Nervous Systems First: Trauma-Informed Parenting (with Adair Finucane)

Renae: Well, hello Adair, and welcome to the TraumaWise parenting Summit. So glad to have you here.

Adair: Thank you for having me. I'm delighted to be here.

Renae: Excellent. Well,

Renae: I'm really excited because we get to hear from you twice during the summit, one in this interview and another with a presentation. And one of the reasons that I was really excited to include you in the summit is in your application process, you were really speaking to my nerd heart, like my nerdy geek number heart. And so I said, Oh, this will be fun, because I could see both the the softness of the relationship piece, as well as the technical, you know, structure part of of numbers and research. And so I love bringing those two things together. So I'm so excited for our interview today, so that's, that's my, like, tiny little introduction of you, but I would prefer if you did a great introduction to everybody else so that they can get to know you.

Adair: well, that's really nice to hear. Thank you. Yeah. Um, so my name is Adair Finucane. I wear a lot of different hats, but for today, to keep it short, I'm a trauma informed coach and facilitator, and I come by this trauma informed being informed parenting thing by a couple of paths, one of them being that before I became a parent, back in 2021 I was studying to get my master's in social work, and I had the very good fortune of becoming a work, say, working student. That was another lifetime ago, when I was working as a horse trainer. I got to become, my gosh, what's the word, a research assistant for a professor at University at Buffalo, an incredible woman who I now call my friend and mentor, Mickey spurlik, who focuses on the impact of trauma in the perinatal period. And Mickey is has a dual doctorate in social work and in infant mental health, which is the study of relationships between parents and caregivers and young children up to about the age of three. So I got to do some really beautiful deep diving, both on trauma informed parenting and learning more and more about just the relational piece of caregiving and parenting. And since then, I've been teaching yoga and somatics and also trauma informed approaches and a lot of stress management sort of stuff in organizational capacity. And I also spent time as a therapist for children and families at one point. And I learned a lot about both ways to help folks and kids and their parents and caregivers. And I got some really important education on the impact of intergenerational trauma, you know, sort of hands on, as it were, especially the impact of white supremacy and just how incredibly damaging that is an intergenerational capacity. And then I'm also, I'm also a mom, like I mentioned, I am a queer, neurodivergent mom living with complex PTSD, and so I come by this stuff really honestly, both from, like, a professional research place, and from hands on work with clients. And I would say, most importantly, from my own experience of, like, how, how am I supposed to do this? And it's funny that, like, I know I know so much, and I was so well educated coming into this, and I still feel like I'm just learning on the fly like everybody else well.

Renae: And I appreciate that, the humility of that, I think that that's actually an important piece of when we talk about TraumaWise principles and what our values are, that humility to say, I, I'm an expert in me as far as what I have learned, and I regularly will confer PhDs on people to say, you have a PhD in you. Congratulations. You're a doctor of you, because we, we are often told or treated or conditioned to believe that there's this panel of experts that can speak into our lives in a way that we can't because we're helpless or hopeless, or we need to buy their book or their product or whatever the thing happens to be, and So coming to the table and saying, I have all of this experience, and I'm still learning. I think that's such an important piece of, how do we do this? Well, whether we are a parent, whether supporting parents, whether we're professional in the field, just to hold that openness and curious. Curiosity. And so I just really appreciate that that a point that you bring, and I appreciate to your the intersectionality of trauma, where, where you're showing really clearly all of these different ways that is, is humans. We are othered, and how that that not only affects us, but it affects our nervous systems in a way that it impacts future generations. And I often talk to people about it's not even just your mom, it's your grandma that you're, you're, you are already existing in a certain way inside of your grandma years ago. And so just keeping in mind that it's, it's, there's, there's so much about our lives that when we stop and think about it, there's mystery, there's mystery and staying open to it. And so I would, you know, having unpacked a little bit of that, of how you got here, what do you hold on to as some of the core concepts for you, for trauma, informed parenting, what are some of the things that you're your pillars or your core concepts.

Adair: Yeah, so safety, safety is number one, and safety isn't like, here's how you provide safety. I can give I'll talk more about it in a second, but I want to make it very clear that safety is entirely subjective, physio, physical safety less so, right? Like, if I can see that, I'm, well, you can't see it, but I'm in my kitchen and there's no one else in the house, and I no one's coming at me right now. And that's important. That's that's a very important initial step. And there are, you know, locking doors can be a way of increasing a sense of physical safety for a kid, making sure that as a as a parent or caregiver, we're committed not to laying hands on our kids, even if that means we need to step out for a minute, especially if you're somebody who received corporal punishment or abuse as a child, might be very natural to want to head to that place, and I'm still talking about safety, but I also want to say that there's no shame in any impulse. It's what we do with the impulse that really matters. I just don't think shame is very helpful, except as maybe a motivator for helping us change how we operate. But safety so important. So there's physical safety, right? That's kind of obvious, but worth saying anyways, and emotional safety is so important for kids. I wonder all the time about whether sometimes, when my kiddo cries and yells a lot, I go into overdrive and I just, I just can't, I start to get shut down. And it really is a lot. And sometimes, like even this morning, I was like, I can't I can't handle the yelling like you can't yell at me like that. And I bundled her into the car when she wasn't happy, and I took her to daycare because I knew that I just needed to to get her out of we needed to not be together. I couldn't see an end to it. And I still wonder, like, is she going to download a sense of she's too much from me, and I don't really know, and that's part of, like, the very imperfect piece, but the as often as I can letting her feel how she needs to feel, she's like me. We have very intense highs and lows, which can be very activating, because I'm like, Oh, you're just like me. We're really riding these highs and lows. But to give her as often as possible, to say, feel how you're feeling. It's okay to be mad. Hit the we have a blow up tiger that she gets to hit. Like, hit the tiger. Feel mad, be sad. We have, I'll actually show it to you. We have this little chart, like an emotions chart. It's real weird. You can kind of see it on our fridge, and we point to it pretty often, and she's able to identify how she feels, and if we talk about feelings, and I'm so glad that, like, socio emotional education has become a lot more normal. And many people, most people, have probably seen a chart like that, but the more we can just be like, Yeah, look, these are all the feelings you might have. Gives her a sense of like, okay, there's no part of me here, at least most of the time, even if she's enraged, there's no part of me that's like, not welcome, because so many people, especially people with strong feelings, especially people maybe who are neurodivergent ADHD, on the autism spectrum, you're too much. You're too much that telegraphing can go right into our nervous systems and lead to a sense of being very emotionally unsafe. So the more we can affirm in ways like, No, you're not allowed to hit me. You know, you might need to go in your room, because I that we don't do that. No, you're not. Allowed to scream at me like after I've asked you three times if we could take a breath like there's I have limits, but within a pretty wide spectrum, she's allowed to feel how she wants to needs to feel, because it's once she feels that feels that impulse to completion, that she's able to come back to more homeostasis and more balance internally, yeah, and I think

Renae: that that balance, you know, I think of as you know, regulation, regulation does not mean calm. Regulation means that you have as much of a calm and much activation as you need for that moment. So it's being able to say for this moment, this is what I need. Because there are times that we actually do need to scream absolutely and there are times that we need to be completely silent and and it's so there's no there's no value to whether you know to it's not a good or bad emotion, it's just an emotion. It's the actions that we take with it. And so I like that. The thing, the thing that really came up for me, that was really interesting as you were talking is when we're talking about trauma, informed parenting and this core piece of safety. I think what is important for parents to know, and I hear it very clearly in the things that you're saying, is the high nurture and the high structure environment that helps people to have that containment and safety that lets them grow and thrive and try things out, and all of those developmental pieces that are so important for us to be able to bring our full and authentic selves into spaces that high nurture and high structure. It's just as much for the parent as it is for the kiddo. Yes, yes. The

Adair: I recently, in the last couple years, heard the idea of like resonance as maybe a more appropriate term than regulation, because regulation could have assumes that there's some neutral spot, but resonance is more are my heart and my mind and my body all operating in in resonance? Are they all kind of vibrating at the same place, and it's when we're out of resonance, right, that we start to get dissonant. So yeah, it's we come. It's not totally true that we come first all the time, because parenting requires a level and caregiving require a level of sacrifice to a certain extent. But if we understand that all of us are walking around, depending on how you want to think about it, as or with nervous systems. I like to think about myself as a nervous system, like I'm a nervous system. First, my nervous system job is to keep me safe and alive, and there's no moral implications to that, which is very challenging for us to understand in our world. But if that in terms of core principles, understanding that we are nervous systems and that if, if we can get to know our fight responses and our flight responses and our freeze responses, there's more in there. But if we can start to understand how we react and what our impulses are, then we have a better capacity to meet ourselves where we're at, address them when they're not when it's not good. Like, I don't want to yell at my kid. No, no. Little three year old. Nobody deserves to be yelled at, but like a baby, no. So if I can meet myself there and be like, Oh my gosh, my nervous system thinks that I'm under attack because of x, y or z, then I can take action to settle myself, which impacts her. If I'm not working on my own stuff, then it's going to come out sideways, and that it's not, it's it's gonna happen, and it's also not fair.

Renae: And so the the the part two of the the repair is actually, to me, more valuable than getting it right all the time. That repair is where we are able to teach that resilience and that there's a there's a pathway back, that that are we can make mistakes, we can screw up, we can even make bad choices. And in healthy relationships, there is a way to repair. Does not mean that there are not consequences, because actions have consequences. It's just physics, just physics, it's just natural science, how? But the that, that road to repair, and even you know, your reflection of, is this going to start, you know, strengthen, or start the seed of your too much when I do this thing? Well, we know that the we have this, this opportunity. Need to redirect the messaging by providing those repair opportunities. So I would just really love to hear a little bit about that from you.

Adair: You know, I'm married to somebody who is an incredibly conscious parent, and I'm really grateful for that, because he models repair. In such a beautiful way, and it reminds me to do it. He usually just says, Can we talk about it? And sometimes she's ready to talk about it, and sometimes she's not, but just saying we talk about it if she's not ready. And I can say, okay, instead of pushing the issue, that's actually a form of repair. It's subtle, it's energetic, and it's very important. Otherwise, you know, in the times when I've gone over my limit and I'm just speaking from an eye place, because I feel like it's the most relatable you could I could say, if someone were to but this is, this is real for me. I'm so sorry. Mama shouldn't yell because we're not allowed to yell in our house. And I did, and I'm really sorry that scared you didn't it? And she usually says, Yes, which makes my heart crack open a little bit like, Oh my gosh. I scared my kid. And then I say, Do you want to tell me how it made you feel? And oftentimes she will, and I'll say, I'm going to try really hard not to do that again. Okay, can I try again? And it's so amazing. Sometimes she will spontaneously say, after I took away the thing that she was making a horrible I'm audio sensitive. She's making a horrible grating sound, left, right, and left, right. I said, stop it yesterday, like, stop did you take that away from you? And I did. She wasn't happy about it, but I was gonna lose my mind. And little bit after that, she said, I think I'm ready to try again. And it's so affirming to have these little behaviors start to blossom out of her. I didn't say, Goldie, now you have to say you're ready to try again. She just modeled, I model it, and she does it, and that tells me I'm on the right track. It's like, it's a guarantee that we're going to harm each other when we're alive. It stinks. We don't want to, we don't want to, I hope, right? But the better we can get it repairing, the more we can get back to hopefully enjoying each other's company and like, at least just being like, neutral, good,

Renae: yeah, well, and doing that repair in a relationship where the you can affirm, I love you, no matter what these this choice, this behavior, this action, is harmful, either from me or from you, either direction, it's coming and we and we can't do that and have a sustained, healthy relationship, so we're going to use to change how we're getting our needs met. And it's with that, that concrete center of we're going to find a way, we're going to find a way back to each other. And having that, especially if that was not part of your own story, becomes really challenging as a parent. So I think the coming back to your statement before of it's really important for us to be on this journey of our own and understand where our reactions are coming from, and then building those strategies for responding. It really drives me backwards. People say, Well, you're responsible for your reactions. And I say, I actually, I have a nervous system, and it is protecting me, and it's automatic. I cannot.

Adair: It's I know, it's semantics. It's important. I'm responsible for my choices.

Renae: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and and my systems around me and my community are also responsible. If they say, Oh, you keep making this choice to say, is it possible that that brain might be in a little more survival mode than than we think? And that's the choice it can see, because we have not provided additional support. And that's that we we get to we we want to do that as we support each other, in parenting, in in systems, in the community, and we get to do that as parents, to say, why do they keep doing this? Clearly, that brain and body, this is the it is evaluating and saying, This is my best choice to get my need bet. And so we get to be creative when we remember not to take it personal. It's so hard and say, Okay, what what other op? Opportunities can I give here so they can find other choices? So creating the felt safety am I? Are there barriers I can't see that that they're seeing and that can that level of compassion comes from our own work, for our own self compassion as well. Totally. So what? What for for you? What would you say to a parent who you recognize that they were trying to give more compassion to their child than they have given to themselves? I don't know if that's ever come up for you. What? What's something that you would suggest or do or point to,

Adair: yeah, you know, this is a little bit tangential, but it's something I want to say, and I think I can weave it in. My dad's mother grew up very impoverished and had a very challenging childhood and life for a lot of it, she was I, she was Irish, from Ireland, and moved over here when she was like 40. But I often ask myself, what kind of I want. How can I parent in a way that I would have wanted Nana to be parented, and I can parent better if I'm recognizing my own child self, like most of us have heard the word inner child. So if I think about us all as children, which, depending on how you view things, I'm very flexible with my time space continuum. You know, if I think about her as a child, then I can think about myself as a child, and it's so easy for me to connect to both the joy and the really challenging parts of my childhood, and that just it makes it a little more like gritty, a little more tangible. It's like, Oh, why should I be compassionate with myself? Because I'm just a kid inside, and no five year old deserves to be whipped into shape so that that five year old can take better care of another kid, right? And that's a big piece of trauma informed care as I understand is that everybody gets to go under the umbrella. I'm not just trauma informing myself or my kid. I'm trauma informing myself, period. And as a result, I can show up better as a parent, and you know, we often back burner ourselves, and that's a cultural issue. It feels like sometimes we're like too we're too centered with ourselves, and sometimes we're way too back burnered. But if you think about your nervous system as that, that element that has no moral ground, and you think about what helps the nervous system connection to people who feel safe, if you don't have people who feel safe around you, maybe journaling or seeking out a therapist, right? Taking a bath, seeking movement. These are all avenues by which self compassion might be reached. So sometimes it's like you might be trying to do a little too much head work with like I need to be more compassionate without with myself. How can I be more compassionate? Think about how you can get into your body in a safe way. Because if your body has been the source of pain or, you know, scene of a crime, essentially, and you might body might not feel safe, but to some extent, can you get outside and see something great? Can you step outside and look at the sky remind yourself that, like, yeah, you gotta cook dinner, and you have six lunches to pack, or whatever you got all these things to do that you're gonna be better off, both for yourself and for your kids, if you just take a minute. Sometimes that means like, yep, nap time is going to last a little longer, Goldie, and you might not be quite ready to get out of your room, but as long as you're not screaming like, Mama just needs a minute.

Renae: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We called them gumballs with our kids. We said that. We explained that each parent, as it has a Is it like a gumball machine, and they have really cool things went for the to give to the children, and that it's a gumball machine has to get filled up in order for the cool things to keep coming out. And so when they'd be like, Why are you doing that? And we'd be like, gumballs. And they're like, oh, and it's just like, wrong for them. And so even if they're adults now, but even still, they're like, Oh, why did well, you know, Oh, what did you do today? I'm like, Oh, we went and got gumballs, you know, like, we

Adair: Yes, I love that perfect, because they every kid understands a candy metaphor, right?

Renae: And it's in it's and I do want to say too, you know, in that whole our identity as parents and expectations, especially that are put on, especially for women and a. Going to speak specifically for North America and the United States, that there's, there's some, there's some real issues with the mental and emotional load that comes with that, with the loss of identity as a actual human being and and all of that that we when we talk about gumballs, those are things that are specifically for the kids. That is not the gumballs for ourselves. We like we are worthy of all of the self care and all of the investment and all of the curiosity and exploring and capacity and space and margin, just because we, too, are human beings that are worthy of those things. We are worthy of the good stuff. And there's no decision that we can make or screw up that we can have that takes away the fact that we are inherently worthy of the good stuff that that like, that's, that's, we're showing up as a human being. Human beings are worthy of good stuff and and so that we don't do self care so that we can care for others. We do self care because we're worthy of it, and because we're worthy of being able to show up for ourselves and not be depleted when we care for other people. Yeah, so I just want to put that out there for parents. When I was talking about gumballs, I was like, I just want to be clear,

Adair: this is not as bad. There's two gumball machines, right? It's not there's two wolves, it's two gumball machines, right? That's the story.

Renae: And so, um, there was another piece that that really when you talk about the resonance, resonance, for me, the way you describe it, it comes through is alignment. And that the the alignment piece is when I have my needs met and I know who I am, I'm, I'm very generous in the ways that I show up for myself and others, and that when I don't have my needs met, if I don't feel safe, if I if there is something that I'm having sensory overload, or I'm, I am In a thought loop, or I'm having a cognitive distortion, or all of the other things that happen to us as human beings, where our our system is in the middle of trying to keep us safe, we may react and not respond with people and that repair work

Renae: piece with ourselves. I think that's the the other piece I'd love to hear from you is that what are, what are the way, the gracious ways, or from either from your experience, or that you've seen people do well, or that you would recommend, that we can do repair with ourselves?

Adair: That's a great question, and it's so important, and I think definitely overlooked. I study with a Buddhist teacher named Jacoby Ballard, and he's really wonderful about bringing Buddhist teachings into tangible practice. And one of the sort of key approaches to meditation in Buddhism is called metta meditation. Many people might have heard of it. It's a loving kindness meditation. And it's it's words that are repeated, and there are, you have the same set of phrases, and you move through different people depending. There's many different ways to practice, but the way we practice is we begin by offering loving kindness to ourselves, always and sometimes, depending on the day. Maybe that's where we stop because there aren't enough gumballs to offer to other people. But the phrasing that I often use is, may I be loving and kind, and actually, as I say this, I want to invite people to just take a breath and see if you can almost let these words land in your body and see how it feels. So it's May I be loving and kind, may I be safe and protected, may I feel an inherent sense of belonging, and may I have a lasting peace. And sometimes I grew up saying the rosary, and sometimes I'll just count it on my hands if I don't have a timer, it's a really great one to come into anytime I notice a cognitive distortion or a thought loop, so repeating those phrases. And then, depending on how much bandwidth a person has, then maybe you offer it to a benefactor, someone who may or may not know you. And then maybe you. Offer it to someone you feel really a lot of love towards, and then a neutral person, like a cash someone cashing you out at the grocery store yesterday, and then somebody who's a difficult person. And maybe it's like small scale, maybe it's big scale. It all depends on how much bandwidth with we have, and it all starts with resourcing ourselves. So I find that to be wildly effective, because saying the words internally or externally creates a level of vibration in the body, in the mind, and it creates, starts to pull things into coherency in a way that is really profound.

Renae: Well, that's that's beautiful. And I actually would love to end my questions right there, with the exception of one that I like to end with, which is if, if the people who are watching or listening only had two minutes to engage. And you're like, I have two minutes to talk. Tell them something very, very important. What would is it that you would want them to know?

Adair: So this is culturally specific, like you were mentioning about North America. We think about mental health a lot because the phrase mental health gets tossed around. I don't want to do away with it, but I don't think that that is actually a very helpful phrase at this point in my development, because what's happening with your mind is actually the result of what's happening in your physiology. Right? Your nervous system has certain reactions which create certain hormonal and physiological responses, which then create ways of thinking. And it's the body that's you might have heard. The body holds the score. We tells the score, keeps the score. You know that? I know that. But over the last couple of years, I've been learning deeper and deeper to and deeper and deeper ways to drop into my body. I use breath work. So I'm going to actually lead you in a quick breath work practice. So here it goes. Take a long, deep breath in and sigh it out and breathe in, inside out. We'll do a couple rounds in through the mouth, out through the mouth, inhaling, bring your shoulders up, drop them on the exhale. Really like ripcord the exhale and one more time, and then sort of sink your awareness from your mind where you're usually spending time, if you're like most of us, into your sensation. And notice where do you feel sensation? Maybe it's uncomfortable. Maybe you want to not feel it. It's okay. It's okay not feeling it is harder than feeling it. And take a breath into where you feel sensation, maybe placing your hand on your belly or your heart, let some breath out, and then just notice how you feel. Do you feel any different? Renae,

Renae: yep, lighter, more open,

Adair: and that was maybe 60 seconds, the more we can do that. I have a lot of training. Believe me, I'm trained in a lot of things. I've been learning a long time. This is it. It's connecting the nervous system to your current experience, with your mind and your heart, realizing how you feel, and so much healing can come from that you could do it by yourself. You can do it with your kids, especially if they're not like, what are you doing? They're curious. And it can create so much shift. It can create space for making the bigger decisions.

Renae: Beautiful. Well. Thank you so much. Dare for sharing so much of your wisdom and your experience and giving us some very practical tools in this session, so that anybody can walk away or listen away, or whatever they can leave this time knowing that they have something that they can actively do that they have an actual tool. And so I thank you so much and for just being so generous and open. Thank you very much for joining us.

Adair: It's been a pleasure, and I am so glad that you're doing the work you're doing. It's so needed, and I'm grateful.

Renae: Thanks so much. Thank you.