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On behalf of me and Marianne Michaelis, I'd like to thank you for being a listener of our Human Intimacy podcast this year. It's always a privilege to spend time with you and I want to express my deep gratitude. If you are ready to take your healing and recovery to the next level, you're ready to deepen your healing and strengthen your connection and gain real tools for meaningful change. I invite you to join us and other Experts at the 2nd Annual Human Intimacy Conference where myself, Marianne and many other leading experts will come together for powerful teaching, live question and answer sessions and provide insightful pre conference conversations to help you get the most out of your conference experience. And right now you can save 50% when you register before December 31st. Please don't miss this opportunity. Visit human intimacy.com and reserve your spot today.

Something about you that I can't help but smile when you smile and laugh.

When you laugh something surround. Welcome to the human intimacy podcast. Dr. Kevin Skinner with Marianne Michaelis. Marianne, we've let the dust settle. We're now I'm working on two weeks since the Human Intimacy Conference. Phenomenal conference. Going back and watching some of these and listening to them. Phenomenal experience. Anyway, Marianne, how are you?

I am super great. I got my cat with me here today, so she's hanging out, joining us. But boy, I'm still, I haven't had the chance to go back and watch the Human Intimacy like the different sessions, but I'm still really finding myself referencing so much from it and just finding so much value that comes from it. So really excited to be here today to have a follow up conversation to last week's podcast and just keep, keep the conversation going.

Yeah. So last podcast we were talking about resentments and at the end we were talking about emotions and dealing with difficult emotions. And I want to really take off that today because I think one of the things that I work with when I'm working with couples really, when there's emotional, I'm going to call it intensity. That's the word I'm going to use here. So there's some emotional intensity. What do we do when one or both partners is emotionally distraught, upset, dysregulated, whatever term you want to use there. What are some strategies in, in my own life and also in our relationship to help us effectively deal with this dysregulated or this emotional state that's creating internal stress but also relationship distress?

Yeah, I, I think as we start this conversation in my mind it's, it's so important to look at where we come from, where we come from really predicts a lot of how we're going to show up. So oftentimes my clients have grown up in an abusive home or a home where there has been different types of abuse, different types of addictions. And oftentimes my clients will tell me that they, you know, they're really good at coming into a room or coming into a situation and really reading the room and knowing how to kind of stay in the shadows and kind of just not really show up because it's really self preservation. They learned that in their childhood, they'd come home, they check and see, oh, dad's been drinking. Okay, I gotta, I'm gonna go to my room and hang out. And. And so based on what they've learned to survive in the past, they often bring these tools to the relationships because that's what they know, that's how they, they function, that's how they get through hard things. And so when there's distress in the relationship, when there's conflict, of course we go back to the tools that we've learned. And so I think starting at the beginning and looking at what did I learn growing up, what are the, what was my role in my family when there was conflict or somebody was distressed or dysregulated, what did I do? That's a really great place to start, to start mapping out what, where am I and what do I need to look at and understand?

And if we add to that, we would say, what emotions did I, what did I learn about emotions growing up? Right. How did, how did emo. How are emotions expressed or not expressed or how were they shoved down or how were we told to ignore emotions? Or you can't be that way. You're too upset, you're too angry, you got to calm down or, you know, boys don't cry, whatever, whatever that environment is that we grew up in, we have to be aware of that. And, and so there's two parts here. One is we have to understand our own emotional, what we might say emotional awareness. And then we have to look at it from relational awareness of emotions and being attuned to our partner's emotions. And that requires us to be aware of our own emotions.

So you're saying we've got a lot going on here, Just one more trying to understand an emotional situation.

Yeah. So I think we have to start off with our own attunement, being attuned to self as self awareness, we may say. And then being attuned to our partner or other people around Us. You gave an example of, you know, I'm reading maybe a parent who. The way they shut the door or the, the car door, the house door. And I knew that I had to be in a certain place. That's emotional awareness of. Based upon fear. And, and then maybe we can tell, read a person, they're upset, they're angry, they're. They're something. And now we're careful around them because we don't want to create more problems. And, and so one is we are aware of other people, but I often wonder how attuned we are to self and our own emotions and our own feelings and fears and worries. So we work a lot with people dealing with betrayal. But, you know, let's just say, for example, if we were to say to someone who says to me, and I often hear this, I'm angrier than I've ever been. Now I'm. This may sound like a really stupid question, but I often ask, so what are you most angry at? What. What is driving the anger inside of you? Because I'm trying to help them get to a deeper awareness of what's driving this emotion.

Sure. Because anger is always like the oil on top of water. It's always covering up something that's deeper. And so you're trying to drive and help them get to understand what's underneath.

This anger because the anger is a manifestation of something deeper, as you were referring to there. And so self awareness, even a person who's acting out, we may say, well, what's driving you to act out? Leaning into that discomfort is a really important skill in the recovery process. Because most people aren't acting out because for reasons that. Why am I acting out? Well, are we even thinking about it? Well, I'm, I'm sad or I'm. I'm afraid or I'm scared or I'm alone.

So, you know, Dr. Skinner, I think what I'm hearing you talking about is really bringing me to this thought. I have a couple thoughts I want to share on this. First of all, I'm a musician. And what's fascinating is. So I have, I have different instruments in my home. And in my, in my previous home with the wood floor that I had, what was fascinating is, is I could play on the piano or I could play on my cello and the other instruments in the room. When they were all attuned, when they were all in tune, they would actually start to ring. So I could play one and suddenly there'd be sound vibrating because the sound waves go through and they hit and so I'd have different sounds coming from different instruments when it was all attuned. And so I. I think we're talking here about we've got to really attune with oursel what is going on with me. And so many times when I talk about this with my clients, they'll be like, I. I don't know how to do that. Marianne, say, that's okay. What's going on with your left elbow? Right now we have to stop and think, where's my left elbow? What's going on with it? What's going on with your right pinky toe? Where's my right pinky toe? It's okay that we don't always constantly. That we're not tracking our emotions every single moment. Part of becoming aware, part of becoming present is checking in and saying, where am I right now? And I think that what I was bringing up with the instruments is really checking, where am I right now? And can I check and see how that matches or how that fits? What else is going on in the room? Or are there things in the room that are causing me to react, or am I coming in already in a dysregulated or dissociated state?

Thinking about that, when we have a conversation, if we're not regulated, what's the influence of that on how I communicate versus when I am regulated? And let me give it a couple of examples here. Daniel Hill, he talks about it this way. He says, when affect is regulated, affect our emotional expression. When it's regulated. That's a term we use. The organism is integrated and able to respond flexibly to the internal and external environments.

So let's break that down into, like, people talk. Yes, my face is smiling and matching my mood. Then I'm able to connect better with other people around me. So is that.

Yes.

And.

And I'm able to be flexible. And. And so what he's talking about, when we're integrated, when I'm aware of my own emotions, my ability to be flexible, understand both internally. Oh, this. I'm tired right now, and I didn't sleep as well. That makes a lot of sense that this is going to be a little bit more difficult moment right now. Or I can read another person's emotions and behaviors, not in a defensive way, but in an understanding way. So the role of us learning to regulate our emotions and understand the context in which we are is an effective way to deal with difficult emotions.

Oh, and I think what you're saying is so huge, Dr. Skinner, because you're talking about A night and day difference between when I know that, just like you said, when I'm tired, I can be like, I'm kind of grumpy right now and I can let other people know. Just so you know, this isn't about you. I'm kind of grumpy. But, but I think what's huge here is being able to recognize I'm kind of grumpy. And so I know that my reaction probably isn't the healthiest reaction versus, or alternately coming into a situation and, and knowing where I'm at and being flexible with myself. So when you're super dysregulated, I don't fly into defensiveness. I don't have to react because I can go, oh, that's you. That's where you're at. You're not, you're, you're saying all these words and you're so frustrated. But it's not about me. So I can just be with you to hear that you're frustrated, that's huge.

Two dysregulated people are either going to be in World War 3 combat because they're dysregulated, or one person's going to be dysregulated. And if the other person doesn't know what to do with the dysregulated spouse or partner, they may tune out, they may dismiss, they may push away from retreat because I don't want to be with that intense emotion. So when we're, we have to learn as human beings to be comfortable with disregulated states or emotional states of stress, anger, frustration, irritability. We have to be understanding of it doesn't mean we have to tolerate it. It means we have to understand it and what it's doing to us.

And, and, and if I can add on to that, I think we need to be able to understand it with us and also to see it in others and let that be others.

Yes. So I'm going to add to this again. This is from a wonderful book called Affect Regulation Theory, and here's a beautiful sentence. We experience a sense of self mastery and indeed, when regulated, we are optimally functional. The concept is if I can deal with my own emotions, so I'm regulated, my affect is, I'm able to understand it, then I'm going to be optimally functional. I'm going to sleep better, I'm going to feel better, I'm physiologically going to feel better. Everything flows better when we are in optimal regulation. A few years ago I had a, have an example of this. I Had a situation where I had a client come into my office who was extremely distressed by something that had happened over the weekend. Extremely distressed. And. And so I hooked her up to what was called a heart math machine that looked at coherence in breathing and her autonomic nervous system. She would. She started off. As she started telling the story, I think she started off about a 90 beats per minute, which is already pretty close to a threshold of 100 heartbeats per minute. She started telling the story of what had happened over the weekend with her husband. And at that point, she was sitting at about a 134 to 137 heart rate, just telling me the story. At that point, I turned the machine around. I said, I just want you to be aware as you're telling this story what's happening truthfully. You've got some runners. They could run a 5K and their heart rate might be 145 to 150, 160 if they're pushing it. She was running a race in my office, telling a story.

Wow.

And so. So she said, what do I do? And so we actually. I actually taught her the coherent breathing that's part of heart math. And by the time she was done after 30 minutes, she had gone from elevated up to 137. She averaged. By the time we were done in that half an hour, she was down to about a 70, just practicing that breathing that we call coherent breathing.

So by regulating her breathing. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna guess that part of that too, was being in a safe place to tell her story and having it be held safely. You weren't challenging her on it. You weren't defensive about it. You were hearing it and receiving it and having a lot of compassion and empathy.

Yeah. So do we have people that can witness our. Our experiences and help us regulate what we call CO regulation, or can we learn to do that on our own? Because after that, I told her, if you can breathe the way that we just did this on your own, you will have a skill for life. Going back to the statement, we experience a sense of self mastery, when regulated, we are optimally functional.

So I have two thoughts about that, Dr. Skinner. So I'm glad you came back to that. Optimally functional, to me, sounds like an engine that's just running. That's just purring. That's just fantastic. And you talked about a couple things that make me question. So I think I love these conversations because it's exploring. So I teach my clients every day, you need physical exercise, you need intellectual stimulation, you need relational connection, you need emotional care. We talk to our clients about sleep, about diet, about exercise. Those are basic foundational blocks here. So is this chicken or egg? Do these, are these the things that give that bring me to this optimal state? Do I need those to get to the optimal state? Yeah. How does that fit?

I think it's a chicken and egg. I think it's both. Right. If I'm doing those things, I might be able to have more capacity to regulate. A few years ago I was reading a book about the benefits of exercise. And when we exercise get our heart rate up, we're actually teaching our autonomic nervous system to deal with its own stress. That's one of the benefits of exercise. So I think it's bi directional. Marianne. I don't think it's one direction or the other. I think if I'm doing these other things, I'm going to have to more capacity to emotionally regulate. And when I can emotionally regulate, deal with difficult emotions and stressors, then I'm more likely to do the other parts because I am feeling the benefits of it. Think about living in a state where you're almost always angry, when you're almost always irritated, grumpy when you aren't able to sleep, you're dysregulated, when you're coping with unhealthy foods because you're in stress and you and you can't get out of that state. That is a misattuned state. The body is so taxed in that kind of an environment. I often tell my clients whether your marriage works or not and this is often dealing with people with betrayal. Whether your marriage works it or not, I want you to out of a healthier body and mind so you can move forward either in or out of the relationship. Whatever happens. I want your body to be in a state where you feel like you can take a few deep breaths and you can think to yourself what I'm feeling right now is okay, it's a regulated state.

I love that. Dr. Skinner, I want to go back to another question I've got about that CO regulation.

Yeah.

Because I heard you saying, you know, we if, if we've got this ability to regulate ourselves, this is a skill for life. And you may have the research for this or the resource for the source for this. I don't it off the top of my head, but there's something in me that says and we regulate even better with other human beings. Is that right? Does that fit for you?

So, so two parts to this one is I learned to self regulate, right? So can I learn to do it on my own? What we might call self soothing, for me that might be a breathing exercise or going for a walk in nature. Those are self soothing strategies. Sometimes it's going for a long walk or a run. For me, those are self soothing strategies, can calm my mind. But if we want to enhance that CO regulation, meaning others can regulate us, that is absolutely a part of what we refer to the attachment theory that we've talked about and other experts have talked about. Because the attachment theory is that I'm going to attach to you because you've got that soothing tone of voice, your eye contact, your smile. And so the soothing comes when those most basic needs are met for attachment. And that's why a mother cooing with a child is soothing, co regulating that child.

And that's interesting because as I'm thinking that through this, you know, I'm thinking about the science and the research that talks about the benefits of yes, going for a walk. And then when you add another person into that, it's like your brain's kind of going off with fireworks. It's just when it's healthy. I shouldn't say if you're arguing the entire way through, but you are co regulating, you are walking, you've got the bilateral stimulation and you're bouncing ideas and thoughts off of somebody, making sense of your world with someone else. And I, maybe we. That circles back to that client you were talking about in your office when she shared her story with you. Her heart rate was at 136 or 130, whatever she was able to co regulate with you sharing her story in a healthy safe place.

Right. And so now we're talking about can we find an environment that helps us regulate? It may be a person or people. That's the maybe the power of a group or having a sponsor or maybe it's a friend who you've been friends with and you can contact them at any time. And, and just their tone of voice and who they are, your autonomic nervous system goes, oh, I'm in this safe place because I know I can trust this person. I love that statement, Thich Nhat Hanh. Everybody needs somebody. To me, that's what we're talking about in the CO regulation is everybody has this somebody to turn to. But when I don't have that somebody, where do I go?

And that's where I think we do have to go back to ourselves or to a higher power. But, but before regulation for just a second longer. I'm reminded of Bessel van der Kolk's work in the Body Keeps the Score. He talks about trauma survivors. He talks about some in. I think it's African nations. He talks about dancing together. He talks about singing together. He talks about beating drums together. He talks about using body movements in groups of people. So even if I'm joining my community choir, I'm finding attunement and regulation. As we're breathing together, we're singing the same words together. We're expressing together.

Yes. So if we're going to learn to regulate our emotions, really, we're talking about those two core things. Can I do it myself and can I do it with other. With other people? And that's where our society, I think, is struggling the most, because we don't have the trust in each other that we used to have. When I see people healing from any addiction or overcoming trauma or. Or in truth, just thriving in life, there is an element of human connection that is invariably connected to it.

Yeah. There's a healthy support system, people I can turn to when I'm struggling.

An absolute lead indicator of healthy living is healthy community.

Amen.

So as we talk about emotional regulation and dealing with difficult emotions, let's go back for just a second. If you don't have an environment where you can be authentic with your emotions, where it's shut down, which many of our clients have had in their childhood, their family was not comfortable with their emotions, it's really hard to all of a sudden pick it up and say, now I'm going to be emotional.

Yeah. I don't know how I've learned to put walls up. We avoid that. Yeah. It often feels for my clients like you're asking me to build a house with no tools. I don't have a hammer or a saw.

And. And it's vulnerable and it's uncomfortable and it's risky. And I. What if you. What if you reject my emotions? Because I was told my entire life that it's not good to have these emotions. The opportunity, and I'm going to use that word intentionally here, the opportunity to be in an environment that allows it is. It can be so powerful for both individuals in a coupleship. Teaching couples, and this is one of my favorite part of therapy, Marianne, is when I teach couples to do it with each other in. In. In ways that they've never done it before. That is one of my favorite things. When I do intensives and I have couples who really are struggling to communicate, and we rewrite Their communication so they can be soothing to each other in their conversations. Those are some of my favorite moments.

Because you're giving skills that will last a lifetime. And. And. And, yeah. Couples come saying, we need to build a house, but we don't have tools. And you're saying, here's a hammer, here's some nails, here's a saw.

Yes, yes.

Yeah. Can I. Can. If we look at the. I know we're bouncing between couple and individual, but I see that so much also, just with the individuals. I think one of the hardest things for many of my clients is, like, not having those tools. And so if we. The way that I really look at emotions are they're not good or bad. They're just my body trying to give me information and to help me out. And we spend so much time avoiding emotions because it feels like it's going to be uncomfortable or painful. And if we can slow down and just say, oh, let me just sit with that emotion. Let me explore it. Let me notice where it is with my body, and let me just focus on that emotion. As soon as we do that, it takes our brain about 90 seconds. And usually not always, in some cases, that's not the case. But oftentimes our brain will say, okay, great, done, and it will move on. I had a client recently tell me I was so mad at my husband, and I was going to send it a horrible text, and I sat down and I just kind of sat with those emotions for a minute, and then my brain was like, okay. And I was like, what was I even going to text him about? Because it's that sitting with, connecting, attuning to myself what's going on in my body, what's going on with my breathing, what's going on with my heart rate? Where am I feeling this sensation? And okay, I've got some pain over there in my. In my chest or. It feels really tight. Let me just notice and sit with that tightness. How far does it go? How. How tall does it go? How why does it go? And what does it feel like? Does it feel like strings? Does it feel like I'm in a really tight life jacket? Like, what does that feel like, just sitting with that, experiencing it rather than avoiding and running away? That I think is attunement. Attunement with myself, my body, and giving myself some compassion there. It's okay for me to feel this. I can feel this self.

Self attunement, Marianne. Self attunement is what you're describing there. And when we learn that it's a skill, it's not inherited in it. Boy, if I could tell anything to the listeners today. These are skills that are learned, they're not inherited. It's not like we automatically know how to do this. We have to learn how to ask those kind of questions. Where am I feeling this tension? And what, what is this that's coming up right now? And really curious why now?

It's a slowing down process, which is.

Why people who practice mindfulness and yoga who become more attuned to their breathing and their movements and be aware of that without judgment, but just with an awareness. That's why I think they have more insight. I really like the work. Richard Davidson did some work on mindfulness and he brought the Dalai Lama and the research that they were trying to do and they took this machine all over, I think it was Tibet. And trying to get amongst monks basically turned them all down. So the Dalai Lama said, you probably need to go back to your country and find some monks who've been doing mindfulness for up to 10,000 hours and then try it on them. And so he found. Richard Davidson found one among. Meditated for, oh, years and years and years. And so he was willing to do it. And when he looked at the mind of the prefrontal cortex and its connection with the other parts of the brain, he said the neurosynapses were the, the, I think the whitest meaning. There was so much bandwidth, there was so much to that going from the prefrontal cortex to the other regions of the brain. And he said, we've never seen somebody doing a loving kindness meditation with that thick of the neural connections. So the concept, the concept here is when we slow down, our ability to see and feel and think is enhanced. But when we live autonomically dysregulated, we get, as Dr. Joe Dispenza says, we become addicted to our own emotions and we can become addicted to intensity and conflict and fighting and we. And chaos. Right, and chaos. And we can also train the brain to be calmer, more relaxed in a stressful world. We can still train the mind to find calm, to find peace.

Okay, And I, I agree with you. And I'm thinking if I'm a listener, a question that might come up for me with this is what about adhd? How does that fit in here? How do we do that? Like, if I've got adhd, how does this fit for me?

So, perfect example. So how does it fit for you? An ADHD mind is going to do best if they've Got a fidget spinner. While they're meditating, they're moving busy for sure, because the brain is still going to be going. In fact, if you look at people with high levels of adhd, they'll fall asleep with some sound on tv, music or whatever, because that's actually, for them, that's actually what calms the mind.

So they need that stimulation so their brain can get to the place where then it can calm.

Right, Right. And again, that's just adaptation to whatever your circumstance is. But for many people, not adhd, in this situation, go sit in the wilderness. Go sit by yourself and just be with yourself for 10, 15, 20 minutes and don't do anything. Don't do a thing. Just listen to whatever comes in your mind. Just pay attention to it. That's one of the parts we're looking at here for emotional regulation is just pay attention.

And Dr. Skinner, when I invited clients to do that and I say, I want you just to sit for one minute or ten minutes. Boy, I just want to validate. I've had a lot of. I get a lot of pushback when I ask my clients to do this because oftentimes we stay busy as a way to regulate ourselves or to avoid. And so when I slow down, when I'm quiet, or my clients might tell me when I slow down, when I'm quiet, that's when all the thoughts that I'm trying to avoid show up. And oh, that I'm not ready for that, so I can't do that. And oh, I get a lot of pushback there.

Yeah. And because we don't affect tolerance is actually the concept here. I'm not able to tolerate the emotions that silence provides because there's something that I don't want to feel. And so that's, That's. While that's normal, we would like to lean into that discomforting emotion thought so we could learn to tolerate it and be with it rather than to ignore it or avoid it. The longer you ignore or avoid something that's uncomfortable, the more difficult it is to come back to it. There. There's a fascinating concept. I'm going to go back to something that Daniel Hill said in his book Affect Regulation Theory. He said emotional resiliency and tolerance are hallmarks of mental health. Continuing on, he says they allow us to maximize time spent in regulated, integrated states so we're more alert, engaged and positively disposed and we are able to respond effectively. We're going to adapt.

Sorry. Yeah. So like, let's put that into people. Emotional resiliency tolerances. Did I get that? I don't know if I got those.

Emotional resiliency and tolerance. So resiliency is the ability to be with this and not overwhelm me. And the tolerance is that I can actually. It doesn't overwhelm me, and I have strength in this difficult emotion.

So how do I get to emotional resilience and tolerance?

So that's why we do mindful breathing. That's why we exercise, because it actually helps us deal with emotional distress.

When a training or your heart that you were talking about?

Yes, we're training our mind and our body to be with difficult emotions. For example, if I. Let's say I lost a loved one, my initial response might be to avoid thinking about it because it's so painful. If I could actually think about it. And this is where I see people really come to tears. And I say, it's okay to think about your memories and the love and those experiences. Instead of pushing them away, leaning into them, then they have a recollection and a beautiful memory in many cases of an experience. And they think about what happened when they were on the farm or when they were on a walk or when mom or dad did this or whatever the case may be. And they start to cry because the memory is so powerful and they're not running from the discomforting emotion. The tears are coming and they're flowing because it's a beautiful thing that is emotional tolerance. You're able to tolerate your own fears, and you're not running from them. You're embracing them. Same true of a betrayed partner, giving a voice to the betrayal and the hurt and the pain and the wounds. So instead of me getting angry, I'm leaning into the sadness and the. And the fears and the concerns. And I'm not. I'm not pushing them away. I'm ignoring them or put. Trying not to think about them. I'm actually embracing the fact that I'm hurting. I'll keep going. Shame. The person who's trapped in their shame because they hurt somebody because of their sexual behaviors. Leaning into the shame. I. I don't like how I feel. I don't like what I've done. I don't like the voice. It makes me feel like I'm a failure. Oh, that's powerful. That hurts to feel like I've let everybody down.

Yeah. What I love about what you're saying, Dr. Skinner, is you're saying so many times we run from the discomfort of these types of situations. We're running away from ourselves where we're running away from others and you're saying, slow down. Come back and just sit and be with it. And sometimes we need that social support to be able to sit in it. Sometimes the scariest and the most healing thing is to say it out loud. When you're talking about betrayal, when you're talking about shame, being able to be vulnerable and say, here's where I'm at and have a safe environment, that's where our body goes. We can let everything settle. I'm not alone. People still love me. I'm so valued. This is the attachment part where. Because attachment is really. Or what we're talking about, the dysregulation is we're feeling dysregulated and disconnected. From attachment? Yeah, from belonging.

I can't imagine living a life where I was constantly dysregulated. The burden, the stress, the overwhelmed feelings. We don't do well when we're dysregulated. In fact, I honestly believe that our culture is becoming more dysregulated because we have overwhelming. Just fears, too much data. And our culture is creating this place where we're often dysregulated because of the intensity of information. Information overload. Imagine just being able to be without information. Be up in the hills, listening to the sounds of the birds singing. Maybe the leaves are just blowing a little and there's a stream running by you. You got the image of this right? I'm in a calmer state. I'm not disregulated. And my body goes, man. And it. It settles into the space of calm. We live in a culture where I would guess that many people are living in a constant state of dysregulation. And so I'm seeking the next intensity experience. I'm that whatever it may be, and we're not allowing our bodies to go.

And. And as you say that I'm. I'm in. Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson. She talks about when we're in this dysregulated state, when our partner says something to us, it might feel like a hurricane coming through. Whereas if we're in that really regulated state. I've been out walking, I've been out in nature, I've been disconnected. I don't have all this information or data coming in at me. That raises my anxiety. When I'm in this regulated state, my partner or somebody can say something and it just blows through like a bright. Like a light breeze. So I've got a light breeze based on where I'm at versus the hurricane reaction. When I'm super dysregulated.

Yeah. And when we're, our body is constantly in a state of stress, I am going to be more irritable. I'm not going to be able to receive what you're saying as well. And, and so now we've got this fight mode. Fight mode. And because our energy is low, we're not regulating our emotions. We are in a state of conflict and it feels hopeless and helpless because we don't find a place of peace. We're not getting regulated in individually and in our relationship. If you want to thrive in your relationship, learning how to co regulate, learning how to soothe each other, learning how to comfort each other is a skill that you learn to do. It's not inherited. It's a skill that's learned.

So usually as, as part of these podcasts, you're like, I've got four steps for you. And, and what I'm hearing, I'm hearing we've got two different. We've got the personal and then we've got the social. But I think that the two, like the steps or the tools that we need for either of the, These are going to be pretty much the same. Maybe we can play like, I'm gonna guess what Dr. Skinner might say right here. And let me see, let me see how I do. Okay, you go and you can fill in five other blanks that I missed. Yes, I. Where I would come from with this is I think, number one, we have to look at our physical. We've got to look at how we're sleeping, how we're eating. We've got to look at our exercise. These, whether it's for the coupleship, whether it's for an individual. We, we've got to have that as our basis, our foundation. Then we've got to look at. If, if I've got that down, then I can intentionally say, how do I want to build my resilience, how do I want to build my tolerance? And so that can be, you know, we talked about the exercise being part of that.

Can I add something? Can I do this before this second step? Can I, can I add.

Yes. So here we are. Go ahead.

No, I. The one I would add is what are my dominant emotions? So, so before that next step is like, what, what is it that I am often or frequently feeling?

So like in a self assessment, a.

Self assessment, am I constantly irritated, grumpy, irritable? Am I calm, relaxed? Am I sad? Am I in a state where I'm fearing or do I feel disgust? What emotions are dominating this, this being that I am.

So if I'm approaching this kind of like a science project, like let me or research, let me figure this out. This would be a place where I could do some self analysis but it'd be really great to get some feedback from other people. What do you notice? Let me say, oh yeah, you're super grumpy. 5 o' clock to 6 o', clock, we just avoid you. Oh, I didn't know that that might be so okay, so we've got that foundational of our physical taking care of our physical needs. And then you're saying we need to do a self self assessment. We need to figure out where do I need to change, where do I need to grow and others can help with that, but I need to figure out where what I want to do myself. For me, I think number three would be really slow down, slow down and start to check myself, start to learn about myself, start to check where my emotions are, start to learn how to connect from my clients. I, I'll usually say, hey, because this is new, just like we talked about. You don't know what's going on with your elbow right now unless you really focus on it. I invite my clients to set a timer on their phones and three times a day check a feelings will. What am I feeling right now when that alarm goes off? Oh, and it's, it doesn't have to be long, but scan my body. Is it tight? Is it tense? I noticed when I was doing therapy sometimes almost my cows are clenched and I go, oh, it's kind of interesting. That's kind of weird. I didn't know right now my calves are clenched. It was going on subconsciously. So just checking what's my body doing? What's tight, what's tense?

And as if I was to define that in the way that they do in the research, they call that attention.

Okay, right.

So, so Daniel Hill in his book says attention determines what we are conscious of and in this way plays a key role in regulating affect.

So the more that I can pay attention, the more that it becomes conscious and I can become aware of it and I can start to learn how to go, oh, this is where I'm at when I'm here.

So we have to give attention to it. And you just describe, you just defined what it looks like and he calls it attention. Okay, and, and let me re reread that one more time. In this way, it helps play a key role in regulating our affect. When you give attention to something, it helps you regulate Attention adds to affect regulation.

So when I pay attention to my emotions, when I start to figure out what they are, and this is where dancing would say, you name it, to tame it. I've got to become aware of it. Give it attention.

Yes.

Even notice it. To notice that it's there. Yeah. All right. And this book, I haven't heard of this book before. Affect regulation theory, Is that what you said?

Yeah, yeah. Let's go the other way, direction for a second. When affect is disregulated, we lose control of attention. I can't pay attention when I'm disregulated because I'm in fight or flight mode. So when we regulate our emotions, we have to be giving attention to this. I feel sad. I. I'm excited. I mean, I. Today's a really great day for me. My daughter's coming home. I haven't seen her in almost 19 months. I'm absolutely thrilled today. This is a true story for me. Right.

And for our. And for our listeners. What they don't get to see is that excitement in your eyes and in your face, the smile on your face and you're just lighting up. That's part of the affect. Your affect is matching your mood of I'm so excited.

Which I am. Which I am.

Right.

So. So there's, there's an element here. When we are emotionally attuned, we can have excitement. Are you allowed to be excited? Are you allowed to have emotion? Or are you holding back? And if you're holding back, why.

That's such a beautiful question, Dr. Skinner. Because this is all about survival. And we may have learned that in order for me to survive, I can't have emotions, I can't express myself. And so giving ourselves permission and saying, hold on a second, I'm an adult now. I can. Learning how I think. I think there's really some intentionality here. We're going back and saying we've got these foundational. And then we're really looking at paying attention to our body and slowing down. I think it's important just to also say, you know, what are the tools that I can use to soothe myself? This is the intentionality. And, and here's what I, what I really believe. I work with clients who, who dealt with unimaginable trauma oftentimes. And I really believe that every human finds ways to survive. They find survival tools. And so they might be a really good runner or they might be an amazing artist. We find ways to self sup. Even, even if we haven't realized, oh, all these talents that I'm carrying in my backpack. These are actually some of my survival tools that I've been using since I was very young. So taking, taking a deeper look and saying, do. Is there something I want to develop more or need to. But also what do I already have that I've been carrying with me that I use?

Yeah. And. And then it's finding the ways that we regulate. Finding the ways that we turn down our stress. If we were, if it was a volume. Right. How do I turn down the stress? How do I lean into a thing that just helps me feel calm or relaxed, comforted? And, and when we find those ways, I, I think it's really interesting. There's times when I feel stress. One of the things I do is I can get in my car and I can turn on some music, classical music, usually instrumental. And all of a sudden it's like, oh, okay. And for me, that's just one of those simple things. Sometimes I'll do that between work and home, just so when I get home, I'm more present.

And as a musician, I have certain pieces I go play on my piano and I have really poundy pieces that are really loud and really strong. And I. I'm a cellist and playing the cello, I feel like these really deep, low, rumbly notes and they like rumble throughout my whole body. I can feel my whole body vibrate through them. And for me, that music in a different way, I play the music and it helps me vocalize in non verbal ways what I'm feeling.

Yeah. All right, Marian, we're going to need to wrap this up today, but this topic is probably one of the most important topics I think we've discussed on the podcast. If I could give the world a gift, it would be to regulate difficult emotions. So we understand that we have better mental health when we're regulating. We have better physical health when we're regulating. Life is simply better when we learn to deal with difficult emotions, when we learn to regulate our affect. So my invitation to our listeners, we've given you a snippet of this. We've talked a little bit about this. This I'm going to have on the Human Intimacy website. I'm going to actually have a course on affect regulation and how we deal with it in relationships. It's not there yet, but it's going to come. And the reason why is because I think it's probably the most important skill that we can learn as human beings.

And that's fascinating. That's one that I've started. But I haven't quite completed yet. We might have to work together on that.

Yeah, it is, it is one that I absolutely believe. I mean, from life, from birth to the time we die, one of the most important skills that we will learn is how to deal with difficult emotions. And we could even add to this. Think about your relationship. Think about how you soothe each other. And if you say we don't know how, you probably need some counseling to help you learn how to. And if you have never been able to, learning that skill will be a gift you'll give your spouse, your children, your grandchildren learn how to do it. That's my invitation to everybody. Marianne, your final thoughts?

My final thoughts are that all of your emotions, to our listeners, all emotions are valid. And our responsibility as healthy human beings is to learn how to tolerate and manage those emotions. They're all valid. There's no bad emotions. But it is learning how to learn from them and sit with them and let them pass once again, as I usually. And it's just, I'd love to extend just that gift of inviting you to give yourself some self compassion. There's a spectrum we're talking about. Some, some of our listeners may have this down pat and some may be at ground blocks of starting at zero. And that's okay. There's always more to learn. And I hope that you can hear, hear and learn from what we've shared today and let it bless your lives. So thank you for joining us.

Yeah. And thank you, Marianne, for your time. To our listeners, we appreciate your time. We know it's valuable. May you be blessed in learning how to deal with difficult emotions so you can thrive in your most important relationships. Have a great week and we'll see you again soon.

Thank you.