Co-Regulation Starts With You | Why Your Nervous System Matters

Before you can regulate your daughter's nervous system, you need to regulate yours. 

In this episode, discover why co-regulation starts with you, not her. 

Learn what co-regulation actually is, why your body's signals matter more than your calm words, and the Whole Body Reset tool designed specifically for mums managing teen girls' mental health and behaviour.

If what you've heard today felt like something you needed to hear, I want to tell you about WTF - What's The Feeling. It's my membership for mums just like you. The physiology, the tools, the community of women who are in it too - all in one place.

The doors are open right now, but only until the end of June. Then they close until August. So if you've been thinking about it, now's the time. Check out the details here

Wish your daughter had her own podcast to help understand what’s going on? Send her to Girl You’ve Got This - available on all major platforms.

Don’t forget to subscribe so you’re the first to get new episodes, and leave a review - it helps other mums find the podcast too.

See you next time! 💛

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

This episode is for you. Not for your daughter, not about your daughter, you. Because here's something that gets missed in every conversation about supporting teen girls. You cannot regulate a dysregulated nervous system. So when I'm talking about that, I'm talking about I'm talking about the running away, I'm talking about the shutdown, I am talking about the people pleasing, a dysregulated nervous system. You cannot regulate a dysregulated nervous system from a strangely enough dysregulated nervous system. So if you're feeling overwhelmed, if you're feeling like you want to run away, if you're feeling angry and frustrated, if you're feeling like you want to people please, or if you're feeling like you want to hide, you cannot regulate her system because yours is an overwhelm. Yours is an I can't deal with this anymore. And I know that's not what anyone else wants to hear, but it's the truth, and I think it matters, it changes everything. The most important nervous system in your daughter's world is yours, not hers, not a school counselor's, not friends, not anyone else's, not mine, yours. So today is all about you. So if you're a mum of a girl or a twin who's starting to feel like a little bit of a stranger in your own home, hey, I get it. This podcast may well stop you in your tracks, and actually that's a good thing. Because you know, you've tried the conversations, you've read the books, you've listened to all the other podcasts. This is way better. Anyway, you've Googled at two o'clock in the morning, you've maybe spoken to the school or college or the GP about a possible referral because you just don't understand what the friggity frig is going on, and still she seems unreachable, still glued to her phone, still shutting you out, still not the girl you know is in there somewhere, and you're starting to wonder: is it me or is it her? Is something actually wrong here? And we need to get something sorted. Here's what I want you to hear before we go any further. Nothing is wrong with her, or you for that matter, but something is seriously wrong with the story we are being told again and again. Sorry, and again about our teen girls. And today and every week on this podcast, we're gonna unpick it together. So, welcome to this podcast, The Teen Whisperer, with me, Rachel Friedley, healthplay specialist, mum, coach, and the person who finally connects all those dots and makes a picture. Instead of staring at it separately, I mean you remember when we were kids, we had the Doctor Dot books. If you had three dots, did it show anything? No, it was just dots. But if you connected all those dots together, you got a picture. That's what I'm talking about. So here's the truth: your daughter's behaviour is not a problem to be fixed. Behaviour is never just about one thing, it is a message from the nervous system that isn't getting what it was designed to need. And when you understand that, and I mean really understand it in your body, not just in your head, everything changes. How you see her, how you relate to her, how you respond to her, how you feel about yourself as a mum. And every week I'm going to give you the biology, the physiology, the tools, and the honest conversations that we should have had years ago. No jargon, no judgment, no list of things that should be done differently. Just the truth about our girls, their bodies, their cycles, their nervous systems, and what they actually need to come back to themselves. Ready? Let's dive in. So I want to start by naming something that I know is the truth for the vast majority of mums listening to this. You are running on empty. Not because you're weak, not because you're doing it wrong, but because you're carrying an enormous amount of weight on your shoulders. The worry, the vigilance, the second guessing, the firefighting, the constant scanning of the room, the managing of your own reactions whilst also trying to hold space for hers. The researching, the reading, the listening to other wonderful podcasts at 6am because this is the only quiet time you have. The conversations with your partner or lack of the loneliness of feeling like nobody else is dealing with quite what you're dealing with, and somehow in all of that, somebody has told you that the most important thing to do was to stay calm, to stay regulated, to be the steady one, and that is absolutely true, and I get it, but it's also an enormous task to do when you're running on empty. So when your car has got no petrol in it, that petrol sign is flashing on your screen, isn't it? Flashing 24-7. I need filling, I need filling. That's what we need to have. That's what I'm talking about. So before we go anywhere today, I want you want to say you are doing a friggin' amazing job with what you are dealing with. Not because everything is going perfectly, in fact, I don't believe in perfection, it's overrated, but because you are still here every day, every second, let's break it down, every second, second by second, still trying, still turning up. That matters way more than you ever realize. So let me explain something called co-regulation because this is the thing that sits under everything I do and everything on this podcast. Human nervous systems do not regulate in isolation, they never have done. They are not expected to, they were not designed to. From the moment we are born, our nervous system regulates by connecting to another nervous system. A baby does not calm themselves, that's like what people say. She calms because a regulated adult holds her, and her body synchronizes to that regulation. Heart rate to heart rate, breath to breath, body to body. And it doesn't stop when she becomes a teenager, it changes shapes, it remolds, it becomes something different. I mean, she doesn't want to be held like a baby, obviously, and good luck if you're gonna try and do it. I can't hold my 24-year-old, but hey. But the underlying biology is identical. When your daughter is dysregulated, her nervous system is looking for a regulated nervous system to borrow that stability from, to learn from, to connect with, and the most available, most attuned, most significant nervous system in her world is yours. This is why when you're both dysregulated, and when you're dysregulated, she's dysregulated, the whole situation escalates, the whole behaviour goes out of from 0 to 1,000 in two milliseconds. Two nervous systems, both in threat mode, both looking for regulation and not getting it or providing it. It doesn't matter how calm your words are, because people said to me in the past, oh just smile, just be calm, it will be fine. No, because her body is scanning for safety and it's not getting it from your body, which is dysregulated. Your body is broadcasting, her body is constantly broadcasting, and her body and yours is reading it and reacting to it. This is not blame, this is biology. Simple fact, and once you understand it, the most important thing you can do for yourself, but do for your daughter becomes taking care of yourself, not as a luxury, as a strategy, as a tool for that regulation. So, what does your nervous system need? But do you know what? I'm so glad you asked, and yeah, I know you didn't. And how do you give it when you're running this empty? So if your car is running on empty, is it gonna continue? Are you gonna be able to get from A to B? No. But we seem to feel that as mums we should keep going even if we're exhausted, even if we've got no energy, even if we've got no stamina, even if we've got no get up and go, we keep going. Why? I mean it's just like what you hear on the plane in the emergency kind of um what's it called? Emergency thing at the beginning, can't remember what's called. Um, put your own oxygen mask on first before you put it on your child. That's important. If you didn't and you put theirs on first, you'd be dead before you could put yours on. But if you put yours on first, you can then save her life as well. Not rocket science. So here we let's so let me be honest with you. Everything I recommend for your daughter works for you too. We're still females because you are also a body, like state the obvious, you are also a female, you also need touch, movement, breath, sleep, sensory contact, and real connection in real life. But hey, sometimes we can't get it, and online will work, and you're also possibly blinking likely not getting enough of most of those. So, breath. This is the quickest access point we have. When you feel yourself escalating, when her mood hits the room and you feel that spike in your own body, your breath is the fastest available reset. Not a technique, not a system, not a counting exercise, just literally breathing to the bottom of your lungs. And I know you can't see where my hands are, my hands are sitting on my diaphragm. All we need to do is deliberately, slowly breathe into that hand. It tells the nervous system the threat is not real. We are safe. It takes about 90 seconds to begin to work, and yes, you heard that correctly. 90 seconds, one and a half minutes. Just had to figure out the maths in my head there. It tells the nervous system that you're safe, and you can do it anywhere, standing in the kitchen, sitting in the car, obviously, not whilst you're driving, but even if you're sitting in the car when you get home before you get in the house, you can do that disregard, you can do that regulation, that breath work, you can do it going outside in nature, going for a walk. Number two, movement before the hard moment, not after it. If you know a different conversation is coming, I'm meaning here that if you know she's had a hard day or she's coming home from school or whatever, or if you know the evening is going to be challenging, move, move your body as I am right now on this on this massive yoga ball, a walk around the block, bouncing, it's simple. Ten minutes in the garden, anything that discharges some of the stress that's already stuck inside your body, because you need to be regulated for hers. Number three is being outside, and I know this sounds so friggin' simple, but it is it is simple. The nervous system settles in ways outdoors that it cannot indoors. Something about the variability of the environment, the light, the sound, the temperature, the lack of right angles tells the tells the body it's safe to relax. Even five minutes, even if it's raining, the rain is regulation too because it's still on your skin. You're feeling it, you're absorbing it, you're part of it, and it's something different. And it takes you from to ah, nice and simply. Touch that's number four. We need it too. So, whatever that looks like for you. So, a hug from somebody else, a hug from yourself, a hand on your shoulder from a friend, a massage, a stroke of the dog, a cat on your lap. These are not indulgences, they are nervous system medicine. And number five, connection with people who get it. The specific loneliness of being a mum in this exact situation, watching your daughter struggle and not knowing how the friggity frig to reach her is one that your friends without teenagers or without girls cannot meet. That's not their fault, it's just a different lived experience. You need people who are in it 24-7, as are you. People who understand why Tuesday's meltdown was not just about Tuesday. Now I sound like Miranda. Anyway, tangent gondone. And now something I want to say specifically to the mums who are somewhere between their late 30s and early 50s. You are also cycling, and I do not mean getting on a bike. If your periods have become more regular, if you're noticing mood shifts that feel bigger than they used to, if you're having weeks where you feel completely yourself and on top of the world, and weeks where you feel like a completely different person, you may be in perimenopause. And this is not a medical emergency. It is your body cycling without the regularity it once had. The perimenopausal nervous system is more reactive. Hell yeah! More sensitive, lower in its tolerance for stress, and when you're in your most difficult week, when your own stress tolerance is on the floor or under it, and your daughter is in her volatile week, i.e. the one of her period, when hers is also on the floor or under it, you two have dysregulated nervous systems under one roof. Yep it is, both cyclically primed for conflict and threat, and neither of them knowing why. What changes here is tracking yours and hers. Figure out when you are most depleted, when is she, and what and how do you plan around that rather than constantly being blindsided by it, constantly firefighting and constantly second guessing. This is not about managing the situation perfectly. As I say, don't believe in perfectionism, it's overrated. It's about removing some of the mystery, and it's about allowing you to just take that breath. That mystery is exhausting. Understanding it is so much less exhausting. So here's one thing, yes, again, or one thing that I want you to do this week, and it's entirely about you. I want you to name one thing. How many times can I mention that words? Your own nervous system needs that you are not currently giving it. Just one more sleep, a walk, 20 minutes without your phone, getting outside, a conversation with somebody who gets it, a hug, being outside, whatever it is, just name it, write it down, and then this week do it. Guess what? Once, not every day, once. Because the most important thing you can do for your daughter this week is to come back slightly more regulated tomorrow, and that starts with what you do today. So regulating yourself is not selfish, to despite what we're told regularly. We would told self-care is selfish, put everyone else above yourself. No, stop. It is the single most effective thing you can do for your daughter, regulating yourself first. Not because you're the problem, that's not what I'm saying, but because you are the solution to change. You always have been. You just needed to be full enough, so not running unempty, not like that um petrol sign in your car, petrol pump sign in your car. You need to be full enough to be that regulator. So take care of yourself and remember, do one thing. How many times have I mentioned it? I mean it. Don't pressure yourself, don't put more on yourself, just look after yourself. And if today's episode really landed for you and you want to go deeper, the community, the tools, the biology, the physiology, all of it is in one place. It's in my mum's coaching programme called WTF. What's the feeling by the way? But we all know we have loads of those other moments as well. It's where we do the real work together. The link is in the show notes. Come and find us when you are ready. And if you haven't already got onto it, the webinar is on tonight. So, yeah, come and join us. Okie dokie, speak soon.

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Bye bye.