Episode 12 Coffee Chats: Kristina Fyrwald, LSW on nervous system regulation
In this episode of Coffee Chats, Ramya talks with Kristina Fyrwald, LSW about nervous system regulation, mind-body/somatic work, polyvagal theory, and the impact this work has had on both their clients and themselves.
Interested in working with Kristina? Connect with her at KFyrwald@RoomToBreatheChicago.Com.
Resources mentioned:
Interview transcript {edited for clarity}
Ramya (she/her): Hello, everyone! Welcome back to Coffee Chats. Today, we have our clinician, Kristina, with us. Kristina, I'll let you introduce yourself, and then tell us what topic you've chosen for today.
Kristina (she/her): Yeah, hi everyone, I'm so glad to be here. This is so much fun to do this with you. I love talking about all things therapy. My name is Kristina Fyrwald. I am an Associate Clinical Social Worker, and I'm licensed both in Illinois as well as California. I live in Los Angeles. So, I'm not currently taking California clients, but I do have my license here as well. And yeah, that's… that's a little bit about me.
Ramya: Yeah, what topic have you chosen today?
Kristina: So today, I've chosen my… probably my largest passion in life, which is nervous system regulation, or attic work, which, you know, when I went into this field, it wasn't what I thought I was going to be working on. I had no idea what it was. I had no idea what mind-body work meant, or why that was important. I think I thought, you know, and it's funny, because I do live in Los Angeles, but I think I thought it was really woo-woo, and it was… it was for, like, ultra-spiritual people, and so it was just, like, never… Something I was interested in until, I had my own journey with chronic pain, and… that lasted many, many years, and, you know, still goes on a bit today, but, this somatic work was introduced to me, and it totally changed the way I relate to myself, the way I relate to others, the way I relate to work and the world, and so… I'm incredibly passionate about using it with my clients.
Ramya: Yeah, so what does that look like?
Kristina: So, I feel… I could talk about this for probably, like, days on end…
Ramya: Go for it! We have… we have 40 minutes. Go for it, yeah.
Kristina: Okay, amazing. So, I'll just start with, sort of, the highlights, and then please feel free to jump in with any questions that you have, if you have, like, specifics about how I use it in client work, or whatever that might be. So…
I was introduced to, and it's like, sometimes I don't even know where to start, so hopefully this isn't too all over the place. And if it is, you know, I hope that people can track and get something out of it for sure.
Ramya: Don't even worry about that, yeah. Go for it.
Kristina: For sure. Okay, perfect. So, I was introduced to Somatic Experiencing trauma resolution work by one of my mentors, who I absolutely adore. I've taken many of her group classes. I've listened to… she has a podcast out now, every single one of her podcasts, which I'm happy to share. Her name is Sarah Baldwin. And I just think she's an incredible presence in this space, and… I'd done my own… I'll talk a little bit about myself, and then… and then go into how I use it with clients. So… I've done a lot of my own therapy work, and this is what I find for a lot of clients who come to me, is they have a lot of knowledge, right? So they've read a lot of books, they've read Attached, they've read, I don't know what, Codependent No More, like, what are some of the books you love?
Ramya: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kristina: You know, some of the really buzzy books that I think are absolutely wonderful, but I found myself, like a lot of my clients, having a lot of knowledge, but having trouble implementing it. Right? Like, there was this barrier in between the two, and I still found myself, after… you know, many years of my own therapeutic work, different types of support groups, really changing up my lifestyle. I stopped drinking over a decade ago. I don't drink caffeine, I probably haven't drank caffeine in, like, 5 years, I don't even know how long it's been now, but I still found myself feeling really stuck. I still found myself… anxious a lot of the time, overwhelmed…There was so much tension in my body all the time, and I just couldn't really understand what was missing.
And so, somewhere along my journey, I'd come upon, you know, I have so many thoughts about social media, but I think one of the really wonderful things is we are introduced to ideas and modalities that we wouldn't normally be introduced to, and so I was on Instagram one day, and this specific mentor was talking about somatic experiencing, and why we… We can't change and move towards the big life we're wanting to live just with the knowledge, right? We have a nervous system. And I had just no idea what that meant, but it really spoke… you know when there's just those moments where something really sticks out, and I'm like, whoa, like, that really caught my attention? I didn't know why, I didn't know what it meant. But I really like, and a big component I use in my work is psychoeducation. So I really like understanding things, right? Instead of just I guess I have anxiety, I guess I'm a really anxious person, right? I was like: Why? Why do I get so triggered in relationships? Why do I get so triggered with family? Why do I get so triggered around work? And this gave language to a lot of it, which… is the first thing I do with my clients, which feels really helpful. So I'll sort of talk about my process parallel with clients.
Ramya: Yeah. Yeah.
Kristina: So, the first thing that was introduced to me, and that I use with clients, is just some psychoeducation around, like, what is our nervous system? And, you know, I am still working to understand the specifics of the neurobiology behind this. I am no… by no means a neuroscientist, and so I take what I understand, and I leave the rest, because what I like about a lot of my mentors is it doesn't have to be so complicated, right? Like, we don't have to gatekeep this work, it can really be simple. Like, I like that one of my mentors talks about, you know, we don't have to know how every individual part of our car works to be able to drive a car, and to be able to be the active operator of our car, right?
Ramya: Yeah, yeah!
Kristina: And so, the same thing goes with our nervous system. Like, I like to know all the things.
But my clients don't necessarily have to. And so, the first thing I talk about with my clients is what is our autonomic nervous system? And why does, you know, when I'm in a moment of high anxiety, where I'm feeling engulfed by my emotions, right? Like, I can just think of… myself, but also many clients I have who experience a rupture with their partner.
So there's something either perceived conflict, or there is an actual conflict, and they just… totally engulfed by emotions, right? They don't feel in control of how they're feeling, what they're saying and logic, at that point, isn't going to work, right? Of, like: it's okay. Calm down! Or if you've ever… I mean, you're a parent, right?
Ramya: Right.
Kristina: I mean, there's probably so many things that you're like, my child's okay, right? It's not that big of a deal, and it's like - that does nothing for this whole experience down here.
Ramya: No, none at all. Maybe, like chin up, but the rest of my body is still feeling weak, whatever it's gonna feel.
Kristina: Yeah, absolutely, and you're a therapist, so you have probably more awareness around this than a lot of people.
Ramya: Yeah, yeah.
Kristina: Anyway, we have this autonomic nervous system, and the… it starts at our brain stem, and then goes down from there into our gut viscera.
And so…the easiest way that that was explained to me is that's below our prefrontal cortex, and so when my autonomic nervous system is online, and I… I've got to figure out a better way to, like, do an elevator pitch around this, but it's subcortical, and so it doesn't speak in intellectual language. And so just telling my system, right? Like, I notice I have a little extra energy in my system now as we're talking, because I want to say the right thing. I'm actually going to take a deep breath and practice what I preach, but just telling myself, right, like, it's okay, Ramya's safe, I'm talking about something I have some knowledge on, right? My system's still, like: Are you sure this is okay? My sympathetic fight-or-flight system comes online. My heart is beating quickly, there's some tension in my throat…
Ramya: Yeah, yeah. And for people listening that maybe don't know that just in, like, simple terms - usually what we call nervousness or anxiety. Go ahead.
Kristina: Yes, exactly. Nervousness or anxiety. Yes, thank you. And so… so let me explain this system first, and then try to, like, really simplify it. So our autonomic nervous system, like I said, it has this threat detector in our brainstem that's called neuroception. And it's constantly scanning our external environment and our internal environment, and, you know, between two people, so, like, I'm in conversation with you right now. And it's scanning for: is this safe, dangerous, or life-threatening? Is this safe, dangerous, or life-threatening? Is it safe, dangerous, or life-threatening?
Ramya: Mmm…
Kristina: And it does this every millisecond, which I think is…
Ramya: Oh my gosh, I didn't know that.
Kristina: …I think it's a thousandth of a second, which is really incredible, right? We're just… Going about, sort of, like, on autopilot, living our life, and we have this function that is working so hard to keep us safe.
Ramya: Right.
Kristina: And what happens is, it… how does it determine if something's safe, dangerous, or life-threatening? It looks to what one of my mentors calls our “receptacle of past experiences.”
And so it has every lived experience we've ever had in there. The good, the bad. And obviously, to keep us safe, the bad or the negative is highlighted, right? So it's gonna be like really vigilant for those difficult experiences. And so, it scans, you know, I'm trying to think…so it's scanning right now, right? Where I am, what I'm doing with you is this safe, dangerous, or life-threatening.
And my system isn't 100% sure, because I look to my receptacle of past experience, and it's like: I don't know, sometimes using your voice wasn't safe, sometimes speaking up wasn't safe…I know it’s just the two of us, but I know that -
Ramya: No, that makes sense. Go for it, yeah.
Kristina: And so my system, you know, without my knowledge, is like…Well, you know, when we have spoken in front of other people, that's been really scary.
Ramya: Yeah. Yeah.
Kristina: And so when it detects anything but safety, it calls in, and let me know if this is too complicated, but what my mentor calls our “special ops team”. So it's got a couple different options. So if… if my system thinks, okay, this might be dangerous, but it's not life-threatening, right? Like, I know Ramya, I know…you know, I know it's gonna be okay. It calls in team sympathetic, so it gets me to mobilize. So that's our fight-or-flight system where, and I have some notes here, because, you know, it kind of flies out of my head as I'm doing this, but that's where anxiety, anger, frustration, feeling out of control, like, overwhelmed, like, things are too much. We can often feel, like, heat in our system, our heartbeat racing. Tension in our body, sweating. Any of those experiences that sort of, you know, evolutionarily prepares our body to fight or flee. It gets us mobilized, because it thinks - I can get away from the threat. So, for a very long time, and I know a lot of my clients, can live here, I lived my life in that chronic state of sympathetic fight or flight mobilization.
When we're chronically here for, gosh, a number of issues, but… but… not a main one of this is trauma. So, energy that's… in our system that hasn't been able to discharge. So, trauma is any event that's overwhelming to our system, and a definition I like is… Anything that was too much, too fast. Too much for too long, or too little for too long. So it's a very broad definition.
Ramya: Yeah, that feels like everything, almost.
Kristina: Yes, yes! It feels like so many different things, because it is. And so…Sometimes our system doesn't… and sorry, I know I can kind of jump all over the place with this, but does that make sense as far as why our system might call in sympathetic.
Ramya: You're good. Yes! Yeah, yeah.
Kristina: And… and two other of our main, sort of, states it can call in is, our other main state of our nervous system is called dorsal.
So that's when… and it can call this in for a number of different reasons, but basically, it doesn't feel like something is safe in our environment or within ourself. It can call in our state of dorsal, which is, like, where shutdown, apathy, low energy, heaviness, dissociation, all of that lives. And the other is freeze. So that's sort of when we have a lot of energy in our system. But we… we feel like we can't do any… but we also feel sort of, like, heavy and paralyzed. It's like a deer in headlights, so it's like…there's so much going on internally, but it's hard to move. It's hard to mobilize towards what I want, right? It's like: I have to do this, but I can't. I have to do this, but I can't.
And then the state that we want to spend most of our time in is called our ventral state. So. To make this really simple, our ventral state is our state of safety, our sympathetic state is our state of, um… Oh my gosh, what's the word that I'm looking for? It starts with an S. I'm gonna miss it. Dorsal’s our state of shutdown. Um… gosh, I can't believe it's slipping my mind right now. But anyway.
Ramya: It’s okay, it’ll come back to you.
Kristina: Yeah, it’ll come back to me. It's… it's where our state of fear lives. And so, those are sort of the three main states, and my work with clients is to - and for myself- is how do we get into that ventral safe state more of the time, right? Obviously, this isn't always gonna happen, we wouldn't always want to live there, because there are real… very real… threats in our worlds, our world can be a very scary place, but… but how do we…When we've had trauma, and like I said, that definition is so very broad. It can be so many different things.
Ramya: Right. It's because it's so unique to the individual… I mean, I'm a trauma therapist myself, trauma-informed therapist, and so I know that something that feels traumatic, if you will, to one person isn't going to for the other person. Someone might experience - two people might experience the same thing. I mean, and one person is gonna…receive some kind of mental health diagnosis about it, or experience symptoms, and the other person actually may not at all. So… In essence, that definition has to be broad to allow for the variability of people's humanness and the way that their body experiences and respond to those things.
Kristina: Yes, absolutely, and I think, you know, we can often see this in sibling dynamics. I know that I can say… in my own family, where it's like, you know, we had the same environment, we had the same inputs, and we have very different reactions to those inputs, and so, just to sort of, like, make this concise and hopefully make it make sense for people and bring it together, although this does require, right, it can be a whole new language. And so, like I said, when I heard it the first time, I was like, this is so interesting, I like this, but… I don't get it, you know? And so this often takes time if people are listening, and they're like, Okay, sort of, but not really.
But anyway, the reason that we can be in that chronic dysregulation that I was talking about is unresolved trauma, right? Because a lot of us, and not all of us, right? If we're a person of color, if we're a person with an LGBTQIA identification, like, there are a lot of real spaces of unsafety in our worlds, unfortunately. And so, it can be very privileged and whitewashed to say, like, you're safe now! You know, you're not in that abusive home. Like, everything's good now, right? Like - That's not so many… very many people's experiences. But for the sake of this conversation, and keeping it sort of, a little bit more narrow, a reason we can be in that chronic dysregulation, which just means I either spend majority of my time anxious, upregulated, activated in that way, or really shut down, or kind of frozen is unresolved trauma. So my system doesn't know that what I experienced that was dangerous is over. And it's perpetually calling in sympathetic, it's perpetually calling in shutdown, it's perpetually calling in these active, self-protective responses. Because it doesn't yet know that I'm safe. So, a lot of the work, and I have to live this every single day… You know, because it's not just something we do once, and that's resolved, but… a lot of work I do with clients, is first of all, education about their system, um, because really the goal is to get them back in the driver's seat of their experience. So. When this anxiety is coming on, or when they're in a state of their nervous system that doesn't feel favorable to where they'd like to be. They have the tools to be able to notice, oh, I'm dipping into sympathetic, let me do some controlled breathing, or let me… take a walk, let me go feel the sun on my face, let me do something that’s gonna down-regulate myself a little bit. Instead of, what happens for a lot of people is when that neuroception detects some sort of threat.
Their nervous system takes over, and they're no longer feeling in control of their words, behaviors, thoughts, all of those things. And so… My job is to help them be the active operator of that nervous system. So…
Ramya: Yeah, so to be proactive of, like, practicing these skills, knowing what's going on in our body, increase awareness sounds like. So that way. If and when these things happen. We have the tools already, and we've already practiced them to be able to put them into action, to get us regulated, to help us calm down, instead of just allowing… our emotions or our experiences to sit in the driver's seat.
Kristina: Yes, absolutely, and…
Ramya: It's so funny, I use that… I use that image all the time with my clients, too, of like.
Let's get you back in the driver's seat. Like, everything else can sit in the back or is in the trunk, but you are the driver of the car.
Kristina: Yes, and it's so empowering, right? So I think people who have had trauma, which again, like, the more I'm in this field, and just in the world, like. Most people!
Ramya: Most people, yeah.
Kristina: To some extent, right? Like. They can feel so… I have found myself and other clients can feel so disempowered, right? It's like. My anxiety just takes me over when I shut down, right? Like, or I hear from a lot of clients, like,I feel like my life is just passing me by, I feel like I'm not really present. Right? And so that's the work, like you were talking about, of breathwork, regulating, things that they have some empowerment with, is showing your system we're here. And here is safe, right? Like, those younger parts that are still fearful. We're showing your system. We're here, and here is safe, right? Here is okay.
But what was I gonna say? Oh yeah, it's so empowering, right, when clients understand, like, oh, I have this nervous system, the blueprint came in childhood. And this is sort of, it makes sense that my protective responses would be coming online like this, and I have some choice. Right? Our nervous systems need choice to be able to feel safe. And so, instead of just feeling like, oh, I'm having a panic attack again, or I'm… you know, engulfed in… a conflict with my partner…Raising awareness can give choice, and I think that that can be really powerful. And like you said, it's how do we build regulating resources that they can turn to regularly. Like, this becomes a lifestyle, or that's what I'm trying to… Work on with my clients, because If we're really anxious, and we use a breathing technique one time, it's not going to change the shape of our nervous system, but if this is something that we're constantly practicing and we're also building our life as much as possible around you know, who are we spending time with? Are we setting boundaries? Are we getting outside? Are we getting movement, right? Like, there's so… so much holistically that can go towards a more regulatory impact.
Ramya: Yeah, a lot I think of what some of my clients are talking about right now is… being mindful about what we're consuming, too. Like, how much news are we consuming? How much social media are we consuming? What kind of TV shows are we watching, you know? All of that… I think more passive stuff that we don't necessarily stop and think about as much these days. But it also has a huge impact on what we perceive as safe, what we perceive as comfortable or okay, even. So that was just a little… you know, thought, yeah.
Kristina: Absolutely, yeah, I have so much of my clients on what they're intaking, and especially, like, morning and night routines, right? Because a lot of people who are in that chronic dysregulation, which just means to put it really simply, like, their system just doesn't feel good a lot of the time. They're not really able to feel present, okay, calm majority of the time. And so, you know, that's where sleep issues can come in, but yeah, we really work on… it can seem simple, but it's so powerful, morning and evening routine where, like, I don't like my clients to… if they can, I know this is so different for everybody, but to pick up their phone first thing in the morning, to check their emails first thing in the morning, to have…news notifications first thing in the morning. What does that signal to our system, right? It's like, there's so much going on, and… our bodies don't evolve that quickly to be able to intake all of this noise and threat, right? A lot of the news or intaking is threatening. It's scary. And if that's…
Ramya: I've actually had to turn off all the news notifications on my phone, and I've, like, been doing this do not disturb stuff from, like, a certain time at night to a certain time in the morning, so that way I don't even get any other notifications except for… a few, like, family members that I would need to hear from.
Kristina: Right. There's so many ways to do it.
Ramya: Yeah, so that's been super important. Thank you for mentioning that.
Kristina: Yeah, absolutely. It's like - how do we… I talk a lot to my clients, and I'm sure you do too, about reparenting our systems. Listening to our systems, first of all, like, that's such a powerful thing that I think happens when I just, you know, we just tap into our bodies. There's so much information there, right? About, why do I feel so much anxiety when I'm around this person? Why do I feel so much anxiety when I'm on social media, or have my news apps open, like, that's really important information.
And so, right, how do we… it's unique for every individual. One of my best friends can watch the scariest movies before she goes to sleep and gets the best night of sleep. That is okay with her nervous system. That would never work for my particular nervous system. And so, really, yeah, how do we…protect not in a way that's out of fear, but in a way that's really compassionate to our systems of like, I talk to my nervous system like a little kid all the time, and it's like, it's okay, sweetie, we're gonna watch, like, New Girl tonight. Like, we know that that is what works our system, you know?
Ramya: Yeah… Yes, yeah.
Kristina: Self-action is also… you know, begrudgingly what I learned, a non-negotiable component of this work is…
Ramya: Yeah, I found that my body and my nervous system often confuses things… And I'm constantly getting the message that, like, things are unsafe, or, like, it's life-threatening or, like, a dying anxiety, like what you said. So I've even had to focus on my five senses and, like, do something different. Like, have a strong mint, or, like, one of those sour candies, or go to the bathroom. Splash cold water on my face and look myself in the mirror and be like. You're just nervous, this isn't a dying anxiety. So…I guess just to the point of it can be very simple, but still very powerful.
Kristina: So very simple, and I think…
Ramya: Something as simple as, like, you know, chewing on a piece of gum just to disrupt that that feeling and get us into a different place where we can think about and regulate our body.
Kristina: Absolutely. Yeah, a lot of the tools that I start off with with clients is, like breathing exercises, sense exercises, mindfulness, right? And it can seem… I see some clients bristle at it, or not want to practice it at first, because they think it's so… I don't even know the word, but, like, benign compared to the overwhelm they're experiencing in their life, but again. It's showing those… fragmented, for lack of a better word, parts of us that the danger is over, right? Like, we're okay to be present. If I need to, if we're talking evolutionarily speaking, right, if my system sees something in my life as threatening as running from a lion, right, it's not going to stop to…have a sensory experience, it's not gonna stop to do controlled breathing, and so… That's sort of how we show the system, like: hey, we're not running from a lion right now. We're okay to be… okay to taste this sour candy. We're okay to…lean into our senses, and so that's definitely something I utilize with clients.
Ramya: Yeah, yeah. And just to be clear for people that might be listening or watching, I think sometimes it's misconstrued in media that, like, we're trying to eliminate that danger, life-threatening response, we still want your body to respond, if it can, if we are being chased by a lion, right? We're not trying to eliminate that at all, we're just trying to make sure that not every experience that we have in life is being responded to that way.
Kristina: Yes, it's to have a spectrum, right, of, like, the goal is, right, like, I'm thinking of the Los Angeles fires that happened…gosh, I think it was January. That was very appropriate for a city to go into fight or flight. Right? That was a very scary experience. I would not want to be looking at the flames that I could see right out my other window, and do a meditation. Feel really relaxed, right? I may not live.
Ramya: Yeah, right, right.
Kristina: You know? And so… so we absolutely want those responses. We want them functioning the way that they're supposed to, like you said, right?
Ramya: Correct, yeah.
Kristina: And our whole point… I don't know what this ball is called, but I think… you might have had it. I'm not sure exactly how old you are, but we used to play with them at school, those balls that open and close.
Ramya: Yes, yes I forget what they’re called.
Kristina: I forget what they're called, too, but they were so fun, even though they don't really do anything.
But…what I've understood from learning more and more about this trauma work is what we want is a flexible nervous system. So we want to be able to go into that anxious place, right, when something's happening. I'm trying to think for me, I don't know, I can't think of something.
And then come down from it. Right? So it's like something… something happens, and then completing the stress response. So then being able to come back into presence, calm, okayness. Flow. So yes, that's really important. We don't want to get rid of those, and we want to be really compassionate towards those. I think… That's something I want to add, too, is… I see so much, self-deprecation, self-loathing even for my clients coming in about… and I sure felt this myself, too - Why can't I just get over this? I'm always anxious, but there's nothing to be anxious about. Why can't I just get over this?
Ramya: Yeah, it's frustrating, almost. Yeah.
Kristina: It's so frustrating, right? But the more we battle those self-protective parts, the stronger they get, because they really, really want to keep us safe. And so. If we can have some compassion for them doing their job, right? It's like… Gosh, there were so many… I don't know, I'm trying to think of, like, public speaking events, or things where I had to use my voice growing up that didn't feel safe to my system. Right? And so, even just doing something like this, that I know is so unbelievably safe, and I know I kind of touched on this earlier, right? Like. My system starts to get hot, my face starts to get red, I start to feel tension in my body, and I can… you know, my immediate reaction is like, oh my god, like… Why are you doing this? This is safe, right? Like, this is fun. I like to talk… and so I'm sort of, like, battling these parts. And it just gets worse, really, because then it's…
Ramya: Well, I think it's a little bit… I'm sorry to interrupt you. It's a little bit of that, like, receptacle of past experiences you were talking about. Like, if we were… 10, 15, had to do a speech in front of the class, or whatever, maybe we had a bad experience, it didn't go as well.
Those are the things that come up in situations like this, even though we know we are maybe more comfortable, things are safe. There's no judgment in this space. But we're basing this experience off of that past one that we've had.
Kristina: Absolutely, like, really good way to tie it all together, right? When I… I don't even know what age it was, but… But, it was young, and it probably went on for a while, but whenever I would get up in front of the class and talk, my face would turn red. Boys in the class would make fun of me, I was so self-conscious about it. And so what my system beautifully and brilliantly does is it calls in - it's like, this wasn't safe, right? This led to rejection, which at those, like, tender young ages, that feels like life or death.
Rejection now, you know, it can still feel really scary, or whatever, but at that time it carries such a weight, and so what my system brilliantly did was like, this isn't safe. What we're going to do for you is when you're going to stand up in front of people, use your voice, be vulnerable. We're gonna shut… we're gonna make that experience really scary so you don't do it. We're gonna turn your face red, we're gonna close up your throat, we're gonna create a lot of tension in your chest, so that you avoid that… you flee that experience. And so you don't step into that, because what we know about that is that was really scary. That led to people laughing at you, that led to… you looking stupid, right? And so. I know the correlation can seem for some people, like, that was such a long time. I mean, the experience I'm thinking about was, like, in sixth grade, but… that still lives in me, and perpetually lives itself out, but we're able to resolve it and show our parts, right? Like - I'm gonna sit with that part after this and show it, like, you did a great, you know, like, do some nurturing and…showing it that this experience was safe.
Ramya: I also notice, if I can put you on the spot just for a minute, how kindly and empathetically you talk to yourself and to your body and about your body. You listed all these things about how your body turned your face red and closed your throat up, and made your chest tight, so that way you avoid speaking in front of people, but the way you said it was my body beautifully adapted to it to save me from that rejection or embarrassment, right? I imagine it took a very long time to be able to talk about yourself that way.
And also, that's just who Kristina is, for people that don't know, and so I would highly encourage seeking out this kind of treatment modality if it feels right for you, but also seeking out Kristina, because I would love for more people to get there. I would love for myself to get there a little more. And I've learned so much from you in our time today. But yeah, go ahead. I just wanted to…
Kristina: I was just gonna wrap up with the self-compassion piece, right, that this is… first of all, I feel like wrapping up with this is the best, because it's my favorite part of this work, and it's a gift that I had no idea I needed, I would be given through this work. I did not know it was possible for me. I am not somebody who spoke this way to myself, gosh, even, like, 2 years ago, you know? And so I understood this to be an essential component of reparenting my system, showing my system it's safe. If I'm constantly berating my system, that's not a safe experience for those parts, that's not a safe experience for my nervous system, and so it's going to keep me perpetually dysregulated, and so… the first thing I'll say is, if it's possible for me, it is possible for absolutely anyone. And it's a practice. We don't need to get there today, and there are really tolerable, doable steps on the way to get there, but… it's a beautiful way to live, because we live with ourself, right? When we get off this call, I'm with myself. When I go to bed tonight, you know, I might be with a partner, but I'm with myself, and so… making that a safe, loving, tolerable some days is the best I can do, place to be.
Ramya: Yeah, and that we are with ourselves first, and then we are with the other people in our lives, whether, like you said, a partner, for me my child, or whatever. I'm not going to be able to help anybody else if I'm not able to regulate myself first, and…for those people that don't know, my child is very young, he's only 10 months old, but… I've been learning a lot about responsive parenting and gentle parenting, and I imagine that using that for ourselves is an excellent way of, like, the self-compassion piece that you're touching on, too. And, like, the reparenting piece that you were talking about. Yeah.
Kristina: Yeah, we model it as parents too, right? We can think it's selfish, or caretakers of any kind, to take time for ourself, but then we're showing our children it's not okay to take time for yourself. Even if we're telling them, kids are show, not tell. And so is our nervous system, right? We tell our nervous system, I love you, I care about you, and then I don't know, I'm making this up, but, like, work 60 hours a week, work out way more than our body wants to work out. We're like, I love you, you know, and it's like, I don't believe you! You're not showing me.
And so, this work is all about showing our system. So, it's been so much fun to talk about this.
Ramya: Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, please, if you want, we could even do, like, a part two. I feel like we've only scratched the surface.
Kristina: I would love to, and maybe we can, in that, give some, like, concrete examples, or I know relationships is something people come to me a lot with, so we can be more specific with relationship.
Ramya: I love that. Yeah, one last question I had for you before we wrap up is just, like, if people are wanting, like, one resource or, like, something to read, or, like, to just get more information. What's maybe, like, the one thing that you recommend people start with?
Kristina: Yep. One thing above all, as I was mentioning before, Sarah Baldwin has been a mentor and great teacher of mine. She's such a regulating presence. Our nervous systems read nervous systems, so… who are listening to somebody that registers as safe, that actually calms our system as well. She has a podcast, it's on Apple Podcasts, I don't know if it's available anywhere else. But it's called You Make Sense. And that is where I would start for anybody. It is so palatable. It's not… there's so many things that are difficult to read, because the material's difficult, understanding it is difficult. This is very easy and digestible, and she's such a wonderful teacher and presence, so if I was gonna recommend one thing above all, that would be it.
Ramya: Yeah, all right. That feels like a good place to wrap up, but stay tuned, hopefully, for part two soonish.
Kristina, wonderful as always, to speak with you, and I learn a lot today, so hopefully our listeners did too.
Kristina: Great, thank you so much for opening up this safe space, and thank you for being a safe nervous system for your clients in the world. It's truly a gift, and your son.
Ramya: Thank you.
