 So welcome everyone, welcome to Brain Club. I don't know everyone here, which is amazing, exciting. So I'm Mel Hauser, I use she, they pronouns and I'm executive director at AllBrain's Belong, Vermont. And we are kicking off, what is our 12th month of Brain Club today, which is just like incredible to me. And this month, we are going to be doing Brain Club Greatest Hits, where we are going to be revisiting some of the, what our staff here has decided are our take home points for the year. And I think it'll be really interesting, like today when I was going through today's topic and going through old Brain Clubs about this, like multiple Brain Clubs about this, and like watching parts of them and splicing them together, it was really interesting because some of the things that I even said in January of 2022, I wouldn't have said now because I think all of us, right? Like every conversation we had, every interaction, every thought, everything we read or hear about, like we change our brains like a little bit. And I think, I think I'm hoping that it'll lead to some good conversation. So let me share screen. I've got a whole week's practice with my new computer. I kind of know how to work it a little bit better. And Laura's adding in the chat, that's so fascinating. Also makes me feel better about my constant learning on learning, re-learning. Oh yeah, definitely, definitely. All right, so. And I still have not figured out, I really have not figured out how to work, like we're just gonna have the whole bar. I don't know how to work soon. All right, so. There we go. By way of introductions, I think there might be a couple of folks who are new to Brain Club. You can participate however you are most comfortable. You can have your video on or off. And even if it's on, we don't expect anything of you. In fact, we actively discourage, like conforming with like Zoom etiquette or whatever. So you don't need to look at the camera. You can, you don't have to sit still, fidget, stim, eat, leave, come back. It's all okay. And all communication is okay. So you can unmute and speak with mouth words. You can take in the chat box, you can gesture. You definitely do not need to raise your hand with the Zoom, raise your hand. Like you could hold your hand up or you could just unmute. And yeah, what that's gonna mean is we're gonna talk over each other sometimes. And that's okay. Because it's all okay. So safety comes first here. And we want, that's why it's so important to us that you participate however you are most comfortable. And you're welcome to talk about anything that you're comfortable talking about. We just ask that you announce the topic to give a content warning, particularly because we have quite a few families with multiple age participants today. Just ask that you give a content warning for the topic so that people can listen with informed consent with the idea that we want everyone to feel safe and comfortable. So everybody flips their lid was our very first Brain Club in January, January 9th, 2022. And when I watched parts of that Brain Club and a couple of others in January and February of 2022, these were the big four points that really struck out to me that this was like new information for a lot of participants. One is that there are a lot of people in this world who actually don't know that they're not the only one who flips their lid. There are a lot of people because in fact, everybody flips their lid and you don't get to pick when you flip your lid or not. And one of the video clip we're gonna watch we'll see some examples of what it can look like to become dysregulated or not calm. And it might be like you're throwing things and punching things and breaking things but that's not always what it looks like. It can be on the inside, being really stressed out on the inside. And so there's that picture down there of the exploding brain dysregulation takes many forms. And the idea is to kind of figure out for you personally what is stressful so that you can go ahead and get your needs met so that you are, sometimes there's some stressful situations that you can't avoid but there's a lot of stressful situations that you can avoid. Like for example, loud chaotic places. I try not to go there or if there are stressful situations that I have to do I try to think about what's gonna make them less stressful like maybe I'm gonna bring somebody with me or something like that. And the thing is when we don't talk about this there are so many people of all ages who think that they are the only ones who flip their lids and that results often in shame, feeling like there's something wrong. There must be something wrong because I look around and I don't see anybody who feels the way I feel. And I don't see anyone who's like really having a hard time the way I'm having a hard time. In fact, when we talk about it that alone makes the experience better because for many people it's the self judgment when things get out of control. So with that I'm gonna unshare and I'm going to pull up our video and I'm just reading in the chat Mia says I used to see my family on authority figures flip their lids but I was led to believe it was more okay that they did it than when I did it because right because they wouldn't have done it if not for you do something right. That's not true. That's just not true. It's just not true. And when we're little kids, when people give us messages that we are responsible for other adults feelings, like how would we possibly know that they're wrong? We'd have no idea. But that is part of the, so many of us got those messages growing up and it's about just and the people who gave those messages to us they got those messages when they were little kids too. So it's just this intergenerational messaging that is not helpful. So at the beginning of this clip, it's a conversation with Lizzie, our educational coordinator and education programs coordinator official title and Hannah Bloom occupational therapist on our board of directors. And I, after our first neuro-inclusive vaccine clinic and there are, if you think about examples of things that draw out a lot of dysregulation, so often it's healthcare interactions. There's a lot of really stressful things about healthcare interactions. So we tried to create a program that made it not as stressful to get your shots and stay protected from COVID and stuff. So anyway, it has gone pretty well. And we were talking about it afterwards like debriefing our first one about like the regulation experience and we recorded it like in the middle. We're like, you know, we might use this someday and we like hit record on a Zoom meeting. And that's how we came up with the idea to have a brain club. And it was so cool that we captured that in real time. So I'm gonna play this. Success is not always just getting the vaccine. Success is, wow, you recognized when you didn't feel safe and you honored your internalized signal of threat. Like, isn't that what we want? It's a good thing when people have a positive healthcare experience, like defining like the connection of, I formed some sort of memory that wasn't awful. The more that that pattern goes, right? Those neurons that fire together, the more they do that, the more that pathway pathway is accessible and has ease. There's no ease in that pathway for a lot of our nervous systems right now because there has been no autonomy because there's been no agency. There's been no freedom and choice. You know, we realized we had to start talking about these concepts. We had to give people language for their experiences. And that was how Brain Club was born. Welcome, everybody. Welcome to Brain Club. Brain Club is like a great innovation and like open to the public and the chance for like, you know, a robust discussion about bring the spectrum of life issues. So without further ado, let's talk about some lid flipping. Flip still yet once. Yeah, or twice, or like a million times. 400 billion times. Did you know that some people think that they're the only ones who flip their lid? Did you know that? No. Oh, no. Some people think they're the only ones and they like, they feel bad about themselves because they're the only ones. Well, welcome, everyone. I'm Mel Hauser, Executive Director of All Brains, Belong, Vermont. And we're really excited to welcome you all. There are very first our inaugural Brain Club, which is our new family and community neuroeducation series where we're gonna talk about all kinds of everyday boring stuff. Well, first, I just wanna normalize lid flipping. We all flip our lids. And especially in the stressful time in which we're living in, maybe we flip our lids more than we used to even. So we're gonna talk about why we flip our lids and recognizing lid flipping in ourself and others and introduce a framework for learning how to regulate together because we all feed off the energy of other people as co-regulation and to develop some awareness to self-regulate and play a little video clip. School was great, all right? Riley, is everything okay? Sir, she just rolled her eyes at us. What is her deal? All right, make a show of force. I don't wanna have to put the foot down. No, not the foot. Riley, I do not like this new attitude. Oh, I'll show you attitude. No, no, no, stay happy. What is your problem? Just leave me alone. Sir, reporting high levels of SAS. Take it to DEFCON 2. You heard that, gentlemen, DEFCON 2. Listen, young lady, I don't know where this disrespectful attitude came from. You want a piece of this, pops? Come and get it. Yeah, well, well. Here it comes. Prepare the foot. Keys to safety position. Wait and launch on your command, sir. Just shut up. That's it. Go to your room. Now. Foot is down. The foot is down. Woo! Now does that seem familiar? So back where we left off. Our brain. And this may be review for some of us, but this is the way I like to talk about brains with kids really as young as two and a half, three even. I mean, just like the basic concept that we've got a thinking part of our brain and a feeling part of our brain. Upstairs brain, downstairs brain. Upstairs brain does all of the thinking and the planning and the decision making and the sorting things out. Downstairs brain keeps us safe. That's the point of downstairs brain. Monitoring the environment, monitoring when things are safe or not safe. And when something's experienced as a threat, and this is the model barred from Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, where you flip your leg, trigger, flip your blood, downstairs brain comes out. When downstairs brain is out, all bets are off. And we know this in our daily lives. You can't think, you can't plan. You don't make the decisions. You say things you don't mean. All bets are off when downstairs brain comes out because thank goodness, downstairs brain is trying to keep us safe. But when downstairs brain's out, a lot of havoc, a lot of chaos often does unfold. And so first step is just recognizing that that when downstairs brain says something, does something, destroys something, it's coming from a place of self-protection and really cannot be held to the same standards all upstairs brain. That doesn't mean we want to be destroying the world around us. And that's where this next piece is going to come in of recognizing when downstairs brain has taken control of the situation, when downstairs brain has hijacked behavior as a form of communicating that we are not feeling safe. Becca, anything you want to add to this concept? No, I don't think so. I think that sort of knowing that it's not intentional, it's a safety mechanism is a great keep in mind, especially as a parent. Yeah, it's really hard because sometimes it's easy to recognize when downstairs brain has seized control, but sometimes it's a little bit more subtle. So that's what we're going to talk about next, part two, recognizing dysregulation. So the clip we just watched I think was a good example of a more overt and obvious sign of not being regulated, not being calm, but there's all kinds of more subtle ways this presents. We'll watch one more example of a fight kind of response. This will pass. She'll eventually just burn herself out. That's what you think! I am an eternal flame, baby! You don't know me. How could I possibly not know you? We always feel like- Hey, it's okay, pal. We can still save this. Why don't we just bag these up to go and- Oh, jeez. And that's an example of when someone's fight response influences another person's fight response, like every day in my house. That's what happens. We don't just have co-regulation where we can calm one another down, we can co-disregulate all the time. And I think that if we were a perfectly calm being and we saw someone in our house having a response of throwing plates, you know, we might be able to recognize as such and wait it out, but that's not how it works. How it works is, someone flips their lead, our own downstairs brain perceives that, experiences it as threat, remembers the last time or other previous times when lid flipping has gone out, has that emotional memory within downstairs brain because downstairs brain is so closely connected to our memory centers and we flip our lead. And then person sees our lead flipping, flips again. And that's how this whole thing continues to escalate, co-escalation. But even without throwing plates and screaming, what are the other ways? What are the other Fs of dysregulation? It might be running away, leaving the room, slamming doors abruptly, leaving the house even, running down the hallways at school, flight, I have to get away. Similar to the way that cave people being shaped by the saber-toothed tiger needed to run away, that is a dysregulation response after detecting threat, freeze. Freeze like, words don't come out, even those who communicate with spoken speech often lose speech. If we're trying to communicate by gestures, our motor pathways don't fire the way that we otherwise would. Freeze, that can look like a glaze, someone who, it looks like they're not paying attention, is the world is just feeling too loud maybe and to make the world feel smaller by glazing over freezing, blocking everything out. Fawn is a word that refers to people pleasing, people pleasing as a stress response, people pleasing as a survival strategy. If I do this, then this situation, this bully will stop tormenting me. You could see how that may not be as easy to recognize as a dysregulation response. Other Fs, flooding, so many thoughts, so overwhelmed, the thoughts they go so fast and they're so overwhelming. That is another dysregulation response. Then when I'm always talking about with kids, adults, whole families in my primary care office, foot on the gas, so many of us get stuck with foot on the gas. Foot on the gas is like I started a thing, I can't stop doing that thing, I need to finish it and I can't stop. Anyone ever experienced foot on the gas? When you're dysregulated? Oh, yeah. Challenging thing about being in a dysregulated state is that it's really hard to tell when we are in that state because we have foot on the gas. So it's best to try to not get to that place. It's best to try to have some awareness of the warning signs of leading up to this. We're gonna introduce a framework from an amazing book called Self-Reg by Dr. Stuart Schenker. And the concept being that behavior is communication and when our nervous system is finding a way to communicate to ourselves that we're not calm, that's what this is all about. And there are physical, emotional, thinking, social, like all the different types of things that help us feel calm and that stress us out. And learning about that for ourselves and for the people in our lives can be a really helpful framework to stay regulated and become curious about when we recognize this regulation in ourselves and other people, our children or parents, and asking why? What are those stressors? What just happened or what happened earlier today or what happened this week or what happened this month? Like why did that thing, that lid flipping thing, whatever it looked like, why did it happen? And identifying the stressor and reducing it because if the trigger is, you know, the say fireworks go off on New Year's Eve and all of a sudden, you know, little Susie's flipping her lid and throwing plates. If we send little Susie to her room, we missed an opportunity to figure out that it wasn't random, almost never is. I'm wondering why, being curious about why this, you know, plate throwing thing happened. We have the opportunity to really have some focused supports that actually help Susie feel more calm. Many people just the social pressure, you know, even presenting to a group or attending school or attending work and feeling the pressure of needing to just, you know, show up a certain way is can be really, really stressful and exhausting and contribute to like the holistic dysregulation of a nervous system. Let alone if you're also blocking out the loud sounds and loud and bright lights and, you know, working through material that is, you know, like cognitively not being, you know, the presenting too fast or stuff that, you know, somebody's talking too, you know, too much. You know, it's like all of the work of the brain combined with these other categories of stressors. Yeah, so Matthew's type feeling disconnected as a social stressor. Yeah. And then I was just thinking about just the pandemic and the effect that that has had on our social lives and that comment about being disconnected made me think about that, you know, just not having our normal social routines and social gatherings that would normally be a part of our lives I think has been a stress for many people. Oh, so many people. And the flip side was also interesting for other people. Maybe people who didn't realize how maybe life before the pandemic that maybe there were social pressures, you know, like maybe they got to take a break from. So we all have different brains. And so, you know, I would say, you know, just as common as, you know, the loss of connection by the in-person gatherings being thrown off, you know, I think just as common is the flip side. Although it's for all of this, you know, it's not like, oh, I'm a person who always wants to be around other people or I'm a person who always wants to be by myself. It's really, it's context specific. And in all these categories, like if I'm hungry and tired, I might want to be by myself. But if I am regulated in my other category, maybe I want to be around other people. And so just thinking about ourselves, that whole equation and how this all plays out. So first step, developing an awareness, you know, of what makes us stressed. And if we are thinking about our family members or other people close to us and we want to think about, you know, what are these patterns that make them stressed? Because then it's kind of predictable when dysregulation shows itself or maybe we can try to prevent dysregulation by accounting for their stresses, balancing them. Because for every stressor, we need to offset that by things that make us feel calm. Thinking through the physical, emotional, cognitive thinking, social things that make us feel calm. And we are here to talk about family relationships and co-regulation this month. And for our first week on this theme, I am pleased to introduce Hannah Bloom, the pediatric occupational therapist and president of our Allbrains Belong Board of Directors who's here to present attunement and attachment. There is no one right way to show love. Hello, all. I am Hannah. I am a pediatric occupational therapist and have a long practice of working with families and individuals on regulation specifically, both sensory integration regulation and co-regulation and family systems regulation. Even if you could talk a little bit more about shame, processing through and out of shame, whether it be for ourselves, about us as parents, and how we cultivate lack of shame in our children. Can I comment on the shame in children thing? So I have found, so when I think about shame, I love Brene Brown's work on shame. And I think about that force, her four-step process of like first recognizing shame, telling someone about it, because almost always they say me too. And then reflecting on like, what was it about the situation that made me feel shame? And then fourthly, like when you're really regulated, being able to zoom out and think about the societal structures that led to that internal thought that drove the shame. So I, and a great book on that is, I thought it was just me, but it isn't by Brene Brown, which was a game changer for me as a parent. And so I teach parents that explicitly, like patient parents, like all the time, because people don't know you're in your own chaos and you think you're the only one, not only is there the significant departure between your reality and what your expectations had been, but you think you're the only one doing it because on social media, everybody's all like lovey-dovey and living the time of their lives and do to do. So there's that. But then as it relates to kids, I am routinely talking about flipping my lit to kids. They love it. They love it. They have no idea. They have no idea that other people flip their lit to the extent that they do. And I tell stories, general stories about other people flipping their lit. I think just like, just naming the thing, like this thing that's happening to you, it's a thing. Cause I mean, I remember as a kid, I remember being like a young kid, being like I am the only one who is like having this situation happen. Cause you know, you go to school and if people are dysregulated, maybe they are at school like outwardly flipping their lit but a lot more people are flipping their lit in that freeze, that it's an internal dysregulation that some of us you can't see and you think you're the only one and then it drives masking behaviors and internalized efficiency. So yes, that moment is real. That moment happens to all of us. So I think the more that we can internalize the narrative of I'm not alone, I'm not a monster pretty much. It's what it's gotta be. Like I have to tell myself over and over again, I am not a monster. This is a normal human brain reaction to a sensory overload to a painful noxious stimuli. Then the repair comes. So after that belief in yourself, then the repair comes. So then being able to return to connection, return to attachment and attunement of, and so this is also being able to cue safety to the nervous systems around us. The more practice our nervous systems have at returning to safety, the easier that becomes in our brains. The internal dialogue is huge. I mean, and I think the more we say it out loud, the name it to tame it, just being able to say again, like, I'm not a monster, I'm having a big feeling. I can come back to this with practice and time can change. But then it's also the strength of the repair. You're connecting in resilience. You're connecting in returns and in connections that are based on, we're all human and we all do these things and our brains are in that state, doesn't mean it's constant, that state changes. Well, Mel's laughing, I don't know if anybody has, I know there's been lots of thoughts in the chat while we've been kind of watching this, but I don't know if anyone has anything that they've been thinking about, they've been watching it or has come up or wanted to mention. Can you hear me? Does that work? Oh, thank goodness. Yeah, brand new computer microphone not working. And you heard on so many of those clips that old computer microphone didn't work either. Oh my goodness. Of course. Sure, go ahead. I was just gonna say that I think that just the sharing and being aware of like the flipping the lid thing is so important to like any human to improve like, I don't know, self-reflection and also like, I guess, communication and self-understanding. This happened to me the other day, like it was exactly, and after it happened, I was like, oh my God, I've just flipped my lid and it seemed to be, and it's like, I can remember it happening as a kid too. And wondering like, oh my God, what's wrong with me? Why do I do this? And I loved your explanation about like the family thing because I was talking to my brother and relationships and stuff. And you learn like, you learn things. And then you are like, why do I do that? And like someone else doesn't. It's just such a like wild human experience to, I don't know, to finally feel like you're not the only one that does this and it was something so simple. Like I was hyper focused on finding something in the freezer because I was making broth from the leftover turkey and my partner was asking me questions. And he does this thing where he asks questions like multiple questions in a row. In my brain, it was so focused on the freezer thing that the background of multiple questions stressed me out to the point that I yelled, which I don't do normally but the trigger was, he said, I'm sorry for talking. And what upset me was I wasn't upset with him and I wasn't mad at him for talking but my brain literally could not respond to all of the questions. And I got, there was like, I just like short circuited. And so anyways, that whole cartoon example was like, was really relatable. Yeah, I just, I typed in the chat so it's like a fuse box blowing. It's like the circuit breaker getting overloaded. And I need to turn off one of my videos. I don't know how to do that. There we go, we'll do that. Okay. And yeah, there's a whole bunch of, sorry for why I had to turn off both videos is because I was not looking at the one that has people raising their hands. So sorry about that. I'm gonna go in order of my screen so we can do, we'll do Christina, then Mia, then Kelly. Go for it, Christina. Okay, thanks. So it's like thinking about co-regulation and as a parent, I mean, I know I flip my lid and I see my kids flip their lids sometimes too. And one of the things that is like really important in co-regulation, I feel like it's like first having like space and forgiveness. And I think that's just like a given when people flip their lids that you just kind of assume that good intent or not now intent. But the second part is like understanding why they flip their lid and trying to co-regulate from that perspective. Cause we can understand how like as big people like why we flip their lid or we have more skills to like maybe self-analyze. Although we need help too. Like little people just, they don't maybe know. So like asking questions or kind of like delving into it a little bit helps them build the skills. And like it's something that I try to do. I don't think I always succeed at it, but I think it's like a multi-step process for co-regulation that sometimes people skip that second step. Absolutely. And remembering that not only is that self-analysis part like a higher order developmental skill, but it's also like an upstairs brain skill. Like upstairs brain is like the thinking planning part. Downstairs brain does not do that. Downstairs brain cannot tell you why. Downstairs brain cannot answer questions. Downstairs brain can keep you alive. That is what it does. That's all that it does. It's pretty good at it. It's that often we are socialized to have upstairs brain be like, downstairs brain. You know, I'm gonna squash you downstairs brain. And we call that coping skills, but they work like 90% of the time. And then those 10%, we feel terrible, which is why I'm gonna, I'll pull up the, now that I've got my technology sorted out, put the link to the, that was the first week of October, the neuro-inclusive family culture brain club. We talked about the difference between top-down regulation, which is like, I'm gonna think my way out of this versus bottom-up, I'm gonna be in my body and regulate. Yeah, Mia. Yeah, there's one thing that I, an example of a downstairs brain that happened to me like three and a half years ago, and I still sort of cringe when I think about it. And yet I think basically what it was in content warning, but basically I've always had- Hold on, hold on, hold on one second. Just so you can see. We've got multi-aged families here. For the content warning, Can you give a topic so that people can know that for the next 30 seconds, they might wanna shut their sound off? Yeah, basically it's about, oh, like, personal feelings of violation, but yeah, I don't know if it's okay for me to go ahead or if I've said enough or... I think maybe I would just ask that, is there a way that you could keep the part about that really briefly and then get to the rest of the part? So I would just ask that anyone for this topic can just shut their sound off for the next 30 seconds. Okay, yeah, basically I've always felt violated by things that others wouldn't. And I think, like, I once shouted down my phone to my mother all sorts of things. And I guess, yeah, I'll put it like that then. And basically I said things that people would usually consider, like they just judge the whole person on that sort of thing. And they just see that in isolation. And I still feel there's this... Intellectually I know that I said what I said, but for me it was like, I think it was a result of not being listened to constantly. And it's like, I'm not being listened to and it felt like that was the only language my mother understood almost like and she responded by hanging up or whatever, but it was like, that's what it took to think. Right, because this is an example of co-disregulation. So, and the same could be said, like I'll give another example. So Luna, my five-year-old, she's like, da, da, da, and I say, da, you're yelling, da. And then, how dare you tell me not to yell, da. So like it's like foot on the gas of everyone making each other more dysregulated. And that's how like that happens all day long, like all over and so many people's lives. Kelly. Hi, thank you so much. So I had an experience that I thought I would share. It happened a few weeks back and I was at a staff meeting at work and we got this beautiful new building. I mean, it's all glass walls and bright lights. It's like people come in to take pictures for architectural magazines. And it's been harder and harder to go into this building and do these meetings in the morning. I'm a teacher and I had a day when I became really deregulated and how I expressed that. I've got different levels. I've got the big level, but I often hit this like, I guess I'd call it a medium level where I have a really hard time concentrating and picking up on cues and not interrupting. And I just, I see it almost as 50, I think in numbers a lot. So 50 is my baseline. I always wanna be at like 30 so that if I deregulate, I can go all the way up to 50. But like I went to like an 80. And what I did that was really, really hard was normally I'd make some kind of excuse, apology, low blood sugar. And I wrote it all out. I wrote out what it was in the room, what was happening, how my mind was working. And I wrote it because I wanted the other teachers in that room to understand what might happen with their students working in spaces like that. And I think that that was really important, but it was extremely hard to do. And I just wanted to thank everyone for sharing their stories because I think the more that we talk amongst each other and for those that feel comfortable talk out there a little bit, that's the way that change is gonna happen. And spaces are gonna become more accommodating. That's right, and to normalize this because this happens to everyone. And what we're really, what we're seeing is that when we are training people to override their self-protection mechanisms and we're saying that that is good behavior. No, it's bad for health. Jen. Hi, thank you so much. Kelly, I love what you just said. I'm a former teacher myself and a mom to three neuro-awesome kids. We have a hoot in our house because my eldest is a sensory avoider. My youngest is a sensory seeker. And my middle one is like the willow in between that kind of bends both ways. But just giving language to that number system which I think is so incredible, really I think it helps the teachers around you embrace what we're talking about in normalizing our feelings of dysregulation. And it just helps the teams of people that we work with that work with our kids because the next generation of kids need to have a space where they feel safe and comfortable so they can have the time to process their feelings, to put language to those feelings and express themselves. I know at home, when we're lid flipping, one of my kids or me through Brain Club and just listening to the last few meetings, this is my first one in person and I'm so excited. You guys have been teaching me to verbalize what my brain needs to my children, which in helping me find the language for that, I think over time it'll help them find the language to describe what their brain needs to my husband, myself, to their siblings and to their teachers at school. So I just, I thank you all so much for how much I've learned because of you. That warms my soul, making me cry. I love it so much. Thank you so much. I think that you're, that's exactly right. If we just model for all the sweet little loves that this is like what goes on, we all have different brains that do things differently. We all have all different things that make us feel better, all different things that make us feel worse and we just have to get to know that and it's gonna be different for all of us and we just like, please figure it out. And there's some adults that like, they still have not figured it out, but many, many adults who are just figuring this out for the first time, myself included. And a lot of times I'll say to Luna, I'll be like, yeah, when I was little, like no one talked about this or if my husband makes some comment like something that is treating downstairs brain as though it's upstairs brain, like that's the language that I use to talk about that. Like daddy, daddy, he thinks that downstairs brain gets to make rational decisions. So like just, like there's language for that. Laura. Sometimes I flip my lid too. Thank you for sharing that, Claire. I, did you know that some kids, they think that they're the only ones who flip their lid? You think you're the only one who flips your lid? No. You know, that's, I love that you know that because we all flip our lids. And some people pretend that they don't, like some people pretend that they're like always calm, but it just, you might not see it on the outside, you know, and downstairs brain is just like trying to make sure we're safe. What kinds of situations make you flip your lid? Sometimes. What was going on when you feel upset, do you remember? My mom, my mom wasn't really a fail. I flew across the balcony. That's okay. Yeah. Things weren't going the way you expected. Sometimes can make that happen, right? That happens to me. When things don't go the way I expect, I flip my lid sometimes. Oh, totally. I have the kind of brain that loves to know what's going to happen. And it just makes me feel safe. And then when the thing doesn't happen, and as time goes by, I think what I've learned is that most of the time, the thing that I predict is going to happen, sometimes like I don't always have control over whether that thing happens. And so I've sort of like, it becomes the new prediction that I predict that the thing may go this way or it may not go this way. This way, I'm still always correct. Thank you for sharing, Claire. And Mia's writing, my parents used to pretend to others that they don't flip their lids, right? So let's talk about that. Because I think that there is pressure sometimes when you even as an adult, you think that no one else flips their lid, you feel this pressure of like, well, I can't let anyone know that I flip my lid. And that makes it even more, like it feels even worse when you flip your lid. So even more important that for people of all ages, be like, this is a thing, we all do it, whether you see it or not. Like I remember being like, I just, I remember, I mean, definitely my parents did not tell people that I flip my lid to the extent that I flip my lid. And that made it even worse. Like, oh, well, this is even a thing that nobody tells anyone about, like, oh, it's just the shame factor, you know? Like, it's just unnecessary because this is how it is. Mia. Yeah, I think there's also thinking that it's un, that it's often more, like see, as I say, seeing certain people flip their lids over, it's like seen as more socially acceptable to flip your lids over some things than others. And like people will say, oh, well, they flip their lid, well, they don't use that language, but they'll say, oh, they flip their lid because something really bad happened to them, whereas what happened to you wasn't that bad, or, and you end up thinking that, oh, I have come across lots of people who flip their lid, but it's just felt like it's more socially acceptable for them to. Yeah, and I think that Christina shared in the chat that culture influences what's acceptable lid flipping, both what it looks like and what's warranted, like when's it warranted to flip your lid? And I think that's exactly right. So I think the message for that is to say that you don't get to pick what makes you, makes downstairs brain feel unsafe. You don't get to pick. And so you, downstairs brain is going to react because that's its job. And so the idea would be to have strategies to help downstairs brain feel better. And so there's that top down, you know, upstairs brain, like making plans and changing the way it's thinking about things or whatever, or like just being in your body, like Hannah Bloom, often we talk about how like we have completely opposite approaches on more of a top down and Hannah's more of a bottom up. And so like, it was really interesting in the original brain club from that, I have to find the link, I couldn't find it. In the original brain club, something happened where her child flipped his lid in the middle of brain club, and at the end, we talk about like somebody in the audience was like, can you talk out loud? Like what just happened and how you did that? And it was really interesting for me as Hannah's friend to be like, Hannah wasn't doing Hannah's usual strategies. Hannah was trying to use upstairs brain. And that didn't really, it wasn't working. So like, I stepped in to co-regulate. And like, you know, it was, and I engaged her child. But Hannah's strategies are like, get on the floor. She sits down and she gets into a position of flexion. When I try to do Hannah's strategies, it doesn't work for me the same way that my go-to strategies, because I don't practice enough. So like for the past couple of weeks, I've been like really channeling Hannah and like getting on the ground, folding over. It works with practice. It's just like, just learning new ways of regulating downstairs brain. Sarah. When Claire shared it, it sort of brought up some memories for me. And I just so appreciate, Claire, I just so appreciate you sharing about that, about, because I flip my lid all the time, still as an adult. And I'm 60 years old. So I've been around a long time and I still can't stop flipping my lid. And I think what often happens for me is I feel like I've tried as hard as I can and I'm holding on sort of by my fingernails. I'm like at the end of, like I've been trying and I've been being good and I've been being good and I've been being good and I've been trying to be there like for stuff that isn't quite going my way and that's hard to hang in there for. And then yet one too many things goes not my way. And I just expect other people to know it. Like how close I was to my limit and like they are supposed to know, they should know how many things they've asked me to do that I can't possibly do. They should know it. And so then it's like, I sort of, I'm entitled to flip my lid at this point. They should know. And so anyway, thanks. That reminds me of in July when we did the brain rules of relationships and a couple of different people talked about like the brain rule of because it feels so good when people can kind of intuit your needs. There's sometimes the extension that people should be able to. So there's that. And then there's also the element of interoception. So it's a sensory processing difference to not feel your internal body signals until they're really big. So when we talk a lot of times kind of the default like self-regulation strategies rely on like detecting early that you have this thing and like then you can kind of take a break and drink a glass of water and take a deep breath like all these things that you may not have any clue until you're flipping your lid because of interoception. Like the same way that I don't feel hungry until I am hangry. Oh, I love this idea of pre-regulating. Kelly has in the chat spending 15 minutes in my car before I go in places getting to an ultra calm place to have more room or space for agitation. I, yes, I have forgotten about that. I have forgotten to practice that. That is a great upstairs brain strategy. And I completely forgot that I lived most of my adult life using that strategy. Thank you for the reminder. And it's about you have memories of the last time I was in this space. This was stressful. Therefore I can, you know, maybe I'm wrong but it's more likely to be stressful. Like if I'm gonna go to a school meeting like I'm gonna maybe pre-regulate next time. Kelly. I never realized that that's what I was doing but I am like the chronic early person because if I'm not there early, first of all I'm there late. Like it doesn't matter from there on time. I am late if I'm not early but I realized that I'm taking that time to just like, okay, I made it. I made the drive. I parked the car. I have now learned where the car is parked so I'm gonna be able to find the car once I have to get back to the car. And now I can like go into the space and very quietly not be seen while I check out the space. And I also wanted to say something about you know, obviously the whole topic is flipping lids and you know, there was something that somebody said that triggered how others perceive our lid flipping or meltdowns or whoever they're described. You know, my child was in a shared para situation for a little while when he was in school. We've since pulled him in homeschool. And the other child that he was sharing this para with they had wildly different profiles. So my son's lid flipping is withdrawing and burrowing and going under a desk, going up a tree just removing himself from the situation but quietly. The other child was the table flipper, lunchbox thrower, chair thrower, cursing, swearing, spitting. My son never got supported if this other child was also flipping his lid because my son was seeing as, oh, he's fine. He's just under the table crying. He'll come out in 20 minutes and he'll be okay. Whereas this kid could possibly hurt someone not recognizing that all of those minutes under those desks were my child thinking about how worthless he was. And he was harming somebody. He was harming himself and that was harming the family. And so it does, I'm constantly focused around school because that's where so much of my son's trauma has stemmed from and so much of my family's trauma from just having to navigate it. And then realizing like a lot of my visceral reactions to strategies or suggestions were based on me being like, oh, no, I would never want that done to me. Like, why would you think that would work on a child? I don't even know, I just got so lost in my whole tangent of just how lid flipping can be perceived. Sometimes people don't realize you're losing it because of how it happens to you. I too, I'm a, I retreat. Like I shut down, like I will, I don't care if I have everything invested in argument if I am just too overwhelmed, like fine, you've won. You have won whatever this argument is about. Congratulations. Please let me walk away now. And so I just, I worry about how things can be seen. I had a huge freak out at work. We hired somebody that was just such an unsafe feeling person, like just so unsafe feeling. I couldn't, I had nightmares about this person. Like I was losing sleep about going into work to be next to this person. And I ended up getting transferred out because I flipped my lid and in my rage of word vomit, I was like, she goes or I get transferred. Well, I drew that line in the sand and worked with that line and I got transferred and felt worthless and felt unsupported and felt uncared for even after going in and saying like, hey, now that I can breathe and I'm calm and it's the next day, here's why I had that reaction. And it just, it no longer mattered because now I was seen as overly emotional out of control and, you know, you said your words so now we're holding you accountable to it. You said you wanted to be transferred. And it wasn't seen as, I'm trying to get out of a scary situation. It was just seen as, oh, you drew a line and we're gonna hold you to it. And this happens, this happens so often, right? So it's, you know, there's an environment that's unsafe and it's very similar to what Mia said before is that, you know, like when you lose the ability to communicate with upstairs brain, downstairs brain is just gonna like say the thing. And then there are consequences of that. And I'm just gonna, I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm, is that, so it's, it's, it's seven oh eight. We have time for two more folks who've got Sarah and River and then I will wrap us up. And then anyone else feel free to keep going in the chat. Thanks so much. One of the things just after talking that I sort of realized happens is that, is that as I'm, as I'm, as I'm getting over my limit, I'm losing my verbal capacities, which is what makes it so attractive, which is almost, I, in order to get out of that, I almost need, and so I'm not talking because if I talk, it's gonna come out irritable. And so I'm almost needing somebody else to pay attention and which is where the, the, sort of the longing for the mind reading comes from, you know, the longing for others to be paying attention comes from because I'm sitting here not saying something because I don't have access to, and then by the time it gets a certain level, then I, then it's like, I totally have no access to verbal capacity. So I'm just saying whatever comes to mind that will, that will somehow get, get me the space or the acknowledgement or whatever the relief I'm looking for. And I guess one other thing is that, that what I sort of realized was that what I say under the influence of downstairs brain has nothing to do with the truth of like what I think about other people or the relationship it has to do with like what I think will get me the relief I'm looking for. So I, my downstairs brain tells the story that I think other people will listen to to give me the relief I want. Yes. And downstairs brain is not necessarily like reasoning that out and strategizing. Like it's, but it's habits. It's automatic. Downstairs brain has habits. And I think that when people have had the experience of not being listened to and not being able to shut it down through other means, we like, we don't have access to upstairs brain doing this like strategic communication. It's just like you just default to your over rehearsed neural pathways because communication is otherwise hard. And so what many people, and like I'm definitely still working on this is that given, even though like I like interacting with people and I like talking to people, it drains my battery. And so I have to start plant part of niche construction planning a life that works for me is like spacing out my meetings and spacing out my interaction and having recovery time. Otherwise I am apt to run out of battery and be more likely to become dysregulated. Mia. Oh, sorry. Mia then Claire the river. Can we do it that way? Yeah. I was just gonna say regarding what was being said about the regardless of what was said about the downstairs brain and not being aware. I actually think I often am aware of being in downstairs mode, but I feel that it's the result of not being listened to whereas a lot of people push the narrative that oh, there's something going with my brain or they pushed the meant that this person's crazy or mentally unwell and they ignore the cause which I feel I even when I explain, I say, oh, it's because of this or because of that. So I think sometimes people do often know why they're upset like I feel with me, I'd say 90% of the time I know why or yeah. Yeah. And so you can know why and still not have the ability to like weigh the pluses versus minuses of continuing this line of interaction whereas like at an earlier stage of dysregulation, you might have had more options available but then you're kind of pushed past that point where there are no choices to be made. One thing I do find is when I find myself around people who listen to me or even when people are not who haven't been listening to me start, then I come down pretty quickly. So how other people respond can make a big difference? Totally, that's that co-regulation versus co-escalation. And yes, all of that. River, did you want to share? No, I... Okay, no, no, no worries, no worries. So next week's brain club is like and it's really interesting because when I went back and looking through it, I forgot how like it seemed like it was a new concept in the EV Village that of brain rules and unlearning the cognitive strategies that no longer serve us. Like for example today, someone was trying to help one of my technology problems and their solution, I was like, no, we can't do that. I've been saying we can't do that for like a year. That's a brain rule, it's not a law of physics. We can in fact do that. We just like have to maybe think about whether this strategy is still serving us or not. So anyway, we're gonna take on the brain rules versus world rules and the hard work of unlearning, which next week for another brain club, greatest hits take home point of the year. So thank you all so much for being here. Oh, Christina, repairing is so, it's the most important part. And then when we've spent all our spoons, we often don't have the spoons to do it. So you don't even like, so the pressure to repair, you don't have to do it today. You can repair tomorrow. You can repair, like you could repair from 10 years ago. Like you can always repair. And that's something that no one talks about either. Thank you, everyone. We'll see you next week.