5 Trauma-Informed Tools for Co-Regulation
Did you know that our nervous systems are mirrors? How we show up directly impacts the person or people around us. In this episode of A Trauma-Informed Future Podcast, host Katie Kurtz delves into the importance of understanding our nervous systems to practice trauma-informed care effectively. She explores the crucial role of co-regulation in building trust and ensuring safety. Katie outlines four key elements that support nervous system care, promoting a regulated and resilient environment. This episode provides valuable insights and practical strategies for nurturing our own nervous system and fostering safer, more trusting spaces for everyone.
Show Transcript:
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Hi everyone and welcome to A Trauma-Informed Future podcast I'm your host, Katie Kurtz. And today I wanted to talk about something. I discuss regularly in the trainings and consultation that I provide around trauma informed care. And it's about understanding our nervous system, which is if you're unaware, trauma informed care is nervous system care.
So we need to understand our nervous system and the foundational understanding of neurobiology to really understand what trauma is, and then to be trauma informed. Now I don't believe we need to get a neuroscience PhD to be trauma informed. I think understanding the foundations and the basics of neuroscience and understanding our nervous system and neuroplasticity is key to being trauma informed, but I think sometimes it can become flooding and overwhelming and then people begin to freeze in that that overwhelm.
I give a really solid foundation of understanding and then invite people in [00:01:00] if they want to go deeper. And as they continue to begin to practice and deepen it, the more they will learn, not just about understanding our neurobiology, but our own nervous system.
Let's just do a little bit of review. We all have nervous systems, our nervous system is connected to our brain. It covers all our organs. It impacts our heart rate, our temperature, our hormones, our digestion, et cetera. Our nervous system. Has different responses and it is able to utilize perceptions through our senses to help determine our safety and to survive. We fluctuate each day through these mobilization or immobilization regulated or dysregulated, and a reminder here that regulation does not equal calm or Zen- it means neutral.
And that fluctuation between regulated to dysregulated that flexibility is what resilience is. So when we think about our day to day, if you're driving on the [00:02:00] highway or a street and a car cuts you off, you respond, you have a moment you flinch and you swerve out of the way.
And what typically happens. If you're like me, you might, your heart rate might race. You may hold your breath. You may be angry or responsive, whatever it may be. And then that is that dysregulation that mobilization. And then after a little bit, hopefully you're able to come back to neutral back to regulation, whether that's through listening to some music or doing some calming breaths using those nervous system tools to come back to neutral. Now, obviously I'm giving a very high level rundown, because for the purpose of this episode, I really wanted to talk about the five things our nervous system loves. And particularly for things that we can do each and every day to nurture and nourish our own nervous systems, but also be able to pro [00:03:00] provide co-regulation with others.
Co-regulation is the utilization of relationships and connection to support our ability to self-regulate and lead to trust, which leads us to accessing safety. And it's a practice of being with another and finding our center together and co-regulation can help us feel safe within ourselves, therefore safe within a space.
And when I say spaces, I'm talking about any space home work. Community, whatever online spaces, trainings. Classes, et cetera. We can't necessarily guarantee our spaces will be safe. And that's why you don't say or claim this is a safe space because safety is a very individual sense. Felt sense, not just physical safety but psychological safety, emotional safety, social safety, moral safety, cultural safety. So it's really hard to say this is a safe space to guarantee every single person and every single person's nervous [00:04:00] system will feel safe in our space.
However, what we can do is be aware and attuned to our own nervous system so that we can practice self-regulation and in turn offer co-regulation in our spaces. So that it invites trust and it invites people to feel safer in our presence.
Co-regulation is a practice we learn as infants. If we have healthy, safe caregivers, we learned to co-regulate through. That relationship. a baby's nervous systems aren't fully developed. And so as infants, when we're hot or cold, we can't communicate. With our caregiver, we, babies cry or they become agitated.
And so the caregiver is there to help soothe that baby that co-regulation. And then that self soothing becomes adapted over time, but we don't stop co-regulating as infants. We're co-regulating all the time. Our nervous systems mirror, one another. [00:05:00] Our nervous systems are mirrors. So if we have ever, we can think of many, probably examples in life where we're around certain people and maybe we're in a really neutral, regulated state, but the other person is not, we may start to pick up on that. And vice versa. And so that is not. Be mindful of the nuance here.
That's not a blame or shame tactic to say, if somebody is, grieving or depressed, we may start to feel that sadness when we're around them, because our nervous systems are mirroring each other. That may be the case, but it also is not a. Blame kind of situation. So I just want to kind of name and under that nuance. So connection is always at the center of everything.
Resilience that flexibility adaptability is relational. We need safe, healthy, nurturing relationships. It's vital to our nervous system care. But there are some other elements that we can also be mindful of specifically when practicing trauma informed care. So let's go over those four other elements, knowing that connection is central to it [00:06:00] all. The first is predictability.
Our nervous systems love predictability, clear expectations, transparency, communication, knowing what to expect. Those things are so important because it reduces and possibly eliminates the element of surprise. And. Can promote more neutrality or regulation. There's a reason why we watch the same Netflix show 450 times, right?
It's because we know what's going to happen. There's an element of soothing there that we know what's going to happen. And so we can watch it and it become mirror to us that expectation and that pace of consistency that can lead to trust, which can lead to safety. The other element is consistency. So being able to have patterns of behavior, language, and communications that are consistent consistent access [00:07:00] to choices, to options, to. To feedback, et cetera, consistency, knowing that something will happen. Over and over again. Not just done one and done or said one time and then not another. Or somebody saying they're going to do something and they don't do it.
We want consistency. Let's go back to your favorite Netflix show. I know you have one. I have them too. So think of that show. It's predictable. I know what's going to happen because I've seen it 400 times. It's also consistent. There's a pattern. There's consistency in what to expect. But we also know when there's consistency in any relationship or any space. That's how we build trust.
And we build trust at the pace of our nervous system. The other element of our, thinking about our nervous system and co-regulation is repetition. So reminders repeating information. This can also look like rituals. Something you [00:08:00] repeat practices, routines, structure. Sometimes people often swing to the extreme, assuming that trauma-informed care is this free for all kind of boundaryless practice coddling and all this, do whatever you want kind of freedom. And that's not actually true trauma informed care is that incredibly boundaried practice and boundaries are essential when practicing trauma informed care. And essential to build trust and we know trust leads to safety. So we think about co-regulation. And we think about promoting nervous system care in our spaces.
Repetition is really helpful because it's similar to consistency, but it's something that we continuously practice structure, boundaries, reminders, repetition, those things. Help develop new neural pathways, especially in relationships, this new pathway that trusts can be.built.
And again, we build trust, which leads to [00:09:00] safety. Whether that's safety within relationship safety within an environment within community, et cetera. So predictability consistency repetition. And then the fourth is pace. Pacing ourselves.
Sometimes trauma can be thought of as too much, too fast, too soon. And overwhelm to our nervous system or an overwhelm to the nervous system of a team class a culture, a family, an overwhelm to the collective nervous system. And so one thing we can begin to do, especially as trauma-informed leaders used to be very mindful and intentional about our pace. To try to practice that ,pause, slow things down really a tune to the necessary pace.
Is this necessary urgency or is this unnecessary urgency? And acting accordingly the majority of times we're acting within unnecessary [00:10:00] urgency because we exist in a culture where that is perpetuated. So it can feel like a radical act to slow down and press pause. And to take your time and to honor your pace of breath, your pace of language and how you're speaking. The pace in which you move based on what you think you read. You process the pace at which you heal the pace of which you build relationships, the pace of which you do business, all of these different things.
Pace is so key so that we can be mindful and intentional to resist that urgency where stress and trauma thrive. The opposite is to slow down and pace ourselves. It doesn't mean slowing and pausing and stopping everything. Although sometimes it will let's honor the nuance, but to slow down and be mindful to be intentional, to pace ourselves and honor our pace, which involves trauma-informed care [00:11:00] involves self-awareness to be able to say, what is my current capacity? And how can I pace myself right now?
The pace in which I moved today may be different than the pace I move tomorrow. The pace in which I move may be different than the pace of my client or my family member or my boss or. Whomever. So how can we begin to really attune to our pace? Notice the patterns of pace we have typically functioned from. An insert moments of practicing the pause to help us recalibrate. And learn to honor our pace and the pace of others.
And this is especially important if we're a service provider of any kind or a leader of any kind or reminder, we're all leaders. But how can we honor other people's pace? So when we think about predictability, consistency, repetition, and pace, Connection is the common thread through them all. So how do we ensure [00:12:00] that we are staying connected through our language and communications that we are building trust at the pace of our nervous systems? That we're offering options and choice and consent, promoting autonomy and agency. That we are ensuring that we're critically thinking and discerning that we're allowing for nuance. And remembering that we promote nervous system care and regulation. When we're able to regulate our nervous systems, we're able to promote co-regulation with others, right?
Our nervous systems, our mirrors. So we not only have the beautiful opportunity, but also the social responsibility to show up as mirrors for others. And that means how do we tend to our nervous system and how do we build practices? How do we build services? how do we build environments that are founded on these elements so that we have the ability to elevate and [00:13:00] amplify the likelihood that co-regulation and nervous system care can exist.
Because what we know is that when those things exist, That trust can be built. We know trust is not assumed. It's built over time and when trust exists, safety can exist. And again, safety in all its elements, safe, physical, psychological, social, emotional. Moral cultural safety. And that is how we build safer spaces. So predictability, how can we be predictable through transparency, communications. Even though we know life is going to life.
So if surprises happen, that's okay. It's going to happen. How do we utilize our communications? And our positionality and our power to ensure that we can try to focus on predictability as much as possible. Consistency. Can we be consistent? In what we say and [00:14:00] what we do, can we do what we say we're going to do? How can we provide repetition, not just in repeating ourselves, but creating consistency and repetition in our practices. One of my favorite examples of this is I do a lot of group work. I hold space for a lot of groups I teach classes, I train groups and I speak to groups. So I have different blueprints for each and every one of those things, how I teach my graduate school students is in a certain framework versus how I hold space in a, maybe a yoga class or a sharing circle versus how I train versus how I public speak.
But there's always some element of beginning, middle, and end to really ensure there's a containment and a bit of a ritual, a boundary. Practice. So there feels like there's a supportive structure in place to really promote nervous system care, not just for me, but for everyone [00:15:00] involved. So that is a big part of that repetition. I think of rituals, practices, routines, structure, boundaries. And then pace, how can I pace myself?
How can I honor the pace of others? So being mindful of, Avoiding that too much, too fast too soon. How can you slow things down? How can you spread things out? How can you honor natural urgency when. It exists. And honor that some things are naturally going to also be urgent. So how can you practice still practice? Communications and transparency within that.
And again, connection being the common thread of all of this. These are the five primary elements of how we can promote our regulated nervous system within ourselves co-regulation with each other and within the environments in which we're coexisting in.,
A timely reminder that this is so [00:16:00] important to revisit regularly as you practice trauma informed care. And you're met with in different seasons of life where obviously you, I live in a place where we have very distinctive seasons and we're in that transitional liminal space of season changing, but also just our seasons of life where we're maybe different place than we were three months ago or six months ago, a year from now.
Honoring your own pace and your practice and revisiting these things. And we'll help just reaffirm your commitment to trauma informed care. Realign your mindset, your practices, your skills, and be able to most importantly, adapt, be built to meet yourself where you're at, so you can strengthen and grow within this practice.
All right folks, I invite you to reflect on this today, where are you infusing predictability, consistency, repetition, and pace. Throughout your connections, whether it's connection with customers or clients through your marketing, through your business practices, through your [00:17:00] community spaces, your relationships, and take an inventory and gentle audit not with judgment, but curiosity and see where areas of can be strengthened and refocused.
All right folks until next time, take a care.
