It’s not that it’s bad…it’s just, not good.

“It’s not that it’s bad…it’s just, not good.”

This is a line I read recently in a film review of an upcoming, expectedly popular, cinematic release. Originally written - at least as I read it - tongue-in-cheek (because it sure sounds like the film will be bad!) the phrase resonated with me in light of some of the conversations I’ve been having recently.

The following concept comes up in a variety of different conversations for a myriad of different reasons. It’s come up a lot in my grief work; it’s come up when discussing emotional regulation; it’s come up a whole lot in working with couples and discussing healthy relationships. I also find it to be a frequent topic in my domestic violence prevention work, speaking with folks incarcerated for domestic charges.

The concept I’m referring to is, oddly enough, not too far of a departure from that line in the film review: In discussing the etymology of certain learned behaviors, or the roots of particularly maladaptive coping mechanisms, it is important for folks to realize that while these things might not have arisen because of unhealthy role models, toxic relationships, or traumatic experiences, it  remains perfectly possible they arose because of an absence of healthy, adaptive, grounded ones. This absence, in-and-of itself matters, a lot.

I fear that an unintentional by-product of folks being more open and candid about their traumatic experiences is that some folks have come to believe that if you’re not someone who identifies with having some of these types of experiences which impact your thoughts, feelings, or behaviors, that the experiences you did have, or in this case didn’t have, don’t have that same influence. Yours aren’t worth discussing with your loved ones, or processing with a professional. Or they don’t require some sort of healing. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let’s work with the examples I’ve already given.

In my grief work I almost always ask what kind of memories folks have of their older generations - usually parents - navigating grief and loss. The most common example is how a client’s parents handled the passing of their parents. Many times clients answer in such a way where I get the impression that they think they’re letting me down, or the answer isn’t climactic enough; that by not disclosing some sort of unpleasant memory of their parents falling to pieces after the loss, or raging out towards the children, or developing some sort of drug and alcohol habit, that the question didn’t yield a workable result. Not true!

Many times the answer is something akin to “they didn’t say much, or show much emotion…they just told us what to do and when to do it… maybe they cried a little bit at the funeral…they kind of just moved along as if nothing ever happened”.

“It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just not good”.

Perhaps their parent’s management of their grief wasn’t “bad”, unhealthy, dysfunctional, or maladaptive, but it sure wasn’t healthy, or regulated, or adaptive (especially to the children)... and this matters! After all, how are we to learn how to grieve in a healthy, functional, grounded way if our older generations don’t show us and teach us?!

We don’t acknowledge this to lay blame at anyone’s feet, we acknowledge this as a way of giving ourselves the grace that we weren’t exactly set up for success here. And that perhaps we’re not so “bad’ or “weird” or “dysfunctional” for needing some help on this one.

Similarly, when I have conversations with clients struggling with healthy and effective emotional regulation, I tend to ask how folks around them as younger people (often parents but also siblings, friends, peers, coaches, bosses, etc.) regulated their emotions when the client witnessed them getting intensely angry, or sad, or happy. Sometimes the answer is that these role models regulated their emotions poorly - they yelled, screamed, threw things, swore, harmed themselves or people around them. In other words, they displayed what might often be considered “bad” ways of regulating.

But more often the answer is something more complicated; these role models were “kind of normal”, but maybe got quiet, ignored problems, changed the subject, cast blame elsewhere, stormed off, disappeared, got lost in work, got lost in drugs or alcohol, etc. etc. 

“It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just not good”.

While these examples of emotional regulation aren’t necessarily violent, or destructive, or traumatic, they’re certainly not healthy. They reek of avoidance, insecurity, and not insignificant amounts of dysfunction. Furthermore, these experiences don’t leave any room for these role models to show the client how to regulate emotions in healthy, adaptive ways. 

And, again, if we aren’t shown how to do this stuff by those around us in our younger years, where and when are we expected to learn it? Also, again, this isn’t said to place blame, it’s said in an attempt to empower the client to learn what they need to learn now knowing things can and will change for them if they do.

Finally, another good example is in working with folks on relationship-related issues. Whether I’m working with one half of a partnership or both halves in couples counseling the question almost always comes up - what were some of those early relationships in life like for you? Much like the other examples I’ve given here, sometimes the answer illuminates significant traumas, dysfunctions, toxicities, and sometimes even abuses which were perpetrated on the client.

But many times the answer is - you guessed it - more complicated. Those early relationships were “okay” or “fine”, but were avoidant, codependent, or ended poorly. All of which may be “okay” or “fine” - depending on your personal definition, not mine - but none of which is healthy in a therapist’s definition.

(For the last time) “It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just not good”.

Of course having experiences such as these have an effect on how someone will exist in relationships later in life. We tend to adjust expectations, expand our affordances, repeat mistakes, and perpetuate patterns. And if any of these things aren’t healthy, nevermind that they’re toxic or abusive, these things can rear their ugly heads and ruin new relationships which have potential.

Also for the last time, we don’t acknowledge this in an attempt to deflect blame, deter responsibility for changing, or minimize our ability to change. We acknowledge this as an attempt to tell the whole story and honor the reality that we can only rise above our past experiences once we process them and realize what exactly they were.

I hope this helps some folks give themselves the grace, compassion, love, and patience they deserve. Too many people these days are being far too hard on themselves expecting their past to not impact their present simply because “other people had it worse”. We’ll change more quickly, effectively, and more lastingly if we acknowledge the truth.

Intentional Awareness of the Nervous System

I was doing an educational training program the other day - for my professional license renewal - the topic of which was “Polyvagal Theory” and trauma recovery. I chose to do this training because I had heard of Polyvagal Theory only in passing and lacked any deeper understanding of the framework, as I’m sure many folks have. Its unique name certainly makes it memorable though few folks take the time to understand what it truly means.

I won’t be explaining it - if you want to learn about what Polyvagal Theory is, I’d suggest watching this short Youtube video.

I also won’t be explaining the criticisms and counterclaims levelled against Polyvagal Theory, though these are growing in number and are well-documented as well (like in this NIH peer-reviewed article).

After completing the training and doing some supplemental reading and research on both sides of the theory I can only say that it appears to me that more research on and clarification of key principles is needed before I personally commit myself to integrating too much of Polyvagal Theory into my counseling practice. Much of what I heard in the training, and read from the Theory’s founder, Dr. Porges, seems to ring true on a human level, though, there does seem to be empirical evidence that certain biological phenomena have been misunderstood, oversimplified, or otherwise misconstrued in this theory.

What I took away from the training in a more personal manner was how much I had grown to take for granted my own awareness of what my nervous system was doing in my own body, which runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. I am often mindful of what my head feels like, or what my gut is doing, or how my left knee is feeling. But my nervous system seems to have been flying under the proverbial radar far more than it ought to have been.

I consider myself a fairly mindful person; I maintain a mindfulness practice, I enjoy yoga, I have a toolbox of strategies for when I lose my mindfulness and need to regain it. I rely a lot on curated imagery to help me do this and maintain a collection of mental images to assist me in my mindfulness practice. So imagine my surprise when I found my usual everyday mindfulness was neglecting one of the most important parts of my body most days! And, to boot, I seemed to lack strategies, imagery, or other tactics in observing and regulating this nervous system of mine. Wow!

The nervous system is often spoken about in terms of the flight-or-fight stress and threat responses, but it’s so much more complicated than that! The extent to which we’re well-regulated in our nervous system can impact how our body feels (e.g. gut health, skin health, etc.); it can also impact our abilities to see our worlds accurately, thereby impacting our ability to interact with the world and the people in it effectively.

Those of us with poor awareness and poor regulation of our central nervous system, which is often due to the absence of regulation in childhood and early life, suffer unnecessarily due to these deficits. It makes relationships harder, it makes work harder, and it makes achieving our best physical selves nearly impossible.

In making a more intentional effort this past couple of weeks to maintain a mindful and compassionate awareness of my nervous system I’ve found many, many moments where I was dysregulated but wouldn’t have previously thought so. The best way I can describe it now is using the imagery of the gears in a car: I’d find myself in fourth gear when I really only needed to be in first or second gear, or sometimes I’d find myself in reverse when I had no reason to be in anything other than park. Wild!

Furthermore, in these moments, I’ve made a new intentional effort to curate new strategies, many of which are imagery-based for me (a well-documented best practice in Polyvagal Therapy), to help me regulate my nervous system in these moments. So far, I’m achieving real success in getting myself and my body back on the same page; putting myself back in the right gear for the moment, to continue the metaphor.

So, I simply wanted to share this experience. That I too, as many mental health professionals can admit, struggle sometimes to maintain our awareness on all the important things we know we need to if we want to be the healthiest and best versions of ourselves. It’s not about neglecting these things, it’s all about what you do about it once you realize it. And so far I’m happy with what I’m doing about it.

And no one has to believe what I believe, but I choose to believe that the universe helped me out by putting this training in my path, perhaps specifically at this particular time. Perhaps this is exactly what I needed to hear not only professionally, but personally. If you’re interested in speaking about any of this with me, I’d welcome the conversation. In the meantime, I continue my work…