When Your Words and Feelings Don’t Match {EP 239}

Robyn: But just in case, this is your very first listen here on the Baffling behavior show neuroception, is this spidey sense that we have that is way below conscious awareness, so we have no idea that it's really happening, but there's this spidey sense that is constantly scanning what's happening in the environment, what's happening inside our own bodies, and what's happening with the person I'm in relationship with. Okay, so we're constantly scanning those three places, and we're scanning four cues of safety or danger, and then we're kind of like adding it all up and making a micro moment by micro moment, decision about whether we are safe or not safe. Now, neuroception has a sense of what's happening inside the nervous system of the person I'm with. My nervous neuroception has an idea of whether the person I'm with is in connection mode and largely experiencing felt safety or in protection mode, and they themselves are somewhere on the Watchdog or the Possum pathway. Neuroception knows that. And think about this for a second, how completely, excruciatingly important that is. Humans in protection mode are unpredictable, right? Once we start to move down the protection mode pathway, we are driven more by reflex. Our Owl brain flies away. We are. Much more likely to prioritize a quick response that will keep us safe, as opposed to pausing and pondering and really being so thoughtful about like, Huh? Am I really in an unsafe situation right now? Maybe I can take a deep breath before I react right when we're in protection mode. We don't have access to that kind of thinking. So if I'm with somebody, their Owl brain has flown away. They are anticipating danger. Well, that person becomes dangerous and unpredictable. So it makes a lot of sense that my neuroception would be highly tuned for what is the state of the nervous system of the person that I'm with. 

Robyn: So if my neuroception has an idea of what's happening inside your nervous system, but you tell me something different on the outside you're feeling mad at me, but you say I'm not mad, or I'm fine, or you're on the brink of totally flipping your lid, but you try really hard to take a deep breath and give off this sense of calmness. These are just a few examples. We'll talk about more ways, and sometimes some subtle ways, that this mismatch is just very commonly happening. So as a very quick reminder, you know, The Baffling Behavior Shows in a place of judgment. I'm not here judging your behavior. I'm not here judging your protective responses. I have complete trust that your nervous system and your kids is prompting you to do the very best that you can in every every single unfolding moment. And I also know that you tune in and you listen to this podcast because you are looking for some more regulations, some more felt safety yourself you are you are looking to strengthen your Owl brain so that you have more capacity to have that pause right before your reaction. There's not really any other reason to listen to this podcast. So I know that you're tuning in with that desire, and I have absolutely no judgment of your nervous system responses. I have complete trust in their belief that it's the very best that they can do in that moment. And I have complete trust in how hard you are working to untangle some of these pieces that you wish to do a little bit differently. So as you listen to this episode, and you have some resonance with some of the things I'm saying, and then you realize, oh my gosh, I didn't even realize these moments where my insides and my outsides don't match. I didn't even realize how in these ways, I'm unintentionally lying to my kids, and I didn't even realize the impact that was having on them. I want you to have those noticings and have those awarenesses coupled with so much self compassion, this isn't about judgment. This is just about noticing. So a bottom line here is, is that when I'm talking about the insides and the outsides don't matching or that incongruence, what I'm saying is our kids, Watchdog or Possum brains, has have this sense, right, that like something is off. Their their Watchdog and their oPossums entire job is to scan for cues of safety and danger. And so there's this sense of, huh, something's off. I can feel this. I am neuroceiving cues of danger from the person I'm with based on the state of their nervous system. 

Robyn: But the information I'm getting from outside their body, their smile or their words, telling me they're calm, they're not matching that actually increases the cues of danger. In congruence is felt by the nervous system as a cue of danger. And if we think about it, this is happening actually, really quite often. I mean, how many of us have been taught to kind of fake it till we make it, and have applied that even to our parenting, right, trying to fake calm when we're really annoyed or frustrated or sad or overwhelmed, right? How many times have you been with. A helper or a professional, and something in your body has tried to send you the message like, hey, something's not right here. And you might be with a professional who is also doing the very best that they can, but who is also trying maybe to kind of fake it themselves or mask their own anxiety or their own protection mode. I know that I did that a lot when I was sitting in that therapist chair, but I also know that one thing that I really prioritize doing with my clients is telling them if something about my own nervous system was feeling off. So for example, let's say I got a really distressing phone call or message, you know, right before a session begins, and it impacts my nervous system, I have this protection mode response, and I look at the clock and it's time for an hour my next client. And so the first thing I have to do is just assess for myself, like, can I put my nervous system kind of back together enough that I can go and be with this client in the way that they deserve? And if the answer to that is yes, then I'll go greet the client, bring them back into my office. And usually one of the first things I'll say would have been something like, Hey, I just want you to know that right before we got started today, I got some distressing news, and I want you to know that I'm fine. I'm going to be okay about it, and I'll take I'm going to take care of it later. It's being taken care of, or whatever is true.

Robyn: But you might still be kind of noticing some of that in my nervous system. You might be feeling something is off with me, and so I just want to give words to it, because I don't want you to interpret that what's off with me has anything to do with me and you, it doesn't right. So I really would name the experience, I would bring some congruence to what was happening for me when I was with my clients, because I trusted that their nervous system could tell, and I knew that that would mean they would almost certainly make it to mean something about themselves, or maybe their own Owl brain wouldn't notice the incongruence, and they would just feel off. And I really wanted to name that for them. So if you've ever had that experience while you're with a professional, trust your own nervous system when it has this something's off feeling. Now I'm not judging the professionals for feeling off and maybe not knowing how to, you know, say it or identify it or articulate it with the client. That's not something most of us probably are trained to do. My point as I kind of long windedly at this point offer this example is that one, it can even happen in a professional setting. So if it's happening for you as a parent, give yourself a lot of grace for that two you probably can notice times where you have felt a little off, where your spidey sense has picked up on, hmm, something's not right here. And if it wasn't mentioned, if it wasn't articulated, if it wasn't spoken about explicitly, you can maybe notice what was the impact of that on you, and then maybe you that could help you see the impact that this could have on our kids. But of course, our kids do this too, right? How? How many of you are parenting kids who are really great at masking their own feelings, or who lean more towards the Possum side of things, and can be a bit of a trickster Possum, even right where their insides and their outsides don't match, or sometimes our more volcano Watchdog kids can kind of fall In this. 

Robyn: In this category, there can be this attempt at appearing calm and not exploding. But if you really listen to your own intuition, you can feel that this person is like right at the edge of exploding, right? Some of this y'all is quite cultural, and it can be more prevalent in different cultures, but many, many cultures, and again, the different subcultures even here in the US. You know, this comes out in different kinds of ways, and so it's going to be different, of course, all across the globe, but a lot of us are living in cultures where. Where we are kind of, in a way, pressured, maybe unconsciously, we're kind of pressured into pretending everything is fine. We can avoid conflict with our friends, our colleagues, our partners, even with ourselves, right? We can, in a way, be avoiding conflict by not acknOwledging what's happening for us internally. So my point y'all, is that this is a very common thing. It's happening in us. It's happening with the professionals we work with. It's happening with our kids. It's happening everywhere. Okay, so this isn't about you doing something wrong. This is about noticing a pattern that could be contributing to your kid being stuck more on the Watchdog or the Possum pathway. That's it. That's all we're doing is just noticing and getting curious. Now all of us are scanning for cues of safety or danger constantly. Okay, this is not unique to kids with vulnerable nervous systems. We are all doing this constantly. 

Robyn: The thing about the kids with some vulnerability in their nervous system or having a sensitized stress response system, is that they may have, let's just say, like an overzealous reaction to cues of danger, right? So maybe for another child, the same kind of cues of danger would put their nervous system into, like the What's up Watchdog state, right? Just a little bit, just a little bit in protection mode, but still some access to the Owl brain. But in a child with a sensitized stress response system, that tiny amount of stress doesn't shift into what's up, Watchdog, right? It shifts all the way into attack, Watchdog. And so our kids have the potential. This isn't true about all your kids, but probably some of you have kids who are so exquisitely attuned to even a small amount of danger that the incongruence the insides and the outsides is not matching, could be enough to pop them onto the protection mode pathway, or even all the way down the protection mode pathway, like a back off or an attack watch dog or a shutdown or a play dead Possum. What is additionally true when we think about this in the parent child relationship is that children need to be able to trust their caregivers. They need to depend and rely on their caregivers to keep them safe, to keep them alive. Now I know a lot of you are parenting kids, and you have the felt sense where my child doesn't trust me or Moz child doesn't trust me to keep them safe or keep them alive. And I am not downplaying that. And at the same time, you know, there is a pretty significant power differential between adults and kids, no matter how much we try to be with our kids, with a more kind of power, with energy, right? There is always a big power differential between parents or adults and caregivers and children, and because of that power differential, kids are relying on the caregivers and the adults to keep them safe, and they really need to, biologically speaking, be able to trust their caregivers, trust what their caregiver says is true and honest. That is part of safety. 

Robyn: So when neuroception is experiencing a contradiction, right? So a neuroception has the spidey sense of, I think that person's in protection mode, but they are pretending and telling me everything's fine, or they're calm, or they're not mad, or they're lying about what's happening right now, right when kids have that discrepancy, they're almost always even kids who feel like they don't trust adults, they're almost always going to default to my spidey sense must be wrong, because the grown ups are supposed to be trustworthy. I'm supposed to be able to believe them. So it must be me that's wrong here, and what happens over time is that kids who are frequently confronted with this situation, with being with somebody whose insides and outsides don't match, kids start to doubt their spidey sense. They start to really distrust the cues that they're getting from inside their own bodies, is essentially distrust their nervous their intuition, and this ultimately means kids start to just trust themselves. They can cut themselves kind of off from those cues and messages that they're getting from their body. It can really impact their sense of self, and ultimately, it can contribute to kids finding themselves in some pretty dangerous situations because their neuroception, they determined, wasn't reliable. So as they were getting all these cues of danger, they're kind of, they're overriding them, right? Like, oh, that must not be dangerous, right? They're overriding them and then missing experiences that actually are dangerous. So this whole inside and outside mismatch thing has an impact on folks in the moment, but if it's happening repeatedly and regularly, it is going to impact kids long term as well. Now again, y'all, I am not here to judge or to criticize in any way. 

Robyn: So if you're having this realization like, Oh, I think I do that more than I even noticed. Just want you to take a breath and offer yourself some self compassion, because folks who really lean into that incongruence as a way to be with their own feelings, they experienced, almost certainly, some incongruence themselves. They learned that the best way I can stay safe is to pretend what's really happening isn't really happening. That was a brilliant protective mechanism. What we get to do now as we're adults, as we're caregivers, as we're parenting, is to get curious with ourselves and wonder, Is that protective response still necessary? Or do I have enough safety in my life to start to be more honest with my own internal world? Because that also that will create more safety for me, but that also will create more safety for my kid. Okay, so maybe you're noticing, huh? Yeah, I think I might do this whole incongruence thing more than I even realized if you're having that sort of awareness right now, the next question, of course, always becomes, okay, well, what? What do I do about this. As always, this is very on theme for this podcast. You know, congruence in our affect and our insides and our outsides, matching can be the goal without us insisting on perfection, right? It can just be something we try to do 1% better every day I have an entire podcast episode about just 1% better. That's all we need to aim for. So the first thing, of course, is just noticing and then having some compassion for yourself, because nothing will ever change without that compassion. So notice, have some compassion for yourself and maybe even gratitude for that protective part of yourself. And the next thing we can do is talk about how we can take steps to be honest with our kids, even when we're having quote, unquote negative feelings like anger, irritation, annoyance, sadness, we can start to think about, how can we match, not just their energy, right? We talk about that a lot here, matching the energy of our kids, but not their dysregulation. How can we match not just their energy, but also our own energy? And the reality is, if you're with somebody who is pretty activated, either down the Possum or the Watchdog pathway, that energy is contagious. We are going to want to resonate with our match that energy. What gets really tricky is we ideally want to match that energy without also matching their dysregulation. 

Robyn: So how do we match their intensity and even maybe their own anger, frustration, scared, feelings, sadness? How do we match them without also matching the dysregulation. Can I have a feeling like mad without being dysregulated? I have a lot of resources for that on the podcast. Way back at the beginning of the podcast, one of my very first episodes was with my colleague, Lisa Dion, and we talked about. Uh, regulated does not mean calm, but I have several episodes that really explore this phenomenon of matching the energy, not the dysregulation, you know, having a feeling like anger without falling into dysregulation. I have several episodes about that, so I'll make sure they get linked to down in the show notes. It's hard y'all matching the energy being with our own anger without being dysregulated. It's hard. This is a big skill to be continuously practicing, and as we grow our own window of tolerance, we are going to have more capacity to have a quote, unquote negative feeling without getting dysregulated as our Owl brain strengthens, we are going to have more capability to be with what's true and real and honest, which might be anger, might be annoyance, might be frustration, might be fear. We can be with those feelings without shifting far down into the also dysregulation pathway. But it takes question. It takes practice. It takes practice over time. You know, as we practice staying more regulated, while we have really hard feelings, a lot of us didn't grow up with that, right? So we're going to practice that more. We're going to practice the matching the energy without the dysregulation. We are going to practice being okay with uncomfortable feelings like anger or frustration. And maybe it's not a great idea to, you you know, make the first thing you practice how to have those feelings while you're actively parenting. 

Robyn: Maybe after you finish this podcast episode, what you're going to take away is, when you're by yourself, can you notice your feelings of anger and be honest with yourself about them, or maybe you could practice that in other relationships, other more mutual relationships, or like a partnership or a relationship with another adult, or with a relationship that's less triggering, right? We're gonna have a wider window of tolerance in relationships that are less triggering, or less activating, and so we'll be able to practice this skill in those circumstances, and that will increase our capability of perhaps bringing those skills into our relationship with Our kids. We also, I think kind of collectively as humans, could get a lot better about just honestly talking about really hard things, right? So let's say our kids notice that you're unhappy about something, or you're sad or you're stressed about something, and maybe it has nothing even to do with them, and they say, are you okay? Is something wrong or something like that? You can respond honestly without giving them all the details, so you could say something like, Yeah, buddy, I am actually having a pretty hard day. I'm taking care of myself, so you don't have to worry about taking care of me. I'm going to be okay with my feelings, but you're right, I am having kind of a hard day. You did sense that correctly? Or maybe you could say something like, yeah, you know, I am feeling really, really sad right now. And I actually might feel really sad for a long time, but I know that eventually those sad feelings will pass, and I also know that I can keep taking care of you, keep being your mom, keep being your dad, you know, keep doing the things I need to do, essentially, even when I am sad or maybe you are mad at them specifically, and you might say something like, I am so mad right now. Yeah, you are right. I am really mad right now. I need to take some time make sure my Owl brain is around before we talk about this anymore. We are gonna figure this out. I just need some time. 

Robyn: So what you're noticing in those examples is the honesty, right, the congruence between what's happening on the inside and what you say on the outside, without necessarily giving all the details, right? You don't get into all the details while also offering some reassurance of and I'm going to take care of this and me and you are going to be okay. So, for example, my husband and I ask each other a lot, are you okay? Are you okay? Is everything okay? Are you mad at me? We both have histories where we are finally. Tuned, exquisitely tuned towards the state of each other's nervous systems, and specifically our me and you, okay, right? Is the question that we're always, always, always asking and always wondering about, and so we will often say to each other, are you mad at me? Are you okay? Is everything okay? And what I have learned over the years, and this is still a work in progress, we don't do this perfectly all the time, but what I've learned over the years is it is much better for us to be honest and say something like, You know what, I am irritated right now, or I am actually annoyed with you, or I am unhappy with you, but it's actually not your problem, like it's something that's my job to take care of. So I'm working on just being with my own feelings and moving on. And we've had conversations sort of outside the moment, where we reassure one another that when we say that we're being honest, right? Like not every time I'm irritated or annoyed at someone do I need to go tell them about it, but also not every time can I just instantly get over it. 

Robyn: And there's kind of a spot in the middle of I don't have to tell you I am annoyed with you, right? In the grand scheme of our relationship, it's inconsequential, right? People are annoying. We get annoyed with each other all the time, right? And I don't always have to tell you all the ways you're annoying me. So I can just say, like, yeah, I am frustrated right now, or I am kind of mad right now, but it's not anything for you to worry about, or you to even do anything about I'm taking care of those feelings myself. We're gonna be okay. That might be something for you to practice. If you're noticing that this resonates with you, right? If you notice, you say a lot, I'm fine. I'm fine when you're really not fine. Do you have enough safety in a relationship where you can say, hey, I'm going to practice being honest when I'm not fine, but I need you to also practice trusting me to take care of my feelings on my own. And if I tell you I am mad, but I I'm going to take care of that feeling in my own. There's nothing for you to do about it. I need you to trust me that I that I, I will do that. What I really am getting at here, y'all, is that, like everything else we talk about here on the podcast, these skills increase with practice. You're not going to listen to this podcast and then do it perfectly, just like your kid doesn't learn a coping skill and do it perfectly right? These skills grow over time, and they grow with practice, yes, but they grow as our own regulation, connection to ourselves and felt safety as those things grow, because then our Owl brain is growing, and when our Owl brain grows, we can notice feelings that are quote, unquote negative and not ignore them, or not pretend they're not there, or not explode with them, right? Because those are all Owl brain skills. 

Robyn: Of course, there are times where this idea of fake it till you make it makes sense, right, that if I can fake not being all the way down the attack Watchdog pathway, what might happen is I might look really mad, or even say really mad things, but not hit anybody right. Sometimes fake it till you make it keeps folks safe. But if it's not needed for physical safety, let's practice matching, bringing that congruence in being honest about things, being not okay, right? Congruence isn't about getting to the point where you feel good or happy all the time. Congruence is about being honest about what's happening. This is how we bring in cues of safety to a situation where there are inevitably cues of danger, right? We can always change what's happening, but we can be honest about what's happening and give words to what's happening. When I was a practicing therapist, helping kids trust their cues that were coming from their inner world was one of my top priorities, and sometimes I worked with kids who were in families that they had learned in that family that they could. Not trust their inner cues. Sometimes I could impact that family system, and I could work with the caregivers or work with the other adults and have kind of the same conversations that I just had with you on this podcast. But sometimes I couldn't do that. Sometimes I couldn't impact what the child was experiencing outside my office, and so I would look for ways to help them inside my office, trust their own inner wisdom, because that is an exceptionally important self protective skill. It is so important that kids trust their gut, trust their intuition, trust their spidey sense of something's not right here, that is one of the most important ways we help kids stay safe in the world. So we want to look for the ways that we can help them trust their own kind of spidey sense now, and one of the big ways we can do that is by making sure that as often as possible, that we are being with them with congruence, that when I'm with a child, they can trust their neuroception and what they're experiencing from me, And if they're experiencing me as mad or annoyed or frustrated, I want them to trust themselves when they are in fact correct. So I want to be honest and also reassure them that I will figure it out myself, that I'm an adult my mad feelings are mine. I will work on and regulate through my own mad feelings, and our relationship was going to be okay. 

Robyn: This is also an extremely important thing for kids to learn as they go on, to have other kinds of relationships outside our families, right, so that they're not chronically trying to change or take care of or be responsible for other people's feelings. So just like I said earlier in this episode, you know this is really common. I know all humans do this, so if you're noticing this in yourself, know that you're perfectly human, and know that with a lot of self compassion and with a lot of tending to and caring for your own Owl brain, you'll be able to increase your capacity for being honest with your own feelings, even when they might be negative. And that's all we're doing here together, right? That's all we're doing. Is practicing. There's no perfection here. We're just practicing 1% better. That's it, y'all. This episode is airing on September 30, which is the end of Raising Kids With Big Baffling Behaviors, birthday month. Raising Kids With Big Baffling Behaviors was published September 21 in 2023 so we have just celebrated our second birthday. Right around 50,000 copies sold. And of course, that doesn't include at all folks checking it out from the library, borrowing it from a friend, things like that. So y'all, we're doing it. We're changing the world. We are getting this information about nervous systems and behaviors. We're getting it out there. We're getting it out there so that our kids can have more grown ups in their lives who understand the science of being relationally, socially and behaviorally human, and can see their behaviors through the lens of the stress response system, and respond to those behaviors through that lens. 

Robyn: So we're doing it y'all. We are doing it together. So keep coming back. Keep coming back to the podcast. Hit subscribe in your podcast player. If you have read Raising Kids With Big, Baffling Behaviors, and you haven't left a review for it over on Amazon, I'd be so grateful if you did that. That is the number one way that other folks will discover the book, which means it's the number one way that we can keep spreading the science which is good, not just for our kids, but y'all, it's good for the world. It's good for the world. I really believe we're making an impact on the felt safety globally, and I really believe that we need that. Thank you all. I'll be with you again next week, bye!