Podcast: Play in new window

Subscribe: RSS

In a world where technology offers countless ways to be connected, why is it that so many of us still feel disconnected? Why is it becoming increasingly difficult to forge deep, meaningful connections with others?

In this episode, Dr. Jody Carrington and Dr. Jessica Higgins explore the intricacies of reconnecting and finding balance in relationships, along with the skill of nurturing genuine connections. Whether it's strengthening bonds with our children, partners, colleagues, or even within ourselves, they delve into the heart of building authentic relationships. From handling emotional challenges to embracing the significance of acknowledgment, they unravel the multifaceted nature of human interaction.

So, if you're ready to peel back the layers of disconnection and embark on a journey towards reconnection, join us on this episode.

Dr. Jody Carrington is a psychologist sought after for her expertise, energy, and approach to helping people solve their most complex human-centered challenges. Jody focuses much of her work around reconnection. Jody uses humor, and all she has learned in her twenty-year career as a psychologist to empower everyone she connects with. In her latest book, Feeling Seen, she dives into what it takes to reconnect a disconnected world.

In this Episode

7:24 Dr. Jody Carrington’s professional evolution: From first responders to child psychiatry.

15:55 The challenge of repairing relationships.

19:14 Building emotional language and regulation.

24:52 Identifying core motivators of disconnection in relationships.

30:52 The importance of acknowledging the various contributors to disconnection.

38:01 Indigenous teachings on land acknowledgment as a lesson in genuine bearing witness.

42:10 Fostering resilience in professionals to address the increasing emotional dysregulation in society.

53:28 Accessing Dr. Carrington’s workshops and podcasts for accessible mental health conversations.

Your Check List of Actions to Take

• Practice active listening: When others share their emotions, listen attentively without judgment, providing a safe space for them to be heard.
• Acknowledge emotions: Regularly validate and acknowledge others' feelings to create a sense of being seen and understood.
• Develop emotional vocabulary: Expand your emotional language beyond basic terms like happy or sad to better express your feelings and connect with others.
• Prioritize self-regulation: Learn techniques like deep breathing and physical relaxation to manage your own emotional reactions and respond thoughtfully.
• Repair and reconnect: After conflicts, work on repairing relationships through open conversations that involve acknowledging emotions and finding common ground.
• Create emotional safe zones: Foster environments where people feel comfortable expressing their emotions without fear of criticism or dismissal.
• Use “I” statements: When discussing emotions, use “I” statements to express your feelings and experiences, promoting open dialogue and empathy.
• Embrace vulnerability: Share your emotions authentically with trusted individuals, fostering deeper connections and mutual understanding.

Mentioned

Teachers These Days: Stories and Strategies for Reconnection (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

Kids These Days: A Game Plan For (Re)Connecting With Those We Teach, Lead, & Love (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

Feeling Seen: Reconnecting in a Disconnected World (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love

Connect with Dr. Jody Carrington

Websites: drjodycarrington.com

Facebook: facebook.com/drjodycarrington

Twitter: twitter.com/DrJCarrington?s=20&t=6-oqtPKGW3zZnKeT0eI6Hg

YouTube: youtube.com/c/drjodycarrington

Instagram: instagram.com/drjodycarrington/?hl=en

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dr-jody-carrington/?originalSubdomain=ca

Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins

Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship 

Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins 

Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/

Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins 

Twitter: @DrJessHiggins 

Website: drjessicahiggins.com  

Email: [email protected]

About Today's Show

Dr. Jody Carrington, thank you so much for joining us here today.

Dr. Jessica Higgins, thank you for having me here today, come on! What do you want to do with all this brilliant therapeutic energy?

I know, we're going to talk about connection and disconnection. It sounds like something you've devoted a lot of your attention and focus and just heart and soul to addressing, to help support people. Is that right?

Well, it's my favorite thing in the world. I think because I get a lot of questions as a psychologist about the mental health crisis, and the big worries around trauma and suicide, and are the kids these days going to be alright, and all of those questions. I mean, the answer, to me, always comes back to this idea that in the history of the free world, we've never been this disconnected, and we weren't meant to do any of this alone. So the pandemic has expedited that process exponentially. But even in the last two generations, we've seen such an epic proportion of disconnection from humanity, that has really contributed to so much of it. I think therein lies the answer to healing some of that pain and that trauma and that misunderstanding that we have really perpetuated. So I love to talk about it. I love to talk about it in stories and in the patients that I've had the privilege to treat. 

And certainly, I'm very privileged, in the way that I grew up in this little town in Alberta, Canada, and I'm straight, I'm able-bodied, I'm White. I have all of these things that allowed me to start on third base. So I use so much of the things that I talk about, in having learned from people who didn't have those things, and how that further makes it so much harder to do this thing of connection, to step involuntarily into relationships, and work through and just do the things that we think everybody should do when they're healthy. I think the more that we talk about it, it gives permission for people to understand and see each other much more as humans, rather than: “You're not doing this. Or what's getting in the way? Or why is mental health such a struggle for you?” I just love that. I think it's the greatest place to be right now.

No kidding. Thank you for starting with that, and just how passionate you are, and I have things I want to say in regards to that. But I also typically like to ask people, what got them into really focusing on their particular topic? Was it the COVID pandemic or you were already looking at this as a topic of interest?

Oh, yeah. So I've been a psychologist for 20 years. I mean, there's so many reasons, I think, why it all came together, most of which I didn't realize until I was 38. I talked about this story, I've only talked about it on stage a few times. But I talk about when I grew up in a small town, I'm the oldest of two, or I thought I was the oldest of two, and my brother is three years younger than me. I've always sort of had this sense about, I was always the funny one, I always wanted to make people happy, and I had this interest in relationships. I was really inspired by a teacher when we had a student die, when we were in grade 10. I remember just her way of walking us through that, I was so impressed. Just really, I later came upon this quote by Ram Das that I keep above me all the time. “We're all just here walking each other home.” I love it, I think it's the most profound statement in the English language. And when I think about what Holly, my teacher back in grade 10 did, and certainly the story that later unfolds around disconnection in my own life. 

So I'll tell you that real quick. So we grew up in this family of four, and lots of happiness and joy, and everybody's blissfully frolicking. And then my mum and dad get a divorce. None of which I saw coming, and there were lots of stories behind this, and I didn't quite get it for a very long time. So I get married, and my brother gets married, and we have children. And we still speak. I mean, I speak to my mom every day, my dad probably a few times a week. I came back to the farm when I was, I think it was 36, must have been 36. I was pregnant with our first baby and my husband was away. So mum says can you come home for the weekend? I was like, absolutely. It was pretty good. 

So we're sitting around the kitchen table, and in walks my dad, they had been divorced for 15 years at this point, and my brother. So everybody sits down, and we're having coffee, and mom brings up the lemon loaf, which is the universal sign of death. It's really weird, and mum starts to cry, and dad starts crying. And dad says, we have to tell you kids something that we haven't told anybody in 40 years. So I'm like, maybe dad is gay. Like, what possibly couldn't I know about this man? So obviously, he's not dying, if he's known this for 40 years, or imminently. And he says, you have a sister; you have a full biological sister. Your mother and I got pregnant when we were in our teens, and because we grew up in a small town, very religious upbringings, we didn't want to disappoint our parents. So we bound your mom's belly and we found a home for unwed mothers, and your sister was adopted by a lovely family, and we were told very clearly by the nuns that we couldn't find her. So we've sort of wondered for the last 40 years, what happened to her, and she's found us. 

So we were both like, holy mother! My dad was like: “Oh, Jode, you should see! She looks just like your mom. She sounds just like you.” I was like, what? Wow! What do you mean, you've talked to her? And my dad is like, would you guys like to meet her? In my head, I was like, Jesus! I mean, I was the oldest and the only daughter, now I'm a middle kid? And my sweet brother is like: Of course dad, of course we'd like to meet her. And he said: Great, she's in the garage! Like a puppy.

Wow, my mouth is dropped! Yes.

I can't even tell you. So this isn't exact. She was on her way. 

Just the same, though. 

It's the same. Because at what point, my dad was like, if you guys aren't ready. Well, what were you supposed to say at this moment? So she drives up the driveway 20 minutes later, my brother and I are holding hands in our childhood's living room, which we don't do, generally speaking, my brother and I. I was like, what? What do you say to a sister? and he's like, Oh, come on. Like, he's like, maybe Hello. So I was like: Okay, good. Let's start with that, that feels great. So she comes in. And honest to goodness, if we're in the same room, you can't tell the difference. Like, we are both loud and ridiculous, and she's funny. She got an undergraduate in psychology. And we were at university the same time together, we lived six blocks from each other. She looks just like my mom. So she comes in, and we have this really interesting family dinner. My mum's partner is there, and my dad's partner, and we're frolicking around this table. 

That was, gosh, 13 years ago, and now we see each other often; we're such good friends. Our children are just very connected; her son looks more like me than my sons do. Yeah, she's the coolest, she really is. She has been the biggest gift, and we really appreciate that our story is quite unique. Sometimes adoptions don't work out this way. But she's been probably the biggest gift in terms of watching my parents navigate that connection and that reconnection. Often thinking about what it would have been like to know that piece of our story without our mum and dad still here to walk us through that. My brother's response, her adoptive parents' response to us. 

I don't know if this is the reason I got into this work, but certainly, this was the bow. It's part of the first story I tell in my latest book, because it really is about, gosh, we are all just here walking each other home, and there's so much about each other that we have no idea about. So yeah, I mean, it really then turned into a big love of, even before I knew about my sister, trauma. I worked with the police force, I was a civilian member of a police force, our national police force for a couple years. So I fell in love a lot about emotional regulation and disconnection, and what it means to do the walking, as a first responder, as a teacher, as a nurse, a health professional, how so many of us need the walkers in the biggest time of distress, and we do a very poor job of looking after the walkers historically; your profession, my profession, first responders, period. So I dove a lot into my masters in my PhD around first responder trauma. Then when I did my residency, I had to do rotation with kids, and I was like: Listen, I'm not a fan, I much prefer the big people. They said, you're kind of like a little person, we think you'd be a good fit. So I did a bit of a postdoc in child psychiatry, and then spent 10 years on a lab psychiatric inpatient unit with kids. I learned some of the most incredible things about trauma and attachment and emotional dysregulation, and what it really takes to walk people home. 

I mean, we had three kids. I met my husband when I was finishing my PhD, and he's a farmer. I tried to land a hockey player and a golfer, and all those things didn't work out. So I got myself a farmer, he's a really nice guy. And we've got a spreadsheet for everything. He's a feedlot nutritionist. He's got a PhD in ruminant nutrition, which sounds boring, but I'm sure it's exciting.

What's ruminant nutrition?

How you feed calves. Yeah, brilliant, I'm sure it's really difficult. But he's a really nice guy. So we get married. He's lovely, and we have three kids. So the first kid, I feel so confident with; he's easy, everything's fantastic. But I really miss my work. So I go back to work. And then I get twins. At 38, I get – thank you, Jesus – twins. So I have three kids under two, I don't even like children, and I'm losing my mind. And he said, I know what'll help you, let's move closer to my mother. So I wake up in this little town in Alberta, and this is where we live now. We've lived here for, gosh, almost 11 years. The twins are now 10. Our oldest is 13. This has been the greatest gift. I started a little practice, I started to consult the schools. And then I started to write about it, and then I started to talk about it. And now I have three books, and I speak around the world, and I get to talk to cool people like you. So I still have a little practice. I'm just such a big believer in talking about how disconnected our stories can make us, our trauma and our experiences. I still so believe that anxiety and depression and all those things won't kill you, but not talking about it might. We've never had such a lack of ability or access to be able to truly have connections to talk about our things.

Well, even as you're giving us a sense of who you are, where you're coming from, with the quote from Ram Das of we're all walking each other home. I don't know if I have it exactly right. But it seems like it encapsulates so much of what you're describing. I know the Empowered Relationship Podcast is focused on intimate relationships. But I do believe there's a bigger network that we're talking about with connection, and hence, what you're describing here really relates. In that, not only in the disconnect that happens, but that the reconnecting and the ability to have guidance, to be able to help assist, and to be able to walk someone through, is such a healing reparative thing that we have such ability to do. But perhaps shy away from, or don't know what we could do or the power of it. 

We don't have a script. See, we're not born with that. 

I mean, Gottman is the guru, and he talks about that the number one predictor of couples who make it and couples who don't, if we take it down to the bare minimum, is really your ability to repair in times of distress. The issue is, somebody needs to show you how to do that. 

So if we had, let's say two generations ago, even more proximity to our parents. Think about the square footage of the house that your grandparents lived in and where you are, and this refers to the house in which we raise our babies, is significantly different. In fact, it's estimated, our great grandparents looked at their children 72% more of the time than we look at our babies. And what's inherent in that process is how I fight with my partner, how I repair. If somebody had a knock down, shoot 'em out in your grandparents' home, with three kids and two bedrooms, everybody knew about it, and when they repaired, everybody knew about it. But now, in our house that's really big, our babies are in the basement, I'm texting somebody when it's supper time. Because be goddamned if I'm going to go down those five steps myself, I'm going to text you when it's supper time. So we lose that ability. And when Aaron and I have a fight in front of the kids, or we're arguing with each other, what they don't see necessarily is the text message that he sends an hour later that says I'm sorry, honey. They just see that we're back on track with each other. We lose the nuances of navigating relationships. So it perpetuates then, their inability to have conversations with their friends. 

If we think about how much time social media inundation happens, there's very little opportunity. It's not the media that kills us, the social media, that's the problem. It's how we use it that becomes the issue. It's how we take time away to repair. Because we as big people have also been inundated by the media, and all day long, we're exhausted. So I need a break from my children, and if you've got your iPad, and my husband got his Netflix show, I feel justified to settle in to learn how to launder money in the Ozarks in that particular evening. Because I've single-handedly saved the children of central Alberta today, and I've watched other things and been on Zoom meetings and done all these things. The coming together of family is no longer the purpose of filling up our souls, it's actually just to decompress. That is so difficult in building relationship and skill to be able to then take into our dating relationships, or into then the next time that I step into somebody else's relationship. What do you think about that? 

Well, one of the things that's happening, or what I'm thinking about as you're describing this, is the accumulation. So if we have this, using Gottman's language, a bid for attention, and we're asking a question of our loved one, let's say our spouse, and they're occupied by watching a program or looking at their phone, and they're not really that responsive, that is a lack of responding. Or some people might say just neutral or turning away. But it's not a responsiveness. And so much of what we know about the research, especially as it relates to attachment research and bonds and feeling a sense of security, is having that ability to feel that responsiveness. So we have a small interaction where that bid was not responded to, that's just one moment. And you're talking about modern living when there's so many moving parts in a given day, then we're talking about weeks and years. I mean, it's just pervasive, about all the moments of disconnect, and how it's not necessarily built into our modern life to have the restorative connecting and bonding that fills our cup. Like, it's more of a demand. 

Yeah, and we haven't even had time to make a new world. So Adam Grant talks about this, we're playing by a set of rules that were established for a world that no longer exists. So if we look at the education system, or the justice system, I'm going to punish you when you make a bad choice in the hopes that you're going to learn the behavior I want, which is all predicated on Watson and Skinner's behaviorism. You make a good choice, I reward you. You don't make a good choice, I punish you. As children, many of us were raised in this way. Kids should be seen and not heard. You pee on the potty; I give you a smarty. We understand that I need you. We've been raised in this way that says show me that you respect me, and then I give you the connection. 

When we are in this place now where we've lacked proximity, for now, increasingly, over the last few generations, we see a group of people that are unable to bid successfully for connection, and there's then a lack of response that then perpetuates the disconnect. You know what, I'm just going to text you instead of come over and visit. You know what, I'm just going to send an email. You know what, you work from home. The less opportunities we have to practice that. We think about emotion regulation and attachment. The relationship itself, the connection itself is the teacher. And if we've had lacks, that we increasingly lack that, how do you regulate emotion?

The only way, when you bring a baby home from the hospital, that they let you know what they need is they lose their freakin’ mind. And the job of big people is to welcome home, again and again and again. The more I walk you through that, show you how to regulate emotion; use your words, sharing is caring. No, no, no look at me. Unh-uh, baby girl, come here. The more I have a teacher, a coach, an aunt, a grandmother, who can walk you through those things, you start to create that language that then when somebody pisses you off at the schoolyard, you can be like: No, that's not okay, I don't like it when you do that. Versus I'm going to throw a punch at you. So if we have much more throat-punching happening, and we look at domestic violence.

We haven't been able to internalize all of the support and the co-regulating, as you're describing, that we can access, that we're lost.

Yeah. So we do the only thing we have on board, which is fight, flight, and freeze. And we want to get back to that state of regulation. “You have wronged me. I don't feel right in this relationship. So I'm going to tell you that.” Versus: “Jess, can we just talk about that for a second? When you said those things, I was worried that you might have meant I didn't care. Versus: “You know what, Jessica? Go to hell! That is not what I said, you took it.” So when you don't have that skill, and historically, women have been better at this. Women, generally speaking, have much more of an emotional language than men do. And we're stepping into a time now where so many of our organizations, our institutions, our major players still have a penis. I mean, I often predicate this just to process. This is not about penises and vaginas. I mean, I have two sons and a daughter, and I think they're both going to do amazing things. Our ability to be very conscious of the way that we speak in an emotional language to our boys, and walk our girls through this process, and however you identify, being able to have an emotional language becomes so critically important these days. So the best way we do that is face-to-face. The best way we do that is to step in and coach, and spend time with our nieces and nephews, and really on purpose, have the family dinner, go on the road trip, stay in the hotel room, be in that physical proximity. There will be no replication for it ever.

Turning off the devices. We think that we're engaging in something that's entertaining or fun, and sure, there's a time and place. But not at the cost of what you're describing, this face-to-face, being with one another. The facial expressions, the tone of the voice, the non-verbals, and what gets created out of that is profound.

It's life-altering. I wonder about your thoughts about what happens, the degree of the mental health crisis. I mean, our countries are similar in so many ways, and so different in so many other ways. What is your biggest concern when you look at your practice now and the navigation of people trying to navigate relationships?

Well, most of what I focus on is what I shared with you and what we're talking about here, is looking at what are the underpinnings, what are the core motivators for how people are feeling disconnected and what they're longing for in their connection, and helping them access that. So that they can start to have a new way of relating, a new dance, a new dynamic where they can be in this responsiveness. Because most of the time, people are putting a lot of effort to articulate, to describe, and they're not actually talking about the thing that really matters the most. So it ends up being this disconnect cycle that both people feel so pained by. Because typically, people's moves, if you will, to get responsiveness, it's perhaps maladaptive in the current state, which was adaptive if we look at their childhood and why those tendencies or those strategies were helpful at that time. But it's uniquely just so surprising to me how often partners, their particular moves land with the other person in a very painful way. So it fits like a puzzle that they are injuring each other in their attempt to connect and seeking for this responsiveness. But they're not sending very clear signals, they're actually doing moves that hurt the other person, or the person is interpreting based on their experience. So it ends up being just this messy disconnect cycle. So really helping people unpack it, get to those core more vulnerable places to be able to send those clear cues, and have this type of connection that you're referring to.

What I think is so interesting is, I mean, Harriet Lerner is one of my favorites, The Dance of Intimacy. When you know one dance step, and you just keep doing it, and then it's not working, so you just keep dancing harder, and then you just think if you dance more forcefully in that same way. Versus that's the whole point of therapy to me, is how do we then just take a look at that dance step, and can we learn a different way around it? “Ah, if you just do it like this, then we actually turn. If you just do it like this then, oh, now we can spin! Holy moly!” I think that's the thing that becomes so critical about the stories which we come from, or even that that's in our bones, and that we step in with. How do we get into that place more? I just don't see any way around it. I think therapy is the most important thing on the planet, for every single person I've ever met in my life. It's the fit with this sort of understanding somebody who can help you unpack that story or relook at that dance a little bit. 

Particularly for couples' therapy, my only job is to get them to look at each other. It is profoundly remarkable to me, every single day, how hard it is for people who've been married; they've been together for five years or 50 years, they procreated multiple times, they know everything about each other, they really want each other to win. There is a deep desire there to be loved. And when I just say, can you turn your chair just a little bit now and just look at your partner for me for a second? “Look at them? Huh, can I look at you?”

It is so amazing. When I ask people even when I speak: “So before we start today, I just want you to make eye contact with somebody in the room.” I mean, these are teachers and cops and people who have a lot of skill, and they're looking at each other or they don't; they just wait for the moment to pass. They look at me like this is stupid and ridiculous. Or they'll look at each other, and their tongues are sticking out, and they're doing all these things. I'm like, what is happening? 

The discomfort is so, yes, you can cut it. 

I love it, and we know this to be true. If you disconnect from an infant, they die. We are neuro-biologically wired for connection. We will never automate that. How come it's becoming increasingly hard, and why, to the people that you love the most, why is that hard? Why as a therapist can I sit with anybody all day and be like: “Um hmm, yes, tell me more, okay.” I won't break gaze. I'm in it. I'm so excited that you would give me this opportunity. I'm honored. And then at the end of day, I go home to my personal husband who we've been married for 15 years, and we had three kids together. He's late and he's exhausted, he comes through the door, and oh my gosh, the cows, they were just, whatever the frigging deal is. And I'm like, “I can't even. You're tired? You think you are tired? Do you know what I am?” 

So the hardest thing we will do is look into the eyes of the people we love. It's remarkable to me how easy it is to break it down to the necessity to get back into physical proximity with somebody that you love, even somebody you lead. Because the uniform nature relationship is really interesting to me, where I speak to teachers and farmers and first responders and funeral directors, it doesn't matter to me, dads, moms, teachers. My slide deck never changes. The story is the same. If I work with NHL coaches and talk about how they're going to be effective in leading their people, if I work for corporate America, or I get the opportunity to sit with six teachers in a classroom in Milwaukee who are really worried about the kids, same story. 

I mean, I feel like I don't know anything most days, and then it's just all so simple to me sometimes. Do you feel like that at all?

Well, as you're describing your experience and inviting people to look at each other, I absolutely can endorse what you're describing, that people have a lot of resistance in turning to their person, whether or not it's about can you tell me what you see in them, in their faces, as you're sharing? And that they're anticipating, without necessarily looking. So what they actually can see, just the discomfort or the resistance to do that. Or even if I've ever been in a position where I'm inviting an exercise of eye gazing, which we know the research and some of the findings out of that. But even for a couple, like you said, who's been together for, let's say, 18 to 20 years, and I've even heard: “I've never done this before, we've never looked into each other's eyes like this before.” So I absolutely agree with what you're describing. I also just really think it's beautiful that you're saying how universal it is, how much we're wired up for this. Again, the research is from cradle to grave, that we need this. We don't ever become big people and stop needing this. This is so much a part of our fabric of being and thriving and surviving. So it's critical. 

I guess I'm curious, one of the things we're talking about is just how much disconnection is happening, and maybe how we're not even aware of how we're perpetuating it and how it's influencing us and our health and our relationship and our sense of family and community. And you're also talking about how to reconnect, how to walk each other home. So is that part of your process, is to help people recognize all the places that perhaps they're feeling discomfort around this or a resistance, or how many places that disconnect is occurring, and then also to invite them to start engaging in ways to reconnect? Is that part of what you're offering here?

Well, yeah. I think so. I think it's sort of what we do every day in therapy. But really, in my mind, it breaks down in three parts. We always want to jump to the fix. I think some of the spurious work that happens in our respective fields is that we really want to fix it, because we've always put a high emphasis on emotional regulation, on being well, being happy. If I ask a parent what do you want for your child, they often say, I just want them to be happy. For your partner, I just want them to be happy. If you're no longer happy with me, then find somebody who makes you happy. Like, we get back to this elusive state of happiness, which is really ridiculous, because nobody is happy all the time.

That's not the human experience, yeah.

Nobody wakes up and they're like: “Jesus, I just love this body. I'm so grateful. This is what I thought 47 would look like. I'm so happy I married this feller, and I'm so happy, I'm so grateful for my children.” Nobody says that. I think that you can't address what you don't acknowledge. So, so much of it, I think the first part is really where we don't spend a lot of time, is really unpacking all the reasons why we should, in this season, feel disconnected, feel depressed, or ungrateful, or anxious. Or what are those things, what are the contributors of the world? 

So often in any talk, or even in any therapy session, I impact those things. There needs to be a space to put that down before we fix it, if we ever do. And so much of that work comes in acknowledging. Because I think when you're acknowledged, you rise. So the first part is really, what are all the reasons that we got here? In Feeling Seen, the latest book that I wrote, it's the biggest part of the book. There's trauma and racism and colonization and grief and mourning and all of those, COVID that expedited this process exponentially. It's okay if we're here. It's okay if we don't feel better yet, if we're still burnt out in our job, and we're still wondering about our ability to be a good partner if we married the right person, or for a parent of the year. All of those things are okay. Can we hold space for those things, and the quick common experience that nobody feels like they've arrived? 

And it's painful to look at.

Which is why we want to jump to that next step. How do we get there? Okay, so what are the reasons, tell me the strategies. If you jump into that too soon, particularly as a therapist, you're met with this. “Yes, but… I've already tried that. We've been in therapy a number of times. We've tried this relationship thing. I journaled, I went for a run, I did all of those things. It's not working.” Which means we don't understand the emotion. You can't address what you don't acknowledge. So that acknowledgement piece, particularly as therapists or teachers or helping professionals, period, parents, when you look at your own children, your own partner, we want to fix it when things aren't good. 

And one of the biggest, I think, things that I talk about all the time, is the importance, these days more than ever, of acknowledgement, of feeling seen in a moment. That we have the ability to give this away at any given moment, and it's actually more healing typically for us than it is for them. Because to truly acknowledge another human being, you have to step out of your own internal locus of control. And the most anxious, traumatized, people who are experiencing the most distress in our life, tend to be, by virtue of biological safety, in this sense of emotional inward focusing, being very ego-syntonic. Which means then you miss everything else around you. And being able to simply acknowledge. The simple task of acknowledging another human today; looking at somebody else, giving a compliment, sending a text message, buying coffee for somebody behind you. It's sort of tricky, but it really then calls you to be in this place of, even for a moment, noticing another. So there's an emotional regulation that happens in your body. And when you truly then understand our ability to acknowledge each other, it gets back into this place of then, so then what? I think that's not the answer to everything. Because the problem is, we will always mess it up again. So you don't arrive. 

So it's this three-step process of: how did we get here, what is acknowledgement truly about, and then what happens when we get lost? Not if, but what happens when we get lost again? Because in that state of acknowledgement, when we're really clear about our importance, our worthiness in relationship, our power in relationship, how critically important it is to look after our own bodies and our own selves, we will get into a place where we are awful and disconnected, and we eat nothing but chips, we feel like we're unworthy of relationships. So it's like, how's this roadmap of how we got here, what do we do in the moment to sort of drop those shoulders, and then how do we stay there and get back there?

Yes. As you're saying, life, and all of the different reasons and circumstances, will bring disconnect. It's just a part, there's no way to be 100% attuned all the time and be 100% connected all the time. So that ability to get back into connection, and to also have repair, the corrective experiences, are critical to our health and our well-being. 

Can you speak a little bit about the acknowledgement? Because some people might think of acknowledgement as a reflective listening exercise, or let me repeat back to you what I hear. But when I'm hearing you describe it, there's an emotional component that is vital to it actually having the impact that you're describing.

Oh, my gosh. So this is maybe the greatest learnings of all time. So indigenous peoples in this country of Canada have taught me this more than anything. Because they have survived a cultural genocide, and in my position of privilege, I had no idea. That's the definition of White privilege, you don't know what you don't know. So there's a call for a land acknowledgement every time that we give a public address in this country. So many times I've heard people say: “Oh my God, how many times do we have to do this? We've already apologized. We've already acknowledged the issue.” And here's what I've learned. 

So when we talk about, one of my favorite hockey coaches said this, you should see how fast I can get a kid to skate when I know the name of his dog. There's so much, it is so profound when I think about that. Because when you truly have ever been acknowledged, somebody didn't fix you or tell you what you should have been doing or what you needed to be doing, they noticed you. I mean, if you have a child and somebody sees you in the community, and they just say: “Can I talk to you for a second? I just want to tell you. Your kid is amazing. I don't know what you're doing, Mama, but you're doing something right. I noticed him yesterday. I mean, the friends of my friends. I just wanted to tell you I think they're pretty incredible.” What happens, after we get over the suspicion and we really want to confirm that they got the kid right, is if we believe it's genuine and there's no intent to garner anything from this, they are not looking for anything, two things happen. It's contagious. So you lean in and your voice goes up a couple octaves. You go like, aww!

It is this interesting human experience that acknowledgement really provokes a sense of vulnerability and safety, and the ability to do that is predicated on emotional regulation. So when I think about my work as a psychologist, it really is about how do we get people back into the physical presence of their body, so that they can get back to the best parts of themselves, which is where acknowledgement lives. Our ability to acknowledge each other is predicated on the safety we feel in our own bodies.

I want to chime in as it relates to intimate relationship. Because so often, I think partners are attempting to get into repair when they're dysregulated, and not emotionally regulated and grounded. So part of what you're describing is, this genuine ability to acknowledge in a really sincere attuned way requires emotional regulation. That's why sometimes, as you talk about: Oh, that didn't work, or I tried that. This is key.

It is so critical. I think so much of the time, we often try to find strategies, like deep breathing, journaling. All of those things are really wonderful in their own right. But you can do all the yoga and eat all the kale you want, and if there is not a sense of physical safety in your own body, or the acknowledgement of what it means when you're in the presence of certain other people, maybe all other people. If your body isn't in a state of emotional regulation, it will be very, very difficult to do the work. It'll be very difficult to do the healing. Which is often why when we get second relationship, people say to me: “Can you just see my kid? I really need to bring my husband to this talk.” Which may all be very true. As a child psychologist, when I worked as a child psychologist, I rarely, rarely, rarely see kids in isolation. I think it's a waste of time.

It is, I agree. Do you want to say why, for people listening? Just because there's a system that the child is living in.

I can give you the gold standard treatment. So I could see your kid for 90 minutes, you could pay me 500 bucks a session for the rest of their life. And if I send them back into a dysfunctional system, into a war zone, to a story that is perpetuated, it is a waste of time. And it further perpetuates the idea that the kid is the problem, and that's the story in their own head: I have to be delivered to therapy every week to be worked on, and to come out to see if I am powerful enough to shift this whole system. And no single person is, particularly a child. So it becomes so detrimental to do that in isolation. Now, will I do assessment in isolation? Yes, I want to know your story. You tell me the things. “What is it like to be in your family? Draw me a picture of your dog. Tell me about your mama. What is the best part of your dad?” I love to know those things. But if I'm going to do the work of therapy, I will only be able to do that most effectively when I have as many players as I possibly can on board. 

So I think that none of us are in isolation. So, so much about this, with kids in particular, they taught me the most when I'm thinking about that in organizational stress, when we work with teams or communities. I don't really need your players or your frontline workers as much as I need the people doing the holding. So when we do that work in organizational stuff, again, police systems are so fascinating to me, because I think police officers do some of the holiest work on the planet. You only call a police officer when somebody is emotionally dysregulated. Holiest work. They're there when people are shooting and killing and fighting each other, when domestic violence is an issue, when you've just been robbed, all those things. And the question is, I want them to be regulated enough to walk us home. If there's no system in place to be able to look after the walkers, which there isn't in the vast police departments in your country and mine, and there are zero programs for first responder spouses, and you're only as okay as the people who hold you. So before I die, I will perpetually change the Royal Canadian Mounted Police by implementing a family system program into training, and a support network for spouses that is trauma-informed and relationship-focused. That is when the people doing the work will be healthier. 

Okay, so thank you for describing just what we're experiencing collectively, especially here in the West in Canada and the US as you're describing these two countries. And how the holding and just the support for the health of the system, as you look at the child and family, and also for first responders, officers, and the family and the couple, that there's a holding. And as I was bringing up any couple that is dysregulated, if I'm hearing you correctly, you're saying there needs to be support to walk that couple home.

Exponentially. And there remarkably isn't, particularly in the workforce. We spend more waking hours with the people we work with, typically, in many professions, than we do with the people we go home with. And there is zero infrastructure. In fact, the work-life balance discussion is very much about how do you keep them separate. I think that historically, that made it so much worse; you go to work, you leave your bag at the door, and you come home. When we had a safety net to come to, this is the family system, it was supposed to fill this back up. That's a set of rules that were established for a world that no longer exists. Now it's not that you need to know everything about your employees, or that it needs to become some big kumbaya issue. But you need to understand that if the spouse feels acknowledged, particularly in this work where we're doing human services work, like teaching. 

The two most important professions, in my mind, are first responders and teachers. And we perpetually, particularly in your country, do a horrific job, not your, I mean our respective countries, of looking after our teachers. Yet, they spend more waking hours with our kids, our dysregulated babies. If they're dysregulated and feel unseen, our kids don't stand a chance. So where's the best intervention? It's not the children. What are we doing? Why aren't we looking after the big people? When I go get to speak to teachers, I often say, do you know how holy you are? Do you know that if you can get three students in your head, right now in this moment, in this gym, where had to come to PE all day, I promise you, the ones that are the life sucking pirus, or the ones that threatened to hurt you, or the ones that remembered your birthday, maybe even the ones who died. They or their families think about you 10 times as much. You are woven into the trajectory of so many stories. And the reasoning behind all of this is, when you are acknowledged, you arrive. 

We are wired to serve each other. But when we stop acknowledging and seeing each other, it gets exhausting and hard. And when people come to us and say we should defund you because you're pieces of shit. Which is true. If I haven't looked after you, and I only serve emotionally dysregulated people, I get defensive and hateful and othering. So the answer isn't then to further punish the people doing that. It is, how do I then look after the people who I will perpetually need to be walkers? We will not eradicate mental health issues. We will not eradicate emotional dysregulation. We won't. This is part of growing and learning. We will all get to places of emotional dysregulation. Who do we have in place? How are we looking after the people that have said: “For certain parts of my life, I want to be the walker, as a therapist, as a nurse, as a physician, as a police officer, as a firefighter, whatever that is.” How do I hang on to those professions so that we can do the walking? Because the dysregulation that happens in our day to day lives is only increasing exponentially. That's the data we know to be true. Child maltreatment, domestic violence, all of those things, suicide. 

Highest rate of suicide in your country and mine right now is middle-aged men. People said, how come? Who has nowhere to put it? How many times have we said this? “Suck it up! Boys don't cry. You're fine. You got it.” And in a couple's relationship, she always wants to talk about things. The dance tends to be the pursuer and the connector. I'm a huge lover of Emotional Focus Therapy. And when we talk about, often in that place, it's like, can I give you more skills to not run when I need something from you, can I give you more skills to back off and gently pursue when you need to fill that place? And you're much better at that typically when you have an emotional language. If you come to me and I have three words to describe my emotions: happy, sad, and pissed off. And you say to me: what just happened here, you're being such a jerk? “Well, I'm just mad. Leave me alone!” If I can say to you: “Jess, we were at your mom's, and you embarrassed me in front of everybody. I felt like such a failure. Your mom was looking at me like what kind of husband are you to her.” If I have that much emotional language, if I have some words to say embarrassed and frustrated and humiliated, you're like: “Oh, that's not what I meant to do. Shit!” 

But if I don't have that ability, if I have less and less time with people, if my children, the children of today have less and less time learning those nuances, they will struggle significantly to stay in those relationships. So now we're going to have conversations around: You know what, maybe people shouldn't be in long-term relationships. You know what, maybe we should have multiple relationships to meet those needs. You know what, affairs really make sense to me. Because you know what, I just need the need to be seen. We're talking about the difference between a breadth of relationship and a depth of relationship. 

If you don't have that ability, and many of us don't in our couples' relationships, it is that therapist that often that is their job is to be like: Okay, let's talk about this one more time. So it is that bridge between that lack of an emotional language that's simply our job. It's never to fix or to judge or to make sense of why you had an affair, and why you're an idiot, and why you shouldn't have been in this abusive relationship. It is so much about how did we get here? That is the question.

Thank you. You're giving us some real nuggets, and probably really key principles, around the walking and the holding. Which I'm getting a sense, it's the slowing down, it's being really present, it's seeking to understand, it's looking for language to bring congruency and some distillation around what's happening here.

Yeah, didn't you just describe emotional regulation, didn't you just describe the best parts of ourselves? When you look at your child and you see them using their words and being kind, that's who they are. When you fall in love with somebody, you go on a second date generally because somebody is emotionally regulated; you typically decide not to go on a third date if they're not.

Unless you need to do some really deep work and you're not aware of your unconscious tendencies.

If there's something going on there, I would love that case. The issue so much of the time is, you are at the best parts of yourself when you're emotionally regulated. Part of my job, when I think about building this community, is how do we give people information to get back to the best parts of themselves? It's as simple as things like this. Drop your shoulders. That's it. In this moment, wherever you're listening or watching us, you just drop your shoulders. 

Most of the time today, so many of us operate like this. Our bodies are in this, we're ready for it. Because the COVID might come back, or my boss is going to be an asshole, or I forgot about this, or I just scrolled social media and I'm like: God, I need to drink more collagen. We do like this. So oftentimes, that first step, I put a note; I have a note on my computer, I have it on my bathroom mirror, I say this to my team all the time. Hey, let's drop our shoulders, wiggle the toes, relax the jaw. Let's get that body back into that place. 

I mean, this is the premise of Eastern philosophical practice. How do we get back into that sense of self that is in all of us? I say this all the time, I've assessed and treated over a thousand kids in this country, and I've never, not one time met a bad kid. I met a lot of emotionally dysregulated kids. I mean, I've visited people in jail, I've been with couples who've been in domestic violence situations. I've never met a bad human. I've met a lot of emotionally dysregulated humans, who have rarely been seen for how amazing they are. And when you do that, and you provide some sense of feeling what that's like. I mean, that's the definition of empathy. But when you feel that somebody else sees you finally, you then have the capacity to give that away. If you've never felt that you can't give it away. Empathy is a skill; you have to feel. Most of the time that's the purpose of therapy is can we allow others, both of you, to feel seen in this place where you felt so unseen by the person who has tended to matter the most to you in life?

Wow. Well, I know there's so much more here you have to say. And I just want to acknowledge that as you're describing, I'm having a lot of imagery in my mind around seeing children when they have felt seen, or there's some difficult circumstance and there's this ability to hold or walk them into this place of coming home, and what emerges from that. This sense of like, it shifts, and then they're bouncing away, and they're themselves. Or even a couple that has been in such disconnect, and there's an ability to find that regulation, find that connection, and it moves through all the years of pain and sorrow and disconnect and despair. It's like they can move mountains. So what comes from this repairing and finding and coming home is such health. Again, it's not this static place, as you've described. It's coming and putting this into iteration. Because we're going to get off track, we're going to get lost, and we're going to have to find home and find our center and find each other again. But the importance of this connection, it's the most important thing.

It happens with us first, before we're really able to give it away. So it is so interesting I think, that's Bobby's original theory, it's secure base and safe haven. So how do we know that that is a continuous cycle? You won't always land there. You will always flip your lid. Dan Siegel talks a lot about flipping your lid from an emotional perspective, and I love that. I mean, babies flip their lives all the time. Our job is to walk them home. And we do this in adolescence. Oh my gosh, I have three middle-schoolers in this moment, and the amount of lid-flipping. And I'm a phenomenal human. I wrote a best-selling book called Kids These Days, I think it is the best parenting teacher book on the planet. I really do feel like that. If you watch me with my own personal children, you wouldn't buy the book. Because I wrote that when I was emotionally regulated. When we are emotionally regulated, we know what we're supposed to be doing. We're good at it. I mean, my husband is so lucky to be married to me when I'm emotionally regulated. When I lose my freakin' mind, that poor guy! He could have done much.

I think this is the point, is we all get that way, and how do we just hone that skill of understanding what sets us off, what gets us into these places, what in that dance gets us there? Why does one kid make us want to throw punches at the world, where the other one, you're just like, you're my favorite. Because there's a story wrapped up in all of those things. When I'm calm, I'm a phenomenal mom. When I'm calm, I'm a phenomenal leader. And there will be times where I won't be; there'll be times when it's necessary that I shouldn't be. How do we get back there is always the question?

Yes. Well, for people listening that want to connect with you more and your books and what you have to offer, what would you encourage? What would you like to invite people to do?

Well, I would love your incredible community to access ours too. I mean, I'm all over social. DrJodyCarrington.com is our website. I mean, we have a podcast that's going to launch in the fall, called Everyone Comes From Somewhere. I think similar to you, Jessica, it's really about courses and books and places, where in my own life, I've been so lucky enough to be able to put this into some words that I think really resonate with people. So I would just love for people to come check that out. If we can help, we'd love to. 

Yes. And what might people find on your website? You said courses and your books, do you want to just reiterate and remind us what your two books are?

Yeah, so I have three. I have Kids These Days, and that's a book I wrote for parents and teachers. Then I wrote specifically with a teacher, a book called Teachers These Days, around some specific classroom management stuff. And then, Feeling Seen was published by HarperCollins in January, and we just did a big book tour around it. It's really about how do we stay connected in this lonely world? So I take you through those things that we talked about today. Then I do workshops every month, where you can just jump on, and for 90 minutes, we just talk about a mental health topic. Making this conversation around mental health and emotional dysregulation so much more accessible is really the goal. So that's what you'll find when you find us.

Wonderful. Well, I'll make sure to have all of those links on today's show notes. Thank you so much for what you're doing in the world, and thank you for sharing your valuable time with us here today.

Thank you for having me. It was a joy. 

Signing Off

If you have a topic you would like me to discuss, please contact me by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here. 

Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship. 

Also, I would so appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here. 

Thank you!  

*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon, if you purchase the book from this link.