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How We Work (Pt. 1)
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Feb 6, 2025
Welcome to Adaptable | Behavior Explained! This episode goes over how we work. The time gap between stimuli and our response is crucial for us to tap into our most adaptable adult selves. When triggered, our prefrontal cortex temporarily shuts down, allowing only instinctive reactions, which can lead to feelings of disappointment, anger, or shame. We often wonder why we struggle to "act better" despite knowing better. In this episode, we'll delve into the reasons behind this and explore ways to unlearn unhelpful adaptations. This is Part 1 of 2 I'm Kelly O'Horo, Attachment based EMDR Therapist, EMDRIA Consultant, and Advanced Trainer. I'm a mom of 5, Nonna of 5, wife, and a healer. I have the honor of spending my workdays walking along side people while they brave their healing journeys. I try to live with the generous assumption that we're all doing the best we can with what we know. Therapists are teachers for the "life stuff" and "emotional vocabulary" that may not have been learned due to gaps in our care givers capabilities. In the last 15 years I've learned that people are freaking amazing, resilient, and inspiring. Most importantly, we are hardwired for connection and for healing! I hope to bring an authentic, compassionate, and unpolished approach while we explore a variety of topics such as parenting, marriage, relationships, dating, trauma, attachment, adoption, depression, addiction, anxiety, and love! There's a why for all behaviors and an explanation that makes perfect sense as emotion is at the root of it all. -- Links -- https://linktr.ee/kellyohorolpc https://youtu.be/rLnARKekvgo https://www.emdria.org/find-an-emdr-therapist/
View Video Transcript
0:01
foreign
0:07
I'm Kelly ohoro and this is adaptable
0:10
Behavior explained and today we're going
0:13
to talk a little bit about how we work
0:15
and why we show up the way that we do
0:17
and how our environments and our lived
0:20
experience affect us I'm going to share
0:23
with you information about emotions
0:25
about some neurobiology about our limbic
0:28
systems about how stimulus in our
0:31
environment affect the way that we show
0:33
up and we are either going to fight
0:34
Freeze flee or submit and these are
0:37
hardwired into us
0:39
I'm going to also talk about
0:40
symptomology that shows up with my
0:42
clients and and clients everywhere as
0:45
well as why we do the things that we do
0:47
and I'm gonna I'm gonna explain this to
0:50
you in a way that I explained to my
0:51
clients at the beginning of treatment
0:53
when they come in to deal with whatever
0:55
issues are currently bothering them and
0:57
what in areas of improvement they're
0:58
looking for so we're going to talk first
1:01
about emotion emotion is the predictor
1:05
of all Behavior it's absolutely critical
1:08
to understand that emotion is chemical
1:10
we don't have an option when it comes to
1:12
emotion we can no more control our
1:14
emotion then we can control our blinking
1:17
or our heart rate and so when people say
1:20
you know you need to just stop feeling
1:21
so anxious or why don't you just settle
1:24
down or why did you get so angry people
1:26
are so judging themselves or others
1:28
about this emotional expression and it's
1:30
really an unfair thing because although
1:32
we can learn to create some space
1:35
between the stimulus and our bodies can
1:38
learn how to slow down ultimately when
1:40
we're triggered or we're reactive we
1:43
don't have much choice in how we show up
1:45
when it comes to emotion which is why we
1:47
what ends up happening is we are
1:49
followed by a bit of a shame spiral when
1:51
we show up in a way that we're not happy
1:53
with or in a way that doesn't match our
1:55
truest self and then we judge ourselves
1:57
and we're we're bothered by how we
1:59
showed up whether I got too angry about
2:01
something or whether I'm so anxious when
2:03
there's not really any danger or whether
2:05
I shut down and I feel insecure when I'm
2:07
in the presence of others that I feel
2:09
inadequate around and so ultimately the
2:11
emotion is first and oftentimes people
2:14
come in because they are not happy with
2:16
how they're showing up in their
2:17
emotional expression doesn't match the
2:19
person that they they say they are or
2:21
how they want to move through the world
2:23
so step one emotions we have to
2:25
understand they are chemical in nature
2:27
and they predict every single behavior
2:30
from birth an example might be for
2:33
example a curiosity or seeking we're
2:36
breastfeeding from from birth to to
2:38
seeking our mother's breasts so that we
2:40
can uh smell and find our source of food
2:43
seeking and curiosity are part of the
2:46
circuit that wires us to move toward
2:48
that behavior and so again emotion is a
2:51
is the greatest predictor for every
2:53
single behavior and it's first and it's
2:54
chemical the second thing I want to talk
2:56
about is symptomology when people come
2:58
to see us
3:00
they want to talk about what they do
3:02
maybe they're too angry maybe they don't
3:05
have an interest in something perhaps
3:08
they are struggling with some disordered
3:10
eating habits or behaviors maybe they're
3:13
emotionally overwhelmed at times when
3:15
they don't want to be
3:17
perhaps they are irritable or they're
3:20
dealing with sleep disturbance maybe
3:22
they're numbing maybe they have
3:24
behaviors like
3:25
um you know constant scrolling or
3:28
numbing out with TV
3:31
YouTube perhaps they're doing things
3:34
like uh over planning over functioning
3:37
caretaking maybe they have panic attacks
3:40
maybe they're too hyper Vigilant they
3:42
can't sit at a restaurant with their
3:43
back uh to the door you know there's
3:46
things that they're dealing with perhaps
3:48
dysregulation that they don't want they
3:51
don't want to deal with they don't want
3:52
to have these sources of discomfort and
3:54
so we call those symptoms and quite
3:56
frankly we call them symptoms of trauma
3:58
ultimately we've been through something
4:01
that's created an adaptation that's no
4:03
no longer useful and we need to make
4:06
sure that we find a way to
4:08
down regulate our nervous systems and
4:11
unlearn behaviors that were not so
4:13
useful so that we can relearn something
4:16
that's more adaptive and useful for our
4:18
adult selves today
4:19
so we have our symptoms or our behaviors
4:22
or experiences that are no longer useful
4:25
they're maladaptively encoded in our
4:27
memory and they're not serving us today
4:29
so that's that's what we would call our
4:31
symptoms or our problematic behaviors or
4:34
our experiences we no longer want to
4:36
deal with and so those would be kind of
4:38
like a chief complaint when it comes to
4:41
being in therapy we would talk about
4:43
these are things we want to work on next
4:45
we're going to talk about how it gets
4:47
there how our memory is encoded so we
4:49
have explicit and we have implicit
4:52
memory
4:52
and a lot of people really undervalue or
4:55
minimize the the memories that take
4:58
place that are not so much loaded are
5:00
explicit memory that are tied together
5:02
by everything that we see that we smell
5:05
that we that we taste that we experience
5:08
in the world and in our environment
5:10
people really minimize the things that
5:12
happen before our brains are fully
5:14
developed our brains are only 25 percent
5:18
developed at birth because they'd be too
5:20
large for us to fit through the birth
5:22
canal and so we have all of this memory
5:24
that is implicitly stored that means
5:27
cellularly stored in our bodies that are
5:30
not necessarily tied to data that
5:32
matches what we see smell taste feel Etc
5:34
and that implicit memory is also tied to
5:38
epigenetics this is a whole entire
5:40
doctoral degree which I am not a person
5:42
that could give you enough information
5:43
about that that's not my specialty but
5:46
I've had the lucky anecdotal experience
5:48
of watching my patients for 13 years and
5:51
how much can be encoded that they can't
5:53
even remember so our epigenetics happen
5:56
to be two full generations of
5:59
information that's stored in our body
6:01
and we know this because of the
6:03
Holocaust studies we had such a large
6:05
group of people that experienced such
6:07
treacherous conditions and in their
6:10
nervous system
6:11
lied information a threat of danger of
6:15
anxiety and so what they realized is
6:17
there's all of these babies that are two
6:19
generations from Holocaust experience
6:21
that are overly anxious that need to
6:24
plan that are hyper Vigilant and what
6:26
they recognized with this was this
6:28
information is stored from their parents
6:30
and from their parents so we are dealing
6:33
with the histories of our grandparents
6:35
and our parents and everything that they
6:37
went through as well as our own personal
6:39
lived experience and so it's really
6:41
important to not undervalue your birth
6:44
story your early years you know did your
6:47
mom have postpartum depression did your
6:50
dad lose his job when you were one years
6:52
old and you don't remember it but
6:53
everybody was so stressed out did one of
6:56
your parents lose a parent
6:59
or even more tragically you know are you
7:02
a product of the foster care system
7:03
where there was no consistency you
7:06
didn't know where you were going to be
7:07
living parents couldn't necessarily keep
7:09
you maybe you were adopted and you were
7:12
adopted at Birth and so you know that
7:14
your parents that adopted you love you
7:16
and it was such a gift to be adopted but
7:19
there's still this inherently deeply
7:21
hardwired memory that exists that is
7:24
part of your makeup and so it's
7:26
important that we don't minimize those
7:27
experiences so for an example in an
7:30
adoption if I'm pregnant and I'm
7:32
carrying my baby
7:34
the whole time I know I'm not going to
7:35
be able to keep that baby I don't have
7:38
the funds I'm perhaps too young you know
7:40
maybe I just had another baby and I
7:42
don't feel like I will give this baby my
7:44
attention but I'm I don't know what to
7:46
do so I carry my baby to full term I
7:49
decide to go in and adopt and the whole
7:52
time I'm feeling shame I'm feeling guilt
7:54
I'm feeling sad baby is feeling all of
7:57
that because emotion is chemical baby
8:00
experiences what's going on out there is
8:02
it my fault is it dangerous why is it
8:05
that that my mom is feeling this way and
8:07
I have no other frame of reference
8:09
because I have no lived experience yet
8:11
I'm just in utero getting cooked and but
8:15
I know there's something going on and I
8:17
attribute that to self so maybe I have
8:20
like an incredibly powerful shame
8:22
overlay that tends to kind of shut me
8:24
down and shame is such an inhibitory
8:26
emotion and response that oftentimes
8:30
what that tells me as a trauma
8:32
specialist is something happened very
8:34
very early if I'm dealing with an adult
8:36
that has a really profound shame
8:39
response so again memory is really
8:41
critical to understand that we have both
8:43
implicit and explicit memories now
8:46
explicit memories are the things that we
8:48
can remember and three years old and I'm
8:50
writing my bike and I crash really bad
8:53
into a cactus and it's really painful
8:56
and I'm sore and I'm hurt and I'm crying
8:58
and I'm alone and I don't know what to
9:00
do
9:01
it's really important that we also
9:03
recognize with memory that oftentimes
9:05
trauma gets stored not necessarily
9:08
because of what happened
9:10
but sometimes it's because of what
9:12
didn't happen
9:13
so for example let's use that Cactus
9:15
example and three years old I ride my
9:18
bike into the cactus I'm distraught I'm
9:20
in pain I'm confused I'm hurt I'm
9:23
rattled my nervous system is upside down
9:26
I go home and my mom goes I'm so sorry
9:30
sweet girl that's so scary everything's
9:32
awful I'm so sorry I'm gonna help you as
9:34
fast as I can she kisses me on her
9:37
forehead she tells me that she
9:38
understands why I'm scared and that it's
9:40
gonna be okay that memory might not be
9:43
encoded maladaptively
9:46
however another scenario could exist I
9:49
go home my mom's overwhelmed she's just
9:52
burned her dinner you know my sibling is
9:54
crying she doesn't know what to do with
9:57
everything the stimulus is too much for
9:58
her nervous system so instead when I
10:00
come in crying after I've crashed my
10:02
bike into this cactus
10:04
she says oh my gosh you again what
10:06
happened now and so I'm now not met with
10:09
compassion and now not met with Grace
10:11
I'm not met with patience and so I feel
10:14
now betrayed I feel like I'm a burden I
10:17
feel like I did something wrong and so
10:19
that memory might be encoded differently
10:21
thus creating a traumatically informed
10:23
response as I grow up so we've got two
10:26
kinds of memory we've got explicit and
10:28
implicit memory and these are important
10:30
things to consider when we are talking
10:33
about our stories and when we're
10:34
thinking about how our experiences
10:37
affected the way we show up today next
10:40
we're going to talk about how those
10:42
Chief complaints or those symptoms end
10:44
up turning into problems and how the
10:47
histories of our epigenetics and the
10:49
originating events are so incredibly
10:51
important to understand and in the way
10:54
that we do therapy here at infinite
10:56
healing and wellness and the way we
10:58
believe is helpful is from a bottom up
11:01
perspective so we want to talk about
11:03
therapy from a bottom-up perspective and
11:05
that is that we're not just going to
11:07
talk about what happened to us because
11:09
that very much dismisses or minimizes
11:11
how our emotions and how our lived
11:13
experience are thwarted in time and how
11:16
they can get encoded maladaptively and
11:18
how we can't just talk about something
11:20
and feel validated and feel heard and
11:22
understood because it won't change the
11:24
way that we react when present ended
11:26
with different stimulus or rather the
11:28
same stimulus in the future that reminds
11:32
us because it looks taste smells feels
11:34
something like something in the past so
11:37
let's say I have an accident in the
11:39
future and it's a car accident and I've
11:41
crashed my mom's car
11:43
and I go to tell her and what got
11:46
encoded because of the way she showed up
11:48
for me when I was young was that I was a
11:51
burden it was inconvenient she was you
11:53
know disappointed and she was blaming
11:55
when I came to her with a cactus memory
11:57
and now I show up after I've gotten an
11:59
offender Bender in her car and my body
12:02
shows up in this way of being afraid to
12:05
go tell her this thing happened and
12:07
maybe I have a lot of experiences where
12:09
she was kind and compassionate to me and
12:11
that one was just one of those where
12:13
she wasn't and so that one got a little
12:15
bit lodged In My Memory it's encoded
12:17
maladaptively and so when I go in the
12:19
house to tell my mom about this fender
12:21
bender I'm waiting I'm waiting for her
12:23
to be disappointed I'm waiting for her
12:24
to blame me I'm waiting her for her to
12:26
not care about the injury that happened
12:28
with me and so I'm tentative I don't
12:31
feel like I'm going to be met with open
12:32
arms and that is important to understand
12:35
that the roots of the way I'm showing up
12:38
is because of a memory that happened
12:40
before now I walk in the door I tell her
12:43
that I got in this fender bender and she
12:44
goes oh my gosh that's so scary
12:46
everybody's been an offender bender and
12:48
so she meets me differently than my
12:51
three-year-old self who was in the
12:53
accident with the cactus and I'm kind of
12:55
surprised by it because I was expecting
12:58
and waiting for the other shoe to drop
12:59
because of my memory before and so I'm
13:02
lucky that she shows up for me in this
13:03
compassionate loving way this time but I
13:06
wasn't expecting it because it was so
13:08
similar to the experience of when I was
13:10
three
13:11
so when people come to us with their
13:13
presenting issues I want to be able to
13:15
say let's look at what happened to us
13:18
not just what's happening to us now but
13:20
what happened to us before and so we
13:23
have our symptoms our presenting issues
13:25
that Chief complaint maybe I'm jumpy
13:27
when I'm gonna go tell somebody that I
13:29
did something wrong I'm anxious or I'm
13:31
nervous when something bad happens
13:33
because I'm expecting someone not to be
13:35
kind to me and so I'm tentative and I'm
13:38
a perfectionist and I never want to make
13:39
a mistake and I am leery when I do and
13:43
it's partly because of things that
13:45
happened when I was young
13:46
so we have these Chief complaints we
13:49
have the epigenetic component that I
13:51
talked about am I from a story or a
13:53
family system where everybody was
13:55
overwhelmed in my parents lives and and
13:57
even more so people were overwhelmed in
14:00
their in in their parents lives my
14:01
grandparents lives and therefore there's
14:04
a whole line of us that are sort of
14:06
nervous anxious waiting for the other
14:08
shoe to drop so we want to understand
14:10
the epigenetics and in this picture that
14:13
you're looking at this is this is the
14:15
weather the metaphor of the weed what I
14:17
like to make sure I share is this
14:19
picture is is helpful to illustrate
14:21
we're not just dealing with what
14:22
happened right now or how you show up or
14:24
act right now we're dealing with the
14:26
which would we would call the symptoms
14:28
or the top of the weed but we're also
14:30
dealing with the roots the originating
14:32
events where the negative beliefs about
14:35
ourselves I'm not safe I can't trust I'm
14:38
I'm powerless
14:40
um you know it was my fault these are
14:42
the beliefs that people come in and they
14:44
talk about those are deeply rooted with
14:46
the Mao adaptively encoded memories that
14:48
are stored with the emotions that
14:50
happened the first time the thwarted
14:52
Sensations in our bodies that happened
14:55
the first time and then of course the
14:57
negative beliefs that we that we make up
15:00
about ourselves as a result of what
15:01
happened to us in the past
15:03
and then we have to consider our
15:05
epigenetics or the seeds that were
15:07
planted and then the bad news is there's
15:10
also seeds that are planted in our own
15:12
offspring
15:13
so we can we can
15:16
um
15:16
inadvertently pass along our epigenetic
15:19
Tendencies and how we show up in the
15:21
world
15:22
uh into our Offspring the good news is
15:25
is with EMDR therapy which is the kind
15:27
of therapy that I'm going to talk about
15:29
a lot in our podcast is
15:32
it changes the way our brain fires and
15:34
wires data and it changes the way
15:37
information is encoded and it can change
15:39
the way our methyl groups and our RNA
15:42
are organized and it can change the way
15:44
our DNA shows up in our Offspring so if
15:48
you're if you're inclined to do the work
15:50
about yourself prior to having children
15:54
there's an uh there's an opportunity for
15:56
you to change the way you will pass
15:58
along DNA and information onto your onto
16:02
your Offspring I'm not going to dig in
16:03
too much to that into that topic because
16:06
we could go on for weeks and weeks about
16:08
DNA and RNA and I am certainly not the
16:11
expert in that topic so I don't want to
16:14
speak out of scope
16:15
so when we do EMDR therapy and one of
16:17
the things that makes it different than
16:19
talk therapy is when you go to a talk
16:21
therapist you feel better you feel heard
16:23
you feel validated and it's almost like
16:26
they cut the top of that weed off and so
16:29
there's a little bit more space it's not
16:31
as robust it's not so ugly it's not so
16:34
noisy and you'll feel a little bit
16:36
better and we call that a state change I
16:38
felt better I felt hurt I felt listened
16:40
to I felt cared for
16:42
and top therapy does that we can
16:43
understand the why we can understand
16:45
what's going on we can even feel really
16:47
cared for and understood by our
16:49
therapist in that experience but the
16:51
problem with not getting to the root of
16:53
the matter to the source of the
16:55
maladaptively encoded memories
16:57
is that the next time it's sunny the
17:00
next time it rains that weed just grows
17:02
again and so we don't take care of the
17:04
symptomology once and for all we don't
17:06
eliminate that behavior and that
17:08
experience or the way that we're showing
17:10
up that maladaptive adaptation we don't
17:13
eliminate that altogether and with
17:16
bottom-up therapies like EMDR therapy or
17:19
somatic experiencing therapy or sensory
17:22
motor therapy or any mindfulness based
17:24
Body Experience bottom-up therapy we can
17:27
actually change the way our brain fires
17:30
and wires data and then when we're
17:32
presented with stimulus in our
17:33
environments we don't have to respond in
17:37
the ways that we used to or react in the
17:40
ways that we used to instead there's
17:42
space between that stimulus and our
17:45
reaction and we can then show up with a
17:47
response that is more adult that matches
17:49
today's circumstances and it's not
17:52
informed by traumatically informed
17:54
material in in other words a reaction
17:56
and so if you're finding yourself
17:58
judging some of your reactions this
18:01
could be something you could explore in
18:03
your in your journey and in your healing
18:04
and in order to transform yourself into
18:07
the most authentic original Self that
18:09
you were always meant to be before all
18:11
the bad things that should have never
18:12
happened to you happened and so one
18:15
thing I do want to make sure I point out
18:17
is that that humans are incredibly
18:19
resilient and we're amazing and not
18:21
everything gets stored traumatically
18:23
everybody is different our resilience is
18:27
different our genetics are different our
18:29
life our life experiences are different
18:31
and there are no two humans that are the
18:33
same so I really want to really want to
18:35
caution you not to be judging yourself
18:37
if you show up in one way when somebody
18:39
says something and you know your friend
18:41
doesn't and you don't understand what's
18:43
wrong with you we're not the same fruit
18:45
we are we are all different we're not
18:47
it's not apples and apples we are all
18:49
um bringing to the table our different
18:51
perspectives our lived experiences our
18:53
genetics and so it's important to
18:55
remember that
18:56
we're all different so it's not fair to
18:58
judge yourself so as a quick recap today
19:01
we talked about emotions and how we're
19:04
hardwired for emotion and how they
19:06
predict everything our symptoms our
19:08
chief complaints what the problems are
19:10
our memory and how memory is encoded and
19:15
our epigenetics the root causes of why
19:17
we show up the way we show up associated
19:19
with those complaints thank you so much
19:22
for tuning in today spending some time
19:24
on your own self and your awareness you
19:26
deserve it please go ahead and like And
19:28
subscribe or share and pay it forward to
19:31
someone that you think would benefit
19:32
from learning a little bit about how we
19:34
work and why we show up the way we show
19:36
up and don't forget to lead with love
19:39
it'll never steer you around
19:40
[Music]
19:57
thank you
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