Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety

Have you ever had a moment where you think, "Why am I like this?" I mean, you're doing fine, you're functioning, you're successful, and yet somehow one email, one comment, one conflict with somebody, and suddenly you are flooded with emotions. You're reactive, you're triggered, or you completely shut down.

“Or maybe you're wondering, "Why is my spouse like this?”

Why do they shut down? Why do they get triggered? Why are they so strict or clingy or they're such a perfectionist?" Well, today, you're going to learn the surprising reason why. Our medical expert today is a world-renowned expert on the long-term impact of childhood

trauma and adverse experiences. And before you go, "Okay, no, no, no, I haven't had trauma." I want you to listen to this, because it is going to explain so much about who you are, and who some of the people that you love deeply are right now in your adult life. Dr. Nadine Burke Harris is going to teach you that this kind of behavior, where you're so

emotionally reactive or you shut down or you get triggered by the easiest thing, it is a neurological and biological pattern that started in childhood. See, there is a stress response that your body learned a long time ago. But now, you're still trapped in it as an adult. Now instead of making yourself wrong, Dr. Burke Harris is here to teach you how to break

free from the patterns in your past, so you can finally heal yourself and feel in control of your emotions, your thoughts, your actions, and your life. It makes a difference. Do you want to know what's in your community, but don't you know how? Then you go to GoFantMe.com and start your own studies at the end of the course.

Your next studies at the beginning of the course, or the course of the course. You can only start at least a few minutes at the end of the course at the end of the course. Some studies for myself, for friends, for me or for an organization.

The most important thing is that the person or the project is at home.

GoFantMe is the four-hand spin platform for things to be played.

“The important thing is, without a pressure, you have to do it directly.”

But with many help, you can do it directly on your way. So you can do it directly. If creative, local or life is important, then it's a matter of fact. Why goFantMe is a reason why I'm going to play with millions of people and who are from the world of spin-samilers.

GoFantMe is a reason for many people's difficulty and who are from the world. Staten Ahoy to dine and goFantMe spend an Elfhooth. Hey, it's your friend, Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am so excited for the conversation today. I'm so excited that you're here.

It is such an honor to spend time with you and be together and if you're a new listener. I want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family. And I also want to point out the fact that somebody shared this with you means that you have people in your life that care deeply about you and what you're about to listen to is an extraordinary gift that can change your life.

I cannot wait for you to meet today's remarkable guest.

“Dr. Nadine Berkaris, who is one of the most important voices in trauma science and public health.”

She is a medical doctor, a pediatrician who trained at Stanford University and she holds a master's in public health from Harvard. Dr. Berkaris is the founder of the Center for Youth Wellness where she pioneered clinical and research models for screening and treating toxic stress in families and children.

She was appointed the very first surgeon general of the state of California, where Dr.

Berkaris launched the nation's first statewide initiative to train more than 20,000 health care providers to screen for adverse childhood experiences, also known as ACEs and implement trauma and form care. She is the author of the bestselling book, The Deep Aswell, a groundbreaking resource that has helped shift trauma from being seen as a psychological issue, to being understood as

a biological one. Dr. Berkaris has helped transform how science understands a connection between early stress, the nervous system, immune function, and long-term health. And today, she is here to help you and the people that you love break free from the frustrating patterns that are holding you back from creating the life that you deserve as an adult.

So please help me welcome the incredible Dr. Nadine Berkaris to the Melrovins podcast.

I am a tremendous admirer of your work, and I would love for you to start by explaining

how might my life be different. If I take everything to heart that you're about to share with us about this extraordinary research related to experiences in your childhood and how they manifest in your behavior as an adult and what you can do to set yourself free, what could change about my life

“if I really apply what I'm about to learn from you?”

The biggest thing that will change in your life if you apply this is that stress is no longer going to be in the driver's seat of your life, right? So what that means is understanding how stress gets under our skin and changes our biology allows us to use that biology and work with it instead of working against it. And so it'll help us understand ourselves better and also to be able to understand the

people in our lives better, right? And so I think if folks really apply this science to their lives, what they'll find number one is that it can improve their health and well-being, number two relationships will become less reactive and more connected, and number three, it's a guide post around how to set up your life for the support that we need to be functioning in a way that's just more balanced

and less effortful going forward. That would be nice to be able to move through your day without feeling like you're dragging the way to the world or that you're in a straight jacket that you seem to have put yourself in.

“I believe you because your work has had a huge impact on me, in fact, understanding both in myself”

when there were patterns that I didn't quite understand or things that would trigger me or I would get easily emotionally fluttered and pissed off and screaming at people and then I'm apologizing and then I didn't understand why and I just felt like I couldn't change my behavior. I thought there was something wrong with me because I felt like somehow I was choosing

to be this way and a lot of what your work has done for me is to help me see that there are a lot of things about my behavior at least that used to be present, that were part of the biological and the neurological conditioning that happened during my childhood and that this is true for everybody and so what I'd love to dig into because I do think everything

that you're going to teach us today is profoundly life-changing, like you'll never look at

yourself, your childhood or anybody around you the same again. Let's talk a little bit about what is trauma and your work specifically talks about adverse childhood experiences, what is trauma at its core trauma is the biological response to overwhelming stress. A lot of us think of it as the stressor, the thing that happened to us, but it's actually

the body's reaction to that stress.

“I think I had this wrong for a long time.”

I always thought trauma was the thing that happened.

You're saying trauma is your body's response to the thing that happened and not only in the moment that had happened, but that it continues to respond in similar ways, exactly right. After it, okay, I get it now. One of the things that's really amazing about your work is you are the first researcher to connect childhood trauma and chronic stress to all kinds of things like heart disease,

autoimmune disorder, diabetes, cancer, substance abuse and things that are even more subtle that we struggle with in our adult lives that we may not realize or tied to something deeper. What was it that made you lean in in terms of what you were seeing in your patience to start to put these pieces together, Dr. Burke Harris? Well, to be honest, what really happened for me was I started my career, my clinical practice,

opening a clinic in one of San Francisco's most underserved neighborhoods because I was really motivated by improving health outcomes for the vulnerable and what I was seeing was that over

disorder and as I was doing, what I was trained to do, history and physical, just for a lot

“of my patients, it felt like there was a disconnect, right, because I noticed that the patients”

who were having them who are struggling the most were also the ones who were dealing with some of the most difficult things in their lives, right, the most stress and trauma going on around them, but really the thing that kind of broke it open for me was a patient who was a little boy who stopped growing, so this was a seven-year-old child who was referred to me by the school nurse and he was having difficulty with behavior and focus

and paying attention in class. But when he walked in to my exam room, the thing that I noticed

about him was that he was anybody, right, he was seven years old, but his height and weight

“were at the 50th percentile for a four-year-old. What? Yeah. So when I sat down and I asked”

his mom, I said, okay, so when did you notice these behavior problems started and she said, really, it was right, you know, when he was four and I was like, wait a minute, this is so weird. Yeah. Behavior problem started when he was four, I looked at his growth chart. He's a growth arrest when he's four and so I'm starting to put it together and I said, did something

happen when he was four and his mom was just waterworks and so we had to take, you know,

took my patient, took him to the waiting room and his mom went on to tell me the story that he experienced a serious trauma. So he had a sexual assault when he was four years old and he had growth arrest. He had struggled with learning and also after that his, you know, his asthma and his breathing problems had gotten a lot worse. So if a kid's not growing, you call the endocrinologist. Right, that's the hormone specialist and I call the endocrinologist. I said, you know what, this is,

this is so weird. Is this possible that this child could have had all of this could be because of this trauma and she said, yeah, absolutely, absolutely the effect of stress hormones could do that. And I said, okay, so what does that mean in terms of treatment? If she said, the treatment, if that's the case, is not hormonal therapy, it's talk therapy, right? You need psychotherapy and best practices with, you know, therapy for kids, developmentally appropriate therapy for kids,

that will help us stress hormones to normalize and that is what is necessary for him to grow again.

“And literally that's what we did. Did it work? It did work. It really, it improved his growth”

but improved his asthma. The challenge was for that particular family. There were more stressors and more stressors. And this is a big part of the reason why I've ended up dedicating my career to studying the science of stress and resilience. I want to make sure that as you were listening to Dr. Burke Harris, you really got one of the key takeaways there because I think it's fascinating to call the endocrinologist and say, wait a minute, I'm having this insight that something

traumatic on the outside impacted the physiology and the chemical structure of this kid and now we're seeing a physical manifestation of that because his growth has been arrested. That's right. What are some surprising ways, Dr. Burke Harris, that traumatic or adverse experiences, can show up in your adult life, but on the surface, particularly if you're one of these people, you're like, I'm going to work. I'm doing my thing. Like, I'm not going to like that show up

that could be tied to something deeper. I would say one of the most common ways is how it shows up in our relationships, right? Because our relationships are where our stress response gets tested over and over and over, raising children, going to work, correct, correct. So I am talking about marriage and raising children and going to work, right? These are the most common ways because what happens in our relationship is that when we have an overactive

or of something, right? Or if we somehow, in some way, don't feel safe, right? And so that means that

the stress hormones that are designed to save our lives from a mortal threat can go from 0 to 100. Okay. And so that can show up with, you know, your partner says something and you snap at them,

“right? Or truthfully, and this is why this work is so important, your child does something, right?”

That triggers or activates you. And we may be respond in a way that we're not proud of. One of the things that's important for me to add is that it can show up as us saying something to someone else, right? Or it can be really internalized, right? So for some folks, they don't say anything to anybody else, but they get headaches, right? They get neck pain and neck tension. They have gastrointestinal challenges. They get autoimmune disease, right? Because that stress response is

activating over and over again. And when it activates, it also activates our immune system. That makes sense. Yeah. I want to make sure that I have the terminology, right, as we dive deeper into kind of what to do. And as you're listening, just stay with me on this because I think it's very important that we open up the aperture and that you allow yourself to really hear what Dr.

Burke Harris is going to explain in just a second about the things that can be present in your

childhood that you think didn't impact you, but are proven through research to be adverse childhood

“experiences that you should really like think about and and take in. And so what I'm learning”

so far is that they're very adverse and tragic and unfair and scary things that may happen to you and that do happen to people. And the way that your body responds to that threat is the trauma, what your body remembers, how it responds. Yes. And would you just explain for the person listening, what are the top 10 adverse childhood experiences that can have a traumatic like imprint on you and that can create an overactive stress response as an adult? Absolutely. So, as I was caring

for patients and seeing that my patients who had experienced more stressors, more adversity,

“more difficulties at home were also having increased risk of asthma, autoimmune disease,”

behavioral challenges, learning disorders, all these different things. I started diving into the research and saying like, okay, well, I'm the doctor here, so I got to figure out how to, you know, what do I do about this? And so one of the seminal pieces of research is the adverse childhood experience of study. It was published in 1998, right? So now almost 30 years ago, it was conducted by the CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente. And what they did was

they asked 17 and a half thousand people. That's a lot of people, Mel, for research. About their history of 10 categories of adverse childhood experiences. Okay. These included physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, physical, or emotional neglect, or growing up in a household where parent had mental health disorder, substance dependence, was incarcerated, where there was parental separation or divorce or intimate partner violence. So those were the 10 aces that they looked at.

And what they found was shocking, right? The first was that aces were incredibly common,

two thirds of people had experienced at least one aces, right? One in eight folks had experienced four or more. Four or more of those. Yes. In fact, the CDC just updated this research. Now, nationally, it's one in six individuals have experienced four or more of these traditional aces. But the second thing that they found was that there was a dose response relationship

half times as likely to experience depression. Was seven times as likely to experience alcohol

dependence, was ten times as likely to be dependent on opiate opiates. But they were also two and a half times as likely to develop heart disease, right? Almost three times as likely to develop chronic lung disease. And at first, people thought, "Okay, you have a rough childhood. You're

“more likely to drink and smoke and do all these things that affect your health." That's what it is.”

But it turns out that some very smart researchers actually looked at what happens when you

remove the impact of health damaging behavior. And that was only about 50 percent of the risk.

So the good news is that, you know, if you've experienced these aces and you don't engage in any health damaging behavior, you're not sedentary, you eat really healthy, you exercise regularly, they, that removes about 50 percent of the risk. Okay. But the other half the risk was the adverse childhood experience. Was just the impact of the overactive stress response, right? Well, it's like because when we, when we activate our stress response, right, it also activates our immune response,

right? So we get increased inflammation in our bodies. And that's part of the reason we, why we see increased risk for things like heart disease and autoimmune disease. And the good news is there's

“a lot that people can do to prevent adverse outcomes. And one of the key is buffering.”

Dr. Burkhare's, what exactly is buffering? Buffering is a set of interventions that helps the body be able to re-regulate itself. So buffering can be a safe, stable, and nurturing presence. Buffering can be an intervention like therapeutic intervention. And, you know, as a physician, I would say that even biological buffering can even include, for example, pharmacotherapy. I'll just give you an example. So my husband and I have four kids, right? So when something

scary or stressful happens with one of our boys, right? What's the first thing that we do? We,

we grab our kids, we bring them in, right? And we say, you're okay, right? And we, we're calm, we're regulated, right? And we say, we say, you're okay, it's going to be okay. That was scary, wasn't it? Right? We acknowledge the fear. We let them know that they're safe, right? And we pull them in, maybe we pull them into a hug? What does that do? First of all, the hug releases oxytocin. Oxytocin directly blocks the activation of the biological stress response, right? So we're literally

releasing hormones in their bodies to be able to inhibit the activation of the stress response. But the other thing that we do is help them understand, okay, what happens when we feel all these big feelings, right? We feel them, we see them, we recognize them. And then, we, if you're our kids, right, you get help. And then that brings things back to baseline. And so that is essentially that's buffering. So let me just see if I'm tracking with you. So if trauma is not the

thing that happened, it's your body's response to it. And it creates this overactive stress response. Buffering is what you intentionally do to lower that stress response when you experience it in your life. It's like kind of soothing your, is that what it's like? Buffering is what you intentionally do. Yep, to bring yourself back into balance. Oh, I get it. When we talk about the impact of

“adversity or stress or trauma, one of the most important things that the science shows is that”

adversity and stress can lead to trauma in absence of adequate buffering caregiving systems. What it

to baseline, right? And so that's what that's what buffering does. Is there a way you can illustrate

“buffering? Yes. Okay, I have a great, great example of this. Okay, good. Because I like visual examples.”

I'm an explain this. If you're listening, don't panic. I got you. I'm an explain this. So a great example, or a visual, someone could think of in their mind, it's like a teeter-totter. Oh, I can see some kind of thing goes up and down on a big end. Okay, got that. And I haven't had one right here. Okay, great. So when you think about stress or adversity, right, you, if you have a teeter-totter and it's balanced on a full-crum. Yep. Right. You can think of stress or adversity as kind of like a

downward force on one end of the teeter-totter. Okay, so something happened now the teeter-totter

sound. Right, exactly. Then on the way that our bodies biological stress response works. Yep.

“Is that we want to maintain balance? That's what keeps it healthy. Our stress response is”

designed to save our lives from immortal threats. Right. And it works best when we keep it in balance. So on one side, they're stress and adversity. And then on the other side, we have safe, stable, and nurturing relationships. We have regulating practices like breathing techniques and exercise and mindfulness. We have trauma-informed systems and trauma-informed care. And that keeps us in balance.

Now, one of the things that a lot of people don't realize is that where this full-crum

is set, this full-crum on the bottom of the teeter-totter. Yeah, it's normally in the middle. Right. On the playground. Right. On the playground. Right. It's in the middle. Right. The age at which you experience a major stressor or trauma can actually change the location of that full-crum. Making either the diversity more pronounced and harder to balance out of. Right. Exactly. So what that means is that the younger you are when you experience a stressor or trauma or adversity,

you need way more buffering on the other side to be able to balance that out. So if I move this full-crum over, and what Dr. Burke Harris is doing is she's moving the base of the teeter-totter over to one side. So it's not an even teeter-totter anymore. Right. So you have a short end over here, which is on the buffering side. Okay. And then you have this really long end over here on the adversity side because what we understand is that adversity when we're younger, which is a

time where we're more biologically plastic, right? Yep. It actually can shape the developmental trajectory. Your brain and body become wired to respond to stress. So you need way more buffering on the other side. And that's a big part of the reason why if some of your listeners are like, sure, I experienced some adversity, but that was way back when. Right. Right. And now I'm fine, and I don't know why this should even still be bothering me, right? I got a good job. My life

seems like it's great, but I notice that I'm still like triggered sometimes, right? It's because the adversity that we experience needs to be balanced out by a lot more buffering in order for us. Because you didn't get it back then. Right. Exactly. People used to think that stressors or traumatic experiences that happened in like infancy. Like, oh,

“if you don't remember it, it didn't affect you. And it turns out it's the exact opposite, right?”

The younger you are, those experiences that happen in infancy, they can actually shape the way that your stress response is wired, right? So you may not remember the actual event, but the body remembers. Oh, my gosh. You know, this is one of those interviews, Dr. Burke Harris, where I forget that I'm interviewing because my mouth is on the floor and I'm thinking of so many people that I wish were right here with me right now to hear this. And that's the coolest

thing about this being a podcast episode that you can share this with people right now. And in fact,

as you've been listening, I want you to share this with somebody that you love and don't go anywhere.

We're going to be getting into more of what you can do about this when we return to stay with me.

“For myself, for friends, friends, friends, or for an organization. The most important thing is that”

the people or projects are on the right. GoFundMe is the four-hand sports platform for the sports teams, which are important. Without a doubt, it's easy to get involved, but with many health-free tools that I'm on my way to support. So you can be aware of the right way.

In terms of creative, local or even important, your own language is now a reason why GoFundMe

is an organization of millions, and is known as the "spendensammlerin" which is known as GoFundMe. GoFundMe makes many people a different way. And if people are coming together, then you can start doing your best to spend your time with people. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. I'm so thrilled you're here. Thank you for sharing this conversation with people that you care about, because we get to learn

today from Dr. Burke Harris. So I want to stay on this topic of how trauma from childhood is impacting our experiences and adult. Well, you know what's interesting about this is I immediately just thought about the fact that if you think about your own experience in life, right? And wherever it is that you were born, whatever household that you grew up in, there was probably a

“predominant language that was spoken. From zero to two, you probably don't even remember the adult”

who were speaking it or the experiences of it, but your brain and your body and your nervous system absorbed all those voices and it encoded itself in your brain and your body and you started responding with that language that was in your household. And so it does make sense that even if you don't remember something and it's stressed you out and your body biologically still freezes or remembers it or got triggered or it was threatening that of course it would still remember it now.

Right. Right. Is that kind of how it works? Yeah. In fact, it's actually a little bit more anything with that, right? So you're like of course your body remembers it now. So there's been some

really fascinating research on this. This was really powerful. What they did was researchers took

these baby rats and they stressed them out, right, by handling them and then they gave them back to their moms. And some moms naturally did a lot of buffering. So lots of leaking and grooming.

“That's what rat moms do and some moms not so much. They didn't do a lot. And then when those”

baby rats grew up, they did all these, you know, tests on them and what they found was that the rats that had a lot of buffering did better on cognitive tests, right? They were more stressed tolerant. So they were more able to explore. They were more adventurous. When they actually measured their biological stress response, their stress response shut itself off more normally after the stressor was gone. And this was really important when those rats had their own babies. They were

more likely to do lots of buffering, lots of leaking and grooming, right? And the ones who didn't receive a lot of buffering care, it was the opposite. Like they were less stressed tolerant. Their stress response would stay on longer after a stressor. So after a stressor's already gone, they're still fired up with the stress hormones, right? And when they had their own babies, they were less likely to do the buffering care. And what was wild about it was that

these behaviors, they could actually, they were tied to markers on the epigenetic marker. So markers not changes to the genetic code, but markers on the DNA to tell the body like

rat babies, they, I don't know if they were watching lifetime TV, they switched them up birth.

“What? Right. Okay. So the, the ones that they grew up with with rat moms and dads that gave”

a lot of cuddling and licking. Right. They went to the one low buffering. Okay. Mom. And the, the ones that were from a low buffering mom, they, they cross fostered them to a high buffering mom. And what they found was they took on the stress reactivity of their rearing mother, not of their biological mother. And then even the epigenetic markers were of their rearing mother, not of their biological mother. And what that showed was that experience of receiving buffering

actually changed the epigenetic markers for these baby rats. So it actually changed the way their DNA was red and, and expressed. And that was what translated into changes in behavior. That's really exciting because if I'm tracking correctly and you tell me if I've got this or not,

you're basically saying that even if you have had a lot of adverse experiences or traumatic

experiences and you did not receive the support and the nurturing and the intervention that you needed at the time that the research shows that if you recognize that and you provide that to yourself now, that changes you and it changes your, like DNA almost in terms of what's firing,

“and it opens the door to a completely different way to experience your life. Is that what you're saying?”

That's exactly it changes your biology. So when we experience something stressful or traumatic, it activates our biological stress response. And that it actually involves a lot of our body system, like the brain, the immune system, our hormonal systems, even the way our DNA is red and transcribed. And in absence of adequate buffering caregiving systems, what can happen is that our stress response can actually stay on high and then that increases the risk for not only some of the stuff we

typically associate with trauma, right? Maybe anxiety or depression, mental health or behavioral health challenges, but it turns out that it also increases the risk for things like headache, asthma, autoimmune disease, heart disease, cancer, right? And that is because of these changes that we see to our biological systems when we don't have enough buffering. Well, it kind of makes sense because if you have something that flipped on your fight or flight survival mechanism,

and you didn't have any buffering that helped you flip it off and start to feel safe again,

your body starts to run at that rate, always under threat. I mean, I woke up for my god. I

had an incident in the fourth grade where I woke up in the middle of sleeping during a sleepover and found an older kid on top of me and immediately like possumed and disassociated and froze.

“That was the response in your definition to what was happening in my body. I didn't remember it.”

I didn't remember it for over a decade and a half. Wow. And then had this moment where I was listening to somebody else tell a similar story and the whole thing came flooding back. And it took me another decade and a lot of therapy to recognize that the experience that I had from being in the fourth grade to being a grown woman with a job and kids and I'm married and I'm able to mostly pay my bills and I'm somewhat fucked. Yeah. But every single morning for three decades, I would wake

up and have this intense sense of dread. No matter what was going on, it could be the most beautiful

day. It could be a weekend. We could have incredible plans and in my body, I felt this like

yeah. Something's wrong. Someone's mat like just this deep thing and what I've come to learn and your work has been a huge part of this is that is what you're talking about. My body was remembering the experience of waking up the morning after it happened and I didn't tell anybody what

it. And so I feel like understanding that there are experiences that your body remembered. Yeah.

And if there's aspects of your adult life that just don't seem to make sense, they're not how you want them to be. This is a door you can open to really start to heal and take control.

“And one of the key is buffering. And even if you didn't get it back then, we're going to we”

can use buffering techniques to be able to calm down an overactive stress response that you've probably had since childhood. Right. Right. So that's exactly right. So let me give an example.

Okay. Right. So let me not be hyped. So Mel, real talk. When I read about the A study and I was

working on trying to find solutions for my patients. Yeah. Part of the reason why it was so important to me is because I grew up in a household with a mom who had untreated mental illness. My mom suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. It was buckwheat. Sometimes. Yeah. So let me just tell you. Even worse, I will say in my own personal experience, even worse than it being buckwheat all the time, was that sometimes my mom was the best mom in the world. Right. My mom taught me how to hit a

backhand in tennis. My mom was like the biggest educational champion. But she was unpredictably

violent, just disregulated all of the above. That was the big motivator for me to say to see the data on ACEs. I was just like, these are my patients. I'm going to scour the science to figure out what these interventions are. Yeah. Right. And the ironic thing about it is that the more research I did and the more I put into practice for my patients, the more I was like, oh, all right, I tried that at home. Right. And so for myself, right, as I started putting in some of these

self-regulation practices. Got it. Right. We know things like mindfulness, meditation, regular exercise, spending time in nature, all of these things kind of reduce the activity of our fight or flight response. Right. That's our biological research fund. And increase the activity of our parasympathetic nervous system. That is like counteract the fight or flight. It's resting and

“digesting. So, so I start doing all this stuff. Right. It's great. And I think for for for most”

people and for most of your listeners who are out there, you do this and it's and it's just what that's doing is it's stacking stuff on the other side of the teeter totter. Right. You're building self-regulation into your own life. I start every day with a meditation and journaling literally every day. What does it do for you? Oh. So for me, it helps me start the day from a place of calm and regulation and it helps me remember what that place feels like so that when I start to

move away from it, I notice it. Right. Because one of the things that happens when we kind of have this stress response that's going right all the time is that for most of us, we don't even notice it.

“Well, I think that's the thing about your work that is so profound because it's not like”

your some slouch. I mean, you're like going to the best schools in the world and you have all these degrees and you're opening this clinic and we think we can outwork or we can outdegree or we can somehow run away from this. Outer. Outer. Yes. And what I found is that there was nothing that I did that involved running away from it that made it disappear. That's right. And I'm happy that you just share that because if you're listening right now and you

Maybe it would feel good to not have my stress response on all the time. Maybe it would feel good

to not have the response of every headline or every email send me through the roof that I that I maybe should try some of these buffering things because what you're doing is I really listen to it in the context of your adverse childhood experiences. Since your mom was incapable due to her mental illness of providing that calm, safe routine start to the morning, you now as an adult woman are providing it for yourself. Co-rect. So I start with these self-regulating practices of, you know,

mindfulness, journaling, go for a walk, do my do my workout. And then we also know that for for some of us, for some of us, that's enough. That's fantastic. For some of us, we also need therapy, right?

“So we add things on top of that. Myself personally, I've used EMDR. It's the best way you”

explain for the person listening what that is because it is a game changer. What EMDR is is it's

called eye movement, desensitization and reprogramming and essentially someone who's trained in EMDR therapists will help someone be able to go back to a past memory and then using a process of bilateral stimulation. So some people do tapping, some people use like a a therapist, which would I use and you have alternative bilateral stimulation. The brain actually processes that experience differently when you're having this bilateral stimulation. And then as part of the

“process, one of the really important things is having a corrective experience. So when you go back”

and you have the memory, then you identify what should have happened. And in my corrective experience,

when I when I went back, there's a some moment when, you know, little me from my childhood, is sitting there and terrified and adult me comes in and just sits down on the bed and says, I'm here. And that for me, when I think about all of the research, all of the science about buffering, trauma-informed care, regulating the stress response, all of that. Essentially, all of that, can be summed up in this I'm here effect, right? It is a regulated presence who says,

I'm here. And that can be, that can be adult you showing up for a little you who didn't get it. Uh-huh. And adult you're showing up for adult you right now. Correct. So for me, I'm here on a daily basis means starting my day with these regulating practices,

“mindfulness, journaling, exercise, time and nature. And that's how I do I'm here for myself.”

And honestly, as I'm listening to so many people that I care about are coming to mind, people that I think now that I understand this, I can see how they're probably stuck in patterns from their childhood and they don't even realize it. The good news is there's something you can do about it. Dr. Burke Harris is providing a free resource that will empower somebody to break free from these patterns. So thank you for taking a moment to share this in your family

group chat, share this with your siblings, share this with people that you know have more potential but keep getting in their own way and don't go anywhere because when we return we're going to continue to dig into the tools that help you heal, stay with me. In a few minutes, I'm going to start a GoFanthmi Spendon. For myself, for friends, family or for an organization,

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“Without a reason, you have to deal with it, but with many health-free tools that I'm on my way”

and to support. So you can be aware of the right laws, creative, local or life-saving, your unlegant self. There's a reason why GoFanthmi of millions are understeaded and worldwide of Spendon samularin in the world. GoFanthmi makes a lot of people in a different way and helps people to come together. Start now, today, your GoFanthmi Spendon Off-Roof.

Welcome back to friend Mel, and today you and I are learning from the extraordinary

Dr. Burke Harris, who is teaching us all about how childhood trauma has shaped you as an adult and keeps you stuck in frustrating patterns. She's teaching you and me and the people that we love, how to stop holding ourselves back and start creating the life that we deserve as an adult at a biological and neurological level. So Dr. Burke Harris, talk to the person who

“right now is kind of going, because I think the person listening, I can almost hear you being like,”

"Oh my God, I have so much I need buffering. I have an overactive stress response. I got to do something. Where do you want the person who's now having this epiphany? This is me, this is me, this is me. Where do you start?" Okay, this is it. Yeah, all right. Girl, I see you. Okay. But I think, so number one, I want to say that it starts really simple. So what does I'm here look like in your own life showing up for yourself? Whether that means taking a walk

every day for 20 minutes or starting with some mindfulness or getting out in nature, right? These are some of the basic self-regulation practices that anyone can do. And there are actually seven evidence-based interventions to help buffer the biological stress response that I include, that actually wrote about in the in the surgeon general's report, and these include sleep, exercise, nutrition, mindfulness, mental health, and healthy relationships.

And time in nature. So these are the seven evidence-based interventions that help to regulate the biological stress response. So that's, I would say step one. And then Mel, I would say step two is really connecting an intentionally building for

“yourself, right? These safe and stable relationships. That is key. We all know. We all have the”

one-girlfriend we talked to when we're about to say something that sounds crazy. Oh, we know that is not going to overreact or the the brother, right, who was there during all the madness and can validate our experience and and just be present, right? So really identifying who are the people in our lives. And it's sometimes it's one person and one person is enough, right? That's the good news. One person is enough. But oftentimes it's more than one person that we can talk to

be authentically vulnerable and feel safe and for and sometimes it means that we're going to need more. So we may need to reach out to a therapist or we may want to try, you know, trauma-focused, cognitive behavioral therapy or internal family systems therapy or EMDR. But any of these, these different

interventions can also help us to establish internal safety and regulate ourselves. And then finally,

for some people, medication is helpful, right? And so that's the other thing we can talk to your doctor. I love that you said the first step is starting with yourself. Yeah. And the reason why I love that is I can think back, and it's more recent than I care to admit, to me having an overactive stress response, me not having started EMDR yet, me still like I'm the kind of person that when I get emotionally triggered by something, the stress response is like a volcano. And I can think of moments

why I deserve to be stressed. And this is very, and like barking in everybody. And then the

poor man just shuts down. Right. And so how could I possibly buffer him as he's going through

“his stuff if I can't even buffer myself? Yeah. And I also feel like it's a really important thing”

if you have challenging people in your life. So I do think almost every one of us has somebody that has an overactive stress response. Yes. And isn't shutting down. They're the ones yelling at you. They're the ones who are unpredictable. And you're not going to be able to deal with them if you don't start buffering creating safety for yourself. And being the I am here in your words,

for yourself as a way to feel safe, even around somebody chaotic. I hated knitting that I was the

chaotic person. I hated knitting that I was the asshole. I hated knitting that. Oh my gosh, I love that you're admitting that you want to know why? Because I feel like for a lot of people, the the biggest obstacle to being able to address a disregulated stress response is even acknowledging, right? People say, oh yeah, I had these difficult experiences, but it didn't affect me because look, I've got a great job. I'm making good money. I, you know, I have this nice house.

And I even have a great spouse, right? And so it didn't affect me. And you're like,

it's that way. You drink a bottle of wine every night after work? Right. Right. And so that first

step of being able to say, and let me just tell you something, that piece is a part of saying, I'm here for yourself. It's to be able to see, hmm, gosh, I did just kind of react all heavy handed there, didn't I? That's not the bomb I want to be. Yeah. That's not the partner I want to be. That's not the self I want to be, right? Or wow, I did feel really dysregulated because one of the things that happens when we experience trauma and adversity is that we become the ones

who can't see ourselves, right? And so that piece of it, being able to say, yeah, I felt really overwhelmed and I responded in a way that that I wasn't proud of. So the next

“thing that you do for yourself. Yes. And it just depends on how much it's affecting you, right?”

So it can be making a plan with your partner, right? About so it's how do you get that buffering? How do you set up an infrastructure of buffering for yourself? Right? Like, oh, I know that when a certain thing happens. So you know, many of us have these like code words or a hand squeeze or a something to be able to to be able to help us regulate and and get out of the situation. But honestly, it sounds like that's a really good time to maybe explore it with a therapist

and understand what that trigger is for you. And then understand what is that corrective experience, because one of the pieces that we understand is that these corrective experiences can then help to rewire our stress response. So maybe it's that I actually didn't feel safe holding a boundary that. And so maybe I got to say to, you know, my mother and la, actually, you know what, we're not coming for Thanksgiving this year. I know that it's very upsetting

for you. And but this is what our family's choices, right? So really understanding how do you show up for yourself in those moments in a way that creates a corrective experience for you?

“One of the other things about your work, Dr. Burk Harris, that I think is important for you to explain”

because you're very clear about the fact that will power motivation and mindset. Often fail when you have an overactive nervous system. So could you as a doctor just kind of explain, if you're dealing with this issue of motivation, you can't get your resume done. You can't seem to do the get up and go. You're in that loop of thinking about what you need to do, but you can't quite get the juice to do it. What is going on when that's happening that relates to this

works is that you can imagine if you're walking in the forest and you see a bear, right? Like what

happens at our brains and bodies? The first thing is our amygdala, which is our brains alarm system,

sounds the alarm until our brain and body to release stress hormones. Okay. So we release adrenaline, and cortisol. So our hearts start to pound. Our pupils dilate. Our airways open up. We shunt blood to our big muscles for running and jumping and away from the ittybitty muscle that holds your bladder close so you may pee your pants, but there's no judgment. Right? And so you're ready to either fight the bear or run from the bear. Yes. But if you were to think about it,

“fight in a bear would not seem like a good idea. Would it? No. And that's why the amygdala actually”

sends neurons, it sends projections to the prefrontal cortex. That's the part of the brain that's it's right here behind the forehead. Yep. And this is the part that's responsible for judgment, impulse control, executive functioning, and it turns it way down. Because the last thing you want, if you're in a forest and there's a bear, is some impulse control getting in the way of survival. Right. Because if you were to make a rash stupid decision to then go try to fight a bear,

you would be dead. Right. Exactly. And I take it when you're a little kid. If you're in a situation where you're under threat, that the same mechanism is happening, which is why a lot of us freeze or hide or run or do something different than put up the dukes and go after dead. That's exactly right. Now, that is what we call the fight or flight response or you're absolutely right. The other thing that can happen is that you can freeze. So there's a

fight flight or freeze. And then the other thing that happens, and especially it's more common with women is that you can fawn. It's the affiliate of response. What does that mean? So that means is that you become compliant. You people please for your own safety. Yes. Right. Yeah. All of these are driven by safety. All of them are driven. Because in that moment when it's the bear or it's dead or it's systemic racism or it's bullying at school, no one's there. Right. Right. And so you're

having to figure out how to survive. Yes. This situation. And so this is the ways in which our stress response become wired for survival. Got it. Right. For the folks who really just can't get themselves organized or or are procrastinating, even that is when we see that that prefrontal cortex is really just having a really hard time engaging. Right. Because the amygdala is on

“overdrive. And that's actually biologically what happens. And that's why buffering is so important.”

This is so important because if you're trying to power through your own biology,

you probably are always going to exhaust yourself and not win. But if you recognize that you're

biology is like subconsciously so quickly causing you to either freeze or whatever, the buffering allows you to down regulate your stress so you can reengage a part of your brain else. Is that right? No. I'm going to think more than that. In my experience. Yes. So if you are trying to power through. Yes. And you're struggling to do it because of your biology, but you don't know. Yes. You're going to say, why can't I do it? Look at that guy over there. Yes. He can do it,

but I can't do it. I suck. Right. And that's where the shame layer comes in. Right. And what a shame do. Shame doesn't only increase our stress, but it also isolates us. So it makes us less likely

“to connect to the thing that we actually need to be successful. Right. And that's why”

understanding the biology is so powerful because it takes out what you're like, oh, oh, this is just

my overactive stress response. Right. And this is how it shows up for me. That's a sign that what I need right now is buffering connection support. It means that I need to do the self-regulation practices. Yeah. I need to do some mindfulness, some journaling, go for a walk, go for a workout,

so awesome because you're explaining how the biology is keeping you stuck without even realizing it, but you offer a very hopeful message because the same biology that puts you in an overactive stress response that over time compounds into these things that we experience as an adult, whether it's our immune disorder, chronic procrastination, the shame cycles that you get yourself caught in because you see other people, why can't I do what the hell's wrong with me? But your message

is hopeful because you say that the same biology that basically became overactive can adapt,

“can adapt. Right. And one of the most important things for that adaptation is”

corrective experiences. Okay. So what does that mean? So this is something that I learn from very smart researchers. One of them, Dr. Frank Anderson, is psychologist who focuses on internal family systems, but we see this also with other trauma therapies like EMDR. And essentially what it says is whatever it is that you learned, right? I learned that if I asked for help,

no one would come to my aid, then the corrective experience is asking for help and actually getting

you. And then your body and your brain and your nervous system can learn that. How do you do that

“if even the idea of asking for help sends your nervous system into an overactive state? Right.”

Right. So for someone who's really struggling, I really recommend getting support. Yeah. Right. Getting support. Whether that is from a licensed professional, right? Or even in the context of talking with a great girlfriend who you really trust and say, you know what? I'm telling myself

this story that if I ask for what I need, I'm not going to get it, right? Sometimes that

support is with pharmacotherapy, right? So sometimes we need a little something to help us be able to balance and regulate our stress response so that then we can learn, right? Like our biology can learn, oh wait, there's a different outcome here. If the person listening starts to use these tools and you start to provide the buffering for yourself, I am here. What are some of the small

“little glimmers that you might notice that are signs that this is working? Honestly, some of the things”

that I've noticed in my own life and in my own relationships is that we can be less reactive, right, and more responsive. What I've seen in my clinical practice is that when we add this buffering, to whatever the standard treatment is, whether it's ADHD or a child's not growing or whatever, then we see clinical improvement, right? So whether it's headache or abdominal pain, just when we add that layer of buffering, we're able to regulate the stress response, we see the impacts both

behaviorally in terms of how we show up both for ourselves and in our relationships, and then we also can see the difference in our health. That makes sense to me because I know in my own experience that there are still things almost daily that trigger me. It knocks me off my balance for a moment, and then I can take a deep breath because I've been practicing the buffering skills without really truly understanding it as a complete way to be there for yourself

and to heal yourself. Your response time is so I don't have a McKinsey anymore. I'm faster to apologize. I'm more patient. I'm way more compassion with annoying people in my life. And I can just exhale and be there for myself and it's shocking how much things change. You know,

has a lot of adverse childhood experiences. And they can see that this person that they love is

in an overactive stress response. What is one thing that you want them to know that they could do

“to support this person in their life other than sending them this episode? One of the most important”

things, in addition to being there for ourselves. So being a regulated presence, so regulating ourselves, can also be just being a witness to their experience and being able to to recognize and say, wow, I can see that how that impacted you. And then let them letting them

know that we love them, right? And that healing is possible. I love that. I love that. Yeah.

Dr. Burke Harris, if the person listening takes just one action based on all of the wisdom and love and buffering that you've poured into us by being here today with us, what do you think

“the most important thing to do is? I think the thing that enables all of this is really having the”

courage to look and say, do I have some aces, right? And is that showing up in my life right now? And then go from there and say, okay, well, if that's the case, what does that mean about how I show for myself? What kind of supports do I need so that I can be well supported, right? And then so that I can show up for the people in my life? Dr. Burke Harris, what are your parting words? Hmm, well, because I am a super public health nerd. I will say, I believe infrastructure

is love in action. What we build, the systems that we build in our personal lives for ourselves, whether it is connecting to a strong group of friends who we feel safe with, right? But building at a head of time and not waiting for the wheels to fall off the card, that would be like

one of the most important things. Well, Dr. Burke Harris, thank you, thank you, thank you, you are

a global treasure. I am so appreciative of the time that you took to come here and to teach everything and share everything that you did with us and I cannot wait to see how this one conversation creates a positive wave of change in people's lives around the world. Mel, it has been my pleasure, my joy, thank you so much. And I also want to thank you, thank you for making the time and spending time listening to something that not only might have rocked your world, but I hope it opened your

eyes and it opened your heart to a completely different possibility. And I love the fact that Dr. Burke Harris gave us a research backed playbook that you can follow so that you can start to do the healing that you deserve so that you can start to buffer yourself now so that you can use this

“I am here method to start with yourself. And there's no doubt in my mind, I believe, or that it”

begins with the systems you put in place for yourself, for your family, for community and from there by taking care of yourself, I think we actually take care of improving the world. And in case no one else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you as your friend that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And one way that I can prove that is you took the time to listen to this. And if you follow what Dr. Burke Harris said,

you will create a better life. Alrighty, I will see you in the very next episode. I'm going to welcome you in the moment you hit play. Okay, Brie, Trace, we ready? Awesome. We got a big thumbs up. Brian, I love the shirt today. You know, I love it when you're wearing your crazy shirts. I miss this shirt. I miss this shirt. This is why I came here and I'm like, where's the

if somebody else doesn't say, I love you. I'm going to tell you right now, I love you. I was

“journaling this morning because I started every day with journaling. And I was just like, oh, I'm”

kind of nervous, you know, going on a melt spot cast. But I'm like, this will be successful if

Mel is my friend. Yeah, there you go. This is successful already. It's already. Yes, just because

“you showed up. Oh my god, you're so awesome. You're so awesome. Did you get everything? Perfect.”

Yay! You did dynamite. Oh my goodness. Thank you. So proud of you. Thank you.

So many people. That was so fun. You really, you really make it fun.

“Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know,”

what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.