Episode 507 Podcast > Full Transcript
One of the myths of adoption is the now debunked Blank Slate theory that if you get your baby early enough, they won't have experienced any trauma, and therefore you won't be raising a child with a trauma history, and you won't be dealing with big, baffling behaviors.
But consider this: consider what it would be like to have your brain forming at a time when your mom, your mothership, is experiencing stress and uncertainty during a pregnancy, and likely her own trauma. She's pregnant, and her worries are many: the basics of survival, like housing, food, and work; the shame that comes from disappointing her family and community and disappointing you; she may have her own maladaptive coping strategies to calm her nervous system, the way many of us do, by indulging in anything that numbs the not good enough relationship or even a dangerous one with the other person who helped create you, the anticipatory grief from knowing that she may or must give you away. All this is affecting her and flooding her with cortisol during the pregnancy, which means all this is affecting your developing nervous system and flooding it with cortisol, and all this is before you are even born and then relinquished.
Adoption is never nothing. Oh dear friends, if I'd had the body of work from today's guest as a resource when I was in the throes of parenting, what a difference it would have made. Instead of trying to control someone else's behavior, my child's, their birth parents, my own even, I would have had a completely different outlook on getting compliance and on connection and regulation. I'll tell you though, I've listened to every episode from today's guest for the past several years and in incorporating a new way of understanding neuroscience and relationships, which our guest makes super accessible, I'm experiencing a new sense of ease in my relationships with everyone; my young adult children, my husband, my family members and friends, and especially myself.
This is why I am so excited to bring you the amazing Robyn Gobbel, a therapist, researcher, podcaster, bestselling author, teacher of therapists, and space holder for parents who find themselves challenged by big baffling behaviors while parenting. You probably already know of Robyn's work, and if you don't, prepare to be blown wide open in the best way. Welcome, Robyn.
Robyn Gobbel:
Thank you. What a marvelous introduction. I'm so thrilled to be with you this morning.
Lori Holden:
I'm so thrilled to be with you as such a marvelous guest. Let me tell you about yourself. I'm really good at that part.
Robyn:
Okay.
Lori:
I love this. Robyn Gobbel, MSW, loves coffee, pink, and everything about the brain. Recently, her teenager went ballistic on her for getting yet another glitter coffee mug in the mail. Robyn loves cultivating deep, resonant connections with anyone who's up for it and is especially fond of all the grownups in the world who love and care for kids who are impacted by trauma; helpers, healers, educators, and parents. Her favorite thing ever besides glittery coffee mugs is teaching anyone who will listen to harness the power of neuroscience. What would change in the world if we could all do that to see, be with, feel, and deeply know each other and ourselves?
Robyn thinks everything could change, and I agree. You can get your hands on all sorts of free resources at robyngobbel.com, including our podcast, the Baffling Behavior Show. All this will be in our show notes, and I highly recommend Robyn's podcast.
Robyn's also the author of Raising Kids With Big Baffling Behaviors: Brain Body Sensory Strategies That Really Work, which came up less than a year ago and is already a bestseller according to USA Today.
Robyn:
Thank you.
Lori:
Wonderful to have you here. What I'd like you to start with, Robyn, is tell us how you came to specialize in helping parents of kids with big baffling behaviors.
Robyn:
I've always wanted to work with these kids; the kids that, frankly, really not very many other people do. And have, I mean, really since high school, even before college, have just kind of always been on this path of working with these really hard kids. And when I left Graduate School, moved into the field, I got super lucky. I've always been so lucky to have really amazing mentors.
And my earliest mentors was just very clear, like, “We don't work with these kids without working with their parents.” And when you're brand new to the field, you're like, “No, thanks. I like kids.” These mentors are like, “Nope. Sorry. You’ve got to work with the grownups.” And thank goodness they were so insistent because it's crucial, and I adore it now. I adore working with these parents.
So, in the last 5 years, I have really transitioned; I don't see clients for therapy at all anymore, but I don't see kids individually or in practice. I work with the grownups now.
Lori:
I love that. I interviewed a guest who was a therapist several episodes back, and I'll put this in the show notes. And what she said to me was, “You're not trying to fix the kid and you're not trying to fix the parent. You're trying to fix the space in between the two.”
Robyn:
Yeah.
Lori:
And I think for a while, I didn't realize that I was part of that fixing as well. I just wanted to fix the other person.
Robyn:
Yeah.
Lori:
As we so often do.
Robyn:
Yes.
Lori:
I spent several years working alongside adoptee Sarah Easterly and birth parent Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard as we wrote Adoption Unfiltered. And what I got from that collaboration is this idea of the context matters; you always have to look at the context for the behavior. And I think kids can get labeled and pathologized with things like reactive attachment disorder and other acronyms. So, I love what you say that all behavior makes sense. What is behavior really? And, you know, you have to explain “all behavior makes sense.” What is that context? Because some of it is truly baffling.
Robyn:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. It doesn't mean it's not baffling. So, I'm never interested in kind of gaslighting people or telling them what they're experiencing isn't real. It's real. But it does make sense. Even the bafflingness of it makes sense.
So, what is behavior? The simplest way I think to look at it, and what I usually say, is behavior is just what we can see on the outside. So, blinking. Right? You're nodding your head at me right now. Like, those are behaviors. And when we often are using the word behavior to describe something that somebody else did that we don't like. But behavior is the things that we can observe in someone else, and it's always a reflection of what's happening on the inside.
Even, again, blinking. Right? There's a neural impulse that fired because we need to keep our eyes nice and moist. I don't actually really know that much about that. And the same with all behavior, even the ones that are dangerous or hurtful or seem vindictive or manipulative or whatever language we want to give to it is what we can see on the outside that gives us some information about what's happening on the inside.
And one of my top mentors, Bonnie Badnock, who is an expert in the field of interpersonal neurobiology, and her area of expertise really is taking the theory and turning it into clinical practice. Like, she's helped me know, like, well, what am I supposed to do with this theory that these theorists are putting out? And she's the first person I heard say, like, no behavior is maladaptive.
And I remember being startled by that. I thought, you know, I was using maladaptive to describe these kids' behaviors, and I thought it was this very generous word. Like, it was implicit in that is this idea that, like, “Well, it's maladaptive now, but it wasn't always. It's come from a place of, you know, protection. It's just that they don't need it anymore, so now it's maladaptive.”
And Bonnie said, “No. In a moment that a behavior happens, it is directly reflecting what that person is experiencing in the world, what that person is experiencing in their nervous system. And if we look at all the very complex ways that we are constantly kind of creating our own experience in reality. And if we look at memory processing and we look at the autonomic nervous system, we look at all these big complexities and kind of mush them all together, that's when I started to see, like, “Oh, she's not wrong. In every kind of micro moment, the behavior, the thing we see on the outside, it matches what is happening for that person on the inside.” It doesn't mean it matches the environment. It doesn't mean it's good. It doesn't mean we ignore it or excuse it. It just means that in that moment, it is coherent. It makes sense.
Lori:
When I think of observing some of the other baffling behaviors that that I've seen, it doesn't make sense to me because I'm – and I don't get curious about it. I think what I'm hearing you say is, like, if I could get curious about what's underneath, then I might be able to see it more as a clue instead of an attack or this or that. But when I'm in that place and I get into protection mode, which we'll talk about, I'm closed. I'm not an open system. I am not curious.
Robyn:
No. Of course. It's by design.
Lori:
Yeah. Because I do need to protect myself sometimes.
Robyn:
Yeah.
Lori:
My defenses go up.
Robyn:
Yeah.
Lori:
I think like me, a lot of listeners are probably fairly comfortable with the idea of using consequences to change behavior.
Robyn:
Yeah.
Lori:
Why do we need a different framework to change these big, baffling behaviors?
Robyn:
Well, first, we have to really make sure we're all using the word consequences the same way because most people are using the word consequence just as kind of a nicer way to say punishment. A punishment is something that we do that's like a contrived action intended to cause some sort of pain to someone else. Not necessarily physical pain, but discomfort, displeasure, unhappiness. And then our hope is that uncomfortable feeling is what will motivate behavior change. That's a punishment, but that is oftentimes what people are labeling consequence.
I mean, consequences are just like the thing that happens next. It's a very neutral term. But when we start kind of manipulating the thing that happens next and, again, we are using it in a way intentionally to cause somebody else pain. That's actually a punishment and not a consequence.
And then we could get into a big, long debate on whether punishment's needed in general for behavior change. But if we're going to look specifically at kids who have these baffling behaviors like, the behaviors that feel like they don't make sense, their stress response system is so sensitized, some sort of contrived consequence is not going to impact the autonomic nervous system. It's not going to impact that person's experience of safety in the world. Well, it's not going to impact those things positively in the way that we're hoping for.
And so, it makes a lot of sense that we want to use consequences to change people's behaviors because that's what we were all taught to do. But the reason for the behavior isn't that the person needs more motivation not to act that way. The reason for the behavior is all these very complex experiences that are happening inside their stress response system, inside their autonomic nervous system. So, if we want to have a shift on the behavior, we have to get at what's really causing the behavior.
And most parents, I know this is probably true for you too, they've tried every consequence under the sun. They're just simply not working. I mean, oftentimes, I don't even have to say much more than that to parents. Like, it's not working. So, let's just be curious to see if we address something else.
Lori:
I've seen some parents, like, start to take things away out of their kids' room, and eventually you have nothing left to take away. And then you're completely powerless because the whole idea of consequences has not worked. And then you're in a power struggle and you've lost because you're –
Robyn:
100%. You're going to lose.
Lori:
Yeah.
Robyn:
There's no question about that. So, I think in many ways, that's the simplest answer is, like, they're not working. And if they were working, I wouldn't have a job because parents are good enough parents to figure out how to use consequences. They're just not working.
Lori:
Yeah. I want to get into your model because it's so relatable. The way you explain, you take the neuroscience and translate it into ways that we can understand. So, I understand, from listening to you, that our children and us and everyone can either be in connection mode or protection mode. We've kind of already touched on that. Tell us how the owl, the watchdog, the possum fit into this model and what polyvagal even means.
Robyn:
Okay. That's a lot of questions. So, the nervous system has 2 settings. I'm not a very black and white binary person, but in this instance, we can lean into the binariness of it. The nervous system is either feeling safe or it's feeling not safe. When we're feeling safe, we move into what I call connection mode, meaning there's enough safety for connection to be safe, for connection to be what feels good and what we're longing for. And when we're feeling not safe, then we move into protection mode. And the primary goal of protection mode is to return to safety.
And sometimes that we utilize connection as a path back to safety, and sometimes we don't because connection hasn't been safe. But that when we're in protection mode, our primary goal in that moment is to find safety again, move back into connection mode. It is our nervous system's preference to be safe when we are safe and to rest into this kind of open and connected space in the nervous system.
Polyvagal theory is a way of conceptualizing the autonomic nervous system. Poly just meaning more than one, the vagus nerve; that is a big part of the parasympathetic branch of our autonomic nervous system, which is, like, the rest side of our autonomic nervous system. We have, like, a resting side, and we have an activating, mobilizing side.
So, doctor Steve Porges and his work with the polyvagal theory, we could talk about for hours and hours, but the summary is really that polyvagal theory has shifted our understanding of folks' protective-based behaviors. So, fight, flight, freeze, collapse behaviors. It's really helped us shift how we see those behaviors as brilliantly adaptive, not only in the moment of danger and terror, but polyvagal theory has helped us see how the nervous system can, in a way, kind of get stuck. Even after the trauma is technically over, the nervous system can kind of get stuck in protection mode, and therefore, it interprets experiences in the world as dangerous. And there it becomes, like, this vicious cycle, essentially, of protection mode.
And, yes, so owl, watch dog and possum. So, the owl, watch dog possum lines up with aspects of the polyvagal theory. I mean, it's a metaphor. I was a play therapist. Right? So, I was always engaging in playful ways to help kids come into contact and relationship with themselves.
And so the owl, watchdog, possum metaphor is kind of bringing together polyvagal theory and then some aspects of doctor Bruce Perry's work and his work with the neurosequential model of therapeutics.
The summary is that the owl pathway is a pathway of our nervous system that emerges when there are enough cues of safety and we're feeling safe and connected. And the owl pathway has behaviors of connection; whether that be with one another or with ourselves.
Generally speaking, when I work with parents and they tell me the behaviors they'd like to stop and the behaviors they'd like to see more of, what they are really saying is, I like my child to be in their owl pathway more often.
When we're in our owl pathway, these kind of prosocial behaviors that we wish we would get from other people, they emerge naturally. We don't have to punish people to behave that way. Like, they emerge naturally when we're in this pathway of safety.
Now, the watch dog pathway is actually a pathway of energy, and the possum pathway is actually a pathway of deep rest. So, when an individual is feeling safe and connected in their owl brain or on their owl pathway, the owl I like to think about it as the owl can sometimes invite the watchdogs to play. So, we have this safe and connected experience but with energy. And that can look, again, like playing. That can look like being silly. That can look like dancing. I even think about it as kind of like exercising. That when I'm exercising, I've certainly got energy, more energy than you and I have right now. I've got that watchdog energy happening, but I'm not in fight or flight. I'm still connected to that owl pathway. I feel still feeling safe and connected.
And a similar thing can happen with that possum pathway where there's deep rest. The owl that's safe and connected kind of come together with that possum, and that's like snuggling. Like, deep rest or deep close intimacy. It's very vulnerable to be very close to another human. And so we need a lot of safety on board in order to be safe. To be super close in a very still way with another human.
So, it is super important when thinking about the owl, watchdog, and the possum to know that the owl, watchdog, possum pathways exist all the time, in both connection mode and in protection mode.
Now, when the nervous system's job of assessing safety or danger when it shifts into going like, “Oh, actually, there's danger here.” It asks kind of the owl to step aside as we move into the priority of protection. And so, that's when watchdog energy can turn into fight or flight energy. When we see that there's danger and we need that protective energy and we need active energy.
So, then the watchdog's job is to have energy in the arms and the legs to fight or run away. Because the remember, the whole goal is to find safety. So, the watchdog needs to get away or it wants to fight and overpower the danger.
Also, when parents talk about how, like, sometimes the watchdog has a lot of energy in its mouth, and it yells and screams and cusses and backtalks and sasses. But, again, the whole purpose is to use that energy, from a protective place, to find safety. Connection isn't the priority now. Finding safety is.
And then similarly on the possum pathway, actually, will activate when the nervous system says, “Oh, this isn't just dangerous, but, actually, this is life threatening. Like, running or fighting isn't going to help me find safety. I've either tried that and given up or I just know. Like, I'm not faster or I'm not stronger. I'm not bigger.” So, instead of fighting or fleeing and having all this extra energy, the possum pathway actually does opposite and, like, decreases energy dramatically in the nervous system. So, we don't have a lot of excess energy in our arms and our legs. Our heart rate goes down instead of up. Our respiration goes down instead of up, and we move into kind of a state of conservation, a state of collapse. The body gets smaller.
And this is metabolically important, but also physiologically important. Like, if I was being chased by a saber toothed tiger and I finally realized, like, “Uh-oh, I'm probably not going to make it out of this one. I'm going to move to significant conservation of energy because if this tiger catches up with me and rips off my arm, I don't want to bleed to death. So, I conserve energy. I get smaller and can move all the way into, like, collapsing or playing dead like a possum would,” which is still a very protective response. A possum who's playing dead is hoping the predator will go away. Or at the very least, if they are in a fatal situation, they will be able to disconnect from how awful and how painful it is. So, it is still a very protective response that's looking to find safety, again, just doing it in a different way than the watchdog pathway. That was a lot. Does that make sense?
Lori:
Absolutely. And just referring back to my previous question about consequences, I can see now how, if we as parents are doing consequences, especially with any tinge of watchdog brain, if we're not fully in our owl brain when we're doing that and it feels like punishment, we are actually pushing our child towards needing protection. They we're pushing them into protection mode.
Robyn:
Yes.
Lori:
And so, consequences are not going to help us. What always seems to help us in that moment is to focus on restoring the owl brain through connection. So, the things that I've heard you mention over and over again, Robyn, are three things; connection, coregulation, and felt safety. Would you talk about each one?
Robyn:
So, felt safety is this idea of connection versus protection. Felt safety is this very complex way the brain and the nervous system is taking in all this information and deciding, am I safe or am I not safe? And it's not physically safe, it's energetically safe, emotionally safe, all sorts of ways that we're pulling all this information together and going safe or not safe.
And that's kind of the base of everything. If I'm safe, that's when I'm able to shift into connection mode. If I'm not safe, I'm going to shift into protection mode, hoping to return to connection mode.
Now, connection then is, again, continuing to draw from doctor Porges' research who is doing a lot of physiological based research. Doctor Porges' research says connection is he uses the words biological imperative. We are born needing to be in connection with someone else and with each other. Humans actually find safety in connection. So, we're constantly seeking it. And when we're seeking connection, but it's not there, That is a cue of danger that has the opportunity to pull our nervous system into protection mode. And one of the things we are then looking for in order to return to safety is connection; where are my people? Where can I go to for safety? We're a very social species.
It's tricky though. It's kind of contradictory because not only are we an exceptionally social species that needs to be with one another, but humans are also the most dangerous predator to other humans. So, there's this kind of constant, like, I need connection in order to be safe, but I need connection with safe people in order to be safe. So, a huge part of what I'm constantly assessing is, are you a safe person to be in connection with?
And then this idea of regulation and coregulation is that the nervous system is wanting to be in balance, and that's what regulation is. Regulation doesn't necessarily mean calm. Regulation means that there's balance and there's an ebb and a flow. And we are really wanting to find regulation in our nervous system. It is better for us physiologically. It is better for our long term health to overall kind of maintain a stance of balance and regulation in our nervous system. And coregulation is a way that we can kind of borrow, in a way, the regulation of someone else, if we need it. So, coregulation from someone I'm connected with and somebody who's able to provide coregulation, which is going to mean that person is experiencing a sense of safety in their nervous system. Coregulation is a very crucial part of the human experience.
Lori:
Yeah. And I'd like to drill down on coregulation a little bit because I've heard you say that we want to match the energy
Robyn:
Yes.
Lori:
and not the dysregulation. So, Yes. Talk about threading that needle.
Robyn:
Think about when you've been with an infant or when your listeners, so they can think about anytime they've had the opportunity to be with a distressed infant. It feels like we try to stay really calm to help that infant calm down. But, actually, if we got really granular with it, we would notice that before we move into trying to calm that infant down, we actually first have a way in our own bodies and nervous systems where – we don't do it on purpose; it just happens kind of naturally – we match their energy. Meaning, a distressed infant who's crying has some sympathetic energy going on there; like, their nervous system is amped up. Before we move into calming them down, our nervous system amps up too. In some ways, it has to because we have to kind of mobilize; we have to do something. We need some energy to, like, be like, “Oh, hey. That baby's crying. I should move and do something to help.”
But the other piece that's happening there is the infant is experiencing a moment of sameness, a moment of matching, a moment of, “Oh, you feel what I feel. Oh, we're in this together.” That is a really crucial piece of the coregulation experience; the matching. And I kind of think about it as metaphorically, we've got to get those two nervous systems somewhat close to each other energetically in order for them to kind of sync up and catch one another. Like, if they're too far apart, they can't sync up and catch kind of one another. And that means the one who's distressed and looking for some coregulation, they're going to have a hard time finding that and syncing up with that.
Lori:
I can completely vouch for that because I remember, in the teen years, trying to use my yoga Zen breath to deescalate a situation. So, I would come in and I say, “Just breathe.” And that did not match {indistinct 29:22}. The child did not think, “We're in this together.” And it'd be an irritant and actually made more space between us. It sent further into protection mode.
Robyn:
Yes. And very common. And it's not that none of these “methods” are foolproof are going to “work” all the time; whatever work even means. But, yeah, generally speaking, we are all really longing to be with somebody before they would ever make any attempt to change us, even if how they want to change us is good; like, we would feel better. We don't want to be changed first. We want to first have someone say, “Hey, we're here with this. We're here in this together.”
And so, I actually coach parents to experiment with if you have an intensely aroused child, whether it's a toddler or a teenager who's maybe yelling, screaming, maybe even cussing, we want to go in, and we want to maybe do what you did and, like, “Hey, let's just take some deep breaths here.” Or we want to go in and be like, “You can't talk to me that way.” You know? So, that's matching the energy with the dysregulation. So, we want to try to match the energy without the dysregulation, and I might go in and I might say, “Yeah. You are so pissed at me right now. I totally can see that. Tell me more. I want to hear all about it.”
Now I'm not promising that's going to work. It doesn't always. You know, sometimes that irritates people too, and sometimes people feel like you're mocking them or something. I mean, none of this is perfect. But the opportunity to communicate, “Hey. I see you, and I'm trying to get you; like, understand you, get you. I'm preferencing that over trying to get you to change.”
And even if it doesn't “work,” that is still the experience that other person is having, and it's still really powerful.
Lori:
To be seen is so powerful, isn't it?
Robyn:
Yeah.
Lori:
For parents who work with you and for kiddos who work with you.
Robyn:
Yes.
Lori:
So, I realized that I'm asking you to, like, summarize in a couple of minutes, an entire one of your podcast episodes. One of them was on Felt Safety where you really dug into the three parts of that; inside, outside, and between.
Robyn:
Yeah.
Lori:
You give us a primer on that.
Robyn:
Yeah. That's taken from both the work. Long, long time ago, psychologist Dr. Ellen Schriff said, “Felt safety.” He's using the word Felt Security. An infant is kind of assessing, am I safe or not safe based on, know, what's happening with their caregiver, what's happening in the environment, and what's happening inside their inner world. Like, are they hungry? Are they tired? Do they have to pee?
And then decades went on, and then and the science kind of catches up. And we bring in doctor Porges' work and his concept of neuroception and how, like, what information are we taking in to decide if I'm safe or not, and that's neuroception. And Dr. Porges says, yes, we are looking for cues. We're taking in data, information, from what's happening in our external environment; like what's happening around us. So, that's one. That's outside. We're taking in cues and data of what's happening in the relational space between me and someone else and what's happening with them, specifically. So, that's the between. And then, and this one is commonly overlooked when thinking about health safety, we're also always kind of scanning our own inner worlds; what's happening inside of us, what's happening in our own autonomic nervous system, what's my sensory experience in the world right now. Again, am I hungry? Am I tired? Do I have to pee? Am I stressed? Do I feel good? Like, we're constantly assessing our inner world as well. So, that's the inside.
And those kind of three streams, in a way or I kind of think of them as, like, three different buckets of information, and we're pulling in. But, you know, some of those buckets are going to have a lot of safety in them. Some are going to have both safety and not safety in. But, hopefully, maybe the safety bucket, you know, it's more safety than not. And then we're kind of pulling those three buckets together and making an overall assessment; safe or not safe.
Lori:
I really love that episode because I think – I intuitively note to focus on; are you hungry? Are you tired? Are you hot? Those kind of body things. But the other parts were really helpful to me to like, if I go through that checklist and I can't intuit where to target, where to focus on, there's other places to do.
And I also want to just say here that you have put together a starter pack for your podcast, and I'll include a link to your podcast page. And on that page, you have curated the Top 10 episodes to get started with a lot of this. So, I'm sure that'll be very helpful to people if they haven't already found you.
One of the things that really helped me, because sometimes when I see things about to go, I start to go into my watchdog brains like, “Here we go again.”
Robyn:
Yeah.
Lori:
And you said that there's just one thing; just one thing to focus on when that starts to happen, and that is to put on my X-ray goggles. What does that mean?
Robyn:
Our X-ray vision goggles, I think of it as, like, if we had a superpower, and I really am into Marvel and superheroes. And so, I think about how if we could all just have this X-ray vision superpower and kind of deep past. Like, I imagine almost just like, “Well, there's that behavior. I want to just sort of put that over here and kind of not focus on the behavior; the thing that I see, and instead think about what is happening inside this person right now.” And it's very likely I'm not even going to be able to figure it out. But just the act of staying in that space of curiosity and remembering this isn't a bad kid or a bad person. This is a person who's got something going on. Just that stance alone dramatically shifts how we are; like, how we are just in response to that behavior. And that is wildly important. Like, if we all know this. Like, when I'm with somebody who's super distressed, it's not very helpful for me to join them in their distress. It's just not. It's not good for them. It's not good for me. So, if I can stay kind of one step removed and instead of, like, joining them in it, stay in this, like, “I wonder what's going on. This is weird.”
The other really key thing that happens is that our brains keep firing in this pattern of – that's conveying or communicating, “I know that you aren't your behaviors.” Like, when we can see that, when we can look at somebody who's behaving badly and acknowledge, like, “Whoo, yeah, this is bad, and it needs to stop.” Like, I'm not excusing it or saying, “Well, tough.” This behavior is bad, and it needs to stop. And I know that this is not happening because you're a bad person. I know this is happening because something is wrong.
When my brain fires in that pattern, that impacts how our kids' brains are firing. And over time, it changes our kids' perception of themselves. And that is one of the most important things that we can –
I mean, I get that we need the – some of our kids have such dangerous behaviors. Like, we really do need them to stop, and I get that. And what we really need is for our kids to know in their core that they're good humans who are really struggling and need help.
Lori:
So, I'm seeing the connection between putting on my X-ray vision goggles and getting curious. And out of that curiosity comes compassion. And the way I see my child in a different way than what the heck is wrong with you.
And compassion is such an important piece of what you offer. Because one thing I've gotten from you is permission to take care of myself and have compassion for myself and to pay attention to my own inner landscape. And that doing all of that first is not selfish.
Robyn:
Right.
Lori:
Correct?
Robyn:
A 100%. It's not just not selfish. It's crucial. It's crucial. And if I pulled myself out of the parenting world for a second and thought about when I worked as a therapist. In order for me to do any good as a therapist and be with someone else, I have to first have capacity to be with myself. I can't attune to anyone else if I'm not first attuning to myself and know what's happening for me. Otherwise, how could I possibly know the difference between them and me? Like, if I didn't have some solid sense of what my experience is, there's no way I could really attune and be with anybody else's.
And I only have to do that for 50 minutes at a time, and then I get to take a break. And I get to go on and do it the next person for 50 minutes at a time. It's wildly easier to do this as a therapist, but it is the same skill that we need, not just as parents, but in relationship. To be with someone else, we have to be able to be with ourselves, and we are, of course, going to want to be with ourselves much more when we are in a state of compassion, we're in a state of curiosity. And all of those words, compassion and curiosity, are all characteristics of the owl brain. So, the more we can stay in our owl brain, the more we'll have curiosity and compassion. And the more we can practice curiosity and compassion, the more we're going to stay in our owl brain.
Lori:
And if we do parent a child with big baffling behaviors, especially if this happens in public, there's a lot of beating up that can take place in our own heads. We might imagine other people judging us for the way we parent, judging us for our child's behavior. They might actually say it. So, it might not just
Robyn:
Right. It's not imagined.
Lori:
Yeah. And so, there's a lot of beating up. And we may think; we may carry it from our own upbringing and society that – I think I just heard you say this on the episode I listened to yesterday that well behaved children come from good parents, and so the opposite of that would be true too in your mind.
Robyn:
Exactly.
Lori:
If my kid's misbehaving, then I'm terrible parent and now everybody knows and everybody can see it and oh my gosh, I'm horrible. So, rewiring that within ourselves is a necessary place to start.
And you have something called the club, which is your place for people to learn about this deeply, but also to be been with; to be with each other, to be with you, and to cultivate that sense of compassion among each other. Would you like to tell us any – that was my general take on the club. Do you want to talk about the club a little bit?
Robyn:
Well, I think that's pretty accurate. So, I love that's your impression of it. The club is an online community, and it has a forum, and we have master classes and education, a video library, and all, like, the basic stuff, of course. And for me, like, why I look – I mean, just thinking about the club makes me so happy. It's just my most favorite thing that I do and have the privilege of getting to be a part of is that I set up the club years and years ago with compassion at its core. Like, we have in fact, we have a manifesto, as maybe a little creepy as that sounds. But when you join the club, you say, “Yes. I agree with these tenants. It doesn't mean I can do them all the time because no one can. But overall, like, yes. I agree regulated, connected kids who feel safe do well. And regulated, connected parents, who feel safe, parent the way that they want to. And we will always lead with compassion and curiosity and stay out of judgment with one another and always believe, you know, people are trying to do the very best they can and are overflowing with infinite worth.” Like, we have this manifesto. And what that does is creates this environment of safety where people are willing to risk showing up really authentically and really vulnerably.
I mean, before people even have an interaction with anyone else, they're just, like, reading the forum, they're telling me they're having this experience of, like, “Oh my gosh. I've never been so seen, or it's never been so safe to be honest. But also, we don't swim in negativity; like, it's not a space for constant griping and – I mean, it's not that it's not a space for that. It's that because of the way that it's set up, we shift out of that pretty quickly. That, like, complaining and griping is looking to be seen and known. It's looking for someone to say, “Wow, that's awful,” from a regulated place, not in a co-griping space.
And so, that's the real magic, I think, of what happens in the club is that it is a space of just implicit compassion. Like, just showing up there, parents have this new experience in the world of, “Oh, well, first of all, I'm not alone. And second of all, these people aren't judging me, but, also, they're holding me to pretty high standards. They’re, like, they're not judging me for how I just screamed at my kid, but they are also wanting me to do what I need to do to take care of myself to have that happen less often.”
And because it's a co-created place, it means everybody isn't just receiving compassion from other people, but they're constantly giving it. And that's actually the where I think the real magic happens. Like, when you're regulated enough to show up with people who are really in extreme distress, and you're able to, like, really be with them, and, you know, I watched these parents just say, “I see you.” That's sometimes all they say. I don't teach them to say those things. They just like the space just cultivate it. You know? “I see you. I'm with you.”
And when I look back on my years in the therapy room, you know, certainly, the club isn't therapy. But there's a lot of things that happen in the therapy room that aren't, “therapy." There's just good things that happen. And believing that the person you're with believes that you really are doing the very best that you can, like, believing that is so earth shattering. I mean, it makes so much shift and change, and that's really what I wanted to create; is a space where these parents could come together and really feel safe to be their true selves, which is sometimes very messy.
Lori:
And we can't give what we don't have.
Robyn:
Yeah.
Lori:
And so, to find a space or enter a space or create a space where you are seen, you are valued, you are abided with, to marinate in that is can be so transformative because once we have it, we can give it to our kids, and we can go back to the well and give it to our kids. And it does make the world better. I mean, the ripple effect just can radiate out from spaces like that where authenticity, knowing ourselves, and accepting ourselves, it's a beautiful way to change our small world and maybe even our larger world.
Robyn:
Yeah. That's exactly what I hope. People ask me all the time, like, how can you keep doing this when everything is so bad? And I was like, “Well, ironically enough, when, like, things get really bad out here, I get really small,” meaning I'm going to think about how I can impact me, and I can impact this one person right here in front of me, because that's all we can do, and that matters.
Lori:
Yeah.
Robyn:
Like, it really matters.
Lori:
Yeah. And I find that my time on your podcast really matters. And so, I just really encourage everybody to go find that, explore the club. I am curious, Robyn. Are there dads in the club as well as moms?
Robyn:
There absolutely are dads in the club. I mean, without question, it is a mom-dominated group as I think so many of these kinds of communities are. Everybody who joins gets to have a completely separate account for their parenting partner, and I don't have rules about what that even means. So, every person gets to bring their dad or their mom with them – Like, not their, but you know what I mean – their co parent with them. You know, dads aren't as active. We do have them, but without question, they're unfortunately not as active.
Lori:
Well, that is a space that I have in mind to explore at some point as well. We're about to round into the last question, unless there's something that I haven't given you a chance to respond to or say yet.
Robyn:
No, you've done a fabulous job. I've been actually sitting here going like, “Wow! You are a good interviewer.”
Lori:
Well, I think my talent is getting really good guests. So, thank you again for being here. But the last question that I'm asking all Season 5 guests is this: what do you wish that adoptive parents, specifically, because I know you don't work exclusively with adoptive parents, but I imagine they're represented well. What do you wish that all adoptive parents knew from Day 1 or from this moment?
Robyn:
What I had planned to say was what you had talked about in the intro, which is that it is a trauma. And if we could all just be okay with that reality, we don't have to feel ashamed of it. I mean, we can absolutely use that information for adoption reform and to change practices in adoption that are causing more trauma than is needed. But when somebody loses their family and goes to another one, even if it's the moment they're born, it is traumatic. And if we can just honor that and be with that, again, just with honesty.
And since you kind of already said that, I will add to it in that adoptive parenting. We need to go into adoptive parenting assuming that we're going into special needs parenting. I mean, I don't say that in a pathologizing of adoptees way at all, but just of a recognition of this is a life that has been impacted. If you're not adopted, this is a life that's been impacted in a way that we can never even comprehend. My whole life is with adoptees. My whole life, I'm surrounded by adoptees. I will never ever be able to come close to feeling in my body the loss that's been experienced. And if we could go into adopted parenting as just honest recognition of this is special needs parenting. And that's not pejorative. That's not criticism. It's not pathologizing. It's just it's honest and just recognition of history and really seeing these kids.
Lori:
I affirm that completely. Parenting is a high calling, and adoptive parenting just adds layer upon layer to that calling, making it a very high calling because we're not only managing all the things that you just mentioned that our child may be going through as they developmentally begin to adoptedness in a deeper and deeper way, which will continue into their 50’s and beyond.
Robyn:
Always. Yes.
Lori:
Also, if we are in an adoption arrangement where there is contact with birth parents, we're also managing that. And we're trying to be a wise gatekeeper, letting in all that serves and titrating all that maybe doesn't serve in these moments. And on top of all that, we're managing our own history and our own times of not being seen, not being heard, not feeling felt safety, not being abided with. And so, all of that does mean it's special needs parenting, but the needs are ours.
Robyn:
Yes. I like that. Yeah.
Lori:
Thank you so much for so eloquently saying all of that and for sharing your gifts and your talents and your passion with the listeners of Adoption: The Long View. Thank you, Robyn.
Robyn:
Thank you.
Lori:
It's been so great to be with you today.
Robyn:
Same. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for what you do. It's just so important. So, thank you.
Lori:
Special thanks to adopting.com for producing and sponsoring this podcast. Please subscribe, give this episode a rating as Robyn and I know that's so helpful to get the word out to other people who may need to hear what's in here. Share it with others who are on the journey of adoptive parenting so that more people join in for real talk on the complexities of adoption earlier and earlier in their journeys. You'll be doing them as well as me a favor.
With each episode of Adoption: The Long View, we bring you guests to expand your knowledge of and ease with adoptive parenting. Thanks to each of you for tuning in and investing in your adoptions, long view. May you meet everything on your road ahead with confidence, curiosity, compassion, connection, and felt safety.