Trust on Purpose

Trust, Emotional Regulation and the Route to Human Connection

• Charles Feltman and Ila Edgar

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Psychologist Dr. Jody Carrington joins us to discuss the paradoxical nature of being human: we are biologically wired for connection, yet struggle to truly see each other. Drawing from her work with first responders and children, she explains how emotional regulation builds trust and why distrust often stems from trauma rather than choice.

We explore how digital connectivity, sleep deprivation, and fractured attention hijack our nervous systems, undermining our capacity for trust and empathy. Dr. Carrington offers simple yet transformative practices that serve as neurobiological interventions and suggests that humanity's purpose may be helping each other navigate life with greater calm and compassion.

Listen to discover how practicing emotional regulation might be the revolution our disconnected world needs most.

 

We want to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for his superpower editing work to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to smooth and easy to listen to episodes for you to enjoy. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.

Speaker 2:

Hi, my name is Charles Feltman.

Speaker 3:

And my name is Ila Edgar, and we're here for another episode of Trust on Purpose. I'm so excited to introduce the guest that we have on the podcast today. She's the author of a number of books. My favorite one is Feeling Seen Reconnecting in a Disconnected World. She also has a podcast called Unlonely. I'm wondering if some of you have already guessed who it is and will probably be as excited as I am. Dr Jody Carrington is joining us today.

Speaker 1:

Well, hello Hi.

Speaker 3:

D-Live Mrs Charles.

Speaker 2:

Hello.

Speaker 3:

We are delighted to have you. I've followed you for quite a while. Once upon a time oh gosh, this was years before COVID, a dear coach friend of mine, came back from a day-long workshop that you had done with first responders, and her husband was a firefighter, is a firefighter, and raved about how incredibly impactful the day with you had been, cool day with you had been, and so I've followed you along since then and I'm just. I love the work that you're doing and the voice you're bringing into such really important topics. So I would love to hear where? Where, would you like to take this conversation today? Because, of course, we're about a podcast about trust, but I think this is such a big topic. Is there like a little nugget that you would like to dive into today?

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, I have so many questions for you, okay, Okay. So, charles, buckle up, all right. So here's the interesting thing. So, when I think about the problems with the world, so I'm a child psychologist by training Actually my first work.

Speaker 1:

I grew up in a little town in Viking Alberta, canada, and it was a teacher who taught me everything I needed to know. I grew up in a little town in Viking, alberta, canada, and it was a teacher who taught me everything I needed to know and I 22 of us started kindergarten together. The same 19 of us graduated together, so we knew everything about everybody. Okay, it's also home of the Sutter brothers. So if you follow NHL hockey at all, like your seven brothers, six make the NHL. So I tried to marry one, didn't work out. So then I had to make it on my own, which is fine, and I got a farmer, so I'm so happy. Anyway, it was nice and I do not remember a single thing she taught me, okay, so I don't remember the literacy or the numeracy that would have prepared me to go on to get a PhD.

Speaker 1:

I don't remember any of those things, but I remember where she was standing and I remember what she was wearing the day she had to tell us that then captain of our hockey team had been killed. And I remember what she was wearing the day she had to tell us that then captain of our hockey team had been killed. And I remember thinking, even as a 16 year old kid if there's somebody at the helm of big emotion, the rest of us are going to be OK. And I said to my dad that night this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to be like Mrs Nordstrom. He said do you want to? You want to be a teacher? No-transcript, after first responders, and we do an even worse job of looking after the people who hold them, and you're only as okay as the people who hold you.

Speaker 1:

So I decided I was going to change the RCMP. That was my first like goal. It was a small thing that I would change policing. So I decided I should get a gun so that they would respect me more. And turns out I don't take direction well, so thank you. There was a hiring freeze and so I got into grad school instead and I actually went.

Speaker 1:

The training facility for our National Police Force is in a city called Regina, saskatchewan, and that's where I did my master's, my PhD, so I could spend a lot of time with these new recruits and this organization that would have to prepare people to handle the most regulated humans on the planet and I wanted to know what that looked like. I learned so much from them and I just did a deep dive in trauma. That's been the focus of the rest of my career trauma and organizational stress. And then I had to do a rotation with kids in my residency and I fell in love with the neural developmental process of trauma and what keeps us from being great.

Speaker 1:

You know, what are the dictators? That sort of happen in our life that can get us off track. What does it take to get us back there? And when I came back to Alberta after my residency, I was still looking for a husband. So it's more target rich. I don't know if you know this, charles, but it's more target rich in Alberta, in the West, if you're trying to land a husband. So I came back.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know that. There you go, I'm just it wasn't high on my list of things to need to know, I guess you know what I mean.

Speaker 1:

Apparently you do, so now you can put that, write that wherever you need. And I went and won and listen, I worked for 10 years on a lock psychiatric and patient unit for kids. So the most dysregulated kids you can imagine, the hitters, the kickers, the biters, the ones that tell you to F off those are my babies. I love them Because we ask this question all the time in our work what is wrong with this one, what is wrong with this one? And we never ask what happened to this one. I could see the transformation into this much more trauma integrated way of practicing and so I left there. You know, we had three kids in two years. I just said, you know, I got it so right with the first one. Then I had twins so grateful, anyway, they're 12 now.

Speaker 1:

But my personal husband I was like I don't know what we're going to do with these three children in this career, and so he said I know what will help you. Let's move closer to my mother. So then I woke up in this little town. I was drugged in old Alberta, canada, which is where we live now and I started a practice and I started to consult with the really dysregulated humans, the worst of the worst, right, the police officers that were struggling the most, the kids in school and then they asked me to speak about it and so for the last decade I spoke now globally about emotional regulation and disconnection and I wrote a few books and they became national bestsellers and now we're on to our fourth book and it's really talking a lot about if we're not okay, the people we love and lead don't stand a chance.

Speaker 3:

Yes, boy, an exhale there. And also these beautiful young humans that need to be cared for, nurtured for they grow up to the same.

Speaker 1:

You can't give away something you've never received, and so there's a lot of conversation these days about the disconnection. You know, vivek Murthy, who is the former Surgeon General of the United States of America, talked so much about a loneliness epidemic, and I am so clear that this is the driving force to this thing we are assuming we're in, which is a mental health crisis. I think we're in an understandable human response to a loneliness epidemic, because there's two rules to the human race. Number one we're neurobiologically wired for connection. So you disconnect from an infant, they die. That will not change, no matter how much AI we get. The only AI that's really going to matter in our organizations is authentic interaction. And the second rule of the human race whoever created us doesn't matter to me what you believe, but whoever created us said number one I'm going to make you neurobiologically wired for connection. Number two it's a curve ball. Despite the fact that you're neurobiologically wired for connection, the hardest thing you will ever do is look at each other, go yeah, that's the great human experiment. And we've never had so many opportunities to look away. We've never had so many exit ramps, and so we wonder why we're exhausted and overwhelmed and fearful and scared and we can't look at anybody.

Speaker 1:

Charles, you've written about this extensively, but uncertainty, fear no end in sight. Those are the three components to the most dysregulated among us. If I think about the babies on the inpatient unit, or if I've ever been at the scene of an arrest, if you've ever heard the word cancer in your family system, uncertainty fear no end in sight. That keeps us from accessing the best parts of us. It doesn't take away our ability to be great. It takes away our access to it, and we are often in. I mean the three components of COVID uncertainty, fear no end in sight. As a globe, we've been in a heightened state of arousal for a very long time, and since the introduction of the smartphone in 2006, and the forward-facing camera in 2009, we have had so many opportunities to not look.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And actually rewarded for not looking right. Behaviors are reinforced Like no, it's okay, actually, we're not going to deal with that. No, we're not going to talk about that. Oh yeah, no, we can be all cameras off, we can just interrupt each other, like all of these things which, if I do a big exhale and think about this, most important, charles, in the work you and I do, the most important quadrant is the quadrant of care. Can I actually care about you as a human being? Can I see you and acknowledge who you are? And I'll use this word too. I'm a big love fanatic, I love the emotion of love, and can I extend generously to you as another human being? Can I look for a tiny bit of love, not romantic love. I'm not going to get smooshy-gooshy with you, but can I actually see you as a human being? Yeah, even 1%, more than I did yesterday, for sure, and the prerequisite to that is emotional regulation.

Speaker 1:

So you can want to love all you want, but if you're emotionally dysregulated, if you're overwhelmed, if you feel like you're ah, any of those things you know that are related to burnout, you lose your capacity to love not your ability, and many of us have lost capacity.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Just to bring trust into the conversation a little bit. I think that two things that I've noticed over the last maybe what 10 years I co-facilitate a program in a state prison here in California Beautiful. It's based on restorative justice principles. It's a year-long program where men take a deep dive into the harm that they have caused and taking responsibility and accountability for it, but also how they got there.

Speaker 1:

How amazing.

Speaker 2:

One of the things that when they come in they don't trust anybody. They're in a prison and that's actually safe not to trust anybody.

Speaker 1:

They shouldn't trust anybody yet.

Speaker 2:

But over the course of the year they come to trust the other men in the group and us facilitators, and you know we really do see them and they get it. But I guess my point is that trust and distrust actually comes out of trauma, along with a bunch of other stuff, but at a deep level, a biological level, a bunch of other stuff, but at a deep level, a biological level, distrust comes out of trauma.

Speaker 1:

I distrust the world. It's a dangerous place. That's what it's taught me right?

Speaker 2:

My experiences would suggest yeah, exactly, Exactly. So I think that the antidote to that really is, as you're saying, is love and being seen in a loving way, being held in a loving way by other people.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love this. I saw this. Your thoughts on this would be interesting to me. So, like, the most important thing for a nervous system is another person and the scariest thing for a nervous system is another person. So it is so difficult.

Speaker 1:

I'm so interested in this season of heightened arousal and the constant inundation of data, particularly if we look at our kids. So this work around Jonathan Haidt's work around the anxious generation. He would argue that there are two things we see in our kids these days that we haven't seen before this level of sleep deprivation and attention fragmentation. How do you access trust? You know, what do you think gets in the way when we've never been this sleep deprived? I mean, you see a toddler miss a nap. They're assholery-ish.

Speaker 1:

So if all of us are missing naps and really interested to you, know, learn and how to launder money in the Ozarks, I mean, if I back this up even further, like there's 4.8, I Googled this this morning of the four big players Amazon, uber, meta the other one's going to come to me in a moment they control $4.8 trillion of market capitalization in this moment. So the capacity to keep us disconnected is so huge for so many people and how much more difficult is it going to be to garner trust in a sleep-deprived, attention-fragmented world? Do you think that will become a significant barrier in this process moving forward in organizations and family systems in intimate relationships? Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I mean trust and intimacy go together. You can't have one without the other and you can't have love without trust. I think I believe that's my personal belief.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

So being able to. I'm trying to remember the terminology. I was thinking about the general theory of love, the book.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Where he, the authors, talk about that and the sort of the stages of self-regulation, but also then what do they call it, where two people begin to regulate each other Co-regulation? Yeah, they have a different term for it, but it doesn't matter. I think the point is that we do do that all the time and when we're dysregulated, we're going to dysregulate somebody else. When we are regulated, we can help another person who is not well-regulated become more regulated, more emotionally agile and competent. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, you can't tell anybody how to calm down, you have to show them. Yeah, and do you think that's true of trust? You can't tell anybody to trust you. You have to show them.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm so interested in the alignment between this concept of emotional regulation and maybe this is what I've been talking about my whole career is trust. But I think there's just such a intimate relationship between the two of them, because when you're calm, that's the definition of emotional regulation, right, how not to lose your frigging mind. When you can stay calm in times of distress, that is the greatest predictor of well-being. It is the most important thing you will teach your children because you have to show them how to do it. You cannot tell them right and if I got a bunch of dysregulated humans, the educators are overwhelmed.

Speaker 1:

I've come from multiple generations of abuse, neglect and trauma. The biggest understanding of calmness is shut up or primary caregivers, drunk high, absent, unable to stay connected. That baby does not develop those skills, particularly the prefrontal cortex, to regulate their system. I then lose the ability, or access to the ability, to understand or to garner trust and, as you said, the antidote to that is then, I think, this concept of like okay, it starts with each of us. I mean, we are concerned, oh my, about many uncertainty, fear no end in sight If we think about I don't know how political we're allowed to get here, but like when we think about the new administration.

Speaker 1:

that's the primary modus operandus, and it makes sense to me, right. If you have a big enough stick, you can get anybody to comply. But the question is, what does it leave you with? And it makes sense to me, right, Like, if you have a big enough stick, you can get anybody to comply. But the question is, what does it leave you with? And it certainly does not leave you with access to trust or the best parts of ourselves, like empathy, innovation, motivation, anything to be great, anything to like get on the cutting edge of things, to deep dive into a relationship to you know, oi, oi, oi.

Speaker 2:

So it doesn't give us access to trust. What it gives us instead is compliance. Right, but trust doesn't come out of compliance. Intimacy doesn't come out of compliance. Love doesn't come out of compliance. Really engaging with your work doesn't come out of compliance. All the things that we want in our lives, both personal and work, don't come out of compliance.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because there's no safety in compliance. Hey, yeah, yeah, interesting. So you know, I think that's been the focus for me with so many organizations, because the question really comes to me a lot Like how do we get our people motivated? What do we do about the burnout? I was just with a company in Chicago a couple of weeks ago and they were like did you know that, like you know, 47% of all people across organizations, across many industries, would say in the last year, 47 of them, have experienced this concept of burnout.

Speaker 1:

Now, really loosely defined, it's when the resources outside of work intended to fill your soul are not greater than those that get sucked from your soul at work, you burn out. So burnout isn't a function of the work you do, it is a function of our capacity, or lack thereof, to refuel, and we've never had so many non-opportunities to refuel. I mean, we wake up and the 40-hour work week is asinine, but we still play by those rules, and when any of us wake up me included, I did this this morning before we even pee, we look at our phones. I couldn't remember what was on my agenda today. I had to take a look at that and then I was like, okay, I better get into my email just to make sure I go. And there's nothing in there that's lowering my cortisol. I promise you that.

Speaker 1:

So then I tried to jump over to the interweb just to check on. You know the things that are happening, and so if you're old, you start in Facebook, and if you're medium, you start in Instagram, and if you're hip or you go right to the TikTok. And I just perused all of them. Nothing in there. I'll still lower my cortisol, and that was the start of the day. That was the start of the day. How do I, how do we then garner trust with our partners, with our children, with the work that we're going to step into? Do either of you think we have enough wherewithal to slow the world down enough so that we can access trust? Are we that good to shut off our phones, to pray, to go still to meditate, when it is so sexy not to Can I jump in?

Speaker 3:

You're right, charles. So this is a little story about personal stuff Diagnosed with cancer during COVID the first time and then diagnosed stage four a few days before my kids' high school graduation. But our culture and the story that I told myself was I'm strong, I can keep going. I got this so worked and I ran a business Right, so I'd got this until I didn't got this last year and I broke.

Speaker 3:

For me was the most terrifying thing that I'd never done in my life was to put me first, and so that meant pumping the brakes on the business, designing how do I want to start my day? Is it on my phone or is it on that comfy chair over there with a lamp and a candle and a journal? And honestly, I've written about this quite a bit. I haven't shared it this publicly. It was the most terrifying thing to slow down, because then who am I? I start to feel the feels right, the big stuff. But it's also in that space where I'm not Tetris-ing my life with this client and that work and this responsibility and that function, and hanging out with this friend and un-Tetris-ing my life and putting white space and being intentional Fucking hardest thing I've ever done in my life and yet the most important thing, yeah, and so I think it takes courage and I don't know.

Speaker 3:

I'm very thankful I have a lovely support system, I have an amazing husband, my kid is fantastic, I have friends that really support me. But how do we do something that's so courageous when we don't know that we have that, we don't know that we can trust that those other lovely humans have really got our back? I think it's interesting. There's a friend of mine that works with women in helping find their voice, and I think that's another thing that can come into. This is it's terrifying to ask for what you need. So I don't know. And to answer your question, I don't know. I know from my own lived experience. It has been absolutely worth it when I am today mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually way better than where I was. But I don't know if everyone could do that even just 1%, 3%, 5% more than we are today.

Speaker 2:

Eli, I think part of that you made very clear it's the support system that you have, those people who signed up to support you doing what you needed to do. And that's where it gets really challenging. In our business, in our work organizations, our work world, you have your own, you're the head of your organization. It was still really challenging. Imagine yourself being just one more person in this much larger organization. Where are you going to get that support? You're not, because the organization itself is driving that more, more, more, more, more. And so what? I think one of the ways if we're going to get somewhere where people are more connected to themselves and to each other and have greater well-being, it's only going to come from leaders of organizations who prioritize within their organizations. That's important. It's important for their people, as important as profitability, as important as some of the other. As we talked about yesterday with our lovely friends from Germany. It's a KPI along with the other KPIs, so I think that's part of it for sure.

Speaker 2:

I mean Jodi. What do you find as you speak to people all over the world about this kind of stuff?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm so interested to see you know this next conversation, because I think this is for me. This is the next thing. I think that the hard part about it is that I don't know if we're going to live long enough for our leaders to get it. I don't know if we're going to live long enough for you know policies to change, for the government to change, and will they get there? Oh my gosh, yes, like I mean, but we know what it takes to move that big of a ship, and what I fear a little bit is that there'll be at least a generation or two that's going to get caught in this space of waiting for somebody to take the helm.

Speaker 1:

I think that the only thing that you know that I would love to think more about is it all comes back to us right, and so how do we do the next best right kind thing? How do we get back to this state of neurophysiological stuff? And the rhetoric of self-care is sort of bullshit in my mind, because you can actually, you know, drink all the kale you want and journal every single day, but if your shoulders are up like this, it's a waste of time. So I think there is a need to re-educate and start to have some conversations from a political perspective. Now. We're late already to the game, but at the same time, I've never had this much hope in humanity, because I don't think that this is hard. I think changing the global way that we understand the hustle culture, how we have to go harder and faster and quicker, what we don't speak is a language of rest. So normalizing that in the conversations that we have, the platforms that we produce, you know, the conversations that we're allowed to have in the communities that we've garnered, I think really comes back to empowering anybody who wants to show up to have those conversations, because I think it's like here's the three things that I talk about all the time. Right, you know, drop your shoulders. It's not hard when we do that. But, my God, we all walk around every single day with our tongue slammed to the roof of our mouth.

Speaker 1:

The most primitive response to stress right, and this is very makes sense multiple generations ago, as you slam your tongue to the roof of your mouth because you're bracing for whatever's coming your way. So when there is an indication in the world that things are not safe, then you like this, many of us do this and do this all day long because we're strapped to an Apple Watch. This is new. We are the first generation of parents to have this much inundation of data and people are worried about kids these days. Listen, I'm worried about me because I say to your we said to our kids the other day I'm like, do you know? Your dad and I are older than Google. We are older than Google and they're moving.

Speaker 1:

Fine, you understand, I think about this. You know, charles, in your career you would have seen this and for both of you, you know, you could come through the door at the beginning of your careers and nobody could get you. Nobody could get you, and we don't have that in this moment. To be able to stay focused with you, my phone has to be turned around and these notifications have to be shut off. The notifications have to be off on my computer because I'm not that good. My dad is in his final cares, as you know stages of dementia and I know that if something happens this morning and that lights up on my phone my capacity to stay connected to you, although this is, you know, such an honor of my career, you'll lose a piece of me, if not all of me, right, because we're not that good. So, even though you know we, I know this, I've written about this I I shouldn't charge my phone by my bed. I know Guess where it was last night.

Speaker 2:

But we do.

Speaker 1:

I. I know that when I'm on season five of Yellowstone, I want to really see if Kevin dies, and it's two o'clock in the morning. Now I know that if I shut this off, I'm going to be better, a better mom and a better wife and a better daughter. I know these things to be true in my bones. I'm not that good and the idea for me is till I think, some of the initiatives around starting to ban which I really don't like that word but cell phones in school will be necessary. You know, we thought smoking was good at one point. Huh, you can do this on a plane until we got more data to suggest not good choices. And that has really happened with the explosion of technology, which is not all bad, but there needs to be some, I think, indications about how and when we use.

Speaker 1:

And you know people I often say this is ridiculous. My favorite place is on a plane, so I'm on a plane. Probably I'm on 200 planes a year say this is ridiculous. My favorite place is on a plane, so I'm on a plane. Probably I'm on 200 planes a year, which is ridiculous in and of itself, but it is my favorite place in the world. You want to know why? Because nobody can get me. For those three hours or four hours I sleep beautifully. Because I do not get the internet on the plane unless there's an emergency, then maybe.

Speaker 1:

So I got to be 35,000 feet above this land in order to feel as though my body can say well, something happens to dad today, or something goes on with the babies, nothing I can do until I land. We very rarely have that feeling in this lifetime because we have so much access to each other and there's beautiful things in that. But people I mean in my practice people say this to me I just, you know what, I love humanity, but I don't like humans. I want to just go to the woods where nobody can get me. I don't want to see, I don't want any friends, I don't want. I mean, this is the thing we want to be put in a position where we have permission not to communicate because we're not good enough to not do it otherwise. I mean, that's kind of what I'm noticing, I don't know. What do you guys think?

Speaker 2:

Well, one of the things that strikes me about that is the kind of communication. You know, it's all communication focused on moving the project forward. Or the other person on the other end of the line wants this or wants that from me, or whatever it is, but it's not communication from the heart. And when we're engaged with someone in a way that we're both speaking and listening from the heart, that is restful. It might be stimulating, but in a different way and at the same time it's a place of, oh, I can rest. I trust this person, I trust being in relationship with this person, I trust who I am. With this person, I can rest. So I think that's part of it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, changing both the content and the context of our conversations, and we're in charge of that, I think, to a great extent. My phone rings and I look at it and go, oh no, I don't want to talk to that person right now. Or, yes, I do want to talk to that person right now because I know that this is going to be a conversation that will bring some joy into my life, or bring some. Even if it's a tough conversation, it will deepen my relationship with this person. So that's just a thought that came to me as I was listening to you. There are all these people can get to us and we don't want them to get to us because it's not physiologically, I feel like it's if they get to me, it's going to be harmful in some way.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I don't even know that there's intent behind that, you know. So, if I think about our kids and their access to a snap map, for example, you know, if you're learning about integers and you notice that you know somebody has Snapchatted you who is in the other class, you're actually not good enough to stay connected to the integer part of it Because, remember, we are neurophysiologically wired for connection. I want to know what is going on. Am I missing something? I don't. Oh, my God, I am missing Shit. Why didn't they?

Speaker 1:

My then capacity to learn has been significantly compromised and this intention to teach by this educator has been significantly compromised. Right, because they're like hey, look, you know. So they're like these kids and I love this, because I ask educators this all the time. I'm like, tell me about kids these days. What do you notice about kids these days? And this happens notoriously every time they are anxious and overwhelmed and overscheduled, and they are, they, the disrespectful. They can't pay attention, always on their phones. I'm like, I know, right, it's horrible. What have you noticed about parents these days? Huh, you can't dip away something you've never received. You don't.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

And then the guilt comes in. As a mom of three, then I'm like, oh my God. But I also then just lived in the world all day long, where anybody can get me, I'm inundated with conversations and all the things that I love. I mean, I love my work, but there's very little rest, there's very little opportunity. We used to I mean Sundays were sacred, depending on your spiritual beliefs.

Speaker 1:

One generation ago I grew up Catholic you didn't have a choice on Sunday. You had to go sit there and be bored and you couldn't go shopping because everything was closed, like the capacity to do that was taken away from you. Everything was closed, like the capacity to do that was taken away from you. And in one generation, I mean I, I love, I mean I went to church on Christmas Eve with the children because I still want to get in now, I want to make sure I still got an in up there, but I most Sundays, most Sundays, we have three hockey games because our babies, our twins, both play hockey. Our son's incredible. You've got to get them into basket weaving and hockey and you've got to make sure that they play a musical instrument and speak a language, because if you don't do those things. Who are you even? You know what I mean.

Speaker 1:

So this overscheduling expectation that I see for parents, I think anybody in this world of you know, constantly inundated by information that we're not good at. I think our kids are going to get better at it, but I think we've got this very interesting next couple of generations to watch how it plays out and I don't know. I think the answer, I think the answer is always an acknowledgement In Feeling Seen. I write the whole center part of that book is around this word acknowledgement, because I think that is the answer to everything. When you truly can understand your superpowers and acknowledging other people, work as hard as you possibly can to have access to your ability to acknowledge another, and when you can be vulnerably acknowledged by another human, that's how we rise every time. I love it.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

I love it.

Speaker 3:

I love this conversation with you and so, as you work with organizations, as you interact with lovely humans all over the place, what do you think that we can start to do collectively? What are the tiny little things that we can start to do to actually see each other and I love your phrase, to walk each other home?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's not mine, that's Ram Dass. So Ram Dass is a dead guy, as you know, a philosopher, yogi, probably the most profoundly brilliant human, one of the most to ever walk this earth. He said that those string of words changed everything for me. He said we are all just here walking each other home, and I love that so much because in any given moment, we are playing two roles we're the walkers and the walkies. Our legacies are built in the moments where we are doing the walking.

Speaker 1:

Nobody gets out of here alive and in order to be a walker, you need to be regulated right. When you're like, holy shit, you're going to die, Like that's no, we're not very good walkers, but you know, the vast majority of my work is with those who do human services, work in any capacity, Right. So my favorites are police officers and parents and and teachers. I think if we switched funding globally into not the people they serve, the people they love, but those doing the loving, that's where things change. If you take money away from kids and give it to teachers, suddenly everybody's going to be okay. If you take money away from, this is going to be very this is not exactly what I mean but bad guys and give it to those doing in charge of emotional regulation of people who are significantly compromised, we will be better. And so I think, if I were to take it to sort of three basic little things, it's like we get to overwhelmed with the magnitude of what might or might not be ahead of us.

Speaker 1:

I think it all comes back to dropping your shoulders. That's where you have access to the best parts of you and you know I've assessed and treated thousands of people and I've never, not one time, had a bad one Not one time. And I've been in prisons and locked psychiatric and patient units and I've watched. You know people get their kids apprehended and none of those people are bad. Many of them have lost access to the best parts of themselves. And so you know to your point. You know, Charles, in that prison program, you know what is happening there is. You're walking them home and, generally speaking, if you end up in prison, you've had very few walkers, if any at all, that have looked into your eyes and said, baby boy, I am so proud of you. Or sweet girl, I think you have so much potential here. And when you have somebody who can do that consistently and reliably for a year, the neurochemistry of your brain starts to change and you start to believe it.

Speaker 1:

So, if we understand the power of that, you know, when we're working with people who have been so significantly reminded, probably even in their cells from previous generations, that they are irrelevant, this goes back to colonization, right? You know? When we take a look at people of color, anybody who's experienced marginalization in this world have been told repeatedly that they don't fit, that they're not good enough, that they're less than and to counteract that takes extra work and it takes extra capacity for those of us doing that work to be regulated. When you say self-care matters this is what's really clear to me in the work of boundaries is that boundaries isn't to keep anybody out, it's to keep me being so able to give, and that means that you know I don't work on Sunday nights. That's with my babies. I need to spend a month or a month Jesus a week with my husband just him and I Once a year. It's not big, but we got to do that. We don't ever leave a holiday unless we know when the next one is with our family, and it's things like that that are non-negotiables, because that's how I have to stay regulated. But it always starts with this the shoulder, the tongue. And if you forget to do that, put a sticky note on your computer, on your bathroom mirror, because that's what it's going to take to be able to remind our nervous system that it's safe, Because there's $8.4 trillion of market share capitalization that would like us to believe we're not. And so we got a pretty big fight on our hands, you see. But the body keeps the score. That's Bessel's work and it's irrefutable. That's where we have to start.

Speaker 1:

If you could do two things today, I would say drop your shoulders and wave at your neighbors, and I mean wave, like you've been drinking, Like, get into it. You know yeah, Like. And I mean like wave like you've been drinking, like, get into it. You know yeah. And the reason behind that? I mean, I say this all the time. I grew up in a small town. Okay, so you would not go down the main street without waving to people because somebody's going to think you're a bitch. So you've got to, even if it's a little one, you give them just one finger, maybe two, if you really like them. Okay, the second stop waving. We do not do nothing, we don't talk nothing. You know this is off to the call to action. You know I want you to think about this. You know, when you're driving to work today, I want you to wave At a stoplight in this position to regulate another human being, and that's what walking home looks like.

Speaker 2:

And what I love about that is it works when you are honest. It works when you're honest for yourself and when you're honest in saying, in acknowledging that other person.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's got to be genuine.

Speaker 2:

Even if it's a really tiny thing that you can say honestly.

Speaker 1:

Make it up.

Speaker 2:

Sincerely.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, you have a nice. I like a blue shirt.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but really seriously. If you can say it sincerely, the other person gets it.

Speaker 1:

Yes, Especially with the trauma history. If you are not genuine, they can smell it from the parking lot. Oh yeah, because they have to Right, exactly with the trauma history. If you are not genuine, they can smell it from the parking lot. Oh yeah, Because they have to right, Exactly yeah.

Speaker 3:

I would love to just keep this conversation going for days.

Speaker 1:

Oh, you guys are doing such amazing things. I'm just, I'm in awe. The prison program, charles. I have to like that is. That's holy work.

Speaker 2:

It is. I guess I would say I agree with you and I'm so fortunate to have found it and found my way into it. But I think what I'm loving about this conversation is I know that each of us does our own piece of that, our own piece in the world. I love that I'd forgotten that phrase from Ram Dass. We're all just walking each other home, because it really is the essence of itself. We can do that well, learn to do that with grace and compassion and love. Boy, yes, we can make a difference in the world Done.

Speaker 3:

Yes, yes, yes. So I want to thank you from my part that I keep on my desk and my real heart. Thank you so much for your time and your generosity. I would love to also share with our listeners. How can they find out about the work you do? Connect with you? How would you like people to support you? What does that look like?

Speaker 1:

for you. I would love your community to be a part of ours. Everything's at drjodycarringtoncom, we're on socials and I have a podcast called Unlone Wing, so we do that every once in a while, every couple of weeks. And, yes, I would just love to welcome the entire community too. Lovely, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Been a wonderful conversation, thank you.

Speaker 3:

Thank you Like, heartfelt, heartfelt thank you Thank you Thank you, my heart is bursting.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3:

On behalf of both Charles and myself, we want to say a big thank you to our producer and sound editor, Chad Penner. Hillary Rideout of Inside Out Branding, who does our promotion, our amazing graphics and marketing for us, and our theme music was composed by Jonas Smith. If you have any questions or comments for us about the podcast, if you have a trust-related situation that you'd like us to take up in one of our episodes, we'd love to hear from you at trust, at trustonpurposeorg.

Speaker 2:

And we'd also like to thank you, our listeners. Take care and keep building trust on purpose Until next time.

Speaker 1:

Until next time. Until next time.

People on this episode

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Charles Feltman

Host
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Ila Edgar

Host