Parenting from the Inside Out & The Whole-Brain Child with Dan Siegel, MD

Welcome to Mama Goddess. I'm your host, Alexandra J. Johnson. This podcast is all about rocking your goddess life, creating vibrant health, and celebrating motherhood and family life. It's about living an authentically awesome life. Let's have.

Hello and welcome. I'm Alexander J. Johnson, and Today's guest is Dr. Dan Siegel. Dr. Segal is an internationally acclaimed author, award winning educator, and child psychiatrist. He is currently a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. He is also the executive director of the Mindsight Institute, an educational center devoted to promoting insight, compassion, and empathy in individuals, families, institutions, and communities. His books include mindsight, the Developing Mind, the Mindful Brain, the Mind Therapist, Parenting from the Inside out, and the Whole brain child. Welcome, Dr. Segal.

Thanks, Alexandra. It's a pleasure to be here with you.

It is a pleasure to be with you as well. And as you know, my husband and I both love and appreciate your work. And as we're stepping into parenthood, we're so, so grateful for your decades of wisdom and research on how to have a healthy and happy child. So thank you.

You're welcome. You're welcome. You know, having a child is so encompassing. Our first child's name is Alexander. As I was saying your name, it's so embedded in who I am to be his dad that I was saying alexand and I was about to go der and I go draw and like, there's this pause because so much of parenting changes your whole identity, you know, and so it happens even in saying hello to someone on the phone.

That's so great. And how old are your kids now?

Well, now they're almost 23 and 18. So one just finished college and one just finished high school going to college. So we're in a lot of transitions at this very moment.

That's so great.

Yeah. And, you know, all of childhood is about these unfolding changes in your life, you know, your life, your kid's life. And there's a we that develops that is just so rewarding and also sometimes so challenging. But our lives are filled with these changes that constantly happen. And having gratitude for them and also being ready for what they entail, I think is part of what makes parenting exciting and really, really rewarding.

I'm curious as we're stepping into it and it's the unknown. You hear a lot of stories of like, oh, it is the most challenging thing you will ever do and the most amazing. So can you just talk a little bit about why it's so challenging to be a parent?

Sure. Well, and I know you and Brian are about to enter this phase of human life. And that's really exciting. And congratulations to you both.

Thank you.

You know, I guess one of the things that's challenging is just to take your development as a person up to that point, whatever that's been in physical experience of, you know, taking care of your own physical needs in emotional life. You know, how these feelings we have kind of shape our every moment and how we deal with emotions and stuff. And then even, you know, intellectually, like what you're thinking about, what you focus your attention on, where your curiosity goes, where your passion is for knowledge and doing things and skills, all of that. Of course, you know, when you find a partner in life becomes a whole new phase where you go from just me to we in pairing up, if that's what your life has brought you. But now you go from that. And assuming you're having the experience of having a child with a partner, some people do it on their own, and that's also challenging. So at this moment, then let's assume you're with a partner. Now you're going from this pair, what's called a dyad now, to bringing a third, or if it's twins, you're going to have two extra people. You're going to have this whole new we that's created. And so part of the challenge is how do you maintain a differentiated set of circles within this larger we that's developing? So there's a circle of your bodily self. How do you take care of your bodily needs, your emotional, intellectual needs, while you have this child coming into the world? How do you take care of the circle that is the romantic pair? Whether it's two guys or two girls, or, you know, a guy and a girl, whatever the combinations are, you still have your, you know, romantic core that started this whole process. If you're doing this with someone or if you're doing it on your own, you know, how do you actually maintain your social relationships? So then you have this being that's coming into the world, and how you maintain those differentiated circles of experience, of bodily self, of romantic self, you know, in a dyad or social relationships. And now you have this larger relationship of you with the baby and also the plural you, you know, of the dyad, the pair with this baby. And then how does it then affect your ability to maintain a relationship with yourself and with your romantic partner? So those are the relationship challenges that emerge at the very beginning, even. Even before the baby's born. You know, you're. You're changing the Relatedness, that was your life before. Now that can be really, really rewarding. But the change itself can be a little disorienting. You know, like, how do I negotiate this? How do I actually give myself the space to take care of my bodily needs? I take care of, you know, I'm a child psychiatrist and used to be in pediatrics. And I would see some parents would say, well, a truly devoted parent never does anything but carry the baby around. And I know there's a whole philosophy about that and we can talk about that. But you know, my experience taking care of families is that it's really important to take care of your bodily health and to actually have another caregiver take care of the baby so you can move your body around. Physical exercise is really important for the well being of everybody in the family. And some parents feel so guilty taking time, they say, that's selfish. And I said, well, actually it's like when you're on an airplane, they say, well, if the cabin loses pressure and you're with a child, put the oxygen mask on yourself first. So then you have the oxygen to take care of the baby. And I say the same thing about exercise and eating. You know, you got to take care of your bodily needs. So that's the first challenge is how do you negotiate taking care of your bodily needs while also, you know, really figuring out what kind of relationship are you going to have with the baby and how's the family going to set that up.

Right. So you recommend kind of couples do this preparation and have these conversations that their life is going to be getting more complex and there's going to be a whole other being coming in and how to navigate it.

Yeah, I mean, you know, part of where I come from, all this and just so you know, the background is, you know, I'm trained both in medicine and in science as well as, you know, in psychotherapy and I specialize in child development. And I've written stuff on the brain and families and relationships and how relationships in the brain kind of, you know, do this dance together to create our lives. And you know, from an anthropological point of view, because the kind of science I draw on combines all the sciences together in something called interpersonal neurobiology. It's a kind of a field where we take all the sciences and then look at human experience through the lens of, you know, this integrated view. So from that perspective we draw on anthropology and in anthropology especially the work of Sarah Hrdy H R D Y. What Sarah says is, you know, we evolved to have more than one primary attachment figure for the baby.

And.

And the view from John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, who founded the field of attachment research, was always drawing on the literature from not only anthropology, but from animal behavior. And we've learned since those days that the group experience that is the mother giving birth to the baby, with not only a father around who's devoted to the care of the mother and the baby, but other adults and even older children. Those other adults and older children, they shared always in our evolutionary history, they shared in the care of the baby. So Sarah Hrdy's book Mothers and Others beautifully describes that our capacity to be the species we are, the storytelling, meaning making, social species we are likely was primarily dependent on the fact that babies need more than one caregiver, mothers and others. And when you realize that, then it really takes the. Excuse me, the pressure off of the notion that only one person is going to be the caregiver, the attachment figure for this baby. And I think from science, we need to know that that baby really needs to have close relationships with more than one adult. It's good for the baby and it's good for the adults all around in the family. So just as a starting place, I want to put that out there. That's where I'm coming from. And I know there are other philosophies that have taken the word attachment and it's not consistent with the science. Actually, though, they use the scientific word attachment and they say only the mother should be the one that the baby's connecting to. And I just think that that's not scientifically accurate nor is it mentally healthy. I think for the mother to feel so much pressure that she's never to be away from the baby or never to allow other adults, like the father, for example, to have important and sometimes primary responsibility for the baby's care and the baby's attachment. So that's something I'm just going to put out there that I know there are a lot of people who disagree with what I'm saying. So I just wanted to say it straight. I think the baby grows up in a family, not just in a relationship with the mother. And so that for you, Alexandra, I would hope that would actually give you a feeling of, wow, I'm doing this collectively and my baby is going to be a part of a community. And that's really what we want to see, that the baby learns to relate to you and to Brian and to other people. They'll be primary caregivers for sure that she'll or he will or she will go to a primary attachment figure when distressed, for sure, and may have a number one figure that if there are five people in the room, definitely will go to that one figure. But if that one figure is out, you know, exercising or taking care of her needs or his needs, that baby should be able to go to another primary attachment figure when distressed and be soothed and not feel abandoned. You know, so that's a part of how mothers and others are really how we evolved. And babies are fully capable of distinguishing different people and having unique relationships with each people and having important emotion. Balancing relationships with more than one caregiver.

That's so great. I love that. I mean, it makes sense. Like you said that we would be in a community and that it wouldn't be all on the women. And I know so many women that I talk to are just the only caregiver, and they're stressed and they're, you know, a lot of them are on antidepressants, and it's just like taxing for them. So I know it's going to be refreshing for people to hear that, you know, it's scientifically just not ideal to be the only caregiver.

Well, exactly. I mean, I have a mom that I've known actually since she was a kid, because I've been doing this a long time, who's now a mom of a couple kids, and she's losing her mind and she wants medications. And I said, well, tell me the setup, because I haven't seen her for a while. And the setup is she lives geographically far from anyone in her family that she's moved a couple times and doesn't really have a social group of supportive people around her. No family members except her husband. And her husband's working like crazy just to economically make ends meet in these very difficult times we're in. So she both believes that it's only her responsibility and she's in the physical situation where she doesn't have friends, she doesn't have family who would in a heartbeat be there for her. And if you think about it, it's kind of a very unnatural setup where we move so far away from our family community that we feel so isolated and then have also a belief system. It's all up to the mother and all up to the mother. That. That's. That's very depressing. You know, that's very stressful, and it's not healthy and it's not. I don't want to use. I'll use the word natural. It's not natural. For someone to do this in isolation. We never evolved to be outside of community like we have created in our modern society. So, you know, for a mom to feel like it's her failings and then feel incredibly guilty, and then of course, the baby feels her guilt and the baby gets distressed and the mom is distressed and the dad comes home and that's mad because why is everyone distressed? You know, he's working hard, you know, that that whole setup is so unnatural, you know, that I think we need to really do something about it from a larger point, first of all, from the knowledge point of view, so parents can be empowered to say, I need a network, at least if I'm away from my family, a network of other mothers where we can share the caregiving for these babies. And I know that's what my wife and I did from early on is, you know, set up a network of other families with young, young children, actually. Now these are some of our closest friends and we help raise each other's kids.

Wow.

You know, and it's kind of like adoptive aunts and uncles, you know, and when you see us get together now and you see the feeling of the kids who are now, you know, older kids with these adults, they could go to them in a heartbeat if they needed to, you know, and we would do trips together and be together and just have, you know, hangout time together where it's not like formal stuff. It's just this is our extended family. And we really felt that it was crucial for the well being of our kids for them to feel the membership in a community larger than just the, quote, nuclear family, which that term really makes me nervous because it implies that's enough. You know, it's the nuclear thing, it's enough. It's not enough. You really need to have relationships that extend beyond a mother, father and kid. And that's, you know, I hope you and Brian will find, you know, a community and not just find, but create that community so your child will have the benefit of what evolution has really offered to them, which is an extensive set of deep connections.

Right. So I'm curious on a lot of your principles of mindfulness and awareness and the brain and how important intention is and all of these things. As you're creating your community with your family, do you recommend that people look to have people who have the same values and the same ideals and the same kind of visions for their children or like following certain things, like following your work or just anyone?

Yeah, well, that's a great, great question, Alexandra. And I think you know, to start with, from the baby's point of view, putting ourselves in. And remind me, is your child going to be a boy or a girl?

A boy or.

You don't want to say?

No, I think it's the first time that I've said it on this interview.

No, no, no, don't say it, don't say it. No, I did.

I already said it. It's a boy and his name is Emerson.

Okay, Emerson.

Cool.

That's great. So just to have an example that we're playing with, and I hope you feel okay doing that.

Absolutely. We love. We love it. Perfect for you, too.

Okay, great. So for Emerson, you know, he's inside of you now. I mean, he's in your womb, and so he literally is developing a relationship with you now, for sure. And there's no question that that's very special. And, you know, he's feeling your rhythms. He's literally hearing your heartbeat. He's hearing your voice as if he's in a bathtub. But whatever, he's getting all the benefits of that, and that's shaping his nervous system for sure. And there must be all sorts of ways in which, especially in the last trimester, where you are now, where he's imprinting on his memory systems, this experience. Now, of course, as I'm saying that my mindsight circuits are going well, what about the child who's adopted out and doesn't have, even if it's part of his set of relationships, that birth mother. And that's an issue that I think every adoptive parent needs to really consider, because that is an issue, and we can't just put our head in the sand and ignore it, you know, that you do spend these nine months, you know, growing in a womb in these prenatal experiences are really important. There's just no question about it. So we can't just, you know, be. Make a panacea. Oh, the act of adoption isn't some deep form of painful loss, because it is. So Emerson comes out. Now, when he comes out, his brain will have had this nine month of experience. So it's going to have a certain connection to you. And there's no question the relationship with the mother has a unique set of qualities to it, especially in the first year of life. But there's also no question that we've evolved for that baby, for Emerson to be able to have a relationship with Brian and even a few other caregivers. Select a few, not infinite numbers of people, but select a few people. And what do we know from the Science about the way those caregivers, let's just call them parents for now. But it can be beyond a mother and a father, or a mother and a mother and a father and a father or whatever setup is in the family. This baby is going to respond uniquely to the pattern of communication that each adult offers to him. Right? So the thing to say is that relationships are based on patterns of communication, you know, that are set up. And the brain of this baby, of Emerson is able to accommodate a range of different ways that people are. And some people in the science world argue that actually it's really good to have adults who are different from each other. So the kinds of relationship they create are not identical, if that could even be possible. So that the baby actually learns, hey, I can encounter different sorts of people in the world, learn what I can get from my connection with them, of trust and openness and emotional closeness and connection and warmth or not. And that range is actually going to be good for me because it allows me to realize that not everyone on the planet is the way my mom is or my dad is, and that I can learn different ways of being. So there's an argument to say that actually you don't need, in this extended community, have everyone buy into exactly the same thing so you can relax about that. You yourself can embody whatever principles you feel when you learn about them or read about them or feel them in your body, feel like they're right. I can tell you from science, if you're talking about something called secure attachment, which is the optimal set of experiences a child can have to allow him to. And I'll say him, because we're talking about Emerson, but obviously him or her, to allow him to develop to his fullest meaning, to feel good about who he is, to be able to be in touch with his emotions and let his emotions enrich his life and be able to balance them so that they don't take him over to extremes where his life becomes dysfunctional. So either direction, where he's chaotic or rigid, but he's in an optimal balance. So that's called emotional balance. And so secure attachment promotes that feeling good about yourself emotional balance, being able to find his intellectual passions and pursue them. You know, that's something also that research shows is promoted by secure attachment and also the ability to have relationships that are meaningful, meaning that you find connection with other people. And in those connections, you're able to communicate effectively about things that matter to you and find comfort when you're in distress. And so all these factors I'M saying research has proven the phrase secure attachment is a summary phrase saying that children who've had a certain pattern of communication with their primary caregiver and they study one in particular in these research protocols. But it could be you can have a number of people you're securely attached with. When kids have that securities attachment, they have all these outcomes. And you know, from my writings in this book called the Developing Mind, what I say is that those kinds of secure attachments are essentially based on the parents presence. If you had to summarize it in one word, what is secure attachment all about? I would say it's about presence. E, R, E, S, E, N, C.

E, not with a T. And the.

Presence that you give is a present with a T. But the presence you give can be defined as are you open to what is happening as it's happening? So presence is a part of being mindful, but it has other aspects to it where you allow yourself to be fully engaged with yourself and others. You allow yourself to accept what is as it's unfolding. So you, you recognize that you have a lot of expectations and judgments, but you release them. Like Emerson should be this way or should be that way, or you know, I wish he were more outgoing, he's too inward going. Or I wish he would be more inward, he's too outward or he's too energized, he should be quieter. You know, all those shoulds are the opposite of presence. And so with presence, what you bring is a capacity to actually perceive Emerson for who he is in that moment. Sensing your own inner world, whatever judgments that all of us have, but letting them go and mindfully, then attending in a setup that I remember with the word part, which is P is presence allows you to have the A of part P, A R, T is attunement. You literally focus your attention on the inner experience that Emerson is having that's being expressed through his nonverbal signals, especially when he's young. And then you resonate with him. This is the R of part. The R means resonate means you allow your own inner world to be influenced by him. So it changes who you are. And a lot of parents are not willing to do that. You know, it's too steady to them or too vulnerable for them, so they don't resonate. So when you resonate now, notice it's not the same as mirroring. You're not becoming Emerson, you're just being influenced by him in the deepest way. But you maintain Alexandra even though Emerson is being Emerson, Alexandra is Being Alexandra, and there's Alexandra, Emerson. This relationship that's created that is larger than just the sum of your two parts. And this is where, you know, resonance allows you to see that you can show Emerson you've taken him in inside of you, but he hasn't destroyed you. He hasn't made you lose your center of gravity. You've been influenced by him, but you're not taken over by him. This is crucial for kids to see. And then the T of part is a whole bunch of T's, but the main one is a sense of trust that this trust that I can really be who I am and the presence, attunement and resonance of my parent allows me to actually be the best me as Emerson that I can be. And my mom, my dad, my attachment figure is crazy about me. That's what the par allows and that's a trust that the world is embracing, an unfolding of who I am as Emerson. And I think that's the core of what secure attachment is really all about.

That's amazing.

Wow.

So I'm curious on the presence, attunement, resonance and then trust, how does our point of view and our past experiences influence this? Because I'd imagine it seems like a lot of parents just kind of, which Brian always says that you say flip the lid, they just kind of flip their lid and they're not seeing what's actually happening. So how do we navigate that as parents? It seems like that seems to be a big issue.

It is a huge issue. And to begin with, the science, which I always try to start with, and then to the, the really practical application of that science, the science shows very clearly, and this is what I wrote in the Developing Mind in its first edition in 99 and now the new edition just came out, you know, that it still shows the best predictor of a child's security of attachment to that particular caregiver is actually parental self understanding. And a book I wrote with Mary Hartzell called Parenting from the Inside out takes that science and, and makes it available for parents to actually deepen their own self understanding. And so what you can show through a number of different scientific studies that are now, I think over 10,000 people have been studied and I believe it's in, I forgot how many different countries. But it's cross cultural, which is the amazing thing you can do this process called the adult attachment interview, which is a research instrument I'm trained to give and I write extensively about in these different books. So you can see how to apply it yourself in Parenting from the Inside Out. There's a version of it that's more practical in Mindsight. You can actually see it in Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology. You can sort of see the science behind it in all these ways. The aai, the Adult Attachment Interview, is this beautiful, beautiful interview created by Mary Main and her colleagues at UC Berkeley. And in that interview, basically it asks you, as a parent, or a soon to be parent, or even just someone without kids, to reflect on your own history. Like, what do you remember about what growing up was like for you? And then it goes through a series of really wonderful and challenging questions. And the results of those are tallied in a, it's audio taped and then it's tallied in a transcript. And then when you're trained to do the formal analysis, you don't need to do this to benefit from the interview. But if you're doing a research protocol, you do the formal analysis. And what you find is that the way people remember things correlates with how their child will be attached to them. So in other words, it's not so much what you say happened that has some minor aspects to it, it's actually how you remember. Now, what I do with Mary Hartshell and Parenting from the Inside out is take you step by step as a reader so you can see that patterns by which you remember your childhood, like let's say 20% of the population, they don't remember their childhood in detail. They keep on saying, I don't remember, I don't remember. And they also generally say, hey, listen, all these questions you're asking me about what happened to me in my childhood, they're really insignificant because everyone knows relationships don't matter. And Alexandra, that's 20% of the non clinical population. Wow. A fifth. So that grouping of parent, if I were that parent and you studied my, my daughter, she would Most likely, with 85% predictability, have an insecure attachment to me. That's what the research shows. And even if we were pregnant and I didn't even know my child yet, but you did the interview with me, so I have a me, my wife, we're pregnant and you do the interview on both of us. If I come up with that kind of, what's called dismissing narrative, with 75% predictably of a yet to be born child when she's a year old, and you do the classic attachment assessment called the infant strain situation for her 18 months later when she's actually born, she has a 75% chance of having an insecure attachment. If that was my adult attachment interview finding, wow. And the particular pattern that she's likely to have is called avoidant, where, you know, I will not be emotionally present for her. And in many ways this lack of presence I have for my own narrative understanding matches the lack of presence I have with her interactively. And what parenting from the inside out tries to do is say, hey, if you're in that 20%, no biggie. You know, we're going to actually show you as an adult how you can go from a dismissing adult attachment, which will make it very likely your child will be insecurely attached to you. We're going to teach you through these step by step programs we have in the book, all just the book or the videotape that we have of the book, you know, we're going to teach you how to go from a dismissing attachment so you yourself can become a secure adult. And we teach people how to do that. And you know, what's so rewarding about this is that then you've basically impacted not only the well being of that adult, but for all kids who that adult may raise, they'll have an entirely different attachment experience. And so that's just one example. But that's just to give you an example that isn't so much what the adult says, it's how they said it. And what I write about is what does that mean for the brain of the adult? What likely happened to them in their childhood. Now we know from studies from Alan Strof and colleagues in Minnesota that very likely that adult himself who had a dismissing kind of, I don't remember much, I don't remember much. Relationships don't matter. When you go back in time, and actually this is from studies that were done over about 35 year period, you could show he very likely had a parent who is very emotionally unavailable. And you can show that this is not temperament, by the way, this is not a genetically acquired thing. Because first of all, I can have one attachment with one caregiver and a totally different attachment with another caregiver, yet I have one set of genes. So right away, you know, my attachment with my mother or my father can't be genetically determined because how could I have totally different attachments with each caregiver? Which is true, I can. And that the best predictor of my attachment to each caregiver is the adult attachment interview finding for each caregiver, you know, and that can change actually by over time. And you can't change genes, you can change the regulatory molecules that control Gene expression that's called epigenetics. But you can't change genes, but you can change the adult attachment interview finding. So this is the exciting news is that by asking the question you asked Alexandra, scientists have now given us as parents and us as, you know, people trying to help parents, a step by step toolkit for making sure that your own adult understanding of your childhood experiences can, no matter what happens to you. And I've worked with people, because you're talking about flipping your lid, who've had incredible traumas in their childhood and grief, and they're the most likely to do a lot of lid flipping. And I write about my own experiences flipping my lid, you know, and those unresolved traumas make us the most vulnerable. And the good news is that you can resolve your traumas if you know that they're hanging around unresolved. And again, parenting from the inside out gives you the steps to do that. And Mindsight, that book has you go in even more depth about how to do that if you've encountered a lot of trauma in your life or loss and it's still unresolved. Sadly, when you flip your lid repeatedly and you don't make repairs afterwards, it's very, very frightening for a child. And so he or she is sadly going to have what's called a disorganized attachment, most likely if you have unresolved trauma. And the good news is trauma is completely resolvable. And what we want to do is try to help every parent develop their own self understanding and self healing so that their child will have the best chance at having a secure attachment and then going out with a robust, vital life.

That's amazing. Wow, it's so fascinating, all of this.

Oh, I can't stop thinking about this stuff. It's so interesting. If you're into the science of this, I got to say, parenting from the inside out is great for you as a parent. And I also wrote another book with a student of mine who's now my colleague Tina Bryson, called the Whole Brain Child. And that kind of gives you steps. We haven't talked about integration, but in many ways it's a process in the brain and in relationships called integration. That's at the heart of all this. So Whole Brainchild helps you integrate your child's brain. And then if you like the science, the developing mind or applied science is mindsight. But if you want a really wild book, the Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology sounds like an unsexy title, but it's, it's a book that lets you really see how all these issues impact our lives, not just in parenting, but across the board. Why are these things so important to know about and how do they empower us when we know about how the mind and brain work?

Right. So what about. I'm curious on the brain, like talking a little bit maybe about mirror neurons and how our intention as parents and what we're thinking actually impacts our child's brain. Like it's just mind boggling, this connection.

Well, that's the perfect word, mind boggling, you know, because, you know, from very early on, the baby, we believe, has a set of neurons which include, they're not limited to, but they include these things you're mentioning called mirror neurons. And you know, people often think of mirror neurons as, oh, monkey see, monkey do. Ironically, actually, monkeys don't imitate, apes do, but monkeys don't. But just that's a little tidbit if you play Trivial Pursuit. But anyway, we study them first in monkeys and they are about embedding behaviors in our repertoire that are initiated by what we see others do. And so people think of mirror neurons that way. But actually, if you take it a step earlier, if you understand the science, you can understand a lot more about how important these mirror properties are. And so let me just take you a step a little bit into the science. What mirror neurons are are neurons that bridge aspects of your brain that allow you to both perceive something going on, let's say, in other people, and the motor action, the things you do with your muscles, and they allow you to bridge this by actually perceiving sequences of action. And a sequence of action means, you know, if you're lifting your hand up to a cup and then the cup is in your hand and now you're lifting the cup up to your mouth, there's a sequence that goes from hand moving to cup, cup lifting up, cup moving to mouth drinking, gulping, putting cup down that the baby, let's say, will perceive. And over time, that sequence is going to get associated with what the baby creates in his brain, which is your intention. Alexandra. So soon sequences of action that are predictable allow Emerson, will allow Emerson to actually create a map in his brain of what's going on in your mind. Wow. Let me say that again. A predictable sequence of action allows the baby to make a map of not just what's going to happen in the physical world, you know, hand to cup, cup up, etc. But it creates a map of the mind. So a simple take home lesson for all of us as parents is Predictable sequences are what babies are going to extract mental impressions from. That is what's going on in the mind of my mom. What is the mind of my mom? What is she seeing? What is she feeling? What is she intending? What's her intention at this moment? In chaotic homes where sequences of action are either so chaotic that they're unpredictable, the baby will have a much harder time time learning about the nature of mind because things are just not clearly demonstrating what the mental life of the parent is. And to another extreme, if the intention of the parent is to harm the baby, it's not just chaotic and unpredictable and frightening in that way, but actually the baby picks up that. That hand going to the cup, and now the cup is being thrust into my body and I'm feeling pain. Sadly, this happens in more kids than you want to know about. There the baby's going to get a very paradoxical map of the negative intention of a parent to harm him. When in fact, evolution says that attachment figures are supposed to protect you, not terrify you. And that biological paradox, meaning, you know, one set of circuits from evolution says, oh, I should be able to go to my attachment figure because they're the ones I trust. They're the ones who protect me. They're the ones who actually soothe me when I'm distressed. That's a circuit that says, go to my parent when I'm distressed. But another set of circuits that's even older that says, hey, you know, if something is terrifying me, I should get away from it. It's going to hurt me. I got to survive. I got to get away from it. Another set of circuit says, go away from what's terrifying me. And this is now the parent who's flipped her lid or something. So now these two sets of circuits are activated simultaneously. And that's a biological paradox. There's no way for the brain of the child to resolve two contradictory circuits that are activated at the same time. So the baby has a fragmentation of her neurological functioning, which we call disorganized attachment. And from the point of view of, you know, inner experience, it's called dissociation. You fragment consciousness, and there babies can have very abrupt shifts in emotions, which they have anyway. But if they're having disorganized attachment, it can persist, you know, not only into later in childhood, but even into adolescence and adulthood. That's what studies show. This dissociative ability does this. So basically what, what this tells us then is that mirror neurons, which are likely a very important part of this, help us map out the mind of a parent. And if the mind is not mapped, it's confusing. If the mind is filled with negative intention, that's terrifying and paradoxically disorganizing. And, you know, so mirror neurons play an important role in that. Now, the last thing just to say about mirror neurons is they not only allow us to bridge perception and our own action, because now babies can start imitating flipping your lid and being furious and rageful. You know, so it's literally we teach by what we do as parents. And that's another important lesson about how self understanding and presence is really what you want to model for your child. And no one's perfect. Everyone always screws up. And in all my books, I always put the examples of myself as a person really screwing up, flipping my lid, doing something wacky. And then the importance of realizing we're all human so there's no such thing as a perfect parent. And we do have to go back, recognize inside of ourselves what was the button that got pushed, what was our vulnerable place, take care of ourselves, but also go back and make a repair of the ruptured connection. And no matter what kind of stuff happens, repair, repair, repair, repair. If we just went on saying it for the rest of our time together, you know, in this interview, you know, it wouldn't be enough. I mean, it wouldn't be too much, let's put it that way. So rather than beating up on yourself, knowing about the brain and how the brain works and we all have our vulnerabilities can help you go from, you know, feeling like it's your fault, I'm a terrible person, to saying, hey, it may not be my fault, but it is my responsibility to actually take care of this rupture and be kind to myself. And as you role model being kind to yourself, you're then role modeling that for your child. And so those are the gateways for the last thing about mirror neurons is that they help us also feel other people's feelings. Not just behave like other people behave, but to feel other people's feelings we soak in. I like to call them sponge neurons because they really are more like sponges. They allow you to sponge in what you see and what you feel in other people. And in that sponging you don't, you resonate with others. So mirror neurons are the gateway to resonance. And that's, by the way, the pathway to empathy and really using mindsight to understand not only yourself, but understand others.

So the mirror neurons, when they're. I'm just trying to wrap my brain about around all of it, then it's more of parents are often parents always say, do what I say. This is what I said and this is what I think. But babies and children are really tapping into how we're feeling and what we're thinking and what our emotional state is. And that's more powerful than what we say. Is that true?

Yeah, I would say that especially in the first year of life, the non verbal aspect of what we do, even the tones of our voice and the words we say, you know, are really the main impact on a baby's development. But telling stories and stuff like that is still important. So yeah, I would say it's always start with what you're doing. But eventually, you know, the brain of the child, not too old, you know, a year and a half, two, is really going to start picking up the words and the meaning of the words. So it's also what you say not so much in the parenting thing, but just what you say about life and how you talk about other people and you know, your attitude of respect and you know, but, but again, we have all these, you know, ideals. But even with the ideals, it's important to really be kind to yourself. I mean, really be kind to yourself. And you can study this stuff and learn this stuff and it's all good to have this knowledge. It's all good when it's based on science and you understand the principles. But in the end, it's your presence and kindness and compassion beginning with yourself. So the risk of learning all these facts is you say, oh, this was the way it was supposed to be and boy, I screwed up. What a bad person I am. No, no, no, no, no, not at all. Just the fact that you're reflecting on the quality of your parenting and you say, you know, next time I'm going to do it better. That's a role model too for your kids. Because think about this, your kids are never going to be perfect, right? So if you put perfect expectations on yourself, they're going to pick that up and start putting them on themselves. And that's not right. So, so what you want to do is be really fully human, you know, and have a sense of humor about it. But have your eye on love and have your eye on integration, which means honoring differences and promoting linkages even in yourself as you unfold. Because listen, life is a journey. It's got a fundamental complexity to it where we're aware of stuff and yet we do other stuff. And that's okay. And that's just you embrace the humanity of it all. And, you know, your kids will pick up that fun, relaxed attitude. And so there's nothing wrong with having knowledge and ideals if you come to it with a fluidity and love and flexibility for yourself and your partner. And that's really the role modeling I think kids will really benefit from.

Right. So I'm curious on the repair too. Like you said, we're human and just having love for ourselves and appreciating the journey. And then an example of a parent totally just yells at their child or just does not do what they feel like they want to do. And how does one go about repairing? How do they share? How do they communicate? What's the best way for us to communicate to our children that we can?

Oh, it's a great question. You know, in parenting from the inside out, there's a whole chapter, like nine chapters, but one of them is completely devoted to recognizing ruptures and making a repair because it's so, so, so important, you know, and it also liberates ourselves from, you know, the idea that there's perfect parenting because, you know, everyone, even people who read books about this or know the science of it or whatever, are always making goof ups. You know, I mean, I'm writing a book now on parenting adolescents from the inside out. And you know, with my 22 year old, I did a really goofy, dumb thing. It was really not right. And you know, so I made a repair as soon as I could. And you know, and then I wrote about it in the book saying, look, you know, I've written eight books on this subject, but I still do it, you know, because we're human, we're just humans. So. So the first thing is, you know, to be honoring that you're just a human being that does stuff and that sometimes that stuff doesn't go well. Sometimes your intentions may not be good and that happens. They may be harmful intentions. Sometimes your intentions were good, but the way you carried out a communication was not as sensitive as it could have been. Or, you know, like, sometimes I know what happens to me if I say, don't say anything about X and Y. You know, the way the brain works is like you say, don't think about pink elephants. You know, you do. And your brain is actually a checking mechanism that says, am I thinking about the pink elephants? No, I'm not. Well, I just did. Well, I'm. Am I thinking about the, you know, so if you give yourself that warning, you know, don't say anything about X and Y. And you're in a pinch and Things are going quick, blah, blah, blah. You're going to talk about X and Y? Very likely. And you know, you shouldn't have. Whatever. So that's my real, you know, vulnerable thing is I say, okay, I know I'm not going to talk about X and Y. And then the whole family's together and something's happening. And then I say X and Y. And I go, oh, my God. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Why did I say X and Y?

So that's why I said it, because I had set up this brain thing to be constantly telling myself not to say it. So what you do is you aim for the positive rather than try to not do the negative. So you say talk about A and B, not X and Y. But you say talk about A and B. So that's part of the strategy. But okay, so I said X and Y. So now the idea is you start with yourself. You go, okay, it feels in my body, my heart, my intestines, my whole. My muscles. There's a wisdom of the body that I call the sixth sense. Actually, in science, we call it the sixth sense. You get access to it through something called interoception. And there's something you do on my website called the wheel of awareness practice to reflective practice that parents really benefit from, but anyone can benefit from it. But it's especially good for parents because it outlines kind of these different elements of consciousness and it integrates your inner life. And anyway, one of them is to go to this interoceptive capacity to know what your heart is feeling, your intestines, your muscles, and stuff like that. Okay, so you practice that not when there's been a problem, but just in everyday life. So now you're building up literally an area of your brain called the insula, which helps you know, the wisdom of the body. So you do that. That's a part of your practice. And now you say, well, my body feels really heavy. My heart feels like it's breaking. My intestines are churning. My muscles feel heavy. What just happened with. Oh, my God, I can't believe it. I said X and Y. Oh, my God, did I. Wait, did I say that? I did. Wow. And then the whole mood changed in the family. My God. What is wrong with you, you idiot? I said, no, hold everything. Hold everything. It doesn't really help to call yourself an idiot. I'll give myself a minute. You stupid idiot. Why did you do that? Dan, you okay, so I give myself a minute of just letting it out there. And I said, you know, something? Being mean to yourself is not going to help anything. You know, you're right. I say to myself. So I said, okay, so I got to make a repair. You did this because you were giving yourself the warning. Don't say it. So of course your brain primed yourself to say it, but to see if you're going to say it. So you said it, and that's really dumb, and it was hurtful. So now you've got to go make a repair. All right, when's a good time to make a repair? Well, I have to start with myself. Step one, know what happened. But I can't just jump in and make a repair, because if there was some issue that made me initiate the rupture, like, I really care about X and Y, even though it shouldn't be talked about or whatever, I need to own my own hot button and know why is that a vulnerable place for me and explore the meaning of it. And, you know, there are these tools for doing that. So I say, okay, X and Y is important because in my childhood, you know, this happened with my father, this happened with my mother, this happened with my brother. So X and Y as a general issue is actually a very, very tender point. And I guess I feel that it going on in my family is just another trauma. So I'm trying to prevent it or something like that. And I'm not realizing this is just an issue for my kids to work through. I can't work it out for them, even though it's my issue, my childhood. So, okay, so then I soothe myself. I put my hands on my chest and my belly. I calm myself. I say, okay, you got to work this out on your own time. Journal writing. If I go to therapy, therapy with friends, my wife, whatever. And now I've got to go back and make a repair. And that might take five minutes to get ready to do that. 10 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour. But I don't want to put too much time off. I don't want to wait weeks, you know, Although I've seen some family wait years, you know, but ideally, you want to do it sooner rather than later. So now I say, okay, it's now time for me to approach my child. Who, the XY issue or the whole family? If it was a whole family issue, I approach them or him or her, and I say, you know, I really want to talk to you about something that happened that I feel badly about. Well, I'm busy now. I can't do it now. Okay, but can you make some time for me soon? I'd Rather do it sooner than later. Sure, sure, that's fine. Okay, so fine. We set up a time half an hour from now. Sit down, sit down. Same eye level. I'm not looming over if it's a little kid or anyone. Same eye level. Maybe I'm even lower. And I said, look, I want to tell you this thing happened where I said X and Y and I feel really bad because I don't think that was right. What was that like for you? So before I dump all my stuff, I apologize. I don't get into rationalizing it. I don't assume I know what X and Y meant for them, that I said it. I want to now know. Now they may say, oh, don't worry about it, means nothing, or how dare you, stupid idiot, why would you say that? Or what? I didn't even notice you said that. It could be any range of stuff, right? You know, or if it's a little kid, they're not going to be able to say anything. And you just say, you know, I was really harsh with you and I'm really sorry. I've been, it was a hard day. And you know, it was your 18th diaper change and I shouldn't have been so irritated, but I was. And I want to just hug you. And you just hug them. You connect with them and you don't expect them to say anything if they're two or three or something, but sometimes they'll say something that was scary. You said X and Y, that really scared me. Or whatever they say. And you listen to the other person's experience because this is part of the integration thing. Honoring differences, promoting linkages means you had your experience with X and Y and it was really painful for you. Fine, but now hear what their experience was. Give them the space to articulate or express or even just cry. And sometimes it doesn't have to have much. Word to this exchange, you say, I'm really sorry. I can see that that hurt you. I had a feeling afterwards it hurt you. I'm really sorry. And I'm really going to try to never do that again. And I'm going to really, really do my best and give the person to hug or talk about it in depth, depending on what the child or young adult wants to do. You know, for me recently, this ex wife thing, I said to my 22 year old, you know, he said, that's no big deal, you're obviously having a bad day, you know, I said, oh, okay, you know, but here's why I feel bad. He goes, that's no problem. But still the act of showing that you've thought about it, that you felt bad, and you're honoring your body's response, that you are now going back and doing what for some people would be humiliating to do, which is say, I'm sorry. But it's very important as a role modeling experience as well as a repairing experience for your child to see that you can see when you screwed up, that you're human, that you go back and you try to make the relationship better again and close and connecting and open. And sometimes it takes, you know, a few minutes, sometimes a few hours, sometimes a few days, whatever, but you still can move toward repair. I've had adult parents, well, all parents, adults, but I've had parents with adult kids in their 30s come in and the parents are in their 60s to deal with issues that should have been dealt with like, 28 years earlier and weren't, you know, they weren't dealt with. And we dealt with them now. And I'm telling you, even though decades had passed, I'm not suggesting this to anybody, Wait that long. It was really a lot of wasted, wasted pain. I mean, just unnecessary pain. But I'm telling you, 30 years later, the parents being confronted with what happened, seeing its effect, they didn't even realize it, and now going, you know something? I am so sorry. This is why it happened. I'm so, so painfully sorry that that happened. I. I had a feeling it was bad, but then I tried to ignore it. And the kids said, well, you ignored it, and this is what it did to me over these last 20 years. And it really makes a difference in the relationship. So I always say it's never too late to make a repair, but as soon as you're aware of it, get yourself centered and then get ready to do it as soon as possible. But what we don't want to do is people feel so guilty. Oh, my God, 10 years have passed and I never made the repair. They don't do it. So this is the ideal. The ideal is when you're aware of it, try to take action to make a repair. If you realize a long time later, it's still not too late.

Right. And what do you think stops people from making a repair? I know for me, we're expecting Emerson, but it's really funny to watch myself with Brian. There's sometimes where I just don't. I'm very aware that I'm kind of in my stuff and I don't want to make a repair. I just don't want to do It. What stops us?

Well, Alexandra, that is so beautifully said. I think it happens to all of us. We have these things called states of mind, and there are two fundamental states, and I could do something real briefly to demonstrate them. Well, let's do the demo. Should we do a quick demo? Yeah.

Awesome. If you have time.

Totally. Yeah. Yeah. So just close your eyes and let yourself feel whatever you feel. And I'm going to say one word, repeat it, and then I'll say another word after I pause and then repeat that, and then we'll just notice how you feel.

Okay.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Now, when you're ready, you can take a deep breath. And what was that like for you, Alexandra? For anyone listening, you can think. What was that like for yourselves?

Yeah, that was. I definitely felt, like, constriction in my belly. I felt constriction in my throat. I felt very tight. I felt almost like an aggressive feeling and just kind of like. It's actually. That's kind of how I feel when I don't want to make the repair. Actually, those feelings of like.

Yeah, that's the reactive state of fight, flight, freeze. Exactly. Exactly. And how did the yes feel?

Yeah, I could totally feel. I mean, just having them so close to each other, feeling the releasing and feeling my belly relax and feeling like my heart softening, and it was just like a. Okay. Like a feeling of security and safety.

Yes. Beautiful. Beautiful. And that's the receptive state. So at a very minimum, what we need to realize as parents and as people in the world, we have these two fundamental states. Receptive is the yes state, where we're open to other people, we're flexible, we can go make a repair. We can realize we've done something we didn't want to do. We can be kind to ourselves. It's a state that allows presence to unfold. And then there's also a reactive state, which is a fight state, a flee state, where you run away or freeze, where you kind of actively shut down, or there's even another kind of reactive state where you collapse. So fight, flight, freeze and collapse and just kind of fragmentation. So those reactive states take us over. You know, they're states that come when we feel threatened, when we feel, you know, we have to hunker down to defend ourselves. And so you're experiencing right now, in this example, that when you're in a reactive state, it's very hard, if not impossible. Let's just say it's impossible to make a repair. A repair that's effective because you're reactive. So the first part of this is to be aware of the difference between reactivity and receptivity and learn some tools which we have in these different books. And certainly on my website, you can do the wheel of awareness practice, which can get you to a receptive state. You do these practices of breath awareness, of putting a hand on the chest and another hand on the belly, and putting a little pressure that can help bring you to a receptive state so that you know, you understand that, you know, true healing inside yourself must come from receptivity. And true healing in terms of repairing a rupture with another person must come from receptivity. So it's your inner responsibility to know the difference and then learn the skills of moving yourself from reactive to receptive. And then once you've done that, you'll find you'll be able to make the repair and apologize and all that. When you're reactive, you're not going to be able to do that. So this answers your question, why can't I do it? We all get reactive. And this is the thing. It's just human. It's just human. I mean, you know, no matter how much therapy you have, no matter how much meditation you do, no matter how many books you read, you know, it's just. It's just human to do that. And the key is to know the difference in reactivity versus receptivity, and then to be able to move yourself freely from the reactive, the receptive, and then to be able to go from that receptive place to a place that's very vulnerable, which is to say, hey, totally, I'm human. I goofed up. You know, that was a state that we all get into. But that was not good of me. It was not nice. It didn't even come from kindness, you know, it came from a kind of attacking intention. And I'm owning that. And man, when you say that, it just opens a receptive space in the relationship, which is exactly what we create with your partner, what we want to create with our children. It's actually what we want to create on this planet. Even our relationship with planetary health. We want human beings to be able to say, hey, we've evolved in a certain way with so much technology and so much industrial development. We're killing our home, Earth, and Earth, we're sorry. And we're going to go from being reactive and building more and more junk to actually changing the way we live. Because we love you, Earth, and we want to repair our relationship with you.

So great. Awesome. Thank.

You're welcome. It's really about these integrated relationships with people and the planet. It's about healing from the inside out. And listen, I think if we raise our children embracing the relational nature of our essence, then not only will love unfold in a family and in friendships, but it'll be in our relationship with Earth. And you know as well as I that, you know, if we don't find a fundamentally different way of relating to the planet, then, you know, it doesn't matter what kind of parenting we do. And so this is where you see that this is a call for action, from the inner places of reality to the planetary health in which we all live. So I'm so happy with the work you and Brian are doing. And, you know, Emerson is so lucky to join in the journey and we got to have fun along the way, be kind to ourselves, have a lot of laughter, and realize that every day is an opportunity to wake up and say, how do I improve the planet? And how do I enjoy the planet? Those two things when we do them in balance, not just one or the other, but both. How do I improve life? How do I enjoy life? If we can balance those two, I think we'll really be able to turn everything around and really be proud of the kind of planet we leave for the next generation.

Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Amazing. Thank you for all of your wisdom. And I know I'm super inspired. I can't wait to tell Brian all about it.

Oh, great. Wonderful to chat, Alexandra, and anytime, let me know if you want to talk in any forum. And it's been wonderful to connect with you today.

Thank you so much. And just for people, the best way to find you is your website, which.

Is D R D A N S I E g e l drdansiegel.com sO-R-DA-N-S I-e g e l.com and there's a whole bunch of stuff there that hopefully will be of interest and helpful.

Yes, definitely. And recommend. I've read the whole Brainchild and Parenting from the inside out and love those, and I can't wait to dive into more of them. So, yes, they are like everyone that I talk to seriously about parenting. They're like parenting from the inside out. It's an essential book. You have to have that book. So.

Well, it's really rewarding to get feedback from people about it, so thank you.

Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Well, thank you so much. Have a beautiful day and we'll see you soon.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mama Goddess sending you lots of love and blessings. If you'd like to connect more, go to mamagoddess.com until next time, keep watching, rocking it and have an awesome day.