 Excellent. So for those watching on recording, I'm Mel Hauser. I use she they pronouns and I'm executive director here at all brains belong. Welcome to brain club are weekly community education discussion series about everyday brain life. And so, today, we are going to be I never have the thing ready. All right. So, we're going to be talking about something we spoke of when we first started brain club back in January. Which is what goes into creating a culture of safety and neurodiversity affirming culture of safety in everyday life and whether you are a parent and looking to revisit the co regulation dynamics with with with your children, or if just in co regulation experiences with other family members or self regulation feeling safe within within your own self in your everyday environment, these are some of the topics that we're going to talk about. And Hannah bloom is a pediatric occupational therapist on our board of directors. And we gave this talk together synchronously in January and we revamped it asynchronously and so we'll have a video of us, we were synchronous, but I'll play the video. Just by way of introduction. If you've not been to brain club before all forms of participation are okay here you as many of you have already figured out you can have your video on or off. So, even if it's on you do not need to, you know, look at the camera or like do conform with any kind of default zoom thing, because in fact we actively discourage masking conforming to defaults. So please do do whatever needs doing, and you can communicate however you want to you can unmute and speak with mouth words you can type in the chat box gesture you can you know just what whatever's most comfortable for you. And, in addition to affirming all aspects of identity here. And another thing that we do to intentionally create a culture of safety is that just respecting and protecting one another's access needs. So you are welcome to talk about anything that you feel comfortable talking about here. And we just ask if that if there's something that you personally experienced as traumatic or stressing we just ask you to give a content warning with the topic, so that others can can listen within for a second. One more point of access is that if you'd like to be using captions and they're not popping up for you automatically. Just click either the live transcript close captioning icon, or if your version of zoom doesn't have that option, then just click the more that that that and choose show subtitles. If they do pop up automatically and you don't want them, you can do those same things to show high subtitles. All right, so you know what I'm going to do is I'm going to Sarah can I make you co host. Sure. Okay this way. Someone else can do Sierra I'm going to make you co host to both be co host there you go. So that if folks are joining, they can be let in. So, here you go. I'm going to take us on a tour of past brain clubs to get everybody on the same page. All our archives are available for free on the website so I encourage you to go back and and listen to the original brain rules versus world rules. And we actually did a whole a whole month of this topic in August, think August yeah. So it's about unlearning and reimagining right so so the assumptions the things that we think are the way the world needs to be, they don't need to be that way necessarily if they're not working. So, when you tell people that when they're not ready to hear it. That's regulating. So, on month long, we're going to be talking about lots of things that are amazing to talk about at brain club within a community of people who are on this journey together of unlearning and reimagining. And sometimes we want to have these conversations everywhere once we, you know, start drinking the kool aid. So, that's what this month is going to be about. It's about how do you take the oblique approach to make to make this relevant for other people. So, that's why, for example, we talk about inclusion, right, we talk about inclusion and belonging because that's not controversial, like inclusion matters and someone disagree with that out loud with me. But that's, that's, that's, that's different has different impact than focusing on correcting specific things within society, for example. So, you know, when we, when we think about inclusion. It's, it really can be simplified that the reason we talk about neurodiversity and access and universal design is that when something in society is offered as a default. And that's whose brain doesn't do the thing that way is is ordered. And so when you feel other, you are unlikely to feel that you belong so anytime there's a default. There's others. And so there's no inclusion. And we're going to apply that same concept here all month, talking about family life relationships. So if you have a week, please join us for the COVID conversation that talking about workplace issues and recreational opportunities, particularly for adults. Because when we think about inclusion. It all begins with safety and regulation, or lack thereof right so that's where we begin. In, in January, actually, we had a whole month long theme called help everyone in my home is flipping their legs, all about co regulation and self regulation. I'm, I'm, I want to leave time for, for lots of conversations today so I'm not going to play this video clip, because we got up to such a late start sorry about that. Everyone flips their lead. And that happens because when things in our environment trigger our limbic system and using the analogy from the whole brain child by Dr. Dan Siegel and Dr. Tina Payne Branson upstairs brain downstairs brain. When downstairs plan is triggered and we don't get to pick when that happens. It's, it's because we're not feeling safe. And when downstairs brain is triggered we don't have access, full access and he would upstairs brain. And so we don't, we don't get to necessarily make choices. We, we downstairs brain calls the shots. Most of the time. That, that can take many different forms. You know, if, if, if someone is overtly like throwing things and screaming, you might be able to detect that they're dysregulated. But dysregulation can take many other forms and sometimes it's even hard to know when someone's dysregulated, or even to recognize when we ourselves are dysregulated. So, all brains belong in addition to being governed by our board of directors, we have a community advisory board. And so this spring, we asked, hey, how are we going to know when our community is more neuro inclusive. And what they said, I'm not going to like invite you to study this right now it's up on the website, one of my favorite things, but I'm just going to show you that so many people in our community. This comes down to access needs being able to communicate access needs explore access needs, negotiate conflicting access needs that that that is one of the ways that we're going to define our impact and that's why for this summer, all we've done pretty much is access needs. And we, and if you've not been to a brain club in the last couple months to hear us talking about this access needs or anything that is required to meaningfully participate in life, and everyone has access needs. They may just not think about it that way. But when framed that way, it really can explain a lot of things. And often, we have conflicting access needs on the example I always like to give in my house is like when Luna, my five year old needs to make noise at the top of her lungs at the exact same time that I need complete quiet. Yeah, that's that's conflicting access needs. And why this matters to these conversation is that often we are in co dysregulation encounters and we may not even know it. And if we do, we may not realize that a lot of co dysregulation, meaning rather than co regulation like we are returning to calm together, we are doing the opposite together escalating co escalating was relates to conflicting access needs, where we to two or more people have things that are required for them to meaningfully participate. And of course, brain rules are an example of cognitive access means. So, go back and watch January and February because there's a lot of, there's a lot of gems and old brain clubs about about the co regulation versus dysregulation experience. And that is a just a recap to get us on the same the same page for my conversation with Hannah bloom. And I'm going to actually have to stop share so that I can reshare what sound forget to do that. We were talking yesterday about how a lot of people think that there's like a set of things to do, and that's going to make their family environments and their relationships feel better, like that there would be like some strategies top down, but that that doesn't really play out. Right. But there's some prescription of how to exist that create this end goal. Right. Doesn't exist. It does not exist. And I think that I know as a as a parent just as a human, like, I am so rarely regulated. And when I am regulated or when I am distracted enough, like, I'll give an example. Okay, so typically when it's time to leave the house. I'm like Luna, I want you to leave the house. Let's go leave the house. Luna's limbic systems like yeah. No, like no. And it's not like, it's not volitional it's automatic involuntary it is not safe when someone is inducing me to comply. Right. And this week when it was time to leave. I was on the phone with my colleague, and I opened the door and I was like, you know, I'm going to be leaving for the thing. I thought you might want to get dressed. And then I went back to the phone call and I like my energy was like not directed at her. Right. And she was like, bring me my clothes. I put them in and I said, and she's like watching a screen and I was like, um, you might want to put them on and I was like distracted again back to the call. And then 10 minutes later I go back in dressed. She's freaking dressed. This has never happened in the history of my life. Yeah. So you removed any time constraint, because it wasn't, I'm leaving. Are you coming or going and leaving, which is like time constraint now this is happening. And you removed pressure of your presence and energy by being in a different mental space. Right. And the time thing was not actually removed. I talked about time. I knew about time kind of although I don't really experience time so like energetically time was not part of my mental space. It was more so the ladder. It was more so like my energy was diffused by paying attention to something else. And that contributed to us. I think I think it contributed to a sense of safety. Yeah, well and a sense of safety in a removal of not being able to meet an expectation. Yes. Yeah. So the fear or the, or the fight or the, the limbic response to an expectation being put. Am I going to be able to meet this expectation. I don't know. So maybe I'm going to say no right away. I don't want to meet your expectations. I'm going to say no right away. Yeah, I'm not your, your expectations feel unsafe to me. Yeah. So I shut them down because that's what my little limbic system is supposed to do unsafe. I actually did not have expectations. I, I didn't have enough cortex to have expectations. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes we remove expectation of transition by adding like a, a speaker story and then the speaker travels with you. So like there's an audio, a podcast or an audio book that we're listening to and it just kind of gets turned on. And this is like, then I'm helping Isaac get dressed and I'm right there with him and we're listening and then the speakers just move into the car. And we're going to follow it because that's what we want is the story. That's amazing. And it's not like a gimmick. It's, it's like the lens it's almost like reframing the lens like if the primary goal is to do the thing. It will fail because it will feel unsafe. Yeah. The primary goal is a safe experience is a safe experience. And the primary goal is a, an on time arrival for my need. So I'm, I know my need but lindically, I can maintain a calm in relationship. So I, I, I know my need of getting somewhere by a certain time. So I can rewind that by two hours because this is how my brain works, but and I can know that, okay, it's going to take this amount of time to do these things. And what are the tools or what's the safety net that's going to allow this to happen so that I'm not late, which is when my limb kicks in and I get stressed. I'm going to give like a huge amount of time to be able to, to, to get to that point. And it's removing for my, for, for Isaac it's removing a list of must do is before a final external unsafe expectation. You getting to work is not me getting to work on time is not a need of his. So I don't even put that on this schedule sometimes, right. So, so you're also talking about framing this as, as, as an access need issue. So your access is to arrive on time. It doesn't matter whether it's rational or irrational. It could very well be a brain rule and not a world rule, but it is your brain rule and it is serving you and so you are keeping it. And so the way that you have negotiated conflicting access needs is to plan your day with this two hour lead up so that your energy. So it's just about like, like planning your life around having to think basically it's planning your life around being regulated, regulated. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. So that mean that meant that must mean that it's not just about blocking out two hours like you're essentially building your life around being regulated. That sounds like a good idea. How do you do that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you have to do that. A lot of tools. I mean, a lot of access needs a lot of accommodations that fit that are forever changing because sometimes what works one week isn't what works today but that's okay. I don't know with it and flexible so that using a using a using a motive using a story using a cognitive engagement for Isaac gives him the safety that allows his nervous system to continue to do the mundane brush my teeth, put my socks on, walk to the car buckle like those are all tedious tasks to his nervous system. So a cognitive engagement that's enjoyable gives him more access to that hard stuff. It's the threshold piece. How much, how many stressful pieces of my day can I do without it all adding up into full system stress. Yes. You know, that is making me think about cognitive regulation, because just as you're saying that Isaac's cortex is engaged with the story and following along it. And that reminds me of Luna today when we were leaving for school. Luna entered character. Luna was the ground critter and everything we did was about the ground critter doing the thing that made it more accessible, because Luna was using her cortical strategies to make her feel more safe. And so by my, I actually, by interacting with ground critter, I, I had no it actually like shifted my expectations I'm like, we're in a mode where she's crawling on the floor and rolling around in the dirt, and it's 750am and we're, it's 36 degrees and we're rolling around in the dirt. And like, I'm going to engage in that. I'm going to correctly enter that space and like it made me shift out of expectation, because part of me was like, All right, I'm with the ground critter. We made it to school. Because I am in this different space now. Yeah, and because I'm using, and we all have different self regulation strategies. One of mine is the mantra of safety and connection is primary. And so there is arriving 10 minutes earlier to school is not actually going to be worth it to me, even my cortex when I like do risk benefit calculations, anything that can come from my be like we got to do the thing. It's never worth it because of that cortical strategy of like regulation and safety connection safety is primary. Yeah, yeah. So your one brain, the human brain will not have expansive access won't be able to engage to learn to have partnership. It's all right if it's all in sympathetic fight, fight, see, flop mode, and the way to keep that cortical is connection and safety. So you use that cortical top down method to achieve your state of regulation and be present in the environment and the emotional and neuroceptive energetic energy that's right there and available. And in that you access a different level of connection and regulation and togetherness. Right. Yes. So, we've had the experience of being around a small group of kids with hypersensitive neuroception for detection systems. And this has gone really well. What do you think has made it go well and by go well I mean the kids feel safe and want to come back. Yeah. It's made it smooth or accessible. Other than you being there, because like, you're a magical human. I mean, that we are not only have we had the privilege of being with kids with heightened neuroception but we have a group of adults with them, caregivers, parents, loved ones who are very neuroceptive and aware of energy. And I think setting us all up as a group of big people in trust and connection. And, I mean, going on three years of connection and collaboration, building that as a safe place. These little humans are walking into what is already very accepting and open and valued space. So I think the energy for sure in that space is huge. You help me regulate I help you regulate the other big people in this space equally help all of us regulate. Leah and I had the conversation when we first started working together, we as another one of the big people in this space like for her to understand my nervous system when I start to get really flighty and kind of hyper and like I have a lot of things to say and I may be like running all over the place. Please Leah just give me this like down here Hannah. And she's so she is so solid and she is so much that grounding force like even just working with her for the last three weeks I've been able to be like alright. I can get hyper and I can get flighty and that's a part of who I am and that's a part of you know I will play tag and run in circles because that's great for my nervous system and then when I sit down and I get a drink of water and I feel the energy and like, and I'm back here. And this is a good solid space for me to be observant and be a draw to the nervous systems that are still really high energy. Yes, the other thing that you do, and that Leah does, and that I, I work hard to courtically get myself to follow your lead on this is that there, I don't have an expectation of what play looks like in that space. And energetically, these sweet little limbic systems, they feel, not just energy and angst, but they feel expectation they know when someone is expecting them to do the thing. This like invisible external demand to fit in or like, otherwise do the thing. Yeah, because of who we all are. We actually like, don't expect them to do the thing and they don't expect each other to do the thing. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And that's a lot of rewiring social construct in our own neurology our own narrative of what the world is. You know, it's definitely a new space of being the therapist being the occupational therapist on the team like, I'm not showing up with my agenda, and my whiteboard, and all my systems of we're going to do a regulating sensory piece and then we're going to do a social exchange piece and then we're going to do a regulating sensory piece like I had a whole formula 10 years ago that that that I was stuck that were there was a brain rule. And to liberate that from my expectation gives this authentic engagement space for the little people that I'm working with that can come into connection and engagement and self actualization in the past that fits their nervous system in their brain, not that fits our socialized expectation of when you graduate from therapy you will have learned right. So that's been like, I mean it's just been unlearning brain rules, but it's also been noticing where the noticing where the where the good stuff is noticing where the joy is and where the really sweet connections are and where those little places of like, just you feel it you're like, Oh, this is it. This is like this is, this is worth holding on to I want more of this. And noticing those times that came up they of course were always when the child or the student when the kid when my child felt the safest right, and so they would come into that as looking for acceptance connection, who I am and showing up as me, totally different, and it was never in any prescription. It was never in anything that I would show up and be like, and at this point we will have self actualized you know connection. I think I wonder if many people, because of their lived experience of feeling unsafe by the social constructs in their own lives. And that that limbic response even in remembering because trauma stays in your body right so so like you enter a space like a playgroup, and your kid does a thing and energetically, whether real or imagined, the energy of like, there's no judgment, judgment on my kid judgment on me and like, yeah, even though nothing happened, the energy that goes out into that. They feel that energy of like, oh, I'm safe. And then chaos. Yeah, what do you do in that moment to be like, like, to return return to a place of, I'm going to let go of that. And you how do you so I like, for me, and this is the practice and so I mean this is also the good question about what it means for the family to so for me in the family the way that I return to regulation, the way that I, and bring my nervous system back into other people's attunement reading other people's nervous system instead of being overwhelmed by my own. Whatever it is going on the way that the best way for me to do that is to get down on the ground. Again, this is me and this is experiments of years of knowing how to attune for me it's it's it's squatting down close it's putting both my hands on the ground for a second the floor. So I'm I squat and I'm low. There's something about the proprioceptive work like I think because my glutes kick in so much I'm like, Oh, here's my body. And because I'm getting deflection I'm like, Oh, here I am. This is my contained little nervous system. Putting my hands on the ground feels strong. I feel like, yep, I am strong. I am a strong person. I can do this. So I'm building from the sensory system back into regulation. And I've practiced it enough over the years that I can do it fairly quickly in my nervous system those cues kick in safety for my for my neuroception. And it's subconscious it's it is something our brains are always doing all the time scanning the environment scanning the interrelationships scanning the internal relationship the internal environment for safety. And we are geared for it. So, once we feel it once we find it, it's, it's what our system wants to go to that homeostasis is where we want to be a cellular Lee. Yes. Okay, so for my nervous system it's that it's getting low it's getting grounded. It's softening my face, like actively saying, let your eyes soften. Don't create some expected emotion. So that like that shame fear response might might create this expected like, Oh, I'm okay. Right. Like, everything's fine. Can you tell this isn't really a smile. Like, but it's what we do because it's what we've been socialized to do. So, actively neutralizing softening my face. And then, like, something about the environment for me usually helps find the horizon, look at a tree root, some sort of queue to me that's like, there's no saber tooth tiger here. There's no gaping hole that's going to suck you into the hot molten lava of the middle of the earth. This is solid ground. I'm just describing that you begin with a bottom up strategy, you get into your body and you ground yourself whatever that means to you you ground yourself, and then you have access to your cortex where you are immediately mediating your limbic response. Because now you have access to your cortex, because you did that initial bottom up. Yeah softening to take the edge off to like bring your cortex back online and then you go to that I think a lot of people skip right to that, or they try to skip right to that and they don't have access to their cortex. You can't skip it. You have to do something to access your cortex. And there's an element of, like when you're in the thick of it, even if you're like already screaming and like actively flipping your lid. Yeah, you, you don't have access to the impulse control to stop. You don't, you may not even be able to like metacognitive metacognitive Lee, like zoom out and watch yourself you just don't have access to that so it's really just like it's happening. Get to the ground if that's how you ground like something in your body. Yeah. Yeah, and it's it's it's experimental for a while it's trial and error to figure out what your physical somatic sensory system responds to. And then once that is kind of once that's a queue of safety for your physical sensory being it gets stronger. And sometimes maybe it needs tweaking like you know, when my knees can't squat anymore and hopefully not for another 20 years I'll have to figure something else out. The other thing is that if, if someone knows that they are their go to self reg plan is a top down trying to use their cortex. The other thing that I found helpful is to prepare ahead of time. What I'm wanting my cortex to do. Yep, because if I can, like, ID and motor planet ahead of time, I can maybe access it as like automatic, like automatic loop I can pull in as like you trying to use it in the in the moment, because then it becomes not an a stop, you know impulse control stop it's like don't like like what's on the gas already. Don't try to step on the break of stop screaming your kid. It's I'm going to go to my automatic loop. And so for me that is like the, like I said before the mantra of like the relationship, the relationship, the relationship is primary like like, like, like a thought I can try, even if I don't have full access to my cortex that I can I can try that I mean doesn't work maybe but like it might work a lot better than like, I'm going to talk myself out of how this is not this is okay. Right. Well, I mean and this is also gets to some of the course of like there's the unnumberable amounts of different brains you think when we've talked about this you think in specific word patterns. Always, your directions are in go left at and to stop lights then to your brain does everything in that language space. I do not. I do pictures and I know which rock is at the driveway that I want to drive into, not where it is on the street in words ways. So I think that's also just a self awareness piece of what works for your brain and language works for yours. It's so seen right now. The language doesn't work great in my brain so to start to do like an internal talk in the midst of feeling really dysregulated is just like, oh that's really that would be too much work. Yeah, yeah. And so it begins with self awareness of like what what actually calms you and maybe even developing an awareness of like your go to patterns of how you negotiate life even when you're like generally regulated enough. Yeah, yeah, no absolutely which then I mean gives you that base of being able to have the space for your family to feel safe and heard and seen. I mean, the goal is acceptance and connection for all of us and that requires me also having that grace and acceptance of like, you know, I understand myself sometimes. That seems like a great stopping point. Yeah. Oh my goodness. I don't know how to get out of this. Get out of there. Alright, so I took notes while I was watching that recording. So today, I took notes on some like words. And I used one of these like word cloud apps, I didn't like the font and I didn't like the size and like anything about this but this is this is this is all I could come up with without getting put on the gas about it. So I think of what Hannah tried to highlight grounding connection play expectations awareness and all of those pieces, I think, in form, like what becomes the priority in in interactions because like you could practically say that you would like, you know, you could say you accept something. I love you unconditionally I accept you unconditionally but like if your energy doesn't have those other pieces in place, your, your, your energy enters into the environment. And it's, it's, it's, it's almost like you have to achieve co regulation before you know how to do it again so you can remember, remember how you did it. So, I think that for many of us, we're just like trying to survive and treading water, as opposed to like, like Laura shared in the chat. It feels overwhelming because I have no sense of like what my go to strategy is to manage chaos and all the things so, but yeah. I'm even beginning to think about like how how you used to regulate like I think a lot of times and as a transition to, you know, whether that be a transition to parenting or like a transition to different, you know, like life schedules with a job or something or you get buried or you move in with someone and you have a new thing, you don't necessarily realize what you were doing. That was self regulating before and then you like stop doing it because your life changed and you're like oh I feel terrible. Oh, it's because you stopped doing that thing that you didn't know because a lot of nervous nervous systems find a way to regulate a lot of the time and so like Christina shared like oh I like to sit on the floor in the morning. Well, you kind of figured out that that worked for you that's so cool. She's also sharing. I recently realized that I have to hijack my brain to get tasks done. Oh yes. Yes. I have to trick myself to go to the grocery store have to make it a game or a word system. Yes, spoken like a true dopamine down brain. That's the story of my life. Yes. Yes. I wonder how how this resonated for others about about how energy may be playing out in your co regulation experiences. I have an example today. I'm trying to like at this kind of reinforce this talk reinforce like where I kind of maybe went a little wrong. But similar to your daughter my daughter doesn't like direct demands, and that could be like do something but it could also be stopped doing something. She's 10 and she still has this kind of like, if I directly asked her to stop doing something. She's definitely not going to stop doing it. She's going to look at me and do it more. So today, she was like rocking a chair. And she's when she rocks a chair. She rocks it so hard that sometimes it's like Dan going to like get damaged. So I tried to like implement like like transitioning strategies to get her to do something else. But I think because I was so irritated that she was doing the thing. She was just focused on me and like, she couldn't move her brain towards the other strategies that I was giving her, because I was dysregulated. And I was unhappy of the things she was doing and I realized now after this conversation, if I had just been more neutral, and then like, you know, I'm not sure that the chair really likes being treated that way maybe you could like go roll on your yoga ball that yoga ball likes that something like that. And that's that's what I'm thinking about today resonates a lot. So, as someone who is in an equivalent situation to what you described like every day, every day there's something like that. That is where I'm going to try to choose my words, because this is this is what I hoped we'd get to. And I am grateful that you shared with us because I think that story. First off, I hear other people tell me that story meant like the equivalent of that story, all day this is like what people talk about here. And I live it all day. That is the oblique angle, but I'm trying to get at it like I don't I don't really know how to do it so I'm just going to do it. And that is where I use my strategy of the relationship is primary. The relationship is primary will override my initial gut reactions to protect the chair or protect the thing. The thing that is was actually important to me before the episode, but having because I'm a top down regulator. That is the exact situation that I had to come up with some way of reallocating one priority in a world where I have 50,000 priorities. I want to reduce chaos at all times. I would maybe have thought, you know, don't thing on that thing. It's going to break the thing. But really, that gut instinct. That was because the sound was exploding my brain. That's why I wanted to stop. And like when first step was acknowledging that part, but then even more so, being able to somehow sort of, and you can't just, you can't just decide one day. You're going to care about the destruction of property like not going to work. And for me in my house, I'd love to hear others. I had to pick. I had to pick. I could only keep one thought in my head. Only recently, did I like actually build enough of a neural pathway to like with enough repetition. At least my words this hour. The relationship is primary, or some version of that, that actually is a lens that that takes care of all other decisions. What do you say, when do you say it, when do you intervene when do you don't, when do you issue a demand, when do you not. When do you completely scale back demands, because attuning to the energy of yourself. And the other person. You can tell when there's a breakdown of that safety and connection. And, and like I totally suck that at this afternoon, but like earlier this morning, I sucked at it less of like remembering. Oh yeah, there is literally chaos. I need, I like, I drive is to stop the chaos. But the relationship is primary. Like I was saying, she's a, she's, she's a ground up processor so she's like, you know the equivalent of like the rocking chair is going to break thing is like, there will be no communication, I will get to the floor. And that helps her so like eat like I think just having, having a collection of strategies in that moment. There's a lot of it in like this, this is what's radical, glory is the word radical in the chat before, what's radical is that there's a lot of stuff that gets broken in my house, because I had to pick. Sorry, brother monologue. So, you know, the first find themselves in situations like this, we're like the over rehearsed neural pathway that's like, I have to stop the thing I have to intervene in the thing with that intervention has keeps the cycle going. So, so, so it sounds like Jeff. You're, you're, yeah, so, so it's interesting so as that says that, that, you know, we're not the only ones, I think people think that they are the only ones, because no one talks about this. So, this is like another example of just like transparency actually being the way out of chaos because I think what happens a lot is that in the moment, if you think you're the only one and you start like judging yourself as as a parent as a partner as a parent, you're judging yourself and then like the shame response actually makes you more dysregulated the same way that they get more dysregulated when you when you give them feedback. Like so you make yourself more dysregulated and then your energy comes into the space and it. I'm just like talking about this to know like, no, you're not the only one that has chaos, there's a whole lot of chaos, and that hopefully will like take the edge off of the shame factor, like at least to start the journey. I have a question for you Mel mentioned noise level before. And I also have a problem. I, I have a problem with noise. Most of the time I try to redirect it, but there's this part of me that feels like I'm asking my child to regulate my nervous system by asking them to take their noise somewhere else. So there's like this kind of like, all right, it is bothering me and I'm overstimulated by this level of noise but like, also, I don't want them to feel like they're responsible for regulating my nervous system too. So how do you deal with that. That's a great example and a super common example of conflicting access needs. So, first off, when it's not happening. And then I talk about like, we all have different brains and I talk about sensory processing and there are things that stress me out just like there's things that stress my street little love out so that then there's that background knowledge. So that when I communicate you know hey, you know I have the kind of brain that you know just like really can't take noise sometimes so I'm going to leave the room. My first thing was because I initially was feeling self conscious about even putting my earbuds in, because I thought that even putting earbuds in would be sending a message of rejection. So, but that was the first context of like, this is about me. This is not about you. You make your sweet little baby noises you do what needs doing to regulate, but I'm going to put in my earbuds to take care of myself. And the next layer is that is like, I need to take a sound break. I need to go over there for like two minutes, five minutes, whatever that is, because I need to just like charge my battery by not having sound to process. And because we've been talking about this and she's two and a half. It's like not a big deal. Sometimes though, she's in the room, I'm on the phone. And I need to just like, get the thing down and I just like I can't. Anyway, just like need to get the thing done and I don't have access to my cortex to like plan all this and like deliver the language just so. So we've kind of like, at some point I asked like, Luna, if there's a time when I need, I need less noise. Are there, like, what do you want me to do. I kind of taking the collaborative product solutions, PS approach of like, what ideas do you have any because like, she has incredible ideas we've been doing this and she's three. She said, Mama, I want you to turn the volume down like the Alexa. She came up with that at four years old. Anyway, so today I was on the phone I was like hey Luna, can you because it was like like insurance on the phone or whatever and I was, I was like, Luna volume one, and she. I mean it wasn't volume one by any means but like anyway definitely like. It was, it was, it was, it was less loud. Laura's asked in the chat, how do we teach us and also teach our children to respect other people's access needs outside the home rate so it's framing it about access needs. Right, it's not that another person's access need is more important than their own and it's not there's like one correct default type of access need. It's, it's that, like, when something happens, there are going to be a variety of ways that that people respond, some brains respond this way some brains respond that way some brains don't respond at all and like, it's all on the on the continuum. And so it's just about asking people what their access needs checking in about access needs normalizing that whether they're in your home or without you. But it's not actually different the problem is the people who are out in the world who have never thought about this before and presume that their access needs are world rules when they are their individual access needs Sarah. Yeah, I just wanted to highlight advice that you gave me now a while ago, which was like at the beginning of the day. Everybody can choose an access needs that's like their priority for the day and like being okay about like accommodating your other access needs to meet the like priority access need for the rest of your family. And, and I think that's been really helpful and another thing that I think, especially as we're talking about the like, when you have put on the gas and everything's chaotic and it's really hard to zoom out because it just regulated using non verbal cues is something that we use in our house that I find really helpful of like, like when my partner is hyper focused on her computer and I know trying to interrupt her is going to trigger her nervous system I flash the lights instead of like tapping on her shoulder saying anything and that's the like amount of stimulation her brains able to handle at that point. So it was helpful. Thank you and you, you, you, I was at first I was like, wait, what, and I realized they were two separate stories. So, so we have an access need board in our house. But we listed everyone's acts like usual actually your access needs are going to change context, the context and day to day but like the the sort of predictable deal breaker access needs we have like a little, you know, laminated piece of thing on our fridge. We don't necessarily participate, but I kind of know what his access needs are so put them on the board. Anyway, so anyway, so we have these up there. And, and, and, and like they're just there, they're there, and like they're they're kind of string for us to like remember and keep them in mind. So like lunas like one of like instance so you know maybe we picked like three that are like, you know, total deal breakers. So one of lunas is that unsolicited bids for attention are dysregulating. And so that requires like some massive on learning I mean like all day long I just go around having unsolicited bids for attention I'm just like interrupting her every five seconds, saying learning is an unsolicited bid for attention when I started respecting her access needs. She started like actually seeking me out for interaction like on purpose. So anyway, it's because like safety comes first and you have to be regulated before you can engage. So anyway, knowing, and anyway, so naming the thing, teaching the framework having the visual, because like, honestly, I, my executive functioning needs to be reminded every time I walk into the kitchen. No unsolicited bits for attention, otherwise I'm just going to like start blurting out into the thing because it's like impulse controls like major impulse control to not be able to say good morning your child, but it has done wonders for the relationship. So the story that Sierra is talking about the picking one in the morning. This is when I introduced the concept of brain rules, and I was like, you can have one brain rule at breakfast. And it's because they were like, you know, they were like 20,000 of them. So that's, that's, that's how we taught that concept to the five year old. I have one more question before we wrap up today, and feel free to type in the chat. We learned to share is you need that at bedtime my son has 47 routines we must do. So it's interesting. So, so, so I would teach the concept that brain rules and like bringers aren't bad bringers keep us safe so like today I'm actually this is I'm glad you brought that up. Because brain rules like they are, we create them when we feel unsafe. And we have this idea about what's going to make the world make sense and orderly and like keep me safe and like all the things anyway. So, um, today, Luna and I, we went to Fox Market that's our mama baby thing on Tuesdays, and we usually we get a chocolate peanut butter cup, and then we place our order and then we go outside and we sit. And we sit and she eats her chocolate peanut butter cup, and then the food comes and all this is what we do. We did not buy the chocolate peanut butter. We forgot we went outside, we're sitting down, we're having real except that our water out of fancy glasses, and then she's like, I need the chocolate peanut butter cup. And like, I was like, Luna, dude, like the food's going to be here in like five seconds because we've been sitting here for 20 minutes already. And I need the chocolate peanut butter cup and I'm like, dude, brain rule. World rule. And, and then I'm like, oh, routine predictability, the connection the thing you look forward to that is always this way and it's the same food it always tastes the same. This is an access need isn't it. Yes. All right baby let's go get your chocolate peanut butter cup. Anyway, so like, the free meter on access needs makes it easier to meet them than like a super out there like what do you mean you need the green towel. You know, we all have access needs. We just get older and we have perspective perhaps. We have access needs, or we become so used to courtically overriding our limbic system that we forget we have access needs. So it's a lot. It's a lot of unlearning. Yeah, and so many, so many of us grew up with Sarah's editing the chat. So many of us grew up with, what do you mean you need the green towel. Oh, that was my entire paradigm shift. Yes. So speaking of paradigm chefs, join us next Tuesday, 6pm or we will be taking the oblique approach to the COVID conversation. Because when you violate people's brain rules, they flip their lid. So we're going to be joined by a panel. We're talking about about this, about when we think about how, you know, safety is a prerequisite for inclusion sure that on slides earlier today. When, when, when we think about how so many public settings are not safe to breathe the air. So we look forward to seeing you next week. Bye everybody.