Eps 600: Zoya Brar Talks Parenting, Stress, and Nervous System Awareness

 to me it really means being able to just be present. Like when I, when I can take that minute with my child and show him that the stem of that, you know, I literally for the first time noticed a stem, which was purple. I don’t know if you’ve seen a flower with a purple stem, but I hadn’t. And I saw it outside my child’s school, and we both had such a great conversation about it. And I was running late to a meeting and I suspended all of that and I was like, oh my God. Like, this is marvelous, let’s be here for a minute. And we, me and my son have had so many conversations about that purple stem after that. And it’s a thing now. So to me, Joyful courage is being able to be there in that minute and be present for now. Like that’s it. That’s what makes me happy. 

Transcription

[00:00:00] Casey O'Roarty: Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Joyful Courage Podcast. This is a place where parents of tweens and teens come to find inspiration, information, and encouragement. In the messy terrain of adolescents, this season of parenting is no joke. And while the details of what we're all moving through might be slightly different, we are indeed having a very collective experience.
[00:00:30] This is a space where we center building, relationship, nurturing life skills, and leaning into our own personal growth and man. The opportunities abound, right. My name is Casey Ody. I am a parent coach, positive discipline lead trainer, and captain of the adolescent ship over at Sprout Bowl. I'm also a speaker and a published author.
[00:00:53] I've been working with parents and families for over 20 years. And continue to navigate my own experience of being a mom with my two young adult kids. I'm so honored that you're here and listening. Please give back to the podcast by sharing it with friends or on social media rate and review us on Apple or Spotify.
[00:01:13] Word of mouth is how we grow. Thank you so, so much. Enjoy the show.
[00:01:23] Hi, listeners. Welcome back to the Joyful Courage Podcast. I'm so glad that you're here. Today's episode is another powerful one, especially for those of us who have ever found ourselves parenting with a full heart and with a nervous system on high alert, which I think is most of us. My guest today is Zoya Bra Zoya started a diagnostics company at 23.
[00:01:49] And grew it to over 1000 employees, serving more than 40 million patients before it was acquired in 2024. She now helps lead Eli Health and co-founded Molecules and Mothers, a new platform exploring how early caregiving affects our biology. She's the mother of two and has studied how childhood stress.
[00:02:11] Hormones and environment shape long-term health. In our conversation today, we're gonna be talking about how parenting teens can bring up our unfinished stories. You know what I'm talking about? Those emotional patterns that we thought we'd grown out of or handled until boom, our kids hand them right back to us.
[00:02:30] We get into the science of adverse childhood experiences, the power of repair, what co-regulation looks like. When our kids are slamming doors and our faces and why there's no work, self versus parent self, just one nervous system that's trying to stay regulated through the ups and downs and unfolding of life.
[00:02:50] If you've ever wondered how to stay grounded when you're activated, how to heal as you parent, or how to shift from repeating patterns to writing a new story, this is the episode for you. Hi Soya. Welcome to the show. Hi, Casey. Thank you for having me. Yeah. How is your nervous system as we get ready to do this interview?
[00:03:09] How are you feeling today?
[00:03:11] Zoya Brar: I, I love this question. This is how every podcast should begin, right? No, I'm, uh, I've, I've done a lot of conversations and I think of podcasts, like conversations, um, mm-hmm. So I'm, my nervous system is pretty calm. Uh, if you don't account for the fact that I'm worried that one of my kids could come running and interrupt us at any time, I, I have two.
[00:03:33] Almost toddler, so. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. But other than that, I have it under control. I'm feeling good. Good, good.
[00:03:40] Casey O'Roarty: Well, and I love, I do love that. I think it's such a great question. Just even for ourselves throughout the day, I love creating experiences for myself that where I'm reminded, like, how am I feeling?
[00:03:52] What is my pulse telling me in this moment? What is my breath telling me in this moment? And then making adjustments and shifting. To be in the state of mind, the way of being that serves me most, which is a nonactivated nervous system. Right? Yeah, absolutely. How's, how's your nervous system, Casey? My nervous system is okay.
[00:04:11] We have some things happening right now here at home, and I've got a college kid home for the summer that is really struggling with a online accelerated calculus class. Ouch. I think I, I know I've mentioned it in my newsletter, so listeners, if you're a newsletter follower, you've heard me kind of speaking the woes of literally a repeat of temper tantrums around his calculus grade.
[00:04:39] And anyway, we've got a couple things going on, so my nervous system, you know, I'm feeling pretty good. I've got my feet kicked out on a stool, and, and I'm excited to talk to you about this work that you do. Can you talk a little bit before we even get into it. How did you, well, first of all, my first question is what is a diagnostics company?
[00:04:59] And like, how did you get into this work?
[00:05:03] Zoya Brar: Oh, it's uh, it's one of those crazy stories where I go, go back and look at my life and say that that actually happened to me. Uh, but yeah, I was at Google. Um, that was my first job out of college and I'd studied sociology, which believe, I believe. Yeah, yeah, I know.
[00:05:18] But, um, sociology has nothing to do with diagnostics. Yeah, if you think about it from one lens, right? And I, um, I was just chugging along at Google and somebody who was a colleague of mine said he's gonna quit. And I said, okay, I, I can help you. And we started talking and over a dinner conversation. My mother is a doctor and, and we, we know a lot of healthcare people.
[00:05:39] And over a dinner conversation, somebody said, you know, the real problem with healthcare is diagnostics. I said, okay, really? Explain that to me. Why? And they said, almost. Well, okay. 70% of all treatment outcomes depend on the initial diagnostic, and we spend only 3% of healthcare expenditure on it. Mm. Like the system is broken.
[00:06:00] Right. And I said, that's interesting. I was 23 and the good thing about 23 is you know nothing, which means you can jump into anything. And so I got super excited about this problem and I literally just. Dived right in. Quit my job, decided to work on, you know, this, this company, and spend the next decade of my life building a genetics or molecular diagnostics company that literally, uh, tested people for all kinds of things.
[00:06:26] Mostly diseases, but also in some cases. Health and wellness. Yeah. Um, so it was, it was, it's nuts how I got into it, but here I am a decade later.
[00:06:36] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Health and wellness, I mean, it's the foundation for everything in our lives. And so, you know that my show is about parenting our teenagers and also showing up for, for them and for ourselves with courage and with compassion and curiosity and you and your work and something that we're gonna talk about.
[00:06:56] Is how parenting awakens emotional patterns. That we thought we'd outgrown. And like when you talk about emotional patterns, what does that mean to you? Just so we can kind of set the context for the listeners.
[00:07:10] Zoya Brar: Yeah, I'll, uh, you know, for me, a lot of these concepts only make sense when I talk about them in stories.
[00:07:14] Great. So like times. Story just recently, my, so I have a 4-year-old who, he took a bowl of lentils and by mistake threw them on the floor. Uh, I'm sure every parent has the version of this story. Right, right. That was okay. Uh, my nervous system was fine. I was like, fine. He is thrown it. They'll love to clean up the mess, but alright.
[00:07:34] But then this child of mine took those lentils and started like literally painting with them all over the floor. And I got angry, right? Uh, and my immediate reaction, I, I wanna be a good parent, a calm parent. So I try my best not to yell, but I went and physically held him and I mm-hmm. Pulled him away from there.
[00:07:53] It wasn't the act of pulling him away, but watching him, like, there was just this, this shock on his face as if like, his, I had, you know, pulled the like floor under him and like, I don't know what I had done. All I did was like, hold him a little hard.
[00:08:07] Intro Music: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:08] Zoya Brar: But he looked, looked like I had, like, really, really hurt him.
[00:08:10] And so that moment broke. We, we went on with whatever he, it was bedtime, he went to sleep. I thought to myself at night, I was like, what happened there? Like that was not a normal exchange with my son. Like something. Was off. Mm-hmm. And as I thought about it, and I, I referenced all the things I've been studying and I realized that was actually shame.
[00:08:30] He was feeling ashamed for the fact that the lentils had fallen, he was using his body to deal with that. Because kids at that age, that's how they deal with shame, our guilt, they, they use their hands or they use, you know, play to kind of manage that emotion. And I couldn't deal with that shame. I couldn't see him in that moment doing that.
[00:08:50] And that triggered for me. The fact that when you make a mess, or the fact that when you make, you know, when, when you feel shameful, you get disconnected or you get removed. And so what I essentially did was remove him from that situation. Really what I was doing was removing myself from that situation, myself, being that little, tiny seven, 8-year-old who felt that growing up.
[00:09:11] That's, that's, that's an example of a pattern, right? And what brings us most in touch with that is parenting. Because our kids, you know, they, they highlight for us, Hey, these are the moments that you felt. Ashamed, guilty. Mm-hmm. Angry, left
[00:09:28] Casey O'Roarty: helpless. Yeah. Powerless. Mm-hmm.
[00:09:31] Zoya Brar: All of those things, they just come up right in your face.
[00:09:33] And if you are aware, which most of us, uh, most of your listeners are, are aware parents, they're trying to be conscious. Yet our nervous system is the one that acts. It's not logic goes offline in those moments, right?
[00:09:47] Intro Music: Yeah.
[00:09:47] Zoya Brar: So it's really being aware of those patterns Now when that same thing or similar thing will happen.
[00:09:53] I may not react from that point of view of just defending myself because I've become aware of this pattern and I know, okay, this is not. I don't need to protect myself. This I'm grown up, right? Yeah. So that's, that's an example.
[00:10:04] Casey O'Roarty: That's what I mean by emotional patterns and Yes. Well, and as I listen to you and I think about what I already shared, even in this conversation around Ian's response to this calculus class he's taking, you know, and we talk, and it's interesting, you know, I work with clients from all over and I can have two different families dealing with the same challenging, risky behavior.
[00:10:26] And it affects them totally differently. Yeah. And so like for me, when I think about Ian and how upset he's getting, and specifically the language like it, like he's treating this math class as if it's a game of chance, whether or not he passes and there's this level of powerlessness that and blame that shows up during his tantrums.
[00:10:50] And that's when I soya, that's when I kind of lose my shit and I'm like. Are you kidding me? Like, you think you're powerless in this. Your grades are a direct result of how well you're studying or how, you know, and like it, it's so fascinating to watch myself throughout the last few weeks and even just today he called me on the phone.
[00:11:11] I don't know why keep, I'm like, really? You have to keep me up this updated on all of this. But again, I said, okay, well what can you do? I don't know what you want me to say right now. I hear that you're really frustrated and this is a hard class, and what can you do? You know? And so you talk about we are aware we can grow in our awareness, right?
[00:11:30] And the nervous system can. If we're not real practiced at recognizing a nervous system takeover, we can get stuck in that loop, can't we?
[00:11:40] Zoya Brar: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know the context because most of your listeners are, have kids that are teenagers. What's a very, very important, this is science, cortisol, which kind of is the hormone that controls or tells us your stress response.
[00:11:55] Mm-hmm. That actually spikes twice in our life. It's called the cortisol Awakening once, believe it or not, happens in the first two years of our life and the second time, guess when that is? It's in the teen years. Yeah. It's in, yeah. 13 to 16. And so we think our teenagers are giving us a hard time. No, they're having a hard time.
[00:12:17] Yeah. Uh, so I think it's the moment a lot of people will give their little ones a lot of leeway or room because you know, the kids, they're, yeah. But teenagers have the exact same thing going on, like from a biological standpoint. They need as much co-regulation as. Uh, infant needs. And, and the moment you look at it from that lens and you go like, oh my God.
[00:12:41] You know, so to me that that aspect, most parents don't see about their teens, but the moment they say, okay, this is biology, right? This is not psychology, this is not them trying to manipulate me or, you know, control me or. They just, they can't handle it. That's how their body is responding right now. Um,
[00:12:58] Casey O'Roarty: and I think that's so interesting.
[00:12:59] I'm so glad that you gave the specific 13 to 16. 'cause there is something, you know, when I talk about the first half of adolescence and emotional dysregulation and that, you know, Dan Siegel calls it the emotional spark. And how they feel so big, whether it's the highs or the lows, and now putting it in the context of cortisol.
[00:13:21] Okay, great. So that makes sense how it's even more intense in that like middle school, early high school age. And I think for us parents, what makes it really hard is we're looking at these. Kids that seemingly feel like, well, you're already baked. Like you should know better. You should. You know, even I'm like, you're plus my son is, I mean, he's 6 4, 200 pounds.
[00:13:44] He looks like a man, which is the other thing where I'm like, Hey, listen, this response that you're having is not okay. Like, you've got to figure out how to feel your frustration and discouragement and not literally tear apart your notebook. Like, I recognize that this is like part of your, what's helping you in those moments, but life unfolds in all sorts of unusual, exciting, and discouraging ways.
[00:14:16] So perhaps calculus this summer is more about learning how to be with deep frustration and discouragement in a way that keeps moving you forward even more than it's about the grade that you get in this class. Like, it'd be great if he passes the class. I hope that he does. But anyway, so yeah, that, that regulation, that's really useful.
[00:14:35] And I, listeners, I really hope, especially those of you with younger teens. Really hear that like there is something biological that's happening in the brain that is feeding into what seems like this emotional rollercoaster. Yeah. And so growing in our awareness as the parents and recognizing those loops, what are some practices that you use that help you.
[00:14:58] You know, pause now that you know better. Not even know better. And that's the other thing, I'm kind of rambling right now, but there's this conversation that you need to heal before you have your kids. And it's like, if I knew what there was to heal, I would've healed it. I would've healed it. But the thing that I've learned, you know, in 22 years of parenting is.
[00:15:22] The wounds are still being revealed. Yeah. In my relationship with my kids, where it's like, Ooh, yeah, that's a thing for me. So we're healing as we're and growing as we're parenting. What is something that helps you to recognize these places like you just shared with your son and then the next time that impulse or that.
[00:15:46] Activation happens, you pause instead of kind of sliding back into that well-worn pattern, what helps you?
[00:15:54] Zoya Brar: I have a lot of practical tips, but before I get into answering your exact question, just some context. Um, yeah, please. Which, which really helps me because I think knowing why I am implementing something or why I am using these tools.
[00:16:07] Like the purpose makes it very clear. So, so that context was, there's a study that, uh, I find very fascinating. It was done in Congo on war affected teens. Um, that of course went to, went through a lot of horrible things that hopefully none of your listeners children have to go through. But they, they studied those kids and they essentially looked at the NR three C one gene.
[00:16:29] That's the gene that essentially controls your stress response. Okay. Uh, so think of it like the dimmer switch for lights, if it's. Two switched on your stress is you, you are constantly activated and constantly under threat. And if it's too low, you know, you, you are not able to respond when you need to, even when there's a threat in front of you.
[00:16:48] So it needs to be right at the right spot. Mm-hmm. So they started this specific gene in these kids and they found that it was over, uh, methylated or it was overactivated and. In addition, what they did was, is they asked these questions, these kids, some psychological questions and essentially the, I won't go into the details, but the main thing they were looking for was, do these kids have at least one primary caregiver that they feel supported by?
[00:17:13] Intro Music: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:13] Zoya Brar: And they found across the board that if the kids felt supported or had that one primary caregiver, they felt safe with the effect on their NR three C gene. Uh, NR three C one gene was much lower than in cases where they didn't have that one adult. Uh, and to me. That's our job as parents. Mm-hmm.
[00:17:34] That's my job as a parent, that I can become that space where my child's nervous system comes and rests.
[00:17:40] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:17:40] Zoya Brar: Where he or she, where they know that when they come in your space, they're accepted fully, entirely, and they will always be accepted for whoever they are. Mm-hmm.
[00:17:50] Intro Music: And I,
[00:17:50] Zoya Brar: I forget kids. I mean, adults need that.
[00:17:53] If, if we have one human in, in our life who's, who makes you feel like, okay, you are perfect the way you are. Mm-hmm. You don't need to change anything. That's a lot more healing and resting for anyone than, you know, if I tell my son what he needs to fix or change or do differently, he's not gonna listen.
[00:18:10] Yeah. But if I just tell him, whoever you are is okay in my presence, that will biologically heal him. That will biologically make him. Calmer more, and we all make better choices when we are calm and when our nervous system is at, yeah. Rest. So I think that with that context, I keep that at the back of my mind that that's why I am doing this.
[00:18:30] And then the kind of things I, I do very simple things. Nothing that, uh, would shock you. I breathe, like each time I'm getting angry. I, I have that four in two hold and six out. I'll do that three times. That helps me physically feel. Like, it's okay before I respond. Yeah, I'm not always able to do it. I'd say 99% of the times I'm able to do it, but yeah, it's good enough.
[00:18:53] Repair is another one, which we, we will talk more about, but that's, that's another tool, a tool we use at home as a family is as a CEO. I used to do weekly reviews with my team. And I found that doing weekly reviews at home where I include my kids as well, even if they're like four and two, we all sit down and say, what worked?
[00:19:10] What didn't work? What are we gonna change? And simple. But it, that moment of checking in just like, mm-hmm. We did at the beginning of this, uh, call. But doing that as a family brings. Everybody to the space where it's okay to share whatever's on your mind. Um, so we have small, small things like that at home.
[00:19:28] Um, I can give you more examples, but just, just to answer your question, those are some,
[00:19:40] Casey O'Roarty: yeah. Well, and I, and it's such a great model. Like I, I think, and I've talked about this in all the years that I've been doing this work. The way that we model our own tending to self and tending to nervous system. And you know, I remember, um, when my boy was young and he, we were at, at a football game or something at.
[00:20:03] In Seattle and he lost. He had some small toy that I'm sure I was probably like, you might not wanna bring that 'cause he might lose it. And what happened? It flung out of his hand. 'cause he was doing, who knows what. And he lost it and he rolled with it. And I remember saying to him, 'cause I was trying to.
[00:20:19] Because he was having these big emotions and I said, wow, I noticed that you, you know, you lost that toy and you really stayed calm about it. What helped you?
[00:20:29] Intro Music: Wow.
[00:20:29] Casey O'Roarty: Stay calm about it. Right? And he paused, and I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was something around like, well, I took a couple breaths and I thought about if it was a really big deal or not.
[00:20:42] You know, like he. When I asked him, and I still do this to some extent, you know how what helped you, we get to prompt them into being reflective on Oh yeah. What does help me? And being more conscious of that. And I love what you said about the weekly reviews with the family. So I'm a positive discipline trainer and one of.
[00:21:04] Processes that we talk a lot about are family meetings and weekly family meetings if possible, and a place that is exactly what you talked about. It's a place where we appreciate each other, we problem solve, we plan, and it's all of these skills, right? That I think. When implemented and normalized, they really all work to support an environment that feels regulated most of the time where people feel accepted and something that happens.
[00:21:35] So positive discipline is about being kind and firm at the same time. And I think many of us were raised in households where firm looked a very specific way. Oh yeah, right. Firm was a pointed finger, a punishment, a lecture. And so lots of us, even though we hear kind and firm at the same time, what we're really good at is the kind.
[00:21:57] And so I'm listening to you and agreeing with you about how important it is. I loved what you talked about about the kids in the Congo. I've done some work and some studying around adverse childhood experiences, which we're gonna talk about. And I've worked with teachers and said the exact same thing.
[00:22:16] What they find in the, in the research is even a child who's being raised in a household. Where there is trauma showing up, having that one person can minimize the long-term effects of that trauma. And that one person in the context that I was doing these trainings could be a teacher. Right? Oh yeah. And, and wanting everyone listening to know too.
[00:22:39] This is not about you being perfect because no, never. We are also traumatized individuals with whatever kind of myelination we have of that reactive gene, you know, keeping us safe, overly active, amygdalas and safety radars in our brains. And so, you know, as we continue to talk listeners, I want you to remember you're still gonna lose your shit Like it's still gonna happen because man, again.
[00:23:06] Your wounds are being revealed. Yeah. Right. And so yes, acceptance, making sure that your compass is always pointed in the direction of creating an environment of safety and acceptance and making it right. We're gonna talk about repair in a few minutes, but what about adverse childhood experiences? Can we talk a little bit more?
[00:23:28] You, you kind of, you know, that's really, I mean, kids growing up in war, torn Congo is kind of the extreme. Of growing up with adverse childhood experiences, to say the least. What does it look like in more, I don't know, developed countries in the States or in the states? I know you, you kind of straddle the States and Canada.
[00:23:51] Talk about our adverse childhood experiences and how they, and, and kind of the short version of how ACEs and ACE scores can show up in our adult health.
[00:23:59] Zoya Brar: It's, uh, it's amazing when, when you, there's this, this is based on the work that was done about 25 years back in California. So it's not, it's not my work or my learnings, but, but it, it was based on 20,000, almost 20,000 adults.
[00:24:12] Yeah. So this, this is robust in like knowledge, right? What they did was they. Interviewed these adults, uh, about their childhood and essentially they were looking for 10 different adverse childhood experiences, um, to give you examples, divorce, neglect, abuse of all kinds, uh, separation from parents, death of a parent.
[00:24:29] Those are some examples of the kind of things they were looking for. Mm-hmm. And then they studied longitudinally their health over, over the years and what they Right. So
[00:24:36] Casey O'Roarty: people got one point for each adverse experience. Yes. They had growing between the ages of zero and 18. And I will, the thing that I thought was so fascinating about this study Soya, is when you looked at the population of people, it was a, a big group, but it was quite, it was a privileged group.
[00:24:53] I mean, everybody had health insurance. It was mostly white people like, absolutely. Yeah. So you know, to think that trauma and adverse childhood experiences is somehow only. Oh, no shows up on the fringe or in poverty? No, this is like, this is in our
[00:25:09] Zoya Brar: homes. Yeah, it's It's all of us. Yeah. It's literally right here in the us.
[00:25:13] In fact, maybe even worse than some other places. But, but anyway, uh, they studied that and what they found was. Crazy. This, I'll give you a few examples. If you have more than six adverse childhood experiences, your life expectancy is reduced by 20 plus years. It's like, what? I don't Anything else that reduces your life expectancy that way.
[00:25:35] And we are not doing anything about it actively. Uh, if you, if you have four or more, you are 12 times. More likely than another person to commit suicide. Like 12 times. Yeah. Yeah. And your heart disease, depression, anxiety, inflammation, you name the disease and there is a, there's a relation. Just recently I was, I was looking at the work of Dr.
[00:25:58] Amy GaN, who studies, uh, the biology of Trauma and she talks about perimenopause and menopause in women and how. The experiences are totally different. Biologically you might have the exact same things going on, but if you had more ACEs compared to another person, your body goes through it way worse than if you did.
[00:26:17] I mean, interesting. It's, it's every field of kind of health you look at is impacted by your childhood in, in a way that nothing else impacts you. Uh, to me that's both humbling as well as kind of, it gives me a lot of. Power to deal with everything that happens with my kids because I go like, oh wow, I can really impact their life.
[00:26:35] So the flip of it is that if we can he keep them in that preventative, you know, like if we, if I can be that primary caregiver for them, that is their safety no matter what's happening around them. I mean, there's trauma happening around the world right now. Yeah. But if I can create that cocoon for them, then I can.
[00:26:54] Help their health for the rest of their life. Right. So that's, that's a flip of looking at the same thing. But yeah, it's amazing how, how those experiences can impact all aspects of our health.
[00:27:04] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. And, and I think it's important to note too, like we're zero to 18. There's no fault, you know, we end up, where we end up.
[00:27:12] Yeah, cosmically. I think there's probably, I mean, I have my own cosmic beliefs about that, and there's that language around, you know, it's not so much what happens to you, but it's how you make meaning of what happens to you. And so I'm thinking about, okay, so. Now we've got these teenagers in the house and maybe it's been smooth sailing and then they get to adolescence and you know, things do start to, I think our fear goes through the roof because of course it does.
[00:27:41] Yeah. Right. Of all the things, and you know, some of our kids are less experiential learners than others, but if you've got a kiddo that's an experiential learner, that's my. Phrase that I like to use for those kids that are just like, okay, I hear you and I gotta figure it out for myself. I'm gonna try this for myself.
[00:27:59] And you know, based on whatever early experiences we've had, and that activation shows up, what are some signs that we can look for as parents to recognize and to start to see like, oh, this is not just a gut like. You know, you're running in the road. I'm gonna pull you out of the road, but this is actually a response that's coming from my own early experiences.
[00:28:27] How do we know when that's what's going on? What are some indicators?
[00:28:32] Zoya Brar: I think, um, it's, every response actually comes from there. That, that's how I think about it.
[00:28:38] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. 'cause
[00:28:38] Zoya Brar: who we are is who we were raised to be, right?
[00:28:42] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:43] Zoya Brar: What I'm trying to say is. I can't fix anyone other than myself, right? And which means if I take every moment of feeling activated or fearful or scared, or my heart rate rising, and I say, okay, why am I feeling like this?
[00:28:57] No. Mm-hmm. Not why is he or she doing that? Or what can I do to change them? But. What's going on inside my body. Yeah. Why did I respond like that? And then I fix what's going on inside. My child will over time reg watch me regulate me and they will. The example you gave of your son, he, you didn't give him a book that said this is how you should handle when you lose something.
[00:29:19] Right. He probably watched you doing it over and over and maybe talking about it over and over with him that he learned how to do it. Right. Right. So all we can do, even as. Parents of teenagers is model the behavior we want from them. Right. Um, so I would say everything is your, your you and your past. Um, yeah.
[00:29:38] Well, and I,
[00:29:39] Casey O'Roarty: what I love about that too, even after I asked the question, I was like, oh yeah, duh. So it's so funny how we can sit inside of. Oh, was that response about me? And what happens for us when we just, our default mode is how was that response about me? Like, how, right. Instead of like, well, maybe, you know, maybe it didn't have to do with my conditioning And, and instead just be Well, it does.
[00:30:07] It does. Yeah. And so I'm gonna be curious about that. Well, that's what I hear you saying, like really shifting us into that like, oh, interesting. You know, what is, what is it about this thing that is getting me really hot and bothered? Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. And you know, something that I wanna talk to you as well is that idea that, because like I said, we are humans, we're imperfect.
[00:30:30] We've got our wounds, we've got our early experiences, we've got our shoot from the hip responses, so we're gonna make mistakes.
[00:30:38] Intro Music: Yeah.
[00:30:39] Casey O'Roarty: And you know, the mistakes isn't necessarily the problem. Continuing to make the mistake without repairing, that's problematic. So talk about what that looks like for you and your parenting and how you imagine, you know, repair as a tool for healing.
[00:30:58] Yeah, relationship and our own experiences.
[00:31:01] Zoya Brar: That's, uh, that's my favorite part, uh, because I think a lot of parents get overwhelmed when they learn these things. They're like, oh my God, I have that much responsibility. Or, you know, oh, I already messed up my kids. They're teenagers. Yeah. Like, you know, so I think that's why if you have to listen to anything in this podcast, listen to this piece.
[00:31:19] Right. Um. And I'll, I'll, I'll tell you an example of something I read from my child's school. Um, he's a, he's in not even kindergarten, preschool, but I found it so beautiful and connects with what he just said. Uh, they had a little saying that said, we do our kids a disservice by getting them to avoid conflict, uh, because the world is full of conflict.
[00:31:39] Mm-hmm. All we need to do is. Present them with conflict and show them how do you repair that conflict? How do you deal with that conflict in a manner that heals both parties involved? Right. And to me, this is the same thing, uh, by making mistakes, which we all do. I mean, I must have made five mistakes between when I woke up just with my kids alone.
[00:32:00] Right. And we give our, we, we actually are presented with an opportunity to teach our kids. First of all, it's okay to mess up. Mm-hmm. All emotions are okay. Whether they're guilt or it's anger, or it's, uh, whatever it is that, that they're, they're feeling right now is okay. Then we show them that there is.
[00:32:23] When we acknowledge that feeling, there is a way to move forward from there. Uh, I tell this to my, to my, uh, toddlers all the time, but I think this needs to be told to adults as well. When we don't express feelings, they get stuck in our body, right? And that getting stuck in our body comes out as cancer.
[00:32:39] It comes out as stress. It comes out as all kinds of diseases. I mean, only 1% of diseases actually genetic. Everything else is caused by our environment and our response to that environment. Uh, so by teaching our kids that when something goes wrong, I say, this was me. I made this mistake, and that's okay.
[00:33:01] This is what I'm going to do differently in the future. We teach them that, that. First of all, we recontextualize what happened as most kids, even as teenagers, will, will internalize everything as their fault. But the moment you take that away and say, that's not you, that's me. That was me. Mm-hmm. You, you immediately recontextualize that, that memory as, it's okay, it's still safe, number one.
[00:33:25] Number two, you teach them. You know what? It's okay to mess up. We all mess up and here is how you repair and here is how you heal. And you literally resect there and your nervous system in that process. And the relationship. Yeah. And that's what life is all about, right? Like just going back and repairing and fixing and moving on.
[00:33:46] Yeah. Um, so that, that's how I think about this.
[00:33:49] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. And it's such a, so it's a, it's one of our tools in positive discipline, making amends and mutual respect, which I think that shows up there when we can be humble enough to recognize that we made a mistake. And when I think about parents of teenagers, and I think about my own experience of now being a parent of a young adult.
[00:34:08] Who's still very much an adolescent 'cause she's only 22. But I think about, and some of my clients, you know, I was working with a client just this week whose daughter's really struggling in a very similar way that I navigated years ago with my oldest. And we talked about what it might look like for her to go to her kiddo and say, you know, I just wanna acknowledge that I've spent the last few years really wanting to fix what's been hard for you.
[00:34:38] And I have not spent time acknowledging and sitting with you and holding space for how you're feeling. Wow. And you know, it can feel like, I think as parents we feel like we aren't doing anything, but really what we're doing is it's like a game of leapfrog. Like it's way too uncomfortable for me to be with you.
[00:35:02] This despair. Yeah, so let's get to the helping you feel better part. But in that practice, we're dismissing such a real experience that our kids are having, and energetically maybe not saying it this way, but we're sending this message that. How they're feeling isn't okay.
[00:35:24] Intro Music: Oh yeah.
[00:35:26] Casey O'Roarty: And that's something that my daughter has recently brought up to me.
[00:35:28] Like, you know, she's, I am bright and sunshiny. Like that's who I am. I'm cheer. I love joy and cheer and good times. No, you don't say, yeah, I know you might not have felt that yet. And I've got this amazing teacher who came in the form of my oldest child who's temperamentally little dark and edgy. Right, and that's part of who she is.
[00:35:56] And as she was growing up and specifically early adolescence. It was, you know, now hindsight is great, right? But looking back at how deeply uncomfortable I was with her dark, edgy, and you know, she's now saying like, Hey mom, the message I received was that it wasn't okay
[00:36:15] Intro Music: for me
[00:36:15] Casey O'Roarty: to feel the way that I felt.
[00:36:17] And you know, and I get to be with that feedback and I get to say, yeah, I, it didn't feel okay to me. It felt. Scary. Yeah. And I didn't understand it, and it felt like it just shouldn't be so hard to come to joyful and cheerful, like, and why wouldn't you wanna be that way? You know? Like it's just been such a rich opportunity.
[00:36:42] So bringing that back to repair and adolescence and feeling like, has the door closed? Did I screw everybody up? Like there's no, there's no end point where you no longer can say, wow, you know what? It's been a few years, or it's been more than a few years, and I just wanna acknowledge that that time or that situation or you know, that season of parenting was really hard for me and I was doing the best I could and I think I caused harm and I'm really sorry about that.
[00:37:15] And I'm here to listen. And I think there's a softening that can happen in relationship. That then opens the door and you, language you used was moving forward. And I love the distinction between moving forward versus, okay, so how are we gonna fix this? Yeah. Because those are two different things, right?
[00:37:34] Zoya Brar: Oh
[00:37:34] Casey O'Roarty: yeah. Totally. Totally.
[00:37:37] Zoya Brar: Yeah.
[00:37:37] Casey O'Roarty: And
[00:37:37] Zoya Brar: the, the thought that I was agreeing to me while you were telling me this is my mother lives right next door to me, and what's really unique about our situation is that. Not only do do my kids trigger me, I also observe her kind of semi parenting them, and that triggers me.
[00:37:55] I'm like, so they like, yeah. To give you an example, my, my mother was talking to my son and he was, he was not listening to her about something and she responded with. You know what, Rumi, I'm gonna not talk to you if you do that. And it made me so angry, like, you can't believe it. Yeah. And then I thought, wait, my mother used to say this to me.
[00:38:16] Yeah. And that's, that's what I'm responding to. So I sat down with my mom and I said, you know what, mom, when you say that, that's not. Nice. And it, so what, the reason I'm giving this example is sometimes it can come from the child as well, and sometimes the repair needs to be towards your parent.
[00:38:31] Intro Music: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:32] Zoya Brar: Um, and, and it, and I didn't do it as a, I'm blaming you for it, but more as a, you know what, I need you to know how it felt for me.
[00:38:40] Yeah. And that's it. And that, that was repaired enough. So even if it, it can happen both ways, but really it, the spirit is how do we make our relationship. More safe for both of us. Yeah. And how do we feel better for both of us?
[00:38:55] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Um,
[00:38:55] Zoya Brar: and not really fix anything. Can't fix it. Yeah.
[00:38:58] Casey O'Roarty: And how can we make it feel better, but also like as the adults, how can we grow our tolerance window for our kids' experience without letting it activate that old wound?
[00:39:13] Make it with my daughter is really good at like, don't make it about you mom. Like, okay, sorry. Um, but I think that that's just such powerful ongoing work and you know, listeners, as you think to yourself, oh my God, this is big and major and how can I even get started? Like, just listening to this conversation, your awareness is being.
[00:39:38] You know it, the knob is slowly being turned on. Yeah. So you are gonna wa move into the rest of your day after listening to this with a little bit more awareness and that's enough to get started. Yes. Which I think is really empowering.
[00:40:01] You mentioned that adolescence is a second sensitive window for development. Is that the cortisol piece that you were talking about or is that something different?
[00:40:10] Zoya Brar: No, that, that is the cortisol piece. Biologically. It's when you are. So there, there are lots of nuances to it, but if I had to say it simply, it's biologically your hormones are as activated as they are when you are first kind of regulating your stress response.
[00:40:24] Mm-hmm. In, in infancy. Uh, what happens during a adult, um, you know, when you're in your teenage years, you kind of get everything you know, as stable and normal. Gets thrown and you have to re reset your stress response about the world. 'cause you're suddenly going from this is my nest to no, the whole world is my nest.
[00:40:43] Like, who, what? And it's fucking stressful right now. Yeah. It's scary, right?
[00:40:46] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Just
[00:40:47] Zoya Brar: this, it's almost like I, I like to think of it like a child when they get taken outta the womb, we, we see that difference because we can physically visualize it. But that's exactly what's happening with teenagers.
[00:40:59] They're going through that same separation at a very different time. Unlike kids who we don't expect them to have language, and we don't expect them to have tools with teenagers. We expect them to behave like adults when they're not. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So if, if there's one thing to remember, it's. They might be taller than you, but they're still borrowing your nervous system to regulate.
[00:41:22] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. So talk a little bit about that. So what is that co-regulation? How can that, I mean, God, right? How can that co-regulation look like? Maybe the first question is how, well, I think we already talked about this, like first noticing when we're, their activation is activating us and making a conscious choice to.
[00:41:43] Do whatever it is for us, whether it's breath or tapping or anything. Brushing or whatever. Yeah. To calm ourself down. And then what does co-regulation look like when the teen is dis, like to bring the tea, to invite the teen into borrowing our nervous system. What does that look like or what can that
[00:42:01] Zoya Brar: it's got?
[00:42:02] There is no invitation because the moment you invite, especially a teenager, their main response will be to. Push you back. Yeah, exactly. You said that perfectly right?
[00:42:12] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. So I just gave the middle finger listeners, you can't see me, but how about we calm down? Yeah. How about you? Yeah. Go away.
[00:42:20] Zoya Brar: Exactly, exactly.
[00:42:22] Or a slam of the door. Mm-hmm. In your face. So no, you don't, you don't invite them, you don't do anything with them. All you do is regulate yourself.
[00:42:29] Casey O'Roarty: Okay.
[00:42:30] Zoya Brar: That's it.
[00:42:31] Casey O'Roarty: That's it.
[00:42:32] Zoya Brar: That's
[00:42:33] Casey O'Roarty: it. Regulate yourself.
[00:42:34] Zoya Brar: They watch and they learn and they, they get regulated too. They're good. They're gonna borrow that regulation from you almost as if through osmosis.
[00:42:43] Like you, you don't have to do anything, you just have to work on yourself.
[00:42:46] Casey O'Roarty: That's it. Yeah.
[00:42:47] Zoya Brar: And I notice,
[00:42:48] Casey O'Roarty: I notice this with my husband more than my kids, is when I don't get activated. When I do that work to stay regulated, it is kind of annoying to him. Of course, if there's like this pattern of like a dance of like, we're gonna be dysregulated and we're gonna, and it's like, it's like a frenzy.
[00:43:07] Yeah. And then one of us says, Nope, I'm not gonna engage. Jane Nelson, who wrote the Positive Discipline book, says sometimes. Behavior gets worse before it gets better. Yes. And I think that this kind of speaks into that. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm used to you meeting me here and engaging and letting me get this out, and if you're gonna stay regulated, it's almost like, well, I'm gonna double down
[00:43:31] Zoya Brar: Yeah.
[00:43:32] Casey O'Roarty: For a hot minute. And see That is,
[00:43:34] Zoya Brar: that's fair. But like you said, it's only gonna be for a hot minute. Yeah. And we are in the long, like we are in for the long run. Right, right. Parenting isn't about. One moment. It's really about what we want for them in, in, in, in life, right? So, yeah.
[00:43:48] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:43:49] Zoya Brar: You're not alone.
[00:43:50] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. And so how do you, what are some things that you do or you help people with that help you regulate? Uh, because like, like I mentioned that we were gonna talk about, we've got different relationships in our life, right? We've got, if we might have a partnership, we have our kids, we have our parents. We have if we, you know, go to work, we've got the work people that we deal with, friends, grocery store clerks, and in every place we're carrying the same nervous system, right?
[00:44:19] Yes. What are some tools or practices or strategies that help you when you've had a high stress day that has nothing to do with your family? Walk in the door and not let that bleed into how you're showing up for them.
[00:44:33] Zoya Brar: Um, that's such an important question. I, I think what I do personally, I have some very, very practical things.
[00:44:40] I wear the ordering, which, uh, tells me at the end of the day what my stress was like, and that's an example. You can use any tool that physically kind of quantifies it for you. Uh, the work I'm doing with Ellie, we are actually building a, a saliva based hormone test at home, which tells you your cortisol levels at any given time.
[00:44:59] Uh. Yeah, it's there. There are lots of tools that are available today that can quantify that for me, somebody that likes numbers and data, that's important. Three days ago I looked at my Aura Rings data at the end of the day and it showed me I was stressed for seven and a half hours out of. Like 10 hours of waking.
[00:45:17] I'm like, what? I didn't even have a stressful day. Right? But then I sat down and I realized how there was just these mic, like many, many things that kept happening through the day, and I was just baseline stressed. Mm-hmm. And I'm, I'm such a high functioning individual that I don't even recognize my stress.
[00:45:33] So for me, and I think for a lot of other people, step one is. Be aware, know that you are, you have that high or that baseline, your baseline stresses where, where it kind of sits second. Uh, I, I do simple things like breath work. I try to, it's again, it's, I say keep saying this over and over again because it's so simple.
[00:45:54] It's, everybody has it all the time. It's your breath. Just, just breathe right. It makes me feel better. I, uh. This. I don't know if you can see this, but my phone is gray. It's black and white. Oh, yeah. And I've, I've literally switched off color from my phone and it's always off because. Color tends to stress us out.
[00:46:13] It's what activates that, that dopamine and everything else that gets activated is because the color on your phone. Um, it's, the phone is an example of kind of a thing that I recognized in my life that was constantly creating additional. Ongoing stress, right? So,
[00:46:31] Casey O'Roarty: gosh, that's a whole nother podcast soya.
[00:46:33] Geez. Oh, that's a rabbit hole that we could go down. Yes. Yeah,
[00:46:38] Zoya Brar: yeah. But like, you know, you need to recognize what that is for you. For me, it was social media, it was my phone. Uh, it was, uh, being constantly pinged with notifications on my Slack and my WhatsApp and my text. And, you know, I, I've, I, I do three different jobs and I'm a busy person.
[00:46:54] I have two kids. Like I was constantly like. Context switching. And the moment I switched all of that off, I'm now not on social media. I don't have any, uh, notifications on my phone. I, like I said, keep my phone outside the bedroom. I keep it gray. Those are simple tools, but they help me just, yeah.
[00:47:13] Intro Music: Yeah.
[00:47:14] Zoya Brar: So, um, yeah, find whatever that is for you.
[00:47:16] And there are tools available you don't, yeah.
[00:47:19] Casey O'Roarty: Well, I think, I love find what works for you people and do it. Yes. Like it's great. You know, I mean, I have, I have an app on my phone and the Opal app Yep. That shuts things down during the, during the day. And you can decide how hard it is to, like, sometimes I'm like, mom, I wanna take a 15 minute break from this break.
[00:47:40] There are certain times of day where I have programmed it that I can't take a break. So I can't just say, oh, give me 15 minutes for Instagram. You know, unless I do it outside of the time that I said, you know? And I love what you said about getting the data, because one of the, I'm sure you read, did you read The Boy Who was raised as a dog?
[00:47:59] Oh, it's tragic, awful stories of kids raised in trauma, and who's the author, what's his name? I,
[00:48:06] Zoya Brar: I, I, Perry, yes, it's
[00:48:08] Casey O'Roarty: Bruce Perry, who's one of the top, you know, people that work with kids who are, you know, dealing with traumatic experiences. And one of his stories is about the kids who were taken from the Waco compound and they were put in this like, you know, group home.
[00:48:25] And when he went to visit the adults there, they said, you know, I think we kind of dodged a bullet. These kids seem to be. Okay. And then somebody decided to take their pulse and their pulse was through the roof. And so we might, and what that makes me think about is stress. We have perhaps have this idea that stress looks and feels a certain way.
[00:48:47] Intro Music: No,
[00:48:47] Casey O'Roarty: and like you were saying, our baseline might not be a day where it's like, oh my God, I'm so stressed today. But instead, we're carrying on, we're managing, we, there's so many roles. I mean. In our family right now, we've got a pretty intense illness happening with my husband and college and all these different things that are just like part of my daily life.
[00:49:09] But I bet if I was keeping track. I would see a story about stress that I'm currently unaware of. 'cause it's just normal.
[00:49:17] Zoya Brar: Yes.
[00:49:17] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. And this
[00:49:18] Zoya Brar: is gonna show up in like, your gut not feeling good. You, you, you're not having energy, you're not being able to sleep. Like Yeah. These are things we think like headaches, uh, nausea.
[00:49:27] Like we, we don't even know how our body is sending us those signals. But if you are watching, they're there. They're there for almost all of us. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:49:37] Casey O'Roarty: So for listeners who are really deep into the challenge, into the struggle with their teenagers, what's some encouragement that you would offer in the context of just, you know, regulation and healing and.
[00:49:50] Zoya Brar: I would, I would bring them back to anything can be repaired, literally, like you can breathe because there's, there's no damage that you're doing that's so bad that it's gonna be worse than what happened to the teens in Congo. Right. Like
[00:50:03] Casey O'Roarty: Right.
[00:50:03] Zoya Brar: For sure. And we can, we have, we've heard stories of people go through so much stuff and they still survive and they're still okay.
[00:50:11] Uh, so if we can just breathe and. Calm down and remember that when I, I like to give this example actually, especially with teens, uh, when I, when I get angry or upset with my kids. I always look into their eyes and I remember that these are the same eyes that looked up at me when they were born, like that moment.
[00:50:30] And I, because the eyes don't change. Right? Right, right. And even with your teens, if you really, really look at them deeply, you'll realize this is the same, same little baby. You know? And if you can see them in that light, you will Suddenly, all you'll feel is love. And all you'll feel is, how can I protect this little soul?
[00:50:47] Right. And if you go from there. You know the answers. We all know the answers. No. There are no answers outside of us. We know what's right for our kids.
[00:50:56] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, just
[00:50:56] Zoya Brar: remember that and listen to it. Yeah.
[00:50:58] Casey O'Roarty: I hear a lot of be present too, like that really requires a certain level of presence and being willing to be in the moment that we're in, the snapshot we're in instead of this projected future that we.
[00:51:09] You know, doom and gloom about, so I appreciate that. So tell me about molecules and mothers.
[00:51:15] Zoya Brar: Yeah. What is that? That's, uh, that's a really, really early initiative right now, but I'm, I'm actually building this with my mom. So my initial, uh, when I became a parent, I was amazed at the lack of scientific data about parenting.
[00:51:30] Like everybody's just parenting based on. Gut instinct and who told you what and mm-hmm. What you don't want to repeat and what you want to repeat. Like it's, it's absurd. And so each time I had to make a choice whether I should go sleep with my kids or not. Whether I should sleep, train them or not, whether I should spoonfeed them, whether I should, you know, baby light reading, like everything that has a choice.
[00:51:50] That came to me. I was like, there are no, there's no scientific evidence for this stuff. I don't know whether, uh, this is going to actually kill my child or it's going to like actually help them in 20 years.
[00:52:00] Intro Music: Mm-hmm.
[00:52:00] Zoya Brar: And when I started reading on that, I realized my feeling that, that it doesn't exist isn't just a feeling.
[00:52:05] It really doesn't exist. Um, there's a lot of these individual scientific advances that are happening in pockets in the world, but nobody's really thinking of it as a whole, like longitudinally. What do these parenting choices translate into in terms of genetic expression, in terms of lifelong health and outcomes and
[00:52:25] Intro Music: mm-hmm.
[00:52:26] Zoya Brar: That's the bridge that we are trying to create and my mom is a doctor. I'm somebody who's, uh, molecular, you know, I've done mul molecular diagnostics. That role we understand and parenting is kind of, we are just like everybody else trying to figure it out. And you feel like. There's a possibility to bridge them together.
[00:52:43] So that's what that's about. That's
[00:52:44] Casey O'Roarty: amazing.
[00:52:45] Intro Music: Yeah.
[00:52:45] Casey O'Roarty: That's amazing. Well, thank you so much for this conversation. I really appreciate it. Is there anything before we close that you wanna share that you wanna make sure that you say and share with listeners that we haven't covered already?
[00:52:59] Zoya Brar: No, I think I, I said it already.
[00:53:01] All right. All everything on my mind got said.
[00:53:03] Casey O'Roarty: Good. Well, my last question is I ask all my guests this, what does joyful courage mean to you? Soya.
[00:53:10] Zoya Brar: Oh, to me, I really thought about this question because I know you would ask it. Uh, to me it really means being able to just be present. Like when I, when I can take that minute with my child and show him that the stem of that, you know, I literally for the first time noticed a stem, which.
[00:53:29] Purple. Uh, I, I don't know if you've seen a flower with a purple stem, but I hadn't. And I saw it outside my child's school, and we both had such a great conversation about it. And I was running late to a meeting and I, I suspended all of that and I was like, oh my God. Like, this is marvelous. Like, let's be here for a minute.
[00:53:46] And mm. We've had conversations, right? And we, me and my son have had so many conversations about that purple stem after that. And it's, it's a thing now. So to me. Joyful courage is being able to be there in that minute and be present for now. Like that's it. That's what
[00:54:02] Casey O'Roarty: makes me happy. Where can people find you and follow your work and what you're doing?
[00:54:07] Zoya Brar: Uh, since I'm not in social media, it's hard to find me, but I am still on LinkedIn, so I guess that's where you can, you can catch me. Uh, there'll be, as we kind of, uh, evolve molecules and mothers, there'll be more out there. And I'll have to find my way back to social media in some ways. For now. LinkedIn is where you can find me.
[00:54:23] Casey O'Roarty: Okay, great. Well, thank you so much. I'm really excited about this conversation and I'm just really grateful for the work that you do in the world.
[00:54:30] Zoya Brar: Likewise. Thank you so much, Casey.
[00:54:38] Casey O'Roarty: Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to my SPR partners. Julietta and Alana, thank you Danielle, for supporting with the show notes as well as Chris Mann and the team at Pod Shaper for all the support with getting the show out there and making it sound good. As I mentioned, sharing is caring. If you're willing to pass on this episode to others or take a few minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, it helps other parents find this useful content.
[00:55:05] Be sure to check out what we have going on for parents. Of kids of all ages and sign up for our newsletter to stay [email protected]. I see you doing all the things. I believe in you. See you next time.