Up next in 10
How We Work (Pt.2)
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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 2 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 hi everybody thanks
0:13
for tuning in this will be part two of
0:16
how we work and why we show up the way
0:18
that we do so if you didn't watch part
0:20
one you need to stop right here go ahead
0:23
and go back and watch part one of this
0:24
because this won't make a whole lot of
0:26
sense if you don't so in part one we
0:28
talked a little bit about and where we
0:30
left off was about epigenetics we talked
0:33
about the root cause of our issues and
0:35
why things get stored now adaptively
0:38
encoded in our memories the way that
0:40
they do and why today we show up with
0:42
these presenting issues these Chief
0:44
complaints that we sometimes show up
0:45
with and how those things can be
0:47
problematic no longer useful and so now
0:51
we're going to talk a little bit about
0:52
what happens in our body the
0:54
neurophysiology and a little bit more
0:56
about fight Freeze flee and submit and
1:00
so you see the graphic on your screen
1:02
this is one of my favorite illustrations
1:03
to show a little bit about how we work
1:06
so we're mammals we're all hardwired for
1:10
specific actions
1:12
and some of that depends on our
1:14
environments some of that depends on our
1:17
our epigenetics like we talked about if
1:20
we if our family had a predisposition to
1:22
shut down we might be more of a shutdown
1:24
or freeze kind of person or we flee like
1:28
you see the bunny in the picture or we
1:30
freeze like the deer in the headlights
1:33
when the car is coming on
1:35
um or maybe we're like the tiger we
1:36
fight our adaptation is to power over we
1:39
don't lose we make sure we're heard and
1:42
we stand up for ourselves and there are
1:43
going to be reasons in our stories and
1:45
in our epigenetics that contribute to
1:48
whether we tend to be more of a fight
1:50
Freeze flee submit kind of person and so
1:53
it's really important to understand that
1:55
those are not linear we don't always
1:57
show up that way but we tend to have a
2:00
little bit more given certain stimulus
2:02
in our environment we tend to have one
2:04
that is more of a predisposition and so
2:06
oftentimes when people come in to see us
2:08
they are they are frustrated because you
2:12
know my wife does something and I get so
2:15
angry and I don't know why I lose my
2:17
crap on her and and it's so frustrating
2:18
and then she shuts down and she avoids
2:21
me and withdrawals and then I feel shame
2:23
and so I gotta figure out why I get so
2:25
angry and why I do this and so I need to
2:27
get that under control or maybe you know
2:30
I know I do a good job but my boss comes
2:33
to me and says hey I need you to refine
2:35
this or do this again and I freeze and I
2:37
can't speak and I can't stand up for
2:39
myself or I can't explain my position or
2:41
maybe I just completely avoid something
2:43
some people might flee when they're
2:46
stressed out so an example I can talk
2:48
about a case where a client was
2:51
disclosed that she her spouse had an
2:54
affair and she just got in the car and
2:57
drove to another state and she doesn't
2:59
even remember the drive so she literally
3:01
fled the distress so when you think
3:03
about how we show up we fight Freeze
3:06
flee or submit
3:07
these are problematic behaviors when
3:09
we're not in actual physical danger in
3:12
the now something to talk about that's
3:15
important and I won't go into it too
3:17
much but trauma or traumatically
3:19
informed responses are basically a Time
3:21
orientation issue we are emotionally
3:24
confused because of the stimulus that
3:27
were presented in the now and we have a
3:29
feeling flashback we are an emotional
3:31
confusion and we are basically time
3:34
traveled in our bodies back to a time
3:37
that is before now so we're in a Time
3:39
orientation moment and we're in a
3:41
feeling flashback when we are presented
3:43
with stimulus that is like in nature
3:45
that reminds us of something that
3:47
happened in our past like I talked about
3:49
in the last episode or the last uh in
3:51
part one about the the little girl who
3:54
crashes on the bike she's time oriented
3:56
back to the past when I'm gonna get in
3:59
trouble because I crashed something so
4:01
we want we want to understand that we
4:03
have these natural predispositions and
4:06
it's very fast and so I'm going to show
4:09
you a kind of an example this is a Dan
4:10
Siegel model this is a brain and we use
4:14
this brain to show and I show my clients
4:17
this all the time
4:18
If This Were on my brain and I have my
4:21
prefrontal cortex this is where I am is
4:24
responsible for my rational problem
4:26
solving prior knowledge bringing prior
4:29
knowledge forward it's reasonable and
4:32
it's slow and inside our brain we've got
4:35
our limbic system and this limbic system
4:38
is our parasympathetic our sympathetic
4:40
nervous system and our amygdala and our
4:42
amygdala is the alarm for our brain and
4:45
our body and it's always on and it's
4:47
scanning what do I see smell taste feel
4:50
sense see smell taste feel sense it's
4:53
going all the time and we can trust our
4:55
amygdala to give our body the
4:57
information that there's something
4:59
that's threatening and what happens when
5:01
our amygdala senses or perceives threat
5:05
our prefrontal cortex goes totally
5:08
offline we flip our lid and that
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experience is one million times faster
5:13
than anything that we can think about
5:15
and it triggers our brain stem our most
5:17
Primal part of our brain into that fight
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Freeze flee or submit so again we're
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faced with stimulus that's stressful to
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our body our amygdala perceives it as
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threatening our prefrontal cortex goes
5:29
completely offline we flip our lead
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we're no longer present in the now and
5:34
we're into action and our brain goes
5:36
really fast so an example to illustrate
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that and why it's by Design biologically
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imagine if you're driving down the road
5:43
and you see a ball roll into the street
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you don't think oh my gosh if I don't
5:49
slow down and slam on my brakes then I'm
5:52
liable to hit a child that might be
5:55
following that ball and that would be so
5:56
tragic and terrible and sad and I will
5:59
feel guilty for the rest of my life and
6:00
what would happen to those parents it
6:02
will be just devastating no it's far too
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slow so we slam on our brakes our foot
6:07
goes into action and we move faster than
6:10
anything we can think about and that's
6:12
by Design so that we can can keep
6:14
ourselves safe and it's a survival
6:16
strategy the bad part about that is it
6:19
doesn't like reset so for example if a
6:22
deer were drinking in a lake and they
6:25
were threatened because a predator came
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by and they had to run off
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it's over for them they come back to
6:33
that Lake and they'll drink again like
6:35
it's the first time we would be looking
6:37
around what if there's a what if there's
6:39
a predator what if there's threat we we
6:42
don't process our data the same way that
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certain species do and so things stay
6:47
stuck and this is not helpful because
6:49
it's tied together with a sensory input
6:51
then when we're presented with that
6:53
stimulus again
6:55
we we act as if it's happening again so
6:58
where that sensory input is correct that
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information goes directly to our limbic
7:03
system and then our prefrontal cortex
7:05
goes offline so this is important to
7:06
understand if you even think about
7:08
judging your reaction to something
7:10
that's dramatically informed it's
7:11
impossible it would be too slow if we
7:14
had an opportunity to decide rather than
7:17
react and so with the kind of therapy
7:19
that we do EMDR therapy we slow our
7:22
bodies down enough to have space between
7:25
that stimulus and the response so that
7:28
we can show up more adaptively now that
7:30
doesn't mean that you're going to be
7:33
slow in all given circumstances because
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we wouldn't want that we would want our
7:37
bodies to remain fast enough to keep us
7:39
safe and so uh it just means that things
7:42
are not threatening right now
7:44
don't necessarily inform us to react in
7:47
the same way so for example you know I'm
7:50
not going to do EMDR and then suddenly
7:52
not be able to slam on the brakes if I
7:54
see a ball crossing the street that's
7:55
not how it works but we can get the
7:57
maladaptively encoded memories that are
8:00
negatively informing behaviors today we
8:03
can clear those up and that's where the
8:04
freedom is and that's what's really
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exciting
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so this next picture is I I really love
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to help illustrate how the way I see it
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and the way it anecdotally appears to me
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with clients is that when we get
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overwhelmed with stimulus and we've just
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had a build up a build up a buildup of
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things that have happened in our lives
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we end up having kind of a capacity
8:26
issue and so trauma's a capacity issue
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we are given these bodies they can hold
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only so much much like the glasses that
8:33
you see in this picture and so we really
8:37
don't start off as a blank slate like
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like I talked about with epigenetics we
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do come into this world with some
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material that's already in our body that
8:46
is that is probably needing to be taken
8:48
care of or reprocessed so when you look
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at that picture on the left of that
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glass you see there's already some
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material in that glass and people who
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have that much taken away from their
9:00
capacity are usually functioning pretty
9:02
well but then as you look to the glass
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on the right more things happen maybe I
9:07
moved maybe I lost my pet maybe
9:10
um I was bullied in school or maybe my
9:13
parents got divorced and as you see
9:15
things that happen in our lives start to
9:17
take away our capacity so like that
9:19
third glass on the left now maybe I was
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cut from the basketball team or maybe be
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I failed a test that I studied really
9:27
hard for or maybe my mom screams at me
9:30
all the time or maybe she doesn't ever
9:32
scream but she just criticizes me
9:34
everything that I do I can't I can't do
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anything without some kind of criticism
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I can't do anything without her saying
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oh why did you do it that way or you
9:44
should do it this way or why didn't you
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try it this way or it would be better if
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we do it that way so maybe I'm
9:50
constantly criticized and that starts to
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take away or chew away at my capacity
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or maybe something really big that's
9:57
obvious happens like a bad car crash or
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a physical injury or my parents get
10:02
divorced or you know I have a family
10:06
member that struggles with mental
10:07
illness and so the family focuses on
10:10
that person all the time and I'm really
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left behind and that's chronic and it's
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over time and it just we it whittles
10:16
away at my capacity so oftentimes people
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wait too long to get help
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they come in and their glasses look like
10:24
the glass on the right they're just
10:26
maxed that that's the person that walks
10:28
in and they say I I just don't have any
10:31
left I am out of capacity I'm maxed out
10:34
and they come in to help and what I
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would love and what I hope that people
10:38
gain from learning from from this show
10:40
is that we shouldn't be waiting you know
10:43
you don't go to the dentist once your
10:45
mouth is full of cavities you know you
10:47
shouldn't be waiting until your life is
10:49
falling apart before you go get help we
10:52
really need to be getting our checkup
10:54
from the neck up we really need to be
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tuning into our brain that is the
10:58
governor of all behavior and and it
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manages all of our body systems we
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shouldn't be waiting you can you imagine
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what it what the world would look like
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if we waited until our teeth were all
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rotten before we went and had our dental
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cleanings no we we go regularly we go
11:14
every six months to get our teeth
11:16
cleaned so that we avoid you know mouth
11:19
full of Decay and disease and
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unfortunately because of the historical
11:23
stigma with mental health we wait until
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so much is bad before we go get help
11:28
with our life and our emotional needs
11:30
and our life skills and so when you
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think about your capacity you want to
11:35
understand where are you and this is
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just an illustration to help measure
11:39
where are you and your own ability to
11:41
tolerate distress in the world
11:43
and as we talk about that capacity what
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we realize is it takes its toll when our
11:49
body is riddled with stress hormones
11:51
with the adrenal response it's not meant
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to be chronic it's not meant to be all
11:57
the time it's meant to be inverse to
12:00
give us the energy that we need it's
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meant to be to help us keep ourselves
12:04
safe and to prevent ourselves from being
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in harm or in danger and then it's meant
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to come down people who have lived in
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and had stories where there's so many
12:14
bad things that have happened they run
12:16
out of capacity or they they operate
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kind of on that middle glass where
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there's not a lot of capacity and then
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what ends up happening is their body
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takes a toll there's a great book by
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Bessel vanderkolk that I highly
12:30
recommend it's called the body keeps the
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score and it does a great job of
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illustrating how if we spend our energy
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avoiding our emotional life our body
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will win it always does and so
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oftentimes people will come in because
12:43
they've seen medical doctors and they
12:46
have gastrointestinal issues or they
12:48
have reproductive issues they have
12:51
performance issues and they don't have
12:52
any physical reasons for having you know
12:55
performance issues maybe they have
12:57
libido issues so it affects our
12:58
reproductive system maybe they have
13:02
pulmonary issues cardiac issues gastro
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issues are really common because 90
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percent of our neurotransmitters are in
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our gut and so most gastro issues are
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tied to unresolved emotional distress or
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unprocessed emotional experiences where
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people just keep it in keep it and keep
13:20
it in and then we end up with gastro
13:22
issues you know and so I don't want
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people to wait until they have physical
13:27
issues and they no longer can ignore it
13:29
I'd love people to learn that it's okay
13:31
to be more proactive to take the reins
13:34
on their mental health because it
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affects everything in their bodies
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because our bodies will win our bodies
13:39
will take the brunt of the damage our
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bodies will tell us us Uncle you know
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maybe there's chronic pain maybe there's
13:47
migraines maybe there's back pain
13:49
because you've literally carried the
13:51
world on your shoulders your whole life
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and your brain is firing data that says
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it's too much I can't I can't hold it
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anymore and our body's acting as if and
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this goes with with traumatic incidents
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that are physical in nature as well so
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people say you know my doctor I had
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surgery on my back I had an injury from
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a car accident and the doctor says
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everything physically is fine but for
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some reason I'm still suffering with
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pain or I'm still struggling with with
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physical issues and it feels like it's
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not healed well when you think about how
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our brains work we actually are firing
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data that says protect and so if I was
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in a car accident and I don't have my my
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body is not updated with when to brace
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and when to be tight and I'm doing it
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unnecessarily all the time as if I'm
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still trying to protect myself from an
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issue or an incident my back doesn't
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know it's okay it's over it's time to
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settle it down and we learned really
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amazingly about the brain Body
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Connection and how our brain kind of
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needs an update on actually uh veterans
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who had Phantom limb pain
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and basically they were saying my hand
15:01
hurts my hand hurts well after the
15:03
amputation and what they learned through
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EMDR therapy is if I reprocess the event
15:08
where I I had my arm was injured in an
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explosion and therefore I had to have it
15:14
amputated and I reprocessed the
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emotional and the sensory input that was
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stored with that experience my brain can
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know it's over I don't need to hurt
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anymore and that pain goes away so now
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that hand doesn't hurt and so it's an
15:29
obvious way to learn this because
15:30
there's no hand the hand doesn't hurt
15:32
that can't be it but the brain is firing
15:34
as if there's still something wrong in
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that injury so the brain is so powerful
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it's in charge of everything and
15:41
ultimately it's the computer that runs
15:43
every single system in your body and so
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please don't wait to address things
15:47
until you have physical issues make sure
15:50
you go understand that the computer
15:52
might need some reset in order to tell
15:54
your body that things are okay and that
15:56
it's safe and then what happens when
15:59
we've had so many issues that are
16:01
overwhelming that are chronic that are
16:03
distressing and our one self can't
16:06
tolerate it we end up needing to
16:10
adapt in ways that are not necessarily
16:13
useful so in in some jobs we we actually
16:18
really benefit from a bit of
16:19
compartmentalization a lot of times
16:22
people consider dissociation something
16:24
that is a pathological but we all
16:27
dissociate to a degree think about how
16:29
many times you've driven down the
16:31
freeway and you don't even remember
16:32
passing you know an exit sign or the
16:35
street that you were meant to turn on
16:36
because you were just kind of somewhere
16:37
else and you were present enough to
16:39
recognize if a car came into your lane
16:41
that you could you know you could swerve
16:42
to get out of the way but you kind of
16:44
weren't there you were there but you
16:45
weren't there or in certain professions
16:48
we call it kind of Peak Performance
16:49
dissociation where everything is out I'm
16:52
right here zeroed in I'm a first
16:54
responder I'm a doctor I'm a surgeon I
16:57
can't be thinking about the fight I got
16:58
in with my with my wife this morning I
17:01
need to be right here I don't have room
17:03
for margin of error so I need to be
17:04
super focused compartmentalized and so
17:07
we call that kind of almost a Peak
17:08
Performance dissociation it serves me
17:10
the problem is it's not meant to be
17:12
chronic it's meant to be temporary so
17:15
for example if let's say I'm an
17:17
anesthesiologist and there is no room
17:19
for error in my job and I spend nine
17:22
hours a day
17:23
in Peak Performance dissociative state
17:26
where I have to be perfect there is no
17:28
room for error I have to be exacting I
17:30
can't be flexible there is no black
17:32
there is only black and white there is
17:34
no gray and then I come home and I don't
17:36
shift out of that space and now I expect
17:39
everybody to be perfect in my home there
17:41
is no room for error I'm really hard on
17:43
the people around me because there is no
17:45
room for error in most of my waking
17:47
hours
17:48
so if I don't learn that dissociative
17:50
State and that it needs to change
17:52
because there's a time and a place it
17:54
creates problematic experiences in my
17:57
relationships and that's not useful so
17:59
we want to understand that those states
18:01
of dissociation are necessary oftentimes
18:04
they were the only thing that we learned
18:06
to do based on how we experience things
18:09
for example let's say I I grew up in a
18:12
home where my parents were checked out I
18:14
wasn't really supported maybe I had to
18:18
really become really resourceful and
18:20
independent and autonomous
18:22
as a result I became hyper independent
18:25
and as I grow up
18:27
I don't lean on anybody I don't need to
18:30
lean on anybody
18:31
I've got this but then I get married and
18:34
my partner says why don't you ever lean
18:36
on me why won't you let me be your
18:38
partner and then I say I got it I'm good
18:41
that's a hyper independent trauma
18:44
response it's an adaptation that was
18:46
learned but it's no longer useful and
18:49
that part of me that always has to be in
18:51
charge that always has to fix something
18:52
that always has to to have it and not
18:54
lean on others that part is a little bit
18:57
of a dissociative experience and that
18:59
part of self is not serving me in
19:01
certain circumstances so we need to
19:03
understand that we all have parts of
19:04
self the movie Inside Out is great to
19:07
talk about that I know we we talk about
19:10
that in the emotions episode and
19:13
um that that part of self is really
19:15
important to recognize that those shift
19:18
and they're all necessary and useful but
19:21
they may need to shift out when uh when
19:23
no longer useful or appropriate so
19:25
another way to talk about dissociation
19:28
or parts of self
19:31
is is a little bit from a developmental
19:33
perspective so when we think about how
19:36
we grow up and when really bad things
19:37
happen to us we end up getting a little
19:40
bit thwarted emotionally socially and
19:43
developmentally parts of us kind of get
19:44
locked in trauma time and so another way
19:47
I like to illustrate this and you'll see
19:48
a visual representation in this in the
19:51
screen below there is align these little
19:53
stacking dolls up and you can get them
19:56
on Amazon or or whatever else if you
19:58
find this a useful metaphor for you that
20:01
I'll line all these little guys up
20:03
and I'll have my clients look at them
20:06
and I'll say listen I want to make sure
20:07
you understand that I need to treat the
20:09
whole person
20:10
and we can't leave anybody behind and so
20:14
if you think you just want to come in
20:17
and talk about listen I want to talk
20:19
about my adult life I don't want to talk
20:20
about my childhood I don't that's over
20:23
I've processed it it's in the past I
20:25
don't need to deal with that I'm here to
20:28
tell you that I wish that I could treat
20:29
you as if that isn't true but it's just
20:32
not because everything we've ever
20:34
experienced informs how we are today and
20:37
I can in good conscience leave any part
20:39
of us behind so if for example you say
20:43
to me I I freeze I shut down I'm going
20:45
to look at you and I'm going to say how
20:46
young do you feel and you might go gosh
20:49
I feel like I'm 12 and so if my little
20:51
stacking dolls are up I'm like Hey we're
20:53
12. so we need to go back on a bit of a
20:55
rescue mission and figure out what
20:57
happened when you were 12 that made you
20:59
shut down and freeze and so we can't
21:02
leave any of our parts behind and it
21:05
helps us to understand developmentally a
21:07
little bit about how we got stuck or how
21:08
we got thwarted in time and so that can
21:11
be a little bit of a visual
21:12
representation because we just cannot
21:16
leave anybody behind we cannot ignore
21:18
the experiences that we had in our life
21:20
and pretend like they didn't help to
21:23
shape and inform who we are and so I
21:26
think it's it's important that you
21:27
recognize your whole story really does
21:30
matter and I am really interested in you
21:32
exploring that deeply and truly and
21:35
thoroughly
21:37
so as a recap today we talked about our
21:40
limbic system and how we fight Freeze
21:42
flee submit or shut down we talked about
21:44
trauma as a capacity issue and how we
21:48
run out of capacity and it takes its
21:50
toll on our body and we talked about our
21:52
brain being the computer for our body
21:55
systems and how our body takes the toll
21:57
we talked about when that's too much we
22:00
have states of self that are although
22:02
they were meant to be temporary and
22:03
death chronic and long-term and so we
22:06
have parts of us that kind of split off
22:08
a little bit from our adult higher self
22:10
and how we can't leave any parts of us
22:13
behind that got stuck in trauma time and
22:15
how we need to make sure we catch up and
22:17
connect Up all parts of self thank you
22:20
everybody for tuning in please make sure
22:22
that you like and subscribe and Pay It
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Forward by sharing this with someone
22:25
that you think would benefit and don't
22:28
forget to lead with love it'll never
22:30
steer you wrong
22:33
foreign
22:36
[Music]
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