Eps 217: Exploring Collaborative Emotion Processing with Alyssa Blask Campbell

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Casey O'Roarty 0:04
Hello and welcome. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place where we tease apart what it means to be a conscious parent and aren't afraid of getting super messy with it. I'm your host, Casey awardee, positive discipline trainer, parent coach, and in the trenches of the parenting journey with my own two teenagers, each week, I come at you with a solo show or an interview. You can be sure that the guests on the podcast have something important to say, and I am honored to have you listen in as I pick their brains about what it is that they are passionate about. If you are a parent looking to grow while walking the path of parenting. If you're open to learning new things, if your relationship with yourself and your kids is something you are interested in diving deeper into, then this is the place for you. After you listen, I would love to hear from you. Head over to iTunes and leave a five star review, letting others know what you love about the show, or feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected], I love hearing from listeners, and I'm always quick to respond if you want to be sure not to miss any of the happenings going on with joyful courage. Join my list. You'll stay updated on the podcast and events that are happening for parents, both online and live. You can join the list at WWW dot joyful courage.com/join. Yay. So glad you're here. Enjoy the show. Hi, listeners. I have Alyssa blask Campbell for you today on the show, Alyssa has her master's of education in early childhood. She is a leading expert in emotional development, speaking to people around the world. She is a podcast host for voices of your village and the CEO of seed and sow. Alyssa has been featured as an emotional development expert in publications such as the Washington Post, kids, VT and Family Education. After co creating the CEP method, which she's going to tell us all about, she researched it across the US and co authored a book on it, scheduled for publication next year. Alyssa is deeply passionate about building emotional intelligence in children, stating that it's never too early or too late to start. Thank goodness. Alyssa shows up as approachable and welcomes people into her village to get support at all ages and stages. Shame free, Alyssa. Welcome to the podcast.

Alyssa Blask Campbell 2:42
Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, so

Casey O'Roarty 2:45
I read your bio there, and I would love to have you kind of fill in the gaps. How is it that you have been drawn to doing what you do?

Alyssa Blask Campbell 2:52
Totally. So I was working in early childhood and started to notice the hot button trend of social emotional development, and was realizing that really, from the teacher perspective, we were just putting new labels on the same things, and the behaviors were still happening, and we were just labeling them differently now, and felt like we didn't have the tool that We needed to troubleshoot this, and as I dove deeper into current research with a colleague, we realized that the gap was really in emotional development, and that we felt like there was a strong focus on social development without giving kiddos the tools to feel their feelings and learn how to really process them and simultaneously was in my 20s and navigating my own, like, emotion processing journey. I say it's never too early or never too late to start and like, thank God, because I did a lot of this work in my 20s. Like, personally, so I found myself, like doing that work and then showing up, and we ended up creating the set method, collaborative, emotion processing that, as you said it in my bio, we researched across the US, and I was doing this work with kids, and was like, Oh yeah, because I'm now also doing this work with myself, and which just really expanded the method itself and helped us dive in deeper to what this really looks like. I

Casey O'Roarty 4:24
love that, and it really aligns with a lot of what I bring into conversations here on the podcast and with clients, which is the parenting experience and the intersection that we create with these little beings that we grew in our body, or didn't grow in our body, or that, you know, come to us as our children, like, there's this layer, this level of emotional growth that we are invited into that doesn't necessarily get like we don't really realize we. Prior to having kids, just how deeply we can be affected by them and their behavior. And I really appreciate what you said. You know, there's social development, there's emotional development often, because I work with teachers too, we're often lumping those two things together, like social emotional development, like Sel is a thing, so will you tease apart those two forms of development as two even as I understand that they they're very intertwined. I mean, it's really the social situations and relationships that invite us into our emotional development, but as two separate things, how would you distinguish those two things?

Alyssa Blask Campbell 5:39
When we are looking at emotional intelligence, it's four components. It's self awareness, it's self regulation, social awareness and empathy. And we're so focused societally and culturally and in the classrooms and just in life, we want to raise kind, empathetic humans who can show up and be exist in a classroom setting, or exist at home in a respectful manner. And in order to be able to do that social piece, the kindness, the respect, the empathy, the social awareness components, we have to know how to navigate the self awareness and self regulation first. So we really separate those of like and in the set method, we have five components to the set method, and only one of them is adult child interactions. The other four are about us as the adults, not about them. People, not and that's so often when parents are like, coming to me with, oh, this behavior or this challenge. And I do a lot of work K through 12 as well with teachers, and so often they're coming about these tiny humans. And I'm like, Yeah, let's chat about the role you're playing in this which they don't want to know. Let's talk about them. So so much of this for us is really separating those emotional development pieces, self awareness and self regulation in order to be able to engage in these social aspects.

Casey O'Roarty 7:08
That's so huge. And I think that we like to talk about them rather than us, because it feels so much safer. Oh, it's easier, right? It's easier. And I think, you know, it's harder to take a look at what's going on on the inside, especially if we've come into parenting with maybe experiences and conditioning that we've buried right, that we've really tucked away so as not to have to worry about it anymore, and perhaps haven't healed from. And then we have these little people, and I think teacher being in a teacher role and working with kids, there's and I mean, really, it doesn't have to even be kids. There's all sorts of people in our lives that trigger unresolved issues that maybe we thought we could just ignore. So I love that, I love that it's so adult focused, because I think that is ultimately all we can control, right? Like, really the only, only thing that we can control is how we are showing up inside of the relationship with our children or our students or the grocery store clerk. And I love that you start with awareness, right? Because that's the first piece, is being aware of it. And I don't think there's ever like, Oh, now I can do this really well, you know, it's this ongoing practice. It's an ongoing practice, yeah,

Alyssa Blask Campbell 8:26
and as you said, you were talking about bias, which is one of I said there are five components bias for us, as one of them is really getting to know, what are our biases? What are we bringing from childhood? What experiences or social programming or cultural context do we have and recognizing that's going to be different than maybe a co parent in this journey, or maybe the teacher that's showing up, that we're all going to show up with our own biases. And sometimes the bias could be, I feel like at this age, they shouldn't be crying about this emotion anymore, right? So sometimes it's really just getting down to what is our feeling about what they're feeling or experiencing.

Casey O'Roarty 9:09
That's big stuff. Today we're going to talk about coping in particular. And I love this topic because, well, for personal and professional reasons. I think it's super relevant for our kids as well as us adults, just like all of it. So you talk a little bit about coping mechanisms versus coping strategies, because we're all coping like, you know, we're doing it. We're either doing it intentionally or unintentionally skillfully, unskillfully, but at the end of the day, you know, you make it to the end, you've coped, right? So what's the difference between a coping mechanism versus a coping strategy?

Alyssa Blask Campbell 9:49
Totally. So you'll hear again that we love the number five. We worked with folks to develop the five phases of emotion processing. What is your. Brain and body go through to actually process an emotion, rather than to numb it or to push it below the surface. And this, for us, is like the game changer, and what we've our whole framework is built around. It's like, how do we help anybody? Whether you're six years old, 16 years old, or 60 years old, you go through these same five processes, and number four is coping. And when we did the research, this is where we saw the biggest challenge for folks was this, like desire to turn towards coping mechanisms, which are these temporary, quick fixes. They numb our feelings. It's what your body will automatically go to when you're experiencing an emotion, because your body's designed to make it stop as quickly as possible. So essentially, what happens when you experience a heart emotion is that cortisol floods your body adrenaline and it kicks it on the amygdala, your feelings brain, and it sends neurons to the prefrontal cortex, which is your rational thinking brain, to shut it down. The idea here being like, if you were being attacked by a bear in the wild, we don't want you accessing your prefrontal cortex to say, like, Should I run? What should I do? We just want you to act. We just want you to run. And so when you're in your amygdala, your feelings brain. You have this cortisol running through your body. The fourth phase of being able to process this emotion is coping. And when there, there are two options here of coping mechanisms which can very quickly numb that feeling so that you stop feeling it as quickly as possible. This could be a distraction. I mean, we also, everybody has coping mechanisms. So as we list these, it's not from a place of like, oh, you need to get rid of all of your mechanisms. It's really saying, like, we're all going to have them and turn to them sometimes and trying to find some balance with mechanisms and strategies. So mechanisms, I mean, I did it earlier. I was feeling frustrated, and I didn't want to feel it, so I pulled up my phone and I was scrolling through Instagram, and then I caught myself and was like, oh, yikes. Or, as my husband, I have been navigating a fertility journey. There are times where I'm like, I just want to, like, binge watch a show because I don't want to feel what I'm feeling. And that's going to happen from time to time. Sometimes it could be turning to a substance when you're like, I just want that glass of wine at the end of the day. Or for kids, it's often distractions or screens. And then it can move into also things like substances we can it can get a little dicey here too, because one of the biggest coping mechanisms we've started to see on the rise as anxiety has been on the rise, is trying to solve the problem where we're like, oh, if I can just fix this really quick, I won't have to feel it anymore.

Oh, no, that's a mechanism telling

Casey O'Roarty 12:56
me, Oh, shit. Actually, my counselor has been telling me regularly what would happen if you just sat with that instead of thought about how you can fix it? I'm like, Gosh darn it, Mark

Alyssa Blask Campbell 13:08
No. Mark is not what I want to hear. Yeah, for sure. So to do listing our way out is another one that's similar to that problem solving, where we're like, I can feel like I'm in control, right? I can solve this. Yeah. And those are, those are our most popular mechanisms, and then we have coping strategies. So coping strategies, the thing with a coping strategy is that when you tap into it, it takes a little while for your body to process the cortisol and for you to turn back on your prefrontal cortex here, and in that time, it's real tempting to just be like, Ooh, I could numb this faster. So when you're tapping into a strategy, it's going to take a little bit longer, and you're going to feel the emotion a little bit longer, which is just really unfortunate news, but we are looking at things like maybe moving your body. So we had a mom reach out. She was a 10 year old, and she reached out and was like, Hey, I've been doing this work for about a year. She's been in our village doing this work, and she shared this story of her 10 year old had planned this lemonade stand with his friend, and his friend never showed up. And so he comes inside and he's upset. He's like, Mom, can I play Minecraft? And she said, not right now, buddy. And he goes into the bathroom, and she can hear him crying in there, and he comes out, and she validates for him exactly what happened, that he's feeling really frustrated. It really stinks that his friend didn't show up for the lemonade stand. She knows he was looking forward to this, and he's like, wiping his face. And she's like, did you want to play Minecraft, because it would make you feel better. And he said, Yeah. He nodded his head. And she asked if he would like a hug. A hug is a coping strategy. And he said, No. And then he ended up actually collapsing in for the hug anyway, like tearfully, and she hugged in. And he pulled back, and she said, You know what, bud, you can play Minecraft after you go move your body, you can go in the backyard and jump in the trampoline. You can go climb a tree. You can go for a walk. Once you move your body for about 10 minutes, then you can come in and play Minecraft if you still want to. And he ended up going out and and climbing a tree and just hung out in the backyard. And she didn't hear from them again. He didn't come back in wanting Minecraft. Oh, I

Casey O'Roarty 15:24
really appreciate that, because I'm thinking about my teenagers and putting them in that story. And first of all, nobody really wants to hug me anymore. Sad. Actually, that's not true. My son is definitely a hugger, but once they get kind of stuck on that, no, I'm just going to do this thing, which often is the phone, then it becomes really challenging to get them to do something different. But what I'm what I love, is the both and of what you just shared. Like, hey, why don't you move your body for 10 minutes, and then if you feel like it, you know you do you? You know, I love that. And whether or not, being up in a tree for 1520, minutes and then, and like, and then coming in to play a video game isn't necessarily a fail, it's actually supported them in something really healthy, as far as feeling where they're at and and using, like you said, a strategy and then moving in to the screen activity because they want to, not because it's this big escape. I love that. That's

Alyssa Blask Campbell 16:29
exactly and that's, yeah, absolutely. And that's what we're really looking for here with coping is that these things that are in like the coping mechanism list, aren't inherently like bad for you things you can absolutely watch a movie or watch a show or whatever, and it's not like, oh, it's when we're using it to stop feeling that's when we're looking at like, now it's a mechanism when we're like, I just don't want to feel this. Brene Brown, in one of our talk shares about, like, reading this negative review about her weight, and one of the first time she ever read a review and realized, like, Why do I read reviews? And she, like, reads it, and then she just, like, binge washed down Abby and ate her favorite snack. And then once she like, came out of that was like, okay, and now I have to process, and that's really what we're looking at, but we want to flip that and say, tap into a strategy. And then if you still want to, like, once you're calm and regulated, if you still want to watch a show, or you still want to play the game, or you want to go ahead, Well,

Casey O'Roarty 17:25
it's interesting, because currently I like, I definitely have a screen time issue myself. It's definitely one of my mechanisms. And I recently picked up my crochet hook, which I haven't in a long time.

And, yeah, I know, yay, exciting, something creative. However, I can also completely numb and tune out in the name of, well, I'm crocheting. I'm not looking at my phone. So, you know, I think pop

Alyssa Blask Campbell 18:06
in here, because, oh, good, yeah, perfect. Thank you. Totally, I'm okay. You

are okay, babe. There are in our strategies list we really went through and worked with folks from the neuroscience perspective of what numbs and what doesn't, and so things like sewing, knitting or even like puzzling, doing something that is calming, where you aren't using a screen, screens really are like a numbing agent. But if you're not using a screen and you're doing something like a fine motor activity. It can absolutely be a processing tool. So it can be a strategy,

Casey O'Roarty 18:45
even if I'm completely ignoring everyone for hours at a time. Yeah.

Alyssa Blask Campbell 18:49
So the idea is that you would tap into it. You're welcome. You're like, please stop talking now. The idea is that you're tapping into it, and you're calming your central nervous system. You're processing that cortisol, you're reopening that prefrontal cortex, your rational thinking brain, and then you revisit now the Phase Five for us is problem solving or conflict rest. So this is the kicker. If you go for a run and you come back and you don't now turn and say like, Hey, I really lost my cool earlier, and I answered really fast. I got really frustrated. I'd like to chat with you about it. And now we navigate problem solving your conflict, rez, but if you come back and you just continue to ignore it, then know where the coping strategy isn't doing its job. Yeah.

Casey O'Roarty 19:41
Well, what you're talking about, well first, well, there's a couple things. One is, I want that list. And two, what you're talking about reminds me of a theme that shows up over and over in conversations that I'm having about parenting, which is awareness and being a. And being an observer of we of ourselves, right? Because I think, like you're saying a lot of what we do to cope, it's, you know, once you become a 40 something, you or even, you know, sooner than that, you it's just like an automatic pilot, like you said, it's just somewhere we go towards the mechanisms. What are your How do you support parents in getting better at recognizing one, that they even that that's a thing, that there is an autopilot that we tend to slide into, but also how to recognize we're there when we're there? Well,

Alyssa Blask Campbell 20:39
first of all, the list that you asked for at seed. And so it's S, E, w.org/emotions, on there. We have an emotion coaching guide, and we have a visual aid in the emotion coaching guide that outlines coping mechanisms and strategies. Yeah, so that list exists. It's all totally for free, so people can snag that. The

Casey O'Roarty 20:58
link will be in the show notes, so don't worry, Sweet. Thanks.

Alyssa Blask Campbell 21:02
So now, in terms of the autopilot, I mean, you know when you like, drive to the same place over and over, and then all of a sudden you drive, and you don't remember actually driving. There you were on autopilot. You were doing something just based out of habit. And these things exist all around us all the time, and they're in our daily routines. They're in the hard part about this is your brain is designed to fall into patterns and habit and routine, because when you can fall into a habit or a pattern, it doesn't have to think about that anymore. It can focus on other things. And so anytime you're trying to break a habit or a pattern, your brain's gonna send up like signals that says, like, Nope, that feels uncomfortable. It's designed to do that. And so really setting new habits and patterns not an easy task.

Casey O'Roarty 21:57
And the brain doesn't differentiate between like, Oh, this is a much more healthy, balanced pattern. So we'll go this way. The brain is more of like, that's not what you do. You do something different. So keep doing what you've been doing

Alyssa Blask Campbell 22:09
exactly, exactly. And so first of all, like, anytime we're gonna start, like, changing a habit or a pattern A it's giving it time, and knowing, like, repetition and consistency will be huge. But also, like, Don't overhaul your life. Don't like, January 1 this where you're like, oh, now I'm gonna do all the things differently. I'm gonna be a whole different person. And then you're that person for four days, and you're right back into old habits. Like, start small and start like, simple, and pick one thing that you're like, all right, I want to bring more awareness to this thing, and then you can start to develop new habits and patterns around that specific thing before you move on to more. But I think the most effective thing in my work with parents is reflective practice. So I am not I don't believe in perfection at all. I think that a kids nobody is perfect, so that's just not real. But also, I think kids should see that we all make mistakes, and they're allowed to make mistakes too, and here's how we come back from that, and here's how we navigate that together. But looking at the end of the day, which is hard to do because we're tired at the end of the day, but if at the end of the day, we can pause and just be like, Man, where did the wheels come off the bus today? Where did I lose my cool, or what was really triggering? Where did I end up yelling? Where did I whatever, and not with the idea that you're going to go in tomorrow and not yell or not lose your cool, but being able to say, like, Okay, tomorrow. What could I do leading up to that? So if I know that I lost my cool after school, when I was coming home from work, and I walk in the door and their stuff is everywhere, and there's food laid out on the counter, and I've asked them a million times to please hang up their bags when they come in, and they haven't done that, and I'm carrying from work the stress of my last meeting, and that really annoying person who was sitting next to me today, and like, I'm bringing that stuff home, and now my kids backpacks on the floor, and so I yelled at them. And so if we can start to look at like, what are these? A lot of times their patterns, so we can look at all them trends or triggers. So either it's a trend or you were triggered by something specifically so looking at like, where did they come off the bus? Is it a trend or a trigger? And then just starting to when you're in it, starting to try and notice when you're at a two, a three or a four, rather than an eight, nine or a 10. So when you start to be like, Oh, yikes. Like, I felt that rush of cortisol. Like, weak you can feel it. I usually, often, personally feel it, like in my chest first, and that's like, where my rage starts. And being able, once I can now feel that for me, like, that's a trigger to be like, yikes, Alyssa, if there's any way that you can walk away for me, it's often I, like, high. In the bathroom, I'll be I just gotta go to the bathroom real quick, and then I can finish this conversation, even if I say that in a really angry tone, like there have been times with kids, I had a kid slap me across the face once, and the only nice thing I could say to them was, I'm gonna go to the bathroom because I knew like I'm pissed and I'm not ready to respond to you with intention. I also know that you as a human don't want to hurt me. I know that you love and care about me right now. I don't feel that way, but I know that at my core. And so I was like, I gotta go the bathroom. And left this human crying and went to the bathroom so that I could find my calm. I believe that it's our job to find the calm, not their job to get calm for us. It's our job to get calm for them. Yeah, well,

Casey O'Roarty 25:51
I just want to jump in, because I think that this speaks into the experience of parenting teenagers so much specifically what you just said about that child who slapped you. I don't get slapped physically. The slaps come in other forms, totally and when I can remember, this is not about me. This is about something unrelated, typically, or if it is related, it's just that my child doesn't have the skills right now to tell me exactly what's going on for for her, for him. I mean, I think that it's such a gift and it's hard. Like I was just talking to another person that does parent education. And we were talking about tough participants, you know, the ones that come in with their arms crossed. And this isn't the way I was raised. And it's a it is, it is challenging. You know, one of the things that often will come up is in live classes, especially at the very beginning of like a seven week series is someone will say, this is a lot of work. And I get to say, Yeah, this is thoughtful parenting, and to do it well, it requires us, like you said, to to focus on our own self regulation, because they are going to come with the skills they come with, and that means whether you have a two year old or an eight year old or a 16 year old, that's how many years of life experience our child has had to develop tools and strategies For keeping their shit together, and we've I've had 46 years, so I should look a little bit more put together than my 16 year old who's coming unglued, or my 14 year old who's having a hard time. Like we shouldn't be mirroring them. We should be offering a mirror of something different. That's really what I'm hearing you say

Alyssa Blask Campbell 28:01
totally and acknowledging we'll do it

Casey O'Roarty 28:05
imperfectly. By the way,

Alyssa Blask Campbell 28:07
we will absolutely do it imperfectly, because we're humans, and that one of the other components of that five from the set method is scientific knowledge, which for us is the idea of mirror neurons, that if your kid is having a hard emotion and they're spiking cortisol, so are you, and your body is going to do that, and so your job here is to notice when you spike cortisol so that you can work on building your own self regulation tools to be able to find your calm so that then you can Be the mirror for them. That is not a cortisol spiral. Does that make sense?

Casey O'Roarty 28:45
It does, and it makes me want to ask you to just go right into Sep, like, tell us the five things. What is it? How do you support parents? And

Alyssa Blask Campbell 28:55
yeah, so we talked about bias, which is really when, when you were talking about parent education, we have the parent whose arms are crossed. I like automatically pictured a few and my like kickstart in those live classes, especially is to ask them, like, what about this? Feels uncomfortable for you, and a lot of the times it's them starting to identify their biases. Of this isn't how I was raised, or I just did a workshop for just dads recently. And one of the dads, yeah, it was awesome. They were amazing. It was fully booked, and they were super engaged. It was awesome. But they, one of the dads said, Well, I'm worried that my kid will get bullied. Like, if somebody did this when I was younger, I would have bullied them. And I was like, yes, like, let's have these conversations. Let's talk about that bias. But usually when those arms are folded for me, I'm like, Great, let's talk about the bias that's folding those arms. So bias is one we had scientific knowledge, which was that idea of of it's our job to get calm for them, not their job to get. Com. For us, we have self awareness, our own self awareness as we're building that, I think, is the hardest and most important component of this. And then the last one we are absolutely terrible at in America, and it's self care. Because for us, I was I was in Austria. I was visiting a friend. I had studied abroad in Austria as a kid, and I've maintained friendships. And I was over there, and she has a two and a four year old, and she's a stay at home parent, and her four year old goes to preschool full time. She's home with the two year old, and every Wednesday, her mother in law comes over and takes care, takes the two year old, and then picks the four year old up from school and has the kids all day so that she has Wednesdays just off. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Like, good for you. And she was like, How else would I take care of myself and, like, do all the things that I need to get done? And I was like, oh my god, cheers. Like we, we in the US, I think are particularly terrible at this. A, we don't want to ask for help, and there's this mentality that we should be able to do it all. And, um, B, A lot of folks don't have access to support and help. So first of all, like looking at self care and saying, like, man, self care sometimes is drinking enough water or eating food, and not just somebody scraps or leftovers, or maybe it's peeing without a kid on your body or with the door closed to have like, some sort of privacy. Maybe it's getting enough sleep. It's looking at like, how do you take care of your physical self so that you can emotionally regulate? This is why we have terms like hangry, that when your sensory systems are dysregulated, it's really hard to emotionally regulate. So, yeah, that's the that's the fourth, and then the fifth is adult child interactions. And that's usually the one that people are like, tell me how to do that. And those are the that's where we have the five phases of emotion processing. I can go into those if you're interested.

Casey O'Roarty 32:03
I am. However, before you go there, I want to say I just over and over again. I find it and myself included, like we all want to talk adult child interactions, and don't realize that those four things that you mentioned, bias, scientific knowledge, self awareness, self care, are what is the foundation of that adult child interaction. So without those four things, it this is what I say often, like it doesn't matter. I could give you language, I could give you a script, but if you show up and you're totally flipped and dysregulated, it doesn't matter what you say or do. Maybe

Alyssa Blask Campbell 32:42
you're you are preaching our language Exactly, and that's that's why the set method has five components that you exactly, that you could have a perfect script or whatever, and it doesn't matter if you can't access it,

Casey O'Roarty 32:55
yeah, if you're freaking out, like, yeah, and that's where you know, like, again, I've had clients and parents in my classes say, Well, I really love all this stuff when I'm at class and but then I go home and I'm just so mad. It's like, well, yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's the thing.

Alyssa Blask Campbell 33:16
Yeah, totally. And

Casey O'Roarty 33:18
tell me that other part, what did you say the four, the five phases

Alyssa Blask Campbell 33:21
of emotion processing, yeah, for the first one. And this is again, like, this is what you as an adult would guide yourself through as well, or responding to a partner, etc. These are the phases of emotion processing. Are what your body and brain go through to process an emotion, not just kiddos, everybody. So the first one is allowing yourself to feel.

Casey O'Roarty 33:46
I love the word allowing,

Alyssa Blask Campbell 33:49
yeah, I mean, it's, it's, that's the key, right? It's really just allowing it to happen. And kids are good at this right from the get go, until we encourage them to stop, um, and we have typically been socially conditioned to stop, to not let ourselves feel sad or mad or disappointed, and sometimes it's even figuring out, like, what am I feeling? Which is going to be in in phase two is the recognition of what you're feeling. This might start as what we call a secondary emotion. Some people call it a surface emotion, which might be like anger or sadness, and then migration, exactly, and then you might go deeper into fear, embarrassment, disappointment, shame, guilt, etc. So this is where an in phase two, oh man, especially in adult child interactions. But even adult to adult, it can be a game changer if someone is here to empathize and connect, and people often get caught up in the language here, like, Oh, I see that you're frustrated, or I can tell that you're angry. And never in the history of me being frustrated has somebody saying, I see that you're frustrated than helpful ever, right? Like, I've never been like, Oh, great. I'm glad you can see, like, that's not helpful for me. Here in phase two, if we can actually empathize and connect, then this is where we can do the real work. I actually personal anecdote. I was, you know, I've mentioned, we're in this fertility journey, and I had texted my husband and was like, Oh, shit, I just got my period. Can I swear on this podcast?

Casey O'Roarty 35:33
Yeah, we already have shit. I just

Alyssa Blask Campbell 35:37
got my period. And he texted back and was like, Oh, that's so disappointing. I'm so sorry, love. And I just wrote back, and I was like, I know your intention here was good, but I'm not getting anything out of that. And so he's blessed his heart been married to me and has to deal with all this. But he then responded and was like, I was like, what I really want is your actual reaction and feeling right now? And he wrote back, and was like, Damn, that sucks. I feel like we had really nailed this window or whatever. And I was like, Yes. Like, that's the empathy is when we share in it. And the key here in phase two, like, we can absolutely change the rest of these phases with the kiddos and how we connect with each other, if we can nail phase two and really connect over the feeling, it's not your job to decide whether or not they should be feeling it. It's your job to connect over the feeling. So it's not like whether or not they should feel disappointed about this thing. It Right? They do.

Casey O'Roarty 36:39
Hey, before I get into today's solo show, I wanted to share a review that came through recently on iTunes titled for every parent, five stars from Julietta of sproutable as a school psychologist, school counselor and parent educator. This is hands down the number one podcast I recommend to each and every parent I work with, no matter what age your child is, you will find the top national experts in the field a plethora of relevant topics, and will come away with a golden nugget and definitely a smile after each and every episode. Listen, be inspired and get action steps to strengthen your family relationships. Thank you. Casey, now, full disclosure, Julietta is my good friend. Love you, Jules, thanks for the sweet review. And Julietta is the co founder of a company called beroutable out of Seattle, and their focus is on kids, ages zero to five. And actually, their focus isn't so much on the kids as it is on the parents. Julieta and Alana are both positive discipline parent educators. Julieta came up through training with me, and they have an amazing online program for parents of kids under five that you have to check out if that is the season of parenting you're in. The content is super useful and applicable. They totally nail the experience of raising toddlers and preschoolers and offer up amazing tools and strategies through short, entertaining and content rich videos of real parents, like it's really the parents and really the little kids doing the tools that are being shared through the program. It's amazing. You can get there through going to my website, www, dot, joyful courage.com/sproutable, again, that's www, dot, joyful courage.com/sproutable, check it out. Well and I and there's a big difference, like you said around, it sounds like you're really angry right now,

Alyssa Blask Campbell 38:52
versus,

Casey O'Roarty 38:53
wow, you know, it sounds like you are really angry about What happened, like really trying to, I want listeners to really hear like, it's even though I just kind of used the same words. It's more of like, like, be in empathy. Don't just assume that there's like, the right, that empathy is about language. It's really about feeling. Dan Siegel says it's feeling felt right. We want our our kids want to feel felt. The language is secondary. Absolutely. That sounds like your story too. With your husband too, like you wanted to feel, felt you didn't want to hear the canned like response,

Alyssa Blask Campbell 39:36
yeah. And sometimes with kids, it's really just saying, like, man, that sucks, right? Like, when, in the case of the 10 year old with the lemonade stand, it when she said, like, are you feeling disappointed because he didn't show up? And he said, Yeah, she's like, Yeah, that sucks. You were really looking forward to this, yeah. And like, that's it. Like, then he's like, yeah, she gets it. And. And that's the game changer. So that's phase two, is the recognition of what you're feeling. And then phase three is security in your feelings. So this is knowing I'm not going to feel this way forever. It's on a continuum of feelings right now. Anxiety is higher in parenthood and in kids than it's ever been before. And this phase three is the kicker. Phase three and four, which is coping really go hand in hand, so you can feel secure in your feelings when you know two things, when you know I'm not gonna feel this way ever forever. It's just a feeling that I have right now, and it'll pass. And so it's okay for me to allow this feeling to exist, because I won't feel it forever. Wait. I want

Casey O'Roarty 40:43
to pause you really quick, so feeling secure in your feelings, meaning, like it's safe enough, it's safe for me to feel this because it's not going to last forever, exactly,

Alyssa Blask Campbell 40:56
exactly. And then we pull that right in the way that you know it's safe to feel it is also the kicker is you have to have a coping strategies toolbox. So that's what faith this is where we go into Phase four, which is knowing, oh, I have a tool to process this. I know I won't feel this way forever, because I have a tool to process this. If you don't experience

Casey O'Roarty 41:22
too, like, I have a highly anxious child, and, you know, not just, I mean, she came out that way, you know, like the wiring is, is such and she, what I'm noticing about her is the more experiences that she lives like, even just yesterday, she's like, I called the bank and I had them walk me step by step through connecting my accounts to the mobile app and, and she was like, oh my god, I talked to a human being, and it didn't blow up in my face, and it was fine. And that was like, you know, and then she was, she went to the post office and, you know, and had this whole experience. And so the, yes, the strategies, but also looking back and being like, Well, wait a minute, I've been here before, and I lived through it. Is that right? And maybe that's like, that's, maybe that's one of the strategies.

Alyssa Blask Campbell 42:17
So what I'm hearing you actually say is, I experienced fear and I processed it. I was able to navigate it, because she probably still felt scared talking to that person. She probably still felt nervous about it, but she was able to process it and get through the conversation and come out the other side. And when we there was some really cool research out of Yale that came out this spring about anxiety in kids, and it looked at three different things. It looked at medication, it looked at therapy, and it looked at parent support. And overwhelmingly, the biggest game changer for anxiety in kids was parent support, and the biggest divider here was whether or not we allow kids to feel it and encourage them to tap into coping strategies, or if we try to prevent them from feeling it and we try and solve the problem. So in the case of I had a mom reach out recently who was like, Oh, my kid is like, I have monsters under my bed and is scared to go to bed at night, etc. And what do we do? Like, we've made the monster spray. We've said that we got the monsters out of the room. And I was like, put away the monster spray. Don't talk about getting the monsters out of the room. Let's let them know. Yeah, it does feel scary when you're alone in your room at night. If you feel like you're not alone in here. What could you do that helps your body feel calm if you're feeling scared? So I this is actually when I was navigating my own therapy journey and going through this research same time. I'm a sexual assault survivor, and was navigating therapy specifically around that when I was doing this research and started to realize, like, oh, yikes, I've been tapping into coping mechanisms to prevent myself from feeling fear anxiety. Anxiety is big, fancy word for you're stuck in fear, and I was preventing myself from feeling fear so that I didn't get stuck in this anxiety loop. And had to learn how to let myself be afraid and tap into a coping strategy like breathing is a really big one for me, and breathing, if we can encourage anybody to do it, is the fastest, easiest, most accessible way to process cortisol and access your prefrontal cortex. But when I could let myself feel fear and tap into a coping strategy that was the key to the anxiety. Because if I was running from the fear over and over, it was always going to come back up.

Casey O'Roarty 44:49
Yeah, and well, and I think it's interesting, the language that you use to the anxiety loop. Like it feels like, if there's an anxiety loop, then why wouldn't you want to get the fuck away from it? Right? Totally. But the shift there becomes Oh, anxiety has arrived. I can be with it. I have strategies to be with it and get to the other side of it, like there isn't even a conversation of like, oh, I have to be in this loop, because that feels like what you were saying before, like a forever, yeah, if it's a loop, then it just never ends. But if we look at just like, oh, it's it's shown up, I get to be with it. I get to use my strategies. I can process however long that takes. It subsides, we move on. Yeah, and

Alyssa Blask Campbell 45:31
the key, I think, for kids here, I especially kiddos who are identifying as being anxious or having anxiety, is asking them when they're feeling anxious? What are you feeling afraid of? Really getting them in the habit of identifying that at the root of this is a fear. They're afraid of something, right? And so we can bring it right back to that emotion language of there's a fear here. We have put this word anxiety out there. And for a lot of folks, it's become almost like a I'm an anxious person, or I have anxiety. And really, what that means is fear is hard for me to process. And so when we can break that down and let them know exactly that, like, yeah, sometimes fear is really hard for you. When you're feeling scared, what can you tap into to help your body feel calm and encouraging them. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 46:21
that's good. That's That's awesome. Thank you for that. Not worried, not what are you worried about, but specifically, what are you afraid of right now?

Alyssa Blask Campbell 46:33
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 46:34
Okay, well, what's the fifth thing? The

Alyssa Blask Campbell 46:37
fifth is the dreamiest. It's easy. If we have done one through four, it is problem solving and conflict resolution. So this is the one where, if we have done one through four, everybody is then in their prefrontal cortex and is calm and regulated, and now we can navigate problem solving, and we don't have strict rules for like, how you do that, it's really going to vary. I love to as often as possible bring other folks in and say, like, Man, I don't know how to solve this problem. What do you think we should do? And if you're if you're all regulated, you can navigate that together

Casey O'Roarty 47:13
well. And I love that too, because there's a co creation. I mean, especially when you're talking with a child, you know, letting go of the idea that you're the one with all the answers and that, you know, really opening the space for them to be creative problem solvers. And I'm saying this and I'm laughing in my head, of like, what a freaking Control Freak I am. Everyone has answers, but mine are the best. No, yeah, I So, and I really also love you know that it's this is where, okay, let's, let's figure out how to fix this together. So it's not so much. There's nothing to fix. It's more of like, let's not jump ahead and miss these opportunities to really experience your experience, and then get to a place. And I'm guessing that once you go through, you know, one through four and you get to five, that that problem solving and conflict resolution is much richer, more sustainable, probably gets more to the root cause of the situation or the problem, versus perhaps earlier on, like putting a band aid on

Alyssa Blask Campbell 48:29
absolutely, absolutely and like, here is where, if we've done one through four again, also with ourselves, where we are not in this place, where we're where we feel like we need to assert control, if we've done one through four together, then we can navigate problem solving. And I honestly, like, even with my partner, with adults, with any human, I will let them know, like I'm not ready to engage in conflict, conflict resolution yet, or I'm not ready to solve this problem yet. I'm going to do X, Y and Z to help my body get calm so that I can talk to you with respect and kindness. And we'll do this across the board. I mean, we have as a bunch of Instagram followers, we get a bunch of DMS, and I obviously a lot of this work can be triggering for folks, there can be a lot of defensiveness, etc. So we'll get some DMs. And sometimes I find myself like, oh, that triggered me. And I'll just say, like, hey, I want to navigate this conversation with you. I'm not calm right now, but I'd like to come back to it. Let me know when you're calm and ready, and I'll see if I'm there. And great modeling, we just don't engage in it, because it's, I mean, it can just be a shitstorm where you're just like, kind of all around. I

Casey O'Roarty 49:47
mean, imagine, right, let's all take a moment and imagine a world where all the adults were doing their own freaking work. That's my dream. I mean, come on. People, let's do like, can you please go to the White House? Alyssa,

oh, geez, true. Oh my gosh. There is so much. It's so funny. And listeners, I just have to say this to you, as well as to you. Alyssa, you know, I sometimes I get to interview people that I don't know very much about. And I love it when that happens. And I realize over the course of the interview, like, Oh, I really like this gal. And oh, I'm really jiving with what she's talking about. And oh

Speaker 1 50:33
my gosh. Now it's been 48 minutes. Like, shoot,

Casey O'Roarty 50:37
there's so much more. So I hope that you come back on so we can just tease apart more of these little nuances and and talk more about this. Because I think this topic is so important. Both, how do we teach it to our kids? But also, of course, that's come up in this conversation, how do we just continue to practice it ourselves as adults in our life, whether, no matter the relationship and the interaction that we're having, I think it's, you know, I think it's why we're all here. I think it's like a spiritual journey. And I'm just really grateful for the work that you and your organization are doing to support parents. Thank you.

Alyssa Blask Campbell 51:16
Yeah, I'm happy to come back on. Maybe we can do a little Q and A as people listen to this and have questions, that'd be cool,

Casey O'Roarty 51:23
I do have one final question that I ask all my guests. So in the context of emotional processing, what does joyful courage mean to you?

Speaker 1 51:36
And that's deep. Take a moment. It's deep.

Alyssa Blask Campbell 51:41
I think for me, joyful courage is the ability to step in to the fear and the unknown in that pursuit or desire of getting back to the calm, easy joy, if you will feel like when we have those tools to process the hard stuff, when we're courageous enough to do this work, to build our self awareness and to put the mirror up to ourselves, and not just to kiddos, when we are courageous enough to do that, then we get To live with more joy and calm and peace.

Casey O'Roarty 52:23
Nice, yes, thank you. Where can listeners find you and follow your work? You said, Instagram. What's your handle?

Alyssa Blask Campbell 52:31
It's at seed.and.so, S, E, W, and then voices of your village podcast. We drop a new episode every week over there. But yeah, those are the two biggest places I hang out. And if you catch us there, you'll at least hear like all the other things. Yeah. And I mentioned that emotion coaching guide, if you want to link that bad boy, awesome.

Casey O'Roarty 52:57
So tell me about your podcast real quick.

Alyssa Blask Campbell 52:59
Yeah. So it's, it really was just born out of people saying, like, we want you to write a blog or do a podcast. And I was like, Well, I love to talk. So I went down. It's essentially been really just almost fully listener driven content. So people reach out and ask for something, and we'll be like, Oh, great. If it's not in my wheelhouse, I'll find another expert in the field to interview, yeah, or it's or it's solo shows, or sometimes we'll bring on parents, and they just get to Q and A fire, whatever they want, at me, and we just have conversations as if we're like, for me, the goal is that we have I'm from a very small farm town in western New York, and I'm one of five kids, and my mom started having kids when she was 19 years old, and she waitressed and she ran a home daycare, and really like worked to make ends meet. But I want a tool that is accessible from anywhere. So right now, voices of your village is in 67 countries, and I wanted it. I wanted something that was free and accessible for everybody, so that if you were like my mom, if you were in the middle of nowhere western New York with no money, you could access this support in these tools and feel less alone in this journey.

Casey O'Roarty 54:16
Yay, beautiful. Well, listeners, make sure you jump into voices of your village Podcast. I'm guessing they can find it on all the channels, right? ITunes, iHeart Okay, perfect.

Alyssa Blask Campbell 54:27
Yeah, no. Listeners know how to find you're not on iHeartRadio. I

don't know how many people.

Casey O'Roarty 54:34
I don't know how many people listen to me through iHeartRadio. Hard to get on there. I don't know anyway. Well, listeners, you know how to listen to a podcast, so you're ahead of the game for the majority of the population, it turns out. And head on over and listen to alyssa's show. I'm going to do it for sure. Thank you so much for coming on. It was so great to get to know you and talk to you today.

Alyssa Blask Campbell 54:58
Yeah, thanks. You too. And. I haven't asked for your listeners, if that's cool, my ask is for them to screenshot this and to tag both of us on Instagram so that I know where they're coming from. I really love to like, connect with you and bring the conversations off of the podcast and and on to these social platforms be able to connect with you and see where you're coming from.

Casey O'Roarty 55:21
Well done. I need to make that ask every time smart. That is smart. I'm excited do what she said, Please, listeners and and we are for sure, going to talk again. Thanks so much. Awesome. Thank you. Joyful, Courage community, you are amazing. Big. Thanks and love to my team, including producer Chris Mann at pod shaper. Please be sure to join in the discussion over at the live and love with joyful courage Facebook group as well as the joyful courage business page on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to the show through Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Play. I Heart Radio or really, anywhere you find your favorite podcasts, you can view the current joyful courage programs and my coaching offers over at the web page. Simply head to www.joyfulcourage.com to find more support for your conscious parenting journey. If you want to give back to the show, and I really hope you do become a patron, click donate on the website to give back to the show that gives you so much, any comments or feedback about this episode or any others can be sent to [email protected] I personally read and respond to all the emails that come my way, reach out, take a breath, drop into your body, find the balcony seat and trust that everything is going to be okay.

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