy, and compassion, and curiosity towards their kids, and maybe others as well. Like you may be noticing this isn't unique anymore to my relationship with my child. But this is starting to extend to other relationships. 

So after that episode, you know, some of you reached out because you felt like the idea of blocked care was new to you, and it finally gave you words for something that you've been experiencing, and most of you really ashamed of very confused about, right
? And this new language, a new way of conceptualizing something that you feel so much in your being, right? That episode and this concept of blocked care really helps you feel like you are both not alone, and also not a terrible parent, but just being perfectly human and having a perfectly human response to a traumatic situation. 

And then some of you, and we talked about this a little bit in The Club, too, reached out with a sense of actually like some increased overwhelm. It felt like there was this new term or new idea that was introduced and now you just had something new to research, new to learn about, new to kind of tend to. And I was hearing from some of you some o- some of you overtly, but some of you I could just like hear it and the energy of the conversations we were having. It was just feeling like more. It was more overwhelm. Like a new thing that you need to deal with now, which on top of everything else was just feeling like too, too, too much. And so that's the part I really wanted to address in today's episode. So I'm going to use this Friday Q&A spot to address that. 

What do I do, if this idea about blocked care is feeling like too much? Like it's feeling like it's added more overwhelm to my life? What I want us to do together is just kind of take a collective breath [audible breath] and just reconnect with each other like me and you. Even if we've never met beyond these earbuds or, you know, the way you listen to podcasts in the car, however you listen to this episode. Feeling into the connection that you and I have created together. And if this is the first time you've ever listened to the podcast, I just want to say again, welcome. Welcome. If you keep coming back, if you keep hitting play, we'll develop a connection. And it'll be really, really lovely. 

So if we take the connection you and I have and keep it as an anchor. Let's explore the idea that the concept of blocked care, if even if those words are ne- are new to you, it's not new. It's, one, not new, maybe, to your nervous system. It's something that feels familiar to your nervous system. But even the concept of blocked care and the neurobiology of blocked care isn't new for my regular listeners. Now, again, if you're a brand new listener, then yeah, there's maybe a little catching up to do here. But that's okay, you've got plenty of time. Now, I don't use the word blocked care you've not ever really probably heard me use that term. It isn't the framework that I was kind of first introduced to, as I was really diving into understanding the neurobiology of parent/child relationships and the phenomenon that Dr. Hughes and Dr. Baylin have called blocked care. I just learned about that phenomenon from different folks. So it's not language you hear me using a lot. But the phenomenon, the neurobiological underpinnings of the concept of blocked care isn’t- isn’t new. Right? All behavior makes sense. Right? Including yours. And behavior is just an externalization of inner experience, right? And that includes yours. And connection is a biological imperative. So when our kids are acting in ways that reject our connection, or make us not really want to be connected to them, we- we can pause and get curious about like, hey, what's up with that? And y'all, that's true about us, too. If connection is a biological imperative, and we don't want to be connected to our kids, and maybe to anyone else, we can pause and get curious about that. Without judgment, but with curiosity and compassion. What's up with that? And if you can't do that for yourself, because one of the behavioral byproducts of being stuck in production mode or experiencing blocked care is losing that compassion and curiosity. So if you can't do that for yourself, if you can't have that compassionate curiosity for yourself, that's okay. Then I want you to do exactly what you've done, which is find people like me, who can have that compassion and curiosity, and will hold that compassion and curiosity for you as long as is needed. 

Connection is our nervous system's baseline. We expect connection, and when we can't find it, our nervous system flips into what we call here on the Parenting After Trauma podcasts, and in my ebook and webinar, Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior. We talk about protection mode versus connection mode. So when we can't find connection, our nervous system shifts out of the nervous system state of connection mode, and into the nervous system state of protection mode. And oftentimes it’s worth thinking about these phenomenons, and concepts, and learning all this good stuff. We're thinking about it in terms of our kids. But what about us, right? Like we're each longing for connection, and that includes for connection from our kids. Relationships are based on the serve and return of connection, and rupture, and repair. We talk a lot about what's happening in our kids' brains and nervous systems when they are getting the connection they're longing for. But of course, the same thing is true for us too. And, of course, as always, I'm not criticizing, or shaming, or blaming our kids. Regardless of why your child is having a hard time being with you in the connected way that you're longing for. And that could be because of their history of trauma. It could be just because of their very unique nervous system, it could be because of their very unique neuro type. There could be so many reasons that don't make your child bad, but also do leave us in this real place of you longing for some connection that they are struggling to offer to you. And it's okay to acknowledge that we're longing for connection from- from our kids. This doesn't mean that we're asking our kids to take care of us, or take care of our emotions, or anything like that. It's acknowledging our humanity, that we are all always longing for connection and, of course, that's from our kids as well. We can acknowledge that, because that gives awareness, and language, and seen-ness to our pain. And when we do that, we get to continue to keep the focus on the fact that it's ours. Right? We aren't blaming our kids here. Okay? It's ours. And it makes sense. 

When we spend a lot of time with someone in protection mode, someone on their watchdog or their possum pathway, or someone who experiences connection as threatening instead of safe and regulating, we're going to get pulled into protection mode, too. And a lot of us will first travel down the watchdog pathway. We get more energetic when we first flip into protection mode. That's kind of like the classic fight or flight, right? We get more intense, more energy comes into our body. And what that could look like is more intense parenting. Like an intense and maybe sometimes a frantic way of searching for help, and for solutions, and finding resources, and just a lot of like, go go go, solve this problem now kind of energy. Which makes perfect sense. And it's a symptom of being in protection mode. 

Sometimes watchdog energy looks like getting irritated, and angry, and super frustrated at our kids or you know at others. The point of watchdog energy is to find safety and connection. So watchdog energy like irritation, frustration, or the like, intense searching for a solution is, in this way, like a signal of like, hey, I need help! I need to find connection, please help me! And the point of that is to then find connection- the point of that behavior is to find the safety and connection that one is searching for. That's the point of watchdog behavior in our kids too. 

So then what happens when that intense searching, right, trying to find safety and connection through watchdog behaviors. What happens when that's not successful? Well, we'll start to go down the possum pathway, which also happens in our kids but we're talking about parents today. Right? So maybe we've moved from you know, really frantically searching for resources, trying to find solutions, trying to find different providers, you know, learning all new kinds of parenting and- and trying to implement all those ways of parenting, or- or maybe our watchdog energy like I said, came- comes out more and in irritation, anger, and frustration, right? When that's not successful, and we've done it for a long time, and it's not successful at the finding the what we're looking for, which again, is safety and connection, we'll start to go down the possum pathway. And the possum pathway brings with us that significant decrease in energy, which can be experienced in a whole lot of ways but the words I hear a lot are things like numbness, feeling collapse, hopelessness, and helplessness, and- and like a sense of just nothingness like a- like a giving up. 

And then for a lot of folks, I know this is true for me, the possum pathway and the watchdog pathway often do like a little dance. Because this possum pathway has this sense of aloneness, and isolation, and- and although the possum pathway is a longing for connections, it's also learned that longing for connection is futile and therefore extremely painful. So it dissociates. It cuts off from that longing for connection. And then when other folks are asking us to be connected to ourselves and to them, and that feels like such an impossible task for the possum. The possum sometimes does go more possum, gets more collapse. But sometimes the possum responds with some watchdog energy, right? And then we find ourselves behaving in ways, or yelling, or saying things, or having an intensity that shocks us. Right? And maybe it's not big behavior, but maybe it's just this like, chronic irritation at other people, and it could be your child, but it could be other people like I know a lot of folks where it feels like this is extending way beyond just their relationship with their kids. Like this chronic irritation where if we looked at the situation objectively, the person maybe isn't being irritating, but what they're being is, you know, wanting to connect with you. And that's feeling like too much. It's feeling overwhelming. And so there's this response that comes from our nervous system that wants to send the message of like just back off. And that's a little bit of a watchdog kind of frustration, irritation response. 

All of this is the result of a nervous system and chronic protection mode, and a nervous system that is absolutely stuck. Because the very thing that it's longing for is the same thing that it’s learned is hurtful or dangerous. And that's connection. So remember, all behavior makes sense. The treatment for blocked care is to help the nervous system experience safety and connection again, in these small titrated little moments. 

So like in The Club, and in my upcoming book, what I talk about is different paths to finding safety and connection again in small titrated bits. Right? So I think one of those ways is looking for connection that will remain steadfast. No matter how you show up, the other person will commit to offering connection. And that really is one of the main reasons I created The Club and created it in the format that it's in. Like this place for folks to be able to titrate giving and receiving connection. Because just like for our kids, sometimes connection is too much. That's true for us, too, if we've spent a lot of time in- on our watchdog or possum pathway. And so, you know, there may be an hour of therapy feels just like way too much. But logging in to a forum and- and reading other people being connected with one another. Maybe that feels like the right amount of connection that can be tolerated. Maybe that even feels like too much. And some of you are titrating connection by listening to this podcast. Because you're getting the connection from me in a way that can start to feel really personal, but there is still some distance there. Right? So it's a way that you might be titrating connection. And in The Club, we hold this commitment to the truth that you get to come as you are when you are and just trusting that you're getting what you need. And what that means is there's no obligation to show up in any certain way. There's an obligation to connect with others, to offer connection. There's- there's just no obligation. You get to come as you are how you are and get what you need. And we will be there to offer you the connection that you're available to receive whenever you need it, whenever you're available for it. The Club doesn't get rejected because you don't come for a while and pull away. The Club is there to say we're here when you need us. And I did that with a lot of intentionality, because I know that that is one of the ways that parents can begin to start the healing process of being in chronic protection mode, chronic compassion fatigue, or blocked care, whatever the language we're using the neurobiological underpinnings are- are the same. 

And we talk about a whole lot of other things in The Club. We talk about noticing the good, right? And I write about this in my book too. So that's coming up in September, even if you've never joined The Club, you're gonna get these ideas, at least. Right? In The Club, we talk about noticing the good because the nervous system in protection mode is really, pretty obsessed with only noticing things that are bad. That is a protective behavior of being in protection mode. And it keeps us in production mode, because we're noticing things that are bad that leave us wanting to be protected, right? Just this vicious cycle. And so we can look for ways to be mindful and deliberate about noticing the good, teeny, teeny tiny moments of good, or at least teeny, teeny tiny moments of neutral, right? Like right now. I can notice the goodness of like how quickly I could find a cozy blanket when I was just a little bit chilly. And it's not a profound experience and it'd be super easy to overlook. But being able to reach for and receive the warmth and the comfort of a blanket when my nervous system was feeling a little bit cranky because of being cold was absolutely a teeny, tiny, little moment of good. And we can train our brains to notice those things, not because we're interested in toxic positivity or are trying to convince ourselves that things are good when they're really not. But because it's an act of care and nurturing to help our brain notice things that are good or at least neutral when things are good or neutral.

And we talk about playfulness in The Club, which is so crucial for helping the nervous system stay in connection mode, yet, it can be just about the last thing a nervous system stuck in protection mode wants. Playfulness is all about safety and connection with energy. And so nervous system stuck in parta- protection mode is pretty reluctant to engage in moments of play and playfulness. So if that's true for you just know that that's totally normal. And there could be ways we can titrate playfulness. And then self compassion, right? So if you've listened to any other episode on this podcast, you know, that in my bones, I believe that compassion is our path. Compassion is the neurobiology of change. Self compassion can feel like one million miles away like an impossibility for folks stuck in protection mode. And that makes perfect sense, because compassion is a characteristic of a nervous system in connection mode. So in The Club, we've created a space that's literally organized around the concepts of compassion. And those of us who feel safe connecting to the sensation of compassion, are committed to holding compassion in the space for folks who don't feel safe connecting to compassion. And again, we do it in a way that allows for titration. It allows for people to dip their toe in and then dip their toe out when it starts to feel like too much. 

So y'all, if learning about blocked care felt a little overwhelming to you, first, know that that's a symptom of being stuck on the postman pathway. Overwhelm. Overwhelm is a pretty common sensation for folks who have a lot of possum energy in their nervous system. And it's a way that I see that- that possum and watchdog dance, right? That- the overwhelm leads to this sort of watchdog, right, response. Meaning there's more energy there. For me the sensation of overwhelm, has, oh gosh, oh my gosh, there's- my- oh gosh! Right? There's some energy there. So if you felt overwhelmed by the idea of blocked care, maybe it's helpful to let you know like that's kind of a symptom of blocked care. Blocked care is a nervous system stuck in protection mode. And yeah, mostly on the possum pathway, though, I like to say that even possums have watchdog brains. So sometimes, even with we’re hanging out on the possum pathway, we're gonna have a watchdog kind of response. 

The owl brain is compassionate and curious, can see beneath behaviors, and sets boundaries, compassionate boundaries. The our brain enjoys the serve and return of connection, and it seeks connection, and is experiencing pleasure and joy in connection. So if you're struggling with those things, with compassion and curiosity and seeing beneath behavior and compassion and joy in general and also in connection, that simply means you're stuck in protection mode. And parents of kids with really vulnerable nervous systems and especially if that vulnerability in their nervous system leads to a rejection of connection. Then parents are vulnerable to getting stuck in protection mode themselves. tuck on the watchdog and possum pathway themselves. And then yes, for you too, connection can start to feel threatening. Even connection that theoretically feels good. Not to mention, of course, the connection that is so often what's offered from kids who have had like connection and protection tied together, right? Like kids who have experienced danger, maybe in previous connected relationships. What's often offered as connection, feels like a mixture of both. Like an offering of both connection, and protection. So yeah, connection starts to feel threatening for you, too. 

So if you are feeling overwhelmed by what felt like learning about this whole new concept called blocked care, I hope you can find some solace in the truth that blocked care might be new language. But the concept is something we've been exploring here for a long time. And if you've taken the Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior Webinar, downloaded that ebook, it used to be called what's- What Behavior Really Is. Right? We've been exploring these concepts through that lens, right? For a long, long time. Really since the podcast started. So I want you to hear me say there's nothing wrong with you. And the antidote to blocked care, to compassion fatigue, to being stuck in protection mode, is to find moments of experiencing safety and connection with yourself and with others. And that includes tuning into this podcast, and getting connection, co-regulation, and compassion from me. 

Lisa and Melissa's book Reclaim Compassion is an amazing resource. It's written specifically for Christian adoptive parents and if that describes your journey in the world, this is a phenomenal resource for you. You can also check out Dan Hughes's Brain Based Parenting book, though, I'm going to warn you that it's a pretty heavy book. It's pretty dense. It's very sciency. And I've known a lot of parents who have started reading that book and then because they're already stuck in protection mode, which makes it really hard to access the owl brain, then brain based parenting can sometimes feel a little bit hard to digest. Whereas I wouldn't describe Lisa and Melissa's book that way at all, I think it is written in the perfect way for a parent who doesn't have a lot of connection to their owl brain right now. 

And of course, you can just keep listening to the podcast. Come back. If you're just finding me, maybe listen to a few episodes. You can subscribe to the private podcast Start Here, which is a curated podcast series. So I took 10 episodes from the Parenting After Trauma podcast, I curated them, I picked the top 10 that are good for that question of like, where do I start? I put them in order, and I put them in a totally separate podcast feed, so you don't have to scroll, or search, or go finding them. You can just press play at the beginning of the Start Here podcast, and it will take you through episodes one through 10. Again, they're all episodes you can find here on the Parenting After Trauma podcast, I just tried to make it a little easier and a little bit more streamlined for folks who don't have a lot of access to their owl brain by putting it in this privately curated podcast. You do have to subscribe to it and not just subscribe, like you've subscribed to this podcast, but subscribe to it with your email and get an invitation to it because it's a private podcast. It’s not in public podcasts apps. And you just do- it's really, really easy to do that go to RobynGobbel.com/StartHere. So that's another wa- great way to titrate some safety and connection without having to expend a whole lot of inner resources. 

You could also come and join us in The Club where you get to both learn strategies for helping your nervous system, right? I mean, we have like a learning library that's up to probably 60 some videos now. Right? Plus, the forum has lots of learning going on, you know, so you get to actually learn some of these strategies. But really more than that, The Club is about offering experiences of connection and offering those experiences of connection in whatever way you want. Some folks participate really actively in the forum, some folks make a lot of posts, some folks just respond to posts, some folks just read. I don't even know that they're there because they're just reading. And all of these ways of receiving connection are perfectly wonderful in The Club. So that might be a place where you- your nervous system can do more than just learn about blocked care being stuck on the possum pathway, but can actually experience some of what are the antidotes for blocked care. 

Alright, y'all, I know this was a longer Friday episode. So I appreciate you tuning in and hanging in there. It felt like a really important topic that I wanted to just give very thoughtful attention to without feeling rushed. And I'm so grateful that you joined me here today. I'm so grateful you joined me here on the podcast. I'm grateful for everything you do out in the world, showing up for yourself, showing up for your kids in exactly the way that you can and that your nervous system is allowing for at this time. All behavior makes sense. Even the most baffling behavior, even your baffling behavior at all makes sense. And it's all welcome here. I will see you here again next week.