Self-Regulation Doesn’t Exist (2nd Edition) {EP 195}

Robyn: It's an episode I refer to a lot, and because of that, my son, who edits the podcast, told me the other day, like, Mom, you really should update, re-record that episode for your podcast. So that's what we're gonna do today, the myth of self-regulation, as Bonnie says, or what is self-regulation really? And this idea that maybe actually self-regulation, emphasis on 'self' doesn't actually even exist? Let's back up just a touch. This idea about what self-regulation really even is. Why is this important? Like, why do I want to break this down into some minutia? Why do I want to do that to the point where I'm going to re record and revisit this topic, our individualistic culture that we live in, where there is a lot of focus on doing it ourselves, being able to make it on our own, not relying on others for help and support, our individualistic culture is constantly trying to get us to shift our focus back to ourselves. And we have this, what's frankly, a trauma-driven desire. And I'm talking about kind of collective trauma, humanity's trauma, and we have this like trauma-driven desire to deny our connection needs, to deny our interdependence, to deny our needs to have each other. And then instead to hyper-focus on the idea of, you know, making it alone, going it alone. And culturally, we take a lot of pride in, I can do it myself. I don't need anyone. And this emphasis has really bled over into the concept of regulation and then self-regulation, right?    

Robyn: The irony, of course, and I'm speaking from the field of relational neuroscience, relational neuroscience, right? So, of course, my work and what inspires my work has an emphasis on relationship, right? We do desperately need each other, right? We are relational at our core, our brains need to be with other people's brains in order to know we exist, let alone anything else. And yes, to regulate, we need to know each other, to know that we exist, and understanding our own existence, feeling our existence, having the sense of, I am, me, I exist, is a real crucial part of being able to regulate so if the truth is we desperately need each other, and we are hyper-focused on how we do not need each other culturally. So we are actually continuously creating an internal paradox, an internal fight, in a way, right? There's this way we're trying to make two opposite things be true at the same time, and they're not. The truth that we desperately need each other. We need each other in order to exist and be human, while also trying to convince ourselves that we don't, right? And this internal paradox leaves us stuck in protection mode, and then being stuck in protection mode leaves us more focused on ourselves instead of on each other. So it becomes this very, very, very vicious cycle. Obviously, the capacity to regulate without the active assistance of someone else.    

Robyn: Not only is a very, very, very important developmental task, is a necessary developmental task, right? We do need to be able to eventually regulate, to balance our energy and arousal, even when we aren't being actively supported by someone else. Of course, I'm not implying or suggesting that that's not true, and that's not a very important part of being human. So how can that be true while I'm also here suggesting that self-regulation doesn't actually even exist, or that body can say that self-regulation is a myth. So y'all, let's go back and start at the very, very beginning.    

Robyn: Regulation is about being able to keep in balance the energy and arousal in the body. And energy and arousal is mediated by the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is in charge of our bodies, regulation of energy and arousal. The balance of it. At birth, babies are good at both extremes on the energy continuum, right? Like they're very good at crying, crying, crying, crying, crying, and they're very good at sleeping. They have got both down pat. What is really hard for babies is shifting between the two. They need a caregiver to help them with that. They need co-regulation, so a regulated, not calm, but a regulated caregiver uses rhythm and nonverbal cues, like their intonation, the look on their face, their own regulation, to soothe that baby, to bring the baby's sympathetic nervous system, their activation, their accelerator, the go, go, go side, to bring that sympathetic nervous system down. And what happens in the co-regulation experience is that the caregiver is able to resonate with they're able to feel the baby's distress but not get lost in the baby's distress. It doesn't overcome them. They can feel both. They can feel like, oh my baby's upset, but they also can feel their own regulation. And it's through that mutual experience, being able to do both, to feel with while also maintaining regulation, that's what's underneath resonance, and that's what's key in the co-regulation experience, and the infant being able to receive that co-regulation and down-regulate from sympathetic activation and engage their parasympathetic break. To go from crying, crying crying to calm.   

Robyn: Because of our resonance circuitry. And our resonance circuitry is this complex neurobiological system that is what allows us to resonate with one another, to feel one another without becoming one another, right? Because of our resonance circuitry, which includes this system called the mirror neuron system, the caregiver can feel what the baby is feeling, which is good, because that motivates the caregiver to want to do something to soothe the baby. Okay, if we couldn't feel somebody else's distress, we might be able to have this cognitive thought of like, oh, hey, I should help that person. But if you can't feel what they're feeling, and all of your attempts at co-regulation are just coming from a thought, instead of, you know, a felt sense, the regulation, the co-regulation, tends to fall flat, so our resonance circuitry and our mirror neuron system allows the caregiver to feel what the baby is feeling, while at the same time, the caregiver doesn't get taken over by what the baby is feeling. I'm not going to go into the complexities of how that happens. It's based in the mirror neuron system, the resonance circuitry system, how we can feel with but also distinguish that's yours and not mine, right? That's your feeling. I can feel your sadness, but I know it's yours. I can feel it and the feeling. It helps me be with you and connect with you, but I know it's not mine. Okay, there's lots of complexities in that, but it's our resident circuitry, mirror neuron system, that helps us do exactly that.    

Robyn: So this, being able to feel with but without becoming is what allows the caregiver not to get, like, consumed by or taken over by what the baby is feeling. The caregiver can feel both their own regulation and the baby's distress. Of course, sometimes we do get taken over by a crying infant's distress, right? So there's lots of reasons this happened where eventually those energetic boundaries, in essence, kind of collapse, and we start to really just be the baby's distress as well. And that's when we start to feel very distressed. It's very hard to co-regulate when you're feeling distressed. I would imagine that most of us who have cared for a baby for a significant length of time can resonate with that idea, right? They have a memory of when co-regulation kind of shifted from I'm regulated and I'm with this crying baby to oh my gosh, I'm crying now too, right? We moved from feeling with, to being overcome by that feeling. Now the baby also has resonance circuitry and mirror neurons, so the baby has their experience of distress, and eventually they can feel the caregivers regulation. That's what co-regulation is. This is how and why a baby soothes.    

Robyn: So if you can picture this, what's happening is that both the caregiver and the baby are having a neural firing, both of themselves and of the other so at the same time they're having the neural firing that is kind of responsible for their own state, while also mirroring, making a map, having a neural firing of each other's neural network. Okay, so the caregiver is having a neural firing of being regulated, and they are having a neural firing that mirrors the baby's distress they're having happening at the same time. And the baby then is having a neural firing of being distressed and a neural firing of the caregiver's regulation. Again, this is because of mirror neurons, resonance circuitry that I think is enough for y'all listening to this podcast. My Being With students and I, we really dive a lot deeper. But I think that's that's enough for this podcast.   

Robyn: Because this soothing cycle happens so frequently, right? Distressed baby, regulated caregiver goes in and co-regulates the baby, right? An d both the caregiver and the baby are having these dual neural firings, because this happens so frequently, the neural firing of the caregivers regulation happens a lot for that baby, right? The baby has a lot of opportunities to map, to have a mirror of the caregiver's regulation, and eventually, then the baby develops, essentially its own inner mental map of the regulated caregiver that lives in their mind. It happens so often. And that this neural firing moves from a neural firing to a neural firing that has been encoded and stored and can be retrieved. It's like I have a neural net of the skill of driving that lives in my mind, right? It's just there. It's been stored. I can retrieve it. So I get in the car, because I have driven so much that my neural net of driving just kind of activates, and I can drive without giving it a lot of conscious thought. I also have a neural net of my husband that's similar, right? He lives in my mind. I can picture him. I could pause in this moment and bring him to mind. And that is an example of that neural network living in my mind and being able to be activated.    

Robyn: Babies develop a neural network of their caregiver. And in this specific circumstance, we're talking about a neural network of their regulated caregiver, who is being with them, right? Who is helping them feel felt, helping to soothe them. Another cool thought here is that the distressed baby has a neural net of their distress and a neural net of their regulated caregiver, and those two neural nets get tied together. They live together in the baby's mind, and y'all, this is what eventually becomes what we call self-regulation. It's this experience that teaches the baby that feeling bad and being okay can co-exist. The baby learns, oh, I will feel better. And think about it. That's a requirement for self-regulation. Inside what we call self-regulation is our belief that we will eventually feel better, that how bad we feel right now will not last forever. So all of these previous experiences get encoded and stored in the baby's neural networks so that the experience can be retrieved at a later time when that experience needs to be retrieved. So when the baby needs to rely on previous experiences of being regulated when they were distressed, they're going to activate that neural network, that memory is going to draw upon that previous experience of being co-regulated, the belief of, oh, I will feel better eventually, right? And so that's a great example of how memories gets tied back into everything.    

Robyn: And if you've listened to this podcast for any length of time at all, you know I have an especially unique interest in memory science, in particular, because memory really is everything, in a way then, there is a neural net, which is just a neural firing a neural pattern that gets retrieved in that same pattern reactivated, there is a neural net of regulation that co-regulates the neural net of dysregulation, right? Because they get activated together. And over time, these neural nets get stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger because they are used more and more and more and more and more, right? And the more we activate and retrieve a memory network, the stronger it gets, and the more likely we are to activate and retrieve it again in the future, right? And then the baby becomes a child who becomes a teen, who becomes an adult who can stay regulated longer, even under stress, because they are, in essence, remembering that they've been dysregulated and been okay in the past, that they've been dysregulated while being co-regulated. Right there, they're, in essence, remembering that they're they're activating that neural network of co-regulation, and this is what enables them to stay regulated longer under times of stress and return to regulation sooner after being dysregulated, and y'all that is self-regulation. It quite literally only develops through relational co-regulation. So my self-regulation is about my mind, accessing, remembering, reactivating the neural network. Self-regulation is about re-accessing the regulation I experienced when someone was offering me co-regulation.    

Robyn: It is because of this that we cannot send kids away to calm down and think that this is teaching self-regulation. They may indeed be learning how to ignore their distress and ultimately look calm. But that is not the same thing as regulation. Now, obviously all of us have very different temperaments and different connection needs. Some of us like to have a lot of connection with others. Some of us like a lot less but even folks who like a lot less active co-regulation, I mean, folks who prefer to live alone and really don't seem to have a whole lot of need to connect with other humans, even those folks live in a world where people do exist, and simply the existence of other people out in the world is providing co-regulation. Humans don't exist alone, even if we live alone, we have occasional human interaction, even if it's just in the media. So even when we are pretty darn effective at self-regulation, we are always still benefiting from the shared co-regulatory experiences of just existing with other humans or animals. I mean, solitary confinement is torture for a reason, right? We need each other to know that we exist, to feel that we exist. We need each other to know ourselves if we believe we can regulate alone, if we believe we are okay without each other, we are actually attempting to convince ourselves of a truth that is a core contradiction to our existence. In this contradiction, this attempt at convincing ourselves of something that completely contradicts our existence in the world, that is going to be a cue of danger, and it is leaving us culturally, kind of stuck in protection mode.   

Robyn: It's also very confusing. I mean, if our body knows one thing is true, but we try to convince ourselves that something else is true. We start to think that we're wrong and that we can't trust ourselves. That means then we end up having inappropriate expectations for our kids, and then we shame ourselves when we notice that we need someone else, and we spend a lot of energy on not exactly things that are gonna help when we're trying to help our kids develop more capacity to regulate, right? I mean, we start to really emphasize skills, instead of offering that co-regulation. And then, of course, those skills don't work. And then our kids feel shame, whether they showed or not. They feel shame because if they're taught something implicit in that is this message of you should be able to learn this, and when they can't, this is going to be accompanied by shame, right? Because they repeatedly can't do something we insist that they should be able to do. Self-regulation is internalized co-regulation. We need each other.    

Robyn: Y'all. I know a lot of folks like to be alone, and there's nothing wrong with preferring to be alone, but aloneness comes from togetherness. Pause for a moment. Imagine when you get some really, really, really bad news. What do you want to do? Do you want to call someone, reach out to someone, share that news with someone, that person lives in you. When you imagine someone who isn't with you, the whole reason you can imagine them is that a neural network of that person exists inside your mind. So when I say regulation is internalized co-regulation, that's what I mean. Again, if you want to explore this further, you can go listen to a previous podcast episode called, 'What Does Co-Regulation Really Look Like?' It really breaks down the intricacies of co-regulation. There is a downloadable infographic that comes along with that. Again, you can click to download a little infographic that you get to hang on your fridge. You can also go back and listen to episode 43 with JD and Tona, because I'm sure I said things differently on that podcast. It's always helpful to hear similar ideas expressed differently, at least I think it is.    

Robyn: All right y'all I want to wrap up by saying just one final thing, teach your kids self-regulation skills, okay, teach them calm down skills. I have my own self-regulation skills, right? Like I know what things work for me when I'm starting to get dysregulated, but skills you want your child to do on their own, without your help, without your prompting, are for the 'What's Up' level Watchdog and the 'La La Land' Possum, okay? These are things that your child will be able to do independently when they are just a little bit dysregulated, right? And you relate to this, I'm sure you do, where there is a level of dysregulation yourself, where you can think to yourself like, whoa, I'm about to freak out. I should probably step away, or I need to take a break, or I need to go get a glass of water, or something like that, right? That's an example of you using your regulation skills. Brilliant.    

Robyn: But there's also a moment or a point in your dysregulation where you can't do that anymore, right? Of course, there is, of course, there is, of course, you know a lot of self-regulation skills, and you know a lot about the things that help you, and you know a lot about what you can do to avoid, you know, flipping your lid on your kid, having a Watchdog moment on your kid or anyone else, right? You know those things, do? You always do them? Of course not. Of course not. And that's not because you're bad. That's because you are blasting down the arousal continuum too fast, like you're skipping over 'What's Up' level Watchdog, right? That's just information about how quickly you're becoming dysregulated. Then the same is true for your kids, that there's a pretty small window in which we can use, consciously use our self-regulation skills.    

Robyn: Now, simply because your child doesn't spend very much or any time on 'What's Up' Watchdog, right? Doesn't mean you shouldn't teach them those skills. Please, still teach them those skills, but don't expect them to use those skills in the short term, right? Once they've gone past 'What's Up' Watchdog or 'La La Land' Possum, they're not going to be able to pause and consciously use those skills, or think, oh, I should go to the calm down corner, or I should use my fidget or whatever it is. They're wonderful coping skills. Okay? So still teach them just have appropriate expectations about their ability to use them. You know, once they're at they're ready for action. Or the 'Trickster' level Possum, right? Just one level past 'What's Up' or 'La La Land,' your child might be able to accept some of those skills and strategies from you, like you might be able to give them a drink, but any more dysregulated than that, and they're probably not even going to accept those gestures of regulation from you, right? You all know that the experience of offering your child something that you know helps them calm down, and they know it too, but they reject it, right? They take that glass of water and, like, toss it back in your face, right? Like we all know that experience, this is only about the level of arousal. That's why I teach you those four different levels of activation in the brain, right? So my point though, in this is, if your child is spending a lot of time on 'Ready for Action' or higher, or 'Trickster' or higher in their Possum brain, know that they're not going to be able to probably use the skills you teach them, but still teach them. As their Owl brain grows, as they grow more regulatory capacity, as their ventral vagal nerve gets more myelinated, as they grow stronger neural networks of your co-regulation in their mind, as all those things happen, there will come a moment where they're in 'What's Up', or 'La La Land' Possum, long enough, which is really just a millisecond, but long enough that they can use those skills.    

Robyn: So don't stop teaching those skills, just don't expect them to use them yet, right? And also teach your kid that it makes sense that they're not using them without your help, so that they don't think there's something wrong with them. And then this now brings us completely full circle, back to why or want to teach your kids about their own nervous system, about their own Owl, Watchdog, or Possum brain, and I have oodles of resources for you to do that. Chapter nine of my book talks about how to teach your kid about their own Owl, Watchdog, and Possum brain. I have lots of free downloads over on my website at RobynGobbel.com/freeresources. I have podcasts about how to teach your child about their Owl, Watchdog, or Possum brain. And I do have a webinar that I taught, a masterclass that I taught. It lives in the club. So if you didn't catch that webinar, that masterclass, and you want to come and join us in the club, it is in there as well and then. But really the most important part of the club is that there's all the other club members, and we can help you. That's really, truly the big benefit of the club. So there's so many ways, so many things I have for you to teach your kid about the Owl, Watchdog, or Possum brain. And yes, it's very, very important, knowing about their Owl, Watchdog, or Possum brain is a way that you can teach your child regulation skills, and as their Owl brain grows through co-regulation, connection, and felt safety, they'll eventually be able to access that information, and knowing that they are not their behaviors will free them from shame, and that will help them find regulation sooner.    

Robyn: All right, y'all, let's give a big thanks to my teenager, young adult. He's not a teenager, he's a young adult who gave me a great suggestion, told me I should rerecord this episode to make it more up to date, more recent, easier for you to find, as always. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for tuning into the podcast, for being somebody who is interested in supporting a child with a vulnerable nervous system, whether that be child or children in your home or the children you support at work. Y'all are out there doing such important work, and I am so honored and so privileged to be invited to join you on that journey. Thank you. Thank you for everything that you do, and I will be with you again back here on the podcast next week. Bye, bye!