S7 E1: Fostering Self-Regulation
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While society is constantly connected through digital platforms, it’s also the case that there is a deeper sense of disconnection without a more genuine sense of connection.
There is so much information at our fingertips, it can feel overwhelming and dysregulating.
It requires us to pause and check in with what we need and when and where our resources should go.
It’s sort of life being a student without a teacher having so much information presented to us without structure or a bigger picture perspective. There can be a lack of organization to the information and difficulty understand how to 1) apply the information to you specifically and your context, and 2) how you could use the information in a meaningful way. It’s like going on an adventure without having a map to guide you. Maria Montessori espoused the need for having flexibility but still having some sort of structure and boundaries to work within.
Without a guide or mentor, it can feel ambiguous to as to what is ‘good enough’ especially when you are mostly exposed to ‘experts’ on the internet.
It can feel as though we can ‘do it all’ even though in reality some things may drop off where we cannot give 100% to every aspect of our life.
Every individual is unique in their own way and so generic advice given on the internet and media may lack an understanding of what may work for you and your context. Good advice may not always be ‘good advice’ if it is taken out of context, taken to the extreme, or lacks understanding.
Whatever pops up on your social media feed is likely to impact your mood on a very periodic basis. Dr. Reid wonders if this contributes to fluctuating moods throughout the day. Dr. Reid also wonders if that contributes to feeling more vulnerable to feeling emotionally triggered even when not using social media.
Alexis discusses how youth may be overly-reliant on seeking feedback due to getting constant feedback via technology and video games, etc. whereas in the ‘real-world’ they may crave constant feedback but not get it in the same way.
Dr. Reid suggests individuals, particularly sensitive individuals, can feel conflicted about addressing their own individual concerns when they are exposed to such drastic large-scale existential issues in the world.
Dr. Reid suggests that when you care about a cause, you can get constantly exposed to the large-scale issues through social media that feeds such content over and over, which can feel addicting, particularly if you want to feel as if you are ‘doing something’ about the problem that seems insurmountable to address as one individual.
As discussed in a future episode about parenting anxious youth, Dr. Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation talks about youth losing their sense of independence, which can have a downstream effect of fearing doing things ‘wrong’ and can make it even more difficult once the young people launch into young adulthood with less structure.
Alexis suggests that self-regulation is like a ‘superpower’ that kids need to be taught. These skills take time to develop, as our executive function, self-control brain areas may not develop until mid-20’s or even 30’s.
It is possible that self-regulation may have differing values in terms of to what end it is used. Self-regulation can be used toward almost anything in life that is a goal or value one aims to achieve or actualize. The way in which it is used is not value-neutral, as some may use self-regulation to ‘fit into a social box’ or even to hurt others.
Self-regulation is even used to monitor bodily needs like needing to use the bathroom, which kids with attention/hyperactivity challenges may neglect while hyper-fixated on something they are doing.
Emotions drive behavior, which is an evolutionary idea. For example, anxiety drives a person to fight or flight, as a function for survival. The issue is that the ‘threat’ may be perceived as accurate or not, which lead to over-reacting to situations at times.
Emotion regulation can come in the form of proactively preparing for an emotionally triggered situation in order to process the reason for becoming triggered and shifting the thought process and behavioral response to the situation to reduce the emotional intensity. On the other hand, it helps to regulate the emotions after the emotions are activated in a situation, for example, with breathing or mindfulness strategies.
Attentional biases can contribute to being emotionally triggered in a situation, for instance by looking for reasons of being threatened by others and being overly-sensitive to cues that may not be threatening or not to the degree which it seems to be threatening.
Beliefs, expectations, assumptions, concerns, and ways of thinking in a given situation contribute to emotions getting activated in that said situation. It is important from a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) standpoint to get to know what that means for the individual so that they can learn to proactively emotionally regulate prior to getting emotionally triggered and spiraling. It helps to identify the patterns of thoughts, feelings/emotions, and behaviors and how they interact. In therapy the person really needs to be motivated to understand and address these patterns to make shifts.
Proactively regulating emotions can come from considering the context and variables that play a role in why the person may become emotionally triggered in a particular situation. For instance, if you happen to be more anxious or distressed in the early hours of work or school, it may be due to factors like poor sleep, needing time to get energized and activated, or other factors. By knowing those factors, you could address them by problem-solving or changing your mindset leading up to that situation; or, you can expect to be not feeling great and ‘ride it out’ rather than letting it spiral. Much like the movie Groundhog’s Day.
Dr. Mark Brackett at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence that individuals are constantly in a fearful state, afraid of doing something ‘wrong’. This can make us reactive to everything rather than living life more intentionally.
Individuals may seek out to be different or unique in some profound way, which can lead to pressure to go to extremes or be performative to stand out. Actually, we are all unique in our own ways, and we don’t necessarily need online attention or validation for our uniqueness. We can be grateful for and appreciate ourselves and the people in our immediate lives in even the smallest ways, simply for each of us being who we are in the context of our relationship.
A level of acceptance can help individuals to self-regulate better. This can take courage and a nuanced perspective. Without acceptance, it can lead to becoming more dysregulated because it’s a resistance to the reality of a situation. It may also contribute to this absolute need for things and situations to be as the person hopes or wishes it to be, whereas life often does not operate that way. For instance, if you are faced with a problem, it can help to accept the problem and recognize that it’s not an all or nothing expectation, such as the problem needs to be immediately fixed, which can lead to disappointment and frustration when that does not happen immediately.
Acceptance can lead to better ability to tolerate discomfort and sit with uncertainty.
Alexis shares different levels of regulation - including co-regulation, having someone else to be present with you to regulate; using an external object to regulate; all the way to internally self-regulating without an external person or object.
So much of our lives are not ‘big’ events. It helps to get comfortable living without ‘big’ events. This can be difficult when we are constantly over-stimulated, when what we need for nourishment is moments of rest, recovery, and authentic connection.
We build resilience in knowing ourselves, knowing what we need, and having hope and faith that we have others in our life to support us in getting through uncomfortable situations.
Jumping to conclusions and expecting the worst comes from CBT as two common thinking biases, which can be extreme ways of thinking, which can contribute to getting emotionally dysregulated. Looking for evidence, self-reflection and problem-solving, and thinking more flexibly is the way to not fall into these cognitive thinking bias patterns. It is important to provide a non-judgmental space to help the individual to open up to this process.
As many have started using AI chat boxes to gain therapeutic support and advice, it is also important to remember our own humanity, to sit in silence and that discomfort of life, and to understand ourselves within the context of our life rather than looking for external answers all the time that may or may not be connected to our specific experiences and context.
There are different people who can be sought out for different types of support, from family, to friends, to professionals, to mentors.
As a leader in any position of power, it can help to get to know the people you are leading on an individual level. Get to build trust and understanding and collaboration. Give thoughtful, genuine, and individualized feedback that is personalized and helpful and inspiring on a deeper level.
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Gerald Reid 00:09
Welcome to Season Seven of the Reid Connect-ED podcast co hosted by myself, Dr Gerald Reid, licensed psychologist and my sister Alexis Reid educational therapist. We're a sibling team providing resources on topics related to mental health, education and sport and performance psychology, with an expert and nuanced perspective from our private practices and our various roles as educators, authors and consultants, as well as the wonderful guests we bring on to this podcast.
Alexis Reid 00:37
So Gerald, here we are, season seven, episode one, it's been a long road, and it's been probably one of the most amazing things I think we've ever done, is to come together to talk through our perspectives, bringing in a little bit of our own experiences, not only professionally, but also personally. And today, this episode is all about kind of like setting the scene for where we are right now, you and I have conversations all day long, with clients, with schools, with other therapists, with caregivers, parents, people working in the business world. Across the board, we have this unique opportunity to really gain a lot of different perspectives from different places. But I don't know about you, but I've been hearing some really common themes coming through super loud at this point in time, and here we are, fall 2025 just to set the context a little bit, if you're listening to this later, it still might apply, because we are living in this day and age where we're just inundated with so much information, and as beautiful as it is and wonderful as it is to constantly be learning and engaging and hopefully hearing multiple perspectives, we're ultimately going into this cognitive overload where it's feeling so stressful all the time. And if you're not constantly connected, sometimes you can feel super disconnected. And I've been talking a lot with my clients and so many people, even folks in social media world, whoever's engaging with the content I put out there about this idea of feeling over connected but also disconnected, right? This authenticity piece of how are we genuinely and authentically connecting with each other? Because there's this sense of being connected to the world and possibly each other, but it feels so surface level. It doesn't really feel like it's giving people the things that they crave in life right now, which is genuine care and kindness and support and understanding or just sometimes just being present. So I'm super excited that we get to be here and just be present together to have this conversation.
Gerald Reid 02:52
Yeah, just a wonderful setup to the episode today. One of my patients once said, you know, when I'm using social media or technology, he said, it's, it's kind of like empty calories, you know, empty calories, meaning, like you're not really getting any nutritional benefit from it. You're just, you know, taking something in without anything. You know, any, any true, genuine, you know, meaningful benefits from it sometimes. And, you know, sometimes you send me things that because you're such a student of life, you're so open to learning that you'll send me, you know, information, and send me these messages and like, I even tell you sometimes I'm like, I can't I just, I feel like I'm gonna forget what I'm looking at. Like, literally, tomorrow. Yeah, you know, there's so many news events that happen and it's sad, and part of it is try to just like, I try to pull back and like, what are the themes here? What's the bigger picture? And like the themes that are happening, in some ways, it's kind of how therapy works, right? Like people share a lot of details and a lot of stories. And what I try to do is pull back and see what are the larger themes that can inform how to work with someone.
Alexis Reid 03:51
Yeah, and thinking about cognitive overload, oftentimes, the repercussions of that is that it's really difficult to organize and prioritize all the information coming in, right? Especially if our executive functions are taxed or not fully developed, it makes it even more challenging and difficult to be able to parse apart like, where should my attention go? What is actually important? And I think in this world that we're just constantly inundated with so much information, it's hard to know what we actually care about, because it feels like we're supposed to care about everything, you know. And it's really interesting. I love the idea that your client shared about empty calories. It makes me think about, you know, Sesame Street has cookie monster on the show, and I love his character, just because he's hysterical ever since we were younger, too, but now he's taken on this role of teaching about self regulation, right? How do we actually inhibit pause and make a good decision? And he's like the token executive function character on the show now. So when we think about it, even Cookie Monster is reminding us to pause and think before we make a decision before we interact with information, before we figure out what the information is going to do and how it plays a role in our life. You know, there's this idea of being able to pause and check in with ourselves, which I say quite frequently, not only on the podcast, but in my own life and in my work. How do we pause and check in to be able to decide what we need to figure out, you know, where our resources and energy should go. So, you know, even thinking about Cookie Monster, do we need that cookie now? Or should we wait until later, those dopamine hits that we constantly get from all of this information? Or perhaps, you know, the this lack of authentic connection that when we are connecting with content, it makes us feel like we're connected to a broader community, right? How is this lack of authentic connection permeating the discussions that we have with each other? I mean, it comes up so often with the clients that we talk to every day, when we talk to each other, you know? And it makes me think about, and I hope we can really dive into this, not only here for ourselves, but we hope the audience will also press pause and check in with themselves and think about, you know, what does success actually mean?
Gerald Reid 06:13
Something that's coming to mind as you're talking about this, taking in all this information, trying to prioritize it. What's important? What? Where should my attention go? It's almost like, you know, being on social media, being on the internet, where we're getting all this information. It's kind of like we're a student without a teacher. Great point. And you know, like, when you're a student, you have coach or teacher to provide some sort of structure, guidance, some sort of bigger picture perspective, you know. And I think that's important, because otherwise, you're just, you know, taking in information without having any organization to it. I almost feel, I think I said this to you before, I feel like there should be a graphic organizer for using the internet, because we're taking information we don't know where to put it, you know, let alone, in our brains, let alone, like taking notes about it, or, like, how to hold on to it in a meaningful way, or a way that's more organized, because there's just so much detail and just having, like, a bigger picture, picture perspective. I was talking to my students yesterday, actually, and we were talking about, you know, when you're embarking on a new field and you don't really know anything, I think it's really important to have mentorship, because the mentor has been through situations and experiences they've been through the long term of a career. They can give that younger person perspective on, like, what is good enough? Because, you know, you know that my students are wonderful. I really love them, and they're so, like, passionate and hard working. In some ways, they could be perfectionistic, you know, there's good parts to that, but sometimes it can make you feel like you're never good enough, because you want to be perfect at everything. You want to do something so well, and it's hard to gage, like, what actually is good enough. You just don't know if you don't know what you don't know. So having, like, I was saying, like a teacher or someone who has that larger picture perspective that can put things into perspective and give it more of a context about what you're doing. That type of feedback is really important. And I guess I'm coming back to what you were saying when you have so much information and you don't know what's important or how to put things into context or put it into organizational system. Yeah, it's like going on an adventure without having any clue where you're going or no map to guide you.
Alexis Reid 08:19
And you know, Maria Montessori has this really beautiful idea of, we need to create some limits with flexibility. And, you know, I teach a child growth and development course, and I was just having this conversation the other day too, thinking about, you know, we are in the lives of young people to help to create these boundaries and structures that they can work within that. They can get a little messy, they can make some mistakes, and know that they can bounce off of these boundaries. But in this digital world that we live in, whether you're on social media or not, it's like a rabbit hole of information that's really hard to figure out. What is good information, what's not, what's valuable, what's not, what's maybe guiding you in a certain direction based on certain biases that can interfere. You know, it's really difficult to be able to navigate all this. And to your point, thinking about these, these guidelines and expectations that students and young people and I would, you know, I would stretch it to say all of us adults too, we kind of think that our expectations and our our levels of success are often exceeding what might be realistic and what might be reality, right? Why are we constantly striving to do it all? You know, mom always used to say to me, she's like, Lex, you can pretty much do it all, but you can't actually do it all. She's like, there's gonna be something that drops off. There's gonna be some aspect of what you're focusing on that you're not gonna be able to give 110% that you wanna give, right? And something's gonna fall off somewhere. And I hear this all the time, even with my colleagues and friends, that oftentimes their professional careers might look amazing and they're doing Great, and then there's other aspects of their life that just maybe can't hold up. And why do we think that all aspects of our lives need to be at the same level all the time? Right? I talk about this frequently too, that I don't actually believe that we can find an actual balance. I've been using the term where that we're aiming towards things, rather than even thinking about just the goal as an outcome, because we need to be more process oriented in everything we do. And I see, you know, balance more as a seesaw that you know, sometimes things are going to be a little higher and things are going to be a little lower, and then different times of life, it'll be the opposite direction, and sometimes we might land in the middle, but you know, we have to be really skilled to get there.
Gerald Reid 10:46
Yeah, no doubt. And you know, like people are saying on social media, you only hear the loudest voices, and the loudest voices tend to give one perspective on and it tends to be a more extreme perspective. So when it comes to this topic, you know, you might hear someone say, you have to give your all. We have to go back to old school like, never stop, never give up. Always push yourself to the very limit. And you know, Don't be weak. Don't be soft. And then you hear the other side of it, like, you know, take care of yourself. And like you know, don't push yourself too hard. And and there could be, like, two different extremes of it, rather than nuance, rather than, like, somewhere in the middle, rather than context, right? You know. So you know that if that is, if that's your teacher, you know, if that's your guide, someone you know, saying these things to you through social media, or something that's going to be, you know, the direction that you take. And from our perspective, working with people, we have to remember that everyone's different. Yeah, there was never going to be another. You, there's never going to be another. Me, there's never going to be another. Rob, our producer, there's never going to be another. Every individual, it's impossible to recreate the same person, even if they're cloned, because you will never be in the same space, the same time, context of life. You'll never be with the same people. You never have the same thoughts, the same feelings, the same questions, like, there's so much that makes you specifically who you are, and to me, that's such a beautiful thing, because it informs us, and that's why I love therapy. Like I want to understand you as a person, specifically, individually, and then I can, you know, figure out what's going to work. We can together figure out what's going to work for you. So when you hear things on social media that's kind of like just one sided This is always the case. This is always going to be the case. This is always media in general, right on the news or in magazines or the newspaper, whatever your form of media to get information is for sure. It's the same messages, for sure, right? Yeah, and there's unintended consequences. I'm not saying these people are have malicious intent or trying to do any harm to anybody, or I'm not saying that they're necessarily wrong, even what I'm saying is that, you know, like, someone can take advice, and you take the advice too far, and it's not good advice anymore. Yeah, right. I want to work my hardest. Okay, if I work my hardest, and I'm like, sick, and I'm like, working myself while I'm sick, because I don't want to give up. And I'm like, showing up to work sick, and then everybody else gets sick, and then I get even sicker because I'm pushing myself too far, that good advice is not good advice anymore, totally. You know,
Alexis Reid 13:08
I just had that same conversation with my students where I said, if you need a break, it is okay to say that, right? Just plan ahead. You know, be proactive in sharing. Hey, I think I might need some extra time. I might need to take a step away. I tell my students all the time, I have this young student that I work with now, and, you know, her friends were just a little bit too much, and we were working and practicing saying, Hey, I think I need to take a little space right now. And that comment that language can apply in so many aspects of our life, right? Like, I think I just need some space right now, if you're up against a challenge, if you're feeling overwhelmed, if you are even with people you love and want to be with, and sometimes you're just not in it, in the way you want to be. And it's okay to say, Hey, I think I just need a minute. I need to take a take a little step back and take some space.
Gerald Reid 14:02
And that doesn't mean you're giving up. That means that you're actually going to try to be more intentional in how you're going to respond to the situation, which actually might be more effective in the long run. Anyways, totally it's not a bad thing. It's like, you know, like what we talked about with the Sleep Sleep episode. If you really, truly need a 10 minute nap, you need a 10 minute nap doesn't mean that you're being lazy. Siesta goes a long way. What will happen in 10 minutes? Oh, my God, I lost 10 minutes of my day, and my day is going to be a catastrophe now, because I lost 10 minutes, probably not, and probably you'll be more effective for the rest of the day because you took that 10 minute nap.
Alexis Reid 14:32
Totally okay, so let's pause for a minute. I want to get the audience engaged, because I really want, and I would love for you all to share some comments and thoughts. You could do it through social media or you could email us, but I really want to hear more about like, what is our measure of success in life right now, I want you to, like, press pause and just think about it. Like, what are the metrics that we are like thinking about in terms of how we know how well we're doing, right is it the light count? It's or a number of colleges that kids get accepted to, that's a big part of my life right now, a lot of people are getting their applications together that I work with. Oh, yeah. Is it fame or monetary success or a number of places you've traveled? Is it where you live or how much of something you've collected? Is it about the quality of the relationships that you have? Is it about the people you know you could trust when you need them? Is it about taking those moments where maybe you are disconnecting from all of this digital connection that we're inundated by? You know? What? What are these benchmarks? What are these measures of success I just taught a module on stages of development, and I had to emphasize the fact that, you know, just because these are empirically based in we know that typically we can expect for these developmental milestones to happen at this these different phases of life, it doesn't mean everything's gonna happen in the same way, at the same time for every single child, right? And we need to remind ourselves of that too. But if we are to reflect on ourselves and what matters most to us and what we are aiming for to amplify in our lives, do we even take the time to figure that out? I think we're losing a sense of ourselves by constantly listening and comparing ourselves to everybody else. So I'm gonna, I've been trying to practice a lot of what I preach, which I tend to do, or I try to do at least. And I took some time. I'm trying to build this into more of my days where I just sat with a piece of paper and a pen, and I'm working on some projects where I need to do more writing nice. And instead of writing the thing that I intended, to write something else came up. Yeah? Creativity. I'm going to share it for a moment. Yeah, creativity, when you take the time and space you might end up becoming and doing something creative, which is kind of cool. So I'm going to share this. I'm calling it my soliloquy on society, because I was just kind of sitting and thinking about everything that's been going on, everything I've been hearing and also what I've been experiencing in my own world too.
Alexis Reid 16:34
My soliloquy on society, racing sidewalks, chaotic roads, constantly comparing on our toes, miss the sunsets, rush the raindrops, only caring for what everyone else knows, Forced Connections, inundation, missed opportunities wrapped up in prose. Discourse dissipating, leaning one sided, amplified noise places, no one goes disconnection amidst webs, values, adjacent, masking reality, numbness grows. Words lack meaning. Perfection, expected each move, a sidestep, avoiding malicious blows, wandering and chasing fleeting dreams are wasted, moves mistaken, all happening under our nose, protecting all and no one, cocooned in stagnancy, draped in silence, wishing, waiting for something more.
Gerald Reid 18:14
I love that last part. What does that last part imply?
Alexis Reid 18:18
I feel like we are constantly looking at so many things, hoping that just engaging or interacting with content, images, ideas, is going to make us better or feel better. But I don't think that there's actually much movement, unless you do something with the inspiration that you could take from these images, these experiences, this engagement, so this idea of wishing, waiting for something more. It's like, okay, I watched this. It looks cool. It piqued my interest. Made me feel good for a moment. You get that dopamine hit, and then you're expecting for it to do something else or to sustain you through a different phase or part of the day or your life. But really, I think what I would love to kind of dive more into here Jared, because you have such a an expertise in thinking about thinking from a cognitive behavioral perspective, and in the way in which you train and support the therapists you work with and in your practice to think about like, we can, we can come up with all these ideas, but what do they mean if we do nothing with it?
Gerald Reid 19:30
Yeah, you're taking in so much information, but it's not, it's not truly fulfilling yourself in the long term. It's kind of just the immediate sense of like, stimulation, entertainment, curiosity. But in the long run, it doesn't actually, it's making me think, like, sometimes, like, I've really stopped. I was never really a big scroller on Instagram, and I only started, like, three, four years ago, actually using it. But I've noticed that, like, if I look at something and something pops up because there's, like, an algorithm trying to, like to feed me something that it's an interesting experiment, because you can have a mood before you open Instagram or whatever you're using and just I'm going to encourage everyone to monitor your mood before and after, because whatever pops up is guaranteed to shift your mood in some capacity, whatever it's feeding you. And to me, that's such an interesting thing that, like, I don't know as a person, we're allowing our mood to be manipulated on such a periodic basis, because people are using this social media so much. What an interesting thing. Like, what if we didn't, would our mood fluctuate so much? You know? I mean, because the stuff we're being fed is emotionally evocative in some capacity,
Alexis Reid 20:44
I would say, and I see this a lot in classrooms that I work in, or I'm observing in that, you know, we're talking a lot about digital media and social media, but I'm seeing this play out in real time, in real life too, that our sensitivity to people's perspectives, opinions or information, is often heightened, that we are really letting other like these, the sense of other impact our mood and how we feel and how we show up on such a grand level, almost as if we're interacting with just a screen right in front of us. It's sort of playing out in real life too, where everything is potentially, quote, unquote, triggering, right? Or at least that's the experience, especially of a lot of young people, that when they hear something or they're engaging with something, that sometimes it can feel so big, and it's almost as if we're allowing the other, the sense of other, whether it's content or a person control, the way in which we feel?
Gerald Reid 21:48
What? Yeah, what an interesting point. I wonder if that's partly the reason why. Maybe, I'm not gonna say it's a reason, but maybe there's a correlation between those two things. I'm not sure. But if we're constantly having our moods fluctuate by looking at social media, and it's like up and down, up and down, that maybe that'll, in turn, in real life, makes us feel more sensitive to being triggered more easily or more intensely. I wonder if that's actually making us more sensitive to be being triggered in real life as well, because we're so used to being triggered like through social media because it is triggering our emotions. I mean, it's literally built to do that.
Alexis Reid 22:24
Yeah, yeah. I think it's similar with, like, the conversations around video games that you know, in a video game, you're getting so much feedback, so constantly, so immediately, that when you're outside of that environment, the digital environment of a video game, you might be seeking that information, and it doesn't come as readily and as quickly in the real world. That's such a good point. I'm constantly thinking about this, especially in terms of learning, because we're seeing learners who might appear disengaged, but their brains might be craving and wanting something else that they're not necessarily getting. Or when they get feedback in the real world, it can feel like disarming or scary, or, you know, it can feel like so many different things, because it's not maybe expected in the same way. Oh, yeah, good point, right? There's this predictability in a video game or in a digital environment versus in the real world, when a lot of things are unpredictable, yeah, for sure. For sure.
Gerald Reid 23:21
Yeah, it's all, it's all, it's all really interesting. I mean, we're living in, you know, it's a different it's a different way of living right now.
Alexis Reid 23:28
Yeah, it's a different world. But I think it's just a lot of things have gotten amplified that maybe we didn't always notice in the past, or maybe a lot of people just kept on the inside where you kind of felt a little bit more alone. I mean, I think the same goes with understanding mental health, right? We're hearing about it from so many different corners that a lot of people are thinking, you know, I'm feeling bad right now, therefore there must be something wrong with me. And I think this is another piece of the puzzle of what we're experiencing. Why? I'm going to just say there's a lot of people feeling a lot of feels, yeah, of course, right, not only because of the status of uncertainty in our world, and we won't talk about current events at the moment, but just acknowledge that there's lot of things happening, but also that I think a lot of people are feeling the same in themselves. And I think it all goes back to the taking time to really understanding ourselves and and recognizing what's important to us real quick.
Gerald Reid 24:25
I mean, I also feel like when you're exposed to such such large scale issues in the world that are certainly upsetting, it can make you feel like worrying about yourself is like, in some ways stigmatized. It's like, Why are you worrying about yourself? Like, these are, there's, there's worse things going on in the world. And again, it's like that extreme, like, either or happening, where it's like, you know, people like the kids I work with, some of them, who are very sensitive and, you know, Justice oriented, and they're such kind souls, they feel like guilt, right, like or shame for for any for not, you know, not suffering as much as somebody else is, or not being able to do anything about these existential, large scale problems that they're exposed to on a daily basis. I don't blame them for feeling anxious all the time because of this dynamic that they've been born into. And you know, part of life and part of being a therapist is helping people to balance out, to find balance more right when there's an extreme right, when someone's kind of constantly worrying about and feeling guilty or shame about the fact that they can't do anything to fix these societal issues that you know, and to find balances like, what way can you contribute in? What way can you also disengage to take care of yourself? And both things are equally important. It doesn't have to be an either or, it's an integration. you know so and also to be mindful that social media is is built to be addictive.
Alexis Reid 25:59
So, so a lot of things are 100% - psychology and marketing often will skew things to make you think they're important when they might not actually be
Gerald Reid 26:09
well, even if they are important, like, so to my point, like, if you're looking at societal issues that truly are important, you're going to be fed the information in such a way that it's going to make you addicted to wanting more, and you're going to feel like, Oh, because I'm learning more, I'm a better person, or be or therefore I'm more informed, and I need to be informed. This is, like, a good thing for me to be more informed. But the reality is, you know, again, this is all about balance. You're becoming addicted to looking and looking and looking, and that's actually probably not healthy for your your mental health and and you're basically being manipulated, right? I'm not saying don't look at these things. I'm saying that it's built to manipulate you to want to constantly look at it, which you know so much of that is going to be extreme in terms of how you're expending your energy and how it's affecting your emotional state, which is in some ways, kind of sacrificing your own well being. And also you're going to feel even more helpless, and these kids feel helpless. And helpless is not a healthy state for kids to feel, you know, it's a scary, vulnerable state, not to mention that they're not really being independent anymore and feeling they can like we talked about this in the parenting anxiety episode that's going to be coming out. Kids are, you know, Dr Jonathan Haidt talks about this, kids losing a sense of independence, going out and doing things in their community, getting a job or making decisions for themselves, or, you know, just making, you know, doing things independently. They've lost that a lot this generation of kids, which also makes you more fearful and feel helpless, especially once they go away to college and they like, are, like, thrown into being fully independent.
Alexis Reid 27:39
Wow. You brought up, like so many different threads that I want to go down, but I want to think about what you just said, because I'm experiencing experiencing this a lot too, where a lot of young people are really fearful of doing things that when we were younger just were like the norm, whether it be, you know, walking home from, you know, hanging out with friends, or from school, or, you know, engaging in an activity that you might not have tried before, going on bike rides, you know, even getting their permits or driver's license, there's a lot of fear around doing things wrong. But I think it's, you know, this idea of, how do we regulate ourselves enough to take on these developmental challenges that happen throughout childhood and adolescence and even into young adulthood? How do we help to prepare these young people's this generation that we're looking at who you know, you and I say this all the time, are incredibly empathetic. They are so kind and wise, somewhat in part, because they're exposed to so much information, things that we would have had to learn from encyclopedias at the library they have at their fingertips all the time. You know, we are seeing these really beautiful attributes of these young people, but it's also veiled, like in my poem, in silence and fear sometimes right where they feel stifled. So I want us to talk a little bit about this, and I want us to get clearer about some terminology, because I would say that one of the most important skills to be able to be taught, supported and developed, not just for young people, but also for adults. I'm calling it like a superpower, that I think if people have it, they can pretty much take on any challenge and be in any situation, is self regulation, right? And self regulation kind of gets, like, thrown into, you know, this whole amalgam of, like, emotional regulation and inhibition and self regulation, and it's kind of tough to tease apart. But I really love the way you define it and talk about it through the lens of CBT cognitive behavioral therapy. And I wonder if you can share a little bit about that. because it involves something that we tend to forget, that our brains are not fully developed until we're into our 20s, sometimes 30s, right? Where our ability to be able to use our executive function skills, which you'll describe a little bit more in a minute, are still in progress, right? We're still working on strengthening them, and when we are stressed or fearful or worried, shuts them down. It shuts them down. It makes it even more difficult to activate the skill that allows for us to regulate. So I wonder if you could share a little bit about that.
Gerald Reid 30:37
Yeah, it's interesting. You describe it as a superpower, in some ways, it allows us to be intentional and to kind of act out our free will to make decisions. Certainly, there could be, you know, difference in terms of morally, what self regulation is used for. You can regulate yourself and do things that could be harmful to other people, you know, so there's fit into a box that maybe somebody else has defined for you, versus, yeah, yeah, it can get tricky, for sure, right? But the idea of self regulation, you know, regardless of to what end it's used for, is an important skill to develop, because, you know, the hope is that people have, you know, a purposeful, meaningful, positive end goal that they're that they're kind of moving towards, or values that they're moving towards. Self regulation allows you to to move towards it more effectively, rather than, you know, live a more chaotic life that's more reactive, right? I call it like an evolution of self right? We start off as young children, and we develop skills. We have different experiences. We're exposed to different wisdom and knowledge and information, and we learn and we grow, and sometimes be able to learn from these opportunities that are in front of us. We need to regulate, yeah. I mean, so, I mean, like you said, self regulation applies to literally everything in life. Yeah, you know, you want to learn something in school, you have to be able to, you know, refocus your attention. You need to be able to recognize when you're confused and and manage your anxiety to ask for help or to ask a question. You know, there's the ability to recognize that you need to take a break and stop yourself. And you know, even just recognize you got to use the bathroom, right? Sometimes kids with like ADHD who or kids with attentional challenges, they they don't even use the bathroom because they're not regulating their mind enough to realize, oh, wait, I have to check in with my body. How's my body feel? Oh, I have to go to the bathroom. And that's like, you know, kind of a challenge they fall into because they're having a hard time self regulating. Self regulation, you know, as we talked about in other episodes, relates to relationships, right? It relates to being able to pause in a in a conversation, hear each other out, involves understanding another person's perspective like it's literally just the ability to not be so immediately reactive. And a lot of times we're reactive because emotions, emotions, you know, from a cognitive behavioral therapy standpoint, emotions drive behavior, and it's kind of an evolutionary idea about why that happens, right? If you're anxious, anxiety functionally drives you to avoid or fight, right? The fight or flight you either avoid, run away or you fight. And the whole point of that is because it's a function of survival, right? We're anxious because we're afraid of, you know, being threatened in some way, and we need to survive. So we have anxiety to help us survive. The problem with that is that, you know, our anxiety can kind of hijack what we believe is a true threat, and what's, you know, maybe not a true threat, so it can make us overreact to situations. But self regulation helps us to manage these emotions, and there's different ways to do that. And from my perspective, in terms of managing your emotions to regulate I always think about it as two different versions. There's proactively being able to regulate your emotions, and then, and then, there's another way to respond after you feel an emotion, so it's either before you feel the emotion. I think that there's a way to regulate your emotions proactively, and the way to do that in my perspective, from my perspective, and from, you know, kind of a therapy perspective, is actually to process why this experience triggers you to feel anxiety in the first place. So for like, let's say the child who's in class is afraid to ask for help, right? It's important not only to help them when they get anxious, to calm themselves down. Take some deep breaths, slow their mind down, use mindfulness, whatever, to relax and calm and kind of reduce the intensity of anxiety so they can do something brave. But it's also important, from my perspective, to before the situation actually happens, haven't have a more in depth conversation and or reflection with yourself to say, Wait, why? What is the reason this triggers me to have such intense anxiety from the first place? And in therapy, what I try to do is I try to look at all the different reasons. There could be a lot of different reasons. It could be the way that it could be an attentional bias, meaning that their attention could be focused on maybe that one mean kid in class who they're thinking, Oh, if I ask a question, that one person's going to make fun of me, even if that person won't even care, right? There's going to be an intentional bias to look for a threat, to look for a reason that and maybe some other kid got teased for asking a question, like, you know, a month ago, and you kind of have a biased attention to remembering that one memory. And you think, oh, that's going to happen to me. So that's one piece of it, that attentional bias. You're kind of looking for reasons that something horrible is going to happen, that something bad is going to happen. I going to happen.
Alexis Reid 35:42
I love that you said that, and I in my mind, as you're describing, you know, a young kid in a classroom I'm seeing like a whole series of like different experiences throughout life, that that same situation could happen, right from an athlete on a team who might have missed a direction and didn't interpret, you know, an instruction the same way that others might have received it. Student in the classroom, somebody at their first job, you know, they're nervous just because they're doing something for the first time and there's a lot of pressure, or the stakes are higher than they ever have been. And then I'm also thinking about, you know, parenting. Parents are trying to figure it out every single day that sometimes they can fall into that trap too. Or, you know, a veteran who's been in a job forever, and suddenly the landscape of that position or the company has shifted and changed. You know, I can see it happening across so many different phases of life, and I really appreciate that example, especially for the educators out there who might not even realize why somebody's not asking something. And the other thing I just want to point out too is that sometimes, you know, we don't really discriminate. Our brains don't discriminate. When this is going to happen. There might be a student who might have asked a question or asked for clarification before, so you know they have the skill to do it, but in this situation where you know, the worry, the stress, and to the extreme, the anxiety that comes over this individual in this situation can shut down the experience that even though they have the skill, they can't actually put it into play
Gerald Reid 37:22
totally and so, like an example that like, and this is why it's proactively important to, kind of, I almost like reflect on your experiences and say, Oh, these are my patterns. Oh, this is kind of why I get triggered in this situation, but not that situation. So for example, like, let's say, you know, the first class is when the kid's more anxious. Okay, I would try to analyze that. What is it about the first class?
Alexis Reid 37:45
Oh, my favorite, too. And you mentioned the sleep episode, and I want to, I want to, like, have, like every other episode to be about sleep. Because, number one, I'm working on my sleep every day. Number two, it impacts everything. So if it's the first class of the day, guess where my brain immediately goes. How they sleep that night? Yeah, are they morning people? Like, what were they worried about going into this day? What happened yesterday that's still with them? From you know that that experience or interaction
Gerald Reid 38:13
totally and knowledge is power. So if so, even for an adult, right? Let's say that they didn't sleep so well, or they're just not a morning person. So if they can know that about themselves, they show up to work, they're just like, kind of not energized yet, and they know that there's a pattern that they get a little bit more anxious around people in the morning. Then they can say, oh, that's why I'm feeling this way. I'm actually just not awake yet. So I can just kind of ride that out until I wake up, or maybe I can do something to get my energy up, and that will help to self regulate, rather than just continuing this, like pattern over and over every day, like Groundhog's Day, and just getting upset. You know, Groundhog's Day is a great example of this. You know, if you see the movie Groundhog's Day, now that I'm thinking about it, popped in my head. It's like Bill Murray goes through the same day over and over. I love a good Bill Murray reference. Well, he's that, and he's like this irritable, grouchy guy, and he keeps reacting negatively to these situations. And the movie is really interesting. I guess it is kind of like cognitive behavioral therapy. He somewhat, I don't know how it happens, but he repeats the same day over and over and over. The same things keep happening. He keeps getting irritated and upset and grouchy, but then he begins to reflect on these experiences and says, Wait, like, why am I getting so grouchy? Why am I reacting this way? Maybe I can shift the way I'm thinking about the situation, and by doing so, oh, my day goes a bit better. It's kind of a more of an upward spiral rather than a downward spiral. And all that happened was he proactively reflected on these patterns and tried to understand how he was processing it, and he made some shifts. Yeah, so he didn't change himself. He just changed. He just made some shifts in terms of how he's going about these situations.
Alexis Reid 39:55
And inherently, there was nothing wrong with him. It was just, you know, sometimes there's a reasonable reaction of frustrating moments. Right? Sometimes it's okay to be frustrated or be grumpy, but we get to choose. Right? Is what you're saying, is we get to choose if we continue those patterns or if we want to make a tweak or a little shift. And you know, my my my introduction in my example of one of my clients that I'm working with who is practicing saying, Hey, I just need a moment. I need to take some space, right that is being able to notice you need something to be able to regulate, and I have to say, and you know, I'm guilty of this sometimes too, I have a long day, and even though I would much prefer to pick up a book or cook a meal or go for a walk, sometimes I pick up my phone because it's right there. Yeah, and is it actually helping me to regulate or is it over stimulating my brain to actually heighten the experience of what I was feeling before? And I think this is where things are getting convoluted. And I want to just say, you know, thinking about self regulation, I love the way you described it. And thank you for bringing your perspective and expertise through this mental health and therapy mindset. The way I see it is that we have these cognitive skills through the executive function lens of inhibition, right? Can we pause to check and then the self regulation part is like, oh, something's up. I need to pay attention and be in tune with my emotions so that I can have some self control in this situation to figure out what I need, right? It doesn't mean to to mask or to dilute any emotion or feeling or experience you're having, we're just simply saying we need to investigate sometimes what that's telling us.
Gerald Reid 41:49
Yeah, and there's like a there's a little bit of a deeper level to CBT as well, which gets into evolving your beliefs in some ways. Let me give an example. Some you know, we were talking about this in class. I was asking people to bring up examples of, you know, people they might work with, who have, you know, let's say they're worried about something, they're anxious about something, and they brought up like an athlete, an athlete's afraid to make a mistake because they're afraid that their their coach is going to lose trust in them, and they're and therefore they're going to lose playing time, and therefore they're never going to play again. And therefore, you know, they're going to lose any value to their parents, because their parents, you know, are completely, you know, immersed in his identity, and therefore he's going to have no value. And ultimately, the belief there is that if I strike out, I have no value to other people, I don't belong anymore, right? So there's this belief that I have to have some sort of value to another person in order to feel like I belong, like I have to give something to be able to get appreciation or belonging, right, which is a slippery slope, right? That means that everything's transactional.
Alexis Reid 42:58
Yeah, that taps into what Dr Ellen Hendrickson was talking about on the perfectionism episode. And you know, that's a great one to go into, because it brings in this idea of this social anxiety that we are constantly assessing threats that might impact how people view us or how we're being integrated into a community. And you know, this idea of being disconnected in this overly connected world is that, you know, we're constantly trying to get feedback on how we fit in to communities, how we fit into these systems and networks of people and energy that I think people are really like searching for (it's almost like we're being sorted into categories through social media right now). Oh my goodness, it's so dystopian. I don't want to go there. (I mean, that's kind of scary). It is. But, you know, Dr Brackett has been talking a lot about this and thinking about how we're in this fear epidemic, that we're constantly fearful of doing something wrong, and I think it plays into this idea of perfectionism on so many levels. Whether you're a student or an athlete or, you know, you're working for company or you're working for yourself, right? There's this idea of, like, Am I doing all the things that I should be doing? Because everybody's doing so much more. How do I make myself unique. I actually hear this a lot from the high school students I work with who are making, who are putting together their college applications. You know, the experiences that really have shaped them in their lives. They're looking at and saying, Oh, this is too basic. Or, you know, this is just vanilla. This is not going to be something that sets me apart from other students applying to these same schools, and it actually makes me feel kind of sad, because you don't need to have this big, miraculous experience to be a unique individual and to have an important role in life,
Gerald Reid 44:54
yes, like you can be special to literally your parent. And I know that sounds cliche Right? But like, that's kind of a nice thing, yeah? You know, like, you're unique to that. You're unique to your best friend, and like they love you because of X, Y and Z within the context of their life, yeah? As opposed to, as you're saying, I think when there's so much pressure, people feel like they have to go to extremes to be different, and they'll do some extreme thing, like even on social media or something as a reaction to this kind of like sorting or this categorization, which, and as you're saying, misses the point. Like we are all unique. As I said earlier, we are all unique in very nuanced ways. And that is enough sometimes, and your uniqueness may change over time too. Like you don't have to force being like unique in your own way, you have to kind of maybe evolve into how you're going to grow and become unique in some other way that that doesn't happen, maybe until you're an adult or something. Who knows?
Alexis Reid 45:50
I think one of the things that is hindering that ability for not just young people, especially young people, because their brains are still developing. They haven't had enough experiences. They haven't created these neural networks and systems to support them to be good problem solvers and expert thinkers yet, but for all of us that, you know, I think we have this, this hyper sensitive reactivity that we discussed before, which is leading to dysregulation, which is why I do think self regulation is Such a superpower. And you know, it's about being able to inhibit and pause. This is why I love executive functions and the work I do. I feel so blessed and grateful to be able to dive into this and help support people with understanding it, because I think it helps them to understand themselves, right? Like, how do we get comfortable with the uncomfortable? How do we aim to be curious enough to become familiar with the unfamiliar, and that really does take this pause to inhibit and assess the situation, like you were saying before, but not just reacting to everything, not just reacting to everything. Like is this an actual threat? And if it is on whatever level of your experience that it feels threatening or triggering to you, you know, how do we actually press pause to self soothe? Enough, so I wanted to ask you this question too. Jerry through your work, and I have examples myself, but you know, what do you recommend to some of the patients that you work with, whether they're athletes or college students or young adults or adults or even kids, right, like to be able to, you know, check in. There's, there's a lot of conversation around, you know, there's some amazing research, actually, on journaling being beneficial. We have tons of studies on mindfulness and meditation. But I wonder, in your practice, like, what are some of the go tos? And of course, they won't work for everybody all the time, yeah, but I think it's helpful for folks to have some examples of what it means to self soothe, to self regulate, which leads to self regulation, right?
Gerald Reid 47:51
Yeah. So, you know, I think there is a level of acceptance that allows people to do what you're saying, to inhibit and pause. You know, like we react strongly to situations when we feel like we don't want to accept it, and it takes courage to try to accept things even if we don't like it, and it takes perspective. So, you know, what I try to do in therapy is to help people to pull back even with their problem, like they have a problem they're coming to me with. And my students were saying this, you know, like, when do I want to begin to help make changes with my patient and my client? I said, be careful with that. You don't want to try to help people change quickly, because part of it is they have to process what is actually happening in the first place, and be aware of what they're working with. And you don't want to try to be like, okay, change this too quickly, because it may not be, you know, the most appropriate way to help them to make a shift, because you don't have enough information yet, or they haven't come to terms with it yet, or accepted the fact that this is, you know what's happening, and this is why it's happening, like, even in a relationship, right? Like if someone like your friend is doing something that bothers you, right? If you aren't able to accept that maybe that's just like their personality or or maybe that this problem isn't going to get fixed immediately, that maybe you'd have to have multiple conversations for that you know, to get fixed then, then you might be more regulated. Because if everything feels like, like an all or nothing in every situation, like it has to be a fixed now, you know, like life has to be perfect now, or or things have to work now, then there's no acceptance that that's just not reality. And then you're gonna kind of like, resist reality, which makes you more, you know, dysregulated.
Alexis Reid 49:41
I would say that we a lot of it is probably attributed to not feeling comfortable, sitting with discomfort, yeah, because we're constantly going to something else, because we have, you know, technology especially so readily available. I am Guilty of this sometimes too. So if you see me in the street and I'm on my phone I get it. I'm trying to be more mindful of it. I think we're all guilty of this sometimes, that whenever I see somebody waiting, somebody sitting at a dinner table at a restaurant, they're on their phones consistently for long periods of time, instead of being present in a moment. It is the same as seeing somebody with a pacifier in their mouth, yeah, because we are using technology to regulate and self soothe, we are uncomfortable being uncomfortable. So what you're saying is actually related to that, is that, you know, the phone has become an object of self soothing, you know, and it becomes representative of, oh, this makes me feel better. Okay, so a pacifier is maybe a little extreme, because you don't want, you know, somebody's past a certain age to have a pacifier in their mouth, but it might be a security blanket, right? And for some people, it's really important to have that object that helps them to self soothe. This is what I, you know, I describe in my course, the different levels and different versions of self regulation, that you can have external regulation, right, which does come from even a person, an object, a person, we all need that, yeah. I mean, I call that CO regulation, right, where you can have somebody, and I say this to parents, caregivers and coaches all the time, that sometimes you know you just need to be present. And DBT does a really good job of saying like, do you just want me to be present and listen or just be with you in this moment? Problems rather than problem solving? Right? Because sometimes you need to correlate and sometimes you do need to problem solve. But that's not always the answer. Sometimes to regulate we need to take that time, whether it's, you know, sitting on the side of the river and just watching the water pass by, or looking up at the sky and looking at the clouds, that's one of my favorite things to do. Or just, you know, doing a mindfulness exercise when you're just present, listening,
Gerald Reid 51:53
yeah, like, it's like, you know, everything has to be cool now. It's like, not cool to, like, sit there and just like, look at the sky.
Alexis Reid 52:00
Hey, listen. I say we're bringing it back. I had somebody that an old friend of mine, who messaged me on social media the other day and said, the thing I like to do is this, and I try not to have my phone when I'm around other people, but I'm the only one. And I said, we're bringing it back. Let's go.
Gerald Reid 52:18
Here's the funny part, like if literally, someone famous put a hashtag, hashtag, look at the clouds, it would be guaranteed that everybody would be up looking at the clouds. The trend.
Alexis Reid 52:29
Well, if you are in Boston or any other place that I'm in, if I see people that are looking down at their phones as they're walking, I will, like, quietly, whisper, look up, not just that the clouds. Maybe that's as dangerous as looking down at a poem. But you know, we're missing, and it's part of the poem. We're missing so much. We're rushing the raindrops because we want to get to the good days and the better weather. But how important is the rain?
Gerald Reid 52:54
There's so much of our lives that we don't realize even when there are, like, you know, big events that happen in life, like the majority of life, are not those big events.
Alexis Reid 53:02
Oh my gosh, yeah. I mean, that goes back to what does success mean, right? I think success is, you know, I went to yoga earlier, and I felt my whole body just relax. That was success for me, right? Because it's difficult to relax in this world where we are so over stimulated by so much. You know, even without having technology in front of us, sometimes it's hard just to rest and relax, and that is the thing that nurtures us, right? We can. We can have a million vitamins and a million tools and a million metrics to tell us how we're doing, yeah. But the reality is, is we need to find moments of rest and authentic connection, right? And this is where I think this idea of how we build resilience is in knowing ourselves, knowing what we need, and having some hope and faith that we have people around us that can help get us through situations that sometimes feel uncomfortable, whether you're waiting onlin or you're sitting at a dinner table, or you are going through a very serious moment in your life.
Gerald Reid 54:12
Yeah, totally, yeah. So let's go back a little bit to, you know, from like a CBT standpoint, cognitive behavioral therapy just ways to self regulate, like I said, it's good to proactively prepare for situations, rather than just, you know, okay, I'm anxious now. I have to take deep breaths and, like, calm my nerves down, right? That is one way we do want, as you said, self soothe the emotion. That is important to be able to, you know, reactively say, Oh, well, I'm feeling this way. I need to, kind of, like, take care of myself and monitor, like, regulate it, right? But I think it's also equally important, like I said, proactively before you're in the situation. It's kind of like, you know, I think some patient a long, long time ago said it's kind of like, you know, it's like, half time in a half time in a basketball game, the coaches, you know, talking to you and planning, okay, this is going to happen. Here's how we're going to approach it. When this happens, we're going to be in this situation. Here's the play, here's the strategy, right? It was a nice metaphor that she came up with. I like that, but yeah, I mean, in some ways, that's what therapy is. You learn from your experiences. Oh, this is how I think. This is my way of thinking, this is my perspective. These are my assumptions. These are my expectations. These are my beliefs that get activated in this type of situation, which in turn triggers the emotion. And so if I can begin to make shifts around these thoughts, beliefs, expectations, assumptions, ways of thinking and therefore I can shift the emotional state, right? It's kind of like cognitive behavioral therapy says, you know, you can't just magically make your feelings change, but you can shift your thought process, and you can shift your behaviors, which in turn help your feelings to be better self regulated, to be better regulated, you know. So there's a lot of different examples, you know, in terms of what that looks like, even you know, when you're feeling down or sad, right? You can say, well, you know, Thursday night is, I tend to feel really down on Thursday nights. It's like, okay, well, what is it about Thursday nights? Well, it's been a long week, been working hard. Maybe there's nothing to do that night. So you begin to like, you know, take the context into consideration. You know, maybe you know you don't feel like making a meal, so you end up eating food that's not great, and you feel even worse. So you begin to, like, take into consideration, and your thoughts. Begin to think, oh, like, think bad thoughts about yourself, like, judge yourself. You know, there's a whole slew of ways people can judge themselves, or think horrible things about themselves, or, you know, feel all these negative thoughts about themselves, right? And that that, in turn, that thought process could trigger all this types of like sadness, despair, loneliness, frustration, anger, right? And so the idea behind that is, well, let's pull back and and see what the pattern is. The pattern is Thursday tends to be when this happens the most. Let's analyze Thursday nights, and let's begin to help you to shift your thoughts and your behaviors and those in those on Thursday nights, so that that despair, that anger, that loneliness, doesn't get so so intense. And I'm not going to say what that, you know, that could look different for different people. You know, the person might think more flexibly, right? Maybe instead of immediately thinking, oh, you know I have, you know, I'm judging myself for this reason, and here's all the reasons why, maybe they stop thinking that way. They think a little bit differently. Maybe they, you know, do something that's more enjoyable that time. You know, during that time of the week, maybe they reached out to a friend and have a conversation, or maybe they just proactively plan something so that they don't kind of fall into that same pattern. But again, it's like those, those beliefs start to crop up in those moments like, Oh, I'm a terrible person, I'm a loser, I'm this, I'm that, right? Those beliefs are powerful. They're going to make you feel even worse. It's really important to kind of like to sort of address that and to begin to shift it. When the person's ready, though, you know, in therapy, the person really has to be ready and willing and want to shift their thought process, shift their behaviors. You know, nobody can really force them to do that. You know, we're there to support and give them the opportunity to make these shifts and to give them a sense of hope and validation. Why? You know you're not we're not judging you for falling into this sense of depression every you know, just being human, this is what humans do. We're just giving the opportunity to process it and find ways to shift and to understand, you know, where it's coming from. So you can make some shifts.
Alexis Reid 58:40
So as you can imagine, in my mind, I'm thinking cognitive flexibility is one of the most sophisticated cognitive skills under the umbrella of executive function skills. And what you're saying makes so much sense, right? As an adult, I can say, oh, I can check the facts and be like, Oh, what is my brain telling me? Right now that actually isn't true. I'm not a terrible person, because I feel terrible, right? I just might be tired, I didn't have a good day, or I'm feeling drained from the week. I don't have the resources to help carry me through this moment. But a young person, or somebody who might be overly anxious and more rigid in their thinking, what would you suggest they do in these situations where they're caught in their own thinking traps?
Gerald Reid 59:25
Yeah. So like, let's say somebody like their friend or someone they want to be friends with just decides to not reach out to them, right? They're automatically going to think, Oh, my God, that person doesn't like me. They don't want me, my friend. Yep. And so that's an extreme thought, right? To say, like, oh, they hate me. Here's all the reasons why they hate me, right? Jumping to conclusions, thinking the worst, because the friend, that person they want to be friends with, or, you know, just didn't reach out to them or didn't respond to them. And so, you know, you want to begin to try to have flexibility in that thought. Okay, what are some other possibilities? And some of those other possibilities of thinking still may not be ideal, and that's part of acceptance. It's very possible that the other person maybe just doesn't want to be your best friend. Maybe they're just going to be an acquaintance or a casual friend, and maybe that's just their preference. And if you can't accept that, probably you're going to continue to be frustrated and angry about it.
Alexis Reid 1:00:17
Oh, that's interesting. This is where you were saying before about the acceptance piece, to be able to change your thinking is really important too, and I just want to highlight that, because sometimes, like, you know, what we accept is what we see. You know, Todd Rose has this book about collective illusions and some of the psychology behind where our beliefs come from, especially when we're like, shown all this information about what what we think others think, yeah, is important. It's, it's really interesting to be able to challenge these thoughts. Because just because we think other people think, it doesn't mean they're true, totally right. And it might also mean, and you have some great examples from the work you do, and one of your clients shared this with group one day thinking about, you know, he walked into work one day thinking everybody was judging him, when in reality, I had nothing to do with him right? But I think a lot of it comes from experience. But one of the other things that I think is so helpful in in coping is is sometimes we have to check the facts. And to be fair, I'm thinking back of my comment about a cell phone looks like a pacifier. I don't mean to be so judgmental about it, because, you know, a cell phone also can be a great tool, right? Tools are only as important as we use them, yes, and a cell phone could be, you know, I want to know what's coming. Let me do some research before I enter this situation. Let me coordinate with somebody that's going to help me through this situation, right? I don't want to be so judgy, right, and say everybody with a cell phone in their hand all the time is is just avoiding reality or trying to pacify an emotional state. There are pros and cons to everything, and most especially for individuals with disability, a cell phone literally helps them navigate their entire lives, and we want to be super mindful of how this tool can be incredibly powerful.
Gerald Reid 1:02:07
So let's, let's, let's take this example, though. Let's say this person, right? The friend didn't respond to them, and they're really upset. Oh my god, person hates me. What's wrong with me? Right? And if they go and let's say they use social media and they're like, Okay, what's the reason why someone wouldn't get back to you? They're gonna get all these types of like info. Types of like information answers. And the reality could just, you know, part of this is just thinking through it in a flexible way, rather than the automatic thought. The automatic thought tends to be more of an extreme thought when you're really upset and activated, right? And so, as I said, like part of it could be just accepting the reality of what the relationship is, part of it could be reflecting on themselves. And if they're like, well, maybe I did something that was like, upsetting to the person they don't like me anymore, like even that you can analyze. Okay, well, what does that mean that you did something they didn't like? Does that mean that you're a horrible person they're never gonna like forgive you? Well, no, maybe it's as simple as you just acknowledge it and say, Hey, sorry about that. You know, didn't mean to do that. And you know, and maybe things get better, right? Yeah, as opposed to like, I'm a horrible person. I have this history of like, people not liking me, and people are never gonna like me and this and that. And also, another version could be, hey, go find other people who you do drive with and get along with, who your personalities match with. But that's all flexibility, rather than that immediate thought and belief of all these extreme negative, you know, interpretations of what's happening, and that just takes time for people to process. And I don't just immediately, I don't just tell people, hey, that thought is wrong, like That's absurd. You're thinking that because that's judgmental. And first of all, we all do this. So you want to try to understand where people are coming from and where these thoughts come from, and then just give them the space and the opportunity to feel comfort, and, you know, that sense of security to explore other, other possibilities.
Alexis Reid 1:03:53
So I two other things that keep coming up. One is more extreme than the other. So stay with me for a moment. You know, a lot of people nowadays are using AI to ask for advice and say, hey, this person isn't responding to me. What are some reasons this person might not be responding to me? And I just want to put out a caution that we've talked about AI as a really helpful tool in a lot of situations. Yeah, but it also can be pretty detrimental, because, you know, first of all, sometimes I can be people pleasers. I heard somebody describe it as narcissistic, which is kind of interesting to think about, and we can unpack that another time. But you know, sometimes they can, I could also report back things that are inaccurate and can potentially be harming so I want to just put out that caution that if you are seeking information to figure out what might be the case, what might be the situation, it's probably best to talk to somebody who knows the person that you're worried about, because there might be something else going on in their world that has nothing to do with you for that situation, right? So it's probably more helpful Yeah, to reach out to another person who understands the situation, understands maybe where your worry might be coming from, from experience, the context of it, and knows the person. The other thing that keeps coming up a lot in my work is I keep joking with everybody I'm like, your new middle name is Grace And every single time I say that, I get a smile, which makes me so happy, because I keep reminding everybody, and I'm constantly reminding myself too jar, that we need to give ourselves more grace. We are human. We are all figuring it out every day, even you and I, who have so much knowledge and experiences, and we've been trained by incredible mentors, and we're constantly learning ourselves, because we certainly don't know it all either. We need to also press pause and give ourselves grace and remember that life is a process and a journey, and our journeys Do not ever completely perfectly mimic others. It is all about our experience, on our time, to be able to work towards, like I said before, like the greatest version and expression of ourselves, our own individual and independent evolution in life. And that can look different depending on what you believe. Right? We haven't even touched on, like, cultural influences on all of this, either cultural influences, our values, like you said, our beliefs, the experiences that we've had, the things that we carry with us, the things we've learned and been exposed to. Right? We don't know what we don't know. Yeah, and we need to be mindful not to judge ourselves or judge others before we are able to press pause to check in, to see what we really need to be able to see how we move forward. And I'm going to encourage everybody to take that moment, to press pause, sit in silence, sit in that discomfort. And you know, if you're really feeling uncomfortable, if you like music, not everybody does put on some music, right? Baby steps, we can scaffold the experience of being uncomfortable with discomfort, right? You can have maybe somebody sitting with you, or you can have music on, or you can be out in nature. All of these things have been empirically studied and shown to be able to help reduce some of this discomfort and dysregulation that oftentimes, I would say, more often than not, we are experiencing and feeling in our world. And I want us to all think about the fact that we have options. I know, a lot of times, things can feel so unpredictable and so heavy, either in our more immediate worlds, or in our distal, more like expansive worlds, that it can feel like we don't have control over anything. But I really want, and I think you agree too, I want to remind everybody that we actually have more control over things than we think we have control over. And when we think about self regulation as a superpower. How are we going to activate that superpower in different situations and in different ways? And I would encourage you in low stakes situations where you have time to sit in discomfort, to figure out, like, Oh, it doesn't feel good to be by myself. It doesn't feel good to wait online without touching my phone. It doesn't feel good to sit on public transportation. You know? What do I need right now? Try not to like catastrophize it, right? And maybe it is with it a little bit. And maybe it is our technology, right? Or maybe it is listening to some music. Maybe it is connecting with somebody who can help you feel safe and comfortable in a moment. Or maybe it's about building these skills, this repertoire, these tools within ourselves, so that we get to know ourselves a little bit better, so that we can figure out what we need in different circumstances, to be able to navigate the world that we live in, and also to be able to ask for what we need. Because I think another piece of this too, going back to where we started, is we're in an overly connected world, but feeling disconnected from authentic connections, right? So knowing that there are people you know if if your family or friends aren't giving you what you need, there are professionals out there. There are other folks out there that care, that will show care and kindness and compassion. And it might not always be from the person that you expect it to be from, but you can seek it and find it somewhere, in some way and somehow,
Gerald Reid 1:09:36
totally Yeah, different people have different things to give. I think I said this in an earlier episode, is great that we have different personalities, because that means we have different ways of giving love and support to each other in different ways.
Alexis Reid 1:09:49
So I always say to my clients, oftentimes when they feel very stuck, we have a few options. And I can name a million different options, but I like to keep it real Simple, because when we're feeling anxious and worried, it's hard to take on too many options. We can get the paralysis of choice. But if we keep it simple, we can think about we can either move forward, we can move backwards, or we can stay where we are. And sometimes it's okay to be where we are and be okay, but sometimes we might need to make, as you mentioned before, these little tweaks to be able to regulate and decide what we want to do moving forward
Gerald Reid 1:10:29
totally and all the employers and coaches and people like running people, in some ways, managing people try to, you know, not fall into this extreme of you got to overwork people, and don't let them be too soft. Or, versus, like, being just way too accommodating and soft. Like, don't fall into the extremes, you know, like, try to just understand and have a relationship with the person you're managing and just be collaborative. You know, when there's that trust, you know, it's more likely that people are going to want to do right by you as a manager and as a leader. Watch out for those extremes in terms of how you manage people, because people feel like they're being taken advantage of. Also, it's like that's, you know, they're going to get resentful. You know, they're going to they're going to not be regulated very well, right? And you want to just understand each other and work with each other, get to know each other, give feedback in a way that's helpful and genuine. I had a student say to me yesterday, I've never gotten feedback the way you gave me feedback on that paper. I'm like, wow, really, that's, I mean, touching to me that you said that, but it was a just thoughtful, genuine, individualized bit of feedback. So, you know, in terms of self regulation, also, we need leaders and people out there who are managing other people to kind of create circumstances and conditions to help people feel that sense of trust, that they can work out, you know, what's going to work best for this person? And it doesn't mean they don't work hard. It means that they do work hard. They have high expectations. But it's also meeting them where they're at and finding what's going to work best in the system. So it's not just a one size fits all, and again, it's not that teetering between these two extremes.
Alexis Reid 1:12:09
Just to sum up everything that we've kind of been touching upon, and there's so much here, if we want to be able to support each other, whether you're an educator, a caregiver, a coach, a boss, manager, whatever the case might be, we need to consider how emotions play a role in how we activate our executive function skills to be able to set a goal, make a plan and work towards that plan, right? We want to make sure that we are establishing that sense of trust, as you say, and some predictability that the people that are around you are going to react and respond in a supportive way, whether it's from giving critical feedback or to point out strengths. I think we don't do that enough point out things as they're going well, yeah, and then also be able to encourage people, especially young people around them, to ask questions. Yeah, right. We need to ask questions of them so we understand their experience, and they need to feel comfortable and trust that we are not going to be judgmental when they ask for our advice, when they ask for clarification, when they ask for anything that they might need, if they need space to be able to collect and organize their thoughts before they engage that is an incredibly worthy and amazing action, especially for a young person, to do and advocate for. So when we're thinking about this full range of like, how do we regulate in a dysregulated world, how do we authentically connect in this over connected sometimes feeling like we're in a disconnected world? I think it comes down to being curious, providing some structure and some predictability as we can right? We're all human. We have to show ourselves grace that we can't always show up and be the top of the top every time, and remember that we're all learning and we're all working on things together. And I think that is where the hope comes from. So let's spread the messages. The next step is, I'm thinking of one of my students who's doing some physics work and thinking about vectors, right? There's a magnitude, there's a distance, there's also a direction. We get to choose the direction that we're headed. We get to choose what we get to amplify. And I would say if we can promote self regulation, we can support executive function skills, and we can provide the community the authentic love and hope through resilience, I think we're going to be okay.
Gerald Reid 1:14:49
That's the hope. Sister,
Alexis Reid 1:14:51
Thanks Jer, great conversation.
Love ya.
Gerald Reid 1:14:57
Thanks for tuning in to the Reid Connect-ED podcast. Please remember that this is a podcast intended to educate and share ideas, but it is not a substitute for professional care that may be beneficial to you at different points of your life. If you are needed support, please contact your primary care physician, local hospital, educational institution, or support staff at your place of employment to seek out referrals for what may be most helpful for you. ideas shared here have been shaped by many years of training, incredible mentors research theory, evidence based practices and our work with individuals over the years, but it's not intended to represent the opinions of those we work with or who we are affiliated with. The reconnected podcast is hosted by siblings Alexis Reid and Dr. Gerald Reid. Original music is written and recorded by Gerald Reid (www.Jerapy.com) recording was done by Cyber Sound Studios. If you want to follow along on this journey with us the Reid Connect-ED podcast. we'll be releasing new episodes every two weeks each season so please subscribe for updates and notifications. Feel free to also follow us on Instagram @ReidConnectEdPodcast that's @ReidconnectEdPodcast and Twitter @ReidconnectEd. We are grateful for you joining us and look forward future episodes. In the meanwhile be curious, be open, and be well.
Many aspects in life can feel intense or overwhelming. In a world where so much can seem unpredictable and uncontrollable, we can anticipate that feeling distressed is inevitable. As we kick off season 7, episode 1 starts off with a discussion about one aspect of life we can learn to improve and strengthen - self-regulation.
The conversation starts by reflecting upon themes and common challenges that lead to feeling dysregulated. In their practices, Alexis & Jerry help those they work with harness and combat challenges to regain a sense of grounding, clarity, and intention in responding to emotionally triggering situations. Concepts discussed range from therapeutic approaches from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and executive function strategies. Nuanced discussions inspire hope for what is possible and how we can best support ourselves and others when dysregulated moments arise. Tune in to learn more.
Be curious. Be Open. Be well.
The Reid Connect-Ed Podcast is hosted by Siblings, educational therapist, Alexis Reid, M.A. and licensed psychologist, Dr. Gerald Reid, produced by CyberSound Recording Studios, and original music is written and recorded by www.Jerapy.com
*Please note that different practitioners may have different opinions- this is our perspective and is intended to educate you on what may be possible.
