Simon Dubois Interview
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Speaker 2: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome back to episode three of the Gentle Revolution podcast. , in this episode, we get to talk to one of my favorite people, Simon Dubois, psychologist and very insightful human being who has traveled with me over the last few years on a journey of discovery around, polyvagal theory.
And how breathwork and meditation can affect our nervous system and this intersection between trauma and residual understanding as the yogis know it. So it's a great conversation. I hope that it is enlightening for you and, please share your feedback. I would like to add that this podcast is sponsored by the Yogic Meditation Institute.
You can go to yogicmeditation. net. and find lots of information there about courses. You can get a link to this podcast and there's all [00:01:00] sorts of different things that you can find there. If you're interested in meditation or breathwork courses, teacher training, et cetera, please do reach out. We do provide courses and training.
There's actually some free courses on the website there as well. So please do connect, and enjoy the podcast.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: So welcome Simon Dubois. You are the inaugural interviewee for the Gentle Revolution podcast. It's an absolute delight. to have you here on the show. And I think it's really appropriate that you are our first guest.
I really actually held off on inviting other guests because I wanted it to be you for lots of different reasons. And it's been a bit of a busy run of late and I was really looking forward to this interview. You have been a friend, a mentor, a colleague, associate, over a really long span of life. And it was through our conversations that the real impetus for this podcast came to life.
It was about [00:02:00] 12 months ago. We're in Jakarta airport and the conversation came up, I think, kicking around at an airport and here we are. And what a 12 months it has been for both of us. It's an absolute delight and thank you. So first of all, I just liked you to introduce yourself who you are. And your professional background and your personal interests, perhaps
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: thank you very much, Mark, and thanks for holding off and having me as your first guest. I feel quite special. It's getting my ventral vagal nervous system feeling very comfortable.
Absolutely. Look we met yeah, about 20 years ago. I think you're recalling and you met me and I met you in the social workspace.
And that was very much the crucible from which my interest and work has been born extending from being a social worker in the youth field to becoming a psychologist. And in that time, which has all happened in Byron Bay since [00:03:00] 1999, I've had a relationship of 25 years and also had two children who are now 23 and 21 years old.
So we've also had this interesting experience of watching our children grow up. And perhaps not so strangely, but I think we also find it a bit strange and interesting, but very cool that our daughters are best friends and spent some time living together.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: I'm sure that they'll all be listening to this podcast. I've told them that I'm interviewing you and they're all very interested.
Certainly my two are very interested to, to hear what we've got to say to each other. So one of the things that I'm really interested in talking to you about is the nervous system and it's something that you often slip into the conversation and it's a beautiful language that you've introduced into our conversations.
And so my question to you today is how is your nervous system?
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: My nervous system has been through a lot over the past 12 [00:04:00] months. As there's been a big building phase at the medical practice where I work and own. So there was a lot going on, and I found in particular certain noises that would come from machinery pretty intense on the nervous system. And I still think there's a bit of a legacy from that.
However, it's a complex question you've asked me, Mark. But one of the things that I feel very Yeah, blessed to be able to do and do fairly well is look in on and sense and feel where my nervous system is at and able to kind of calibrate, in real time, a lot of the time. And if I can't catch myself in dysregulation, Wednesday, I can catch myself relatively soon.
So how is my nervous system? It feels like it's been through a lot. But there's a lot of self care. I can give it these days, which I think is really a testament to where we've landed [00:05:00] in the field of psychology. The field of neurology and just the language that's really starting to become part of the everyday vernacular, I'm feeling a bit dysregulated right now, my nervous system's not great and it's just, it's cool to see the extent to which we are all becoming attuned, but.
For anybody who wants a little bit of a, a catch up in that process, I hope our conversation gives them that information.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: Yeah look, it's something that you've introduced in to my world through our conversation. Obviously, I'm a teacher of yoga and meditation and breath work. So I am by default very interested in the nervous system. However, that said, it was really only when I came to work with you at the Health Lodge Unit, which was about sort of 2016, 2017, that I was first introduced to the world of PolyVagal Theory, and that was something, remember there was a couple of medical doctors working [00:06:00] there, Dr Oscar Serralach and Dr.
Marcus Hewitson, who were talking about it at that point and then you became very interested in it. And I, at that point I was like, oh, this has been around for a while and I just haven't heard of it. But I realize now, in fact, that was The very advent of polyvagal theory, in that sort of time, the very early publications were coming out and being interpreted. So it's a really dynamic time, and we're talking, what, a space of sort of six, seven, eight, nine years since the early publications around polyvagal theory, and it really is an interesting time to be practicing. For both what I do and what you do. Yeah.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: The thoughts that come up for me given your work in the yogic space is, we realized in that conversation in the airport that the yoga has been, and the yogic space have been working with the nervous system for an awfully long time. I think there are [00:07:00] traditions that have been very mindful of that.
But I guess what we're doing in the West is finding a language and a framework that kind of really speaks to us and helps us zero in, obviously there's a very interesting and very pointed interplay between yoga and I guess the psychological way of connecting with The internal self and, there are publications coming out now, yoga and polyvagal theory.
People are diving deep into this now, but to see these. Yeah these different disciplines, but considering the same thing, coming together and really taking advantage of each other is amazing.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: Yeah, it's been very cool for me professionally. It's a great wave to be riding. I've just continually fascinated with learning more about neuroscience and modern psychologies. attempts to integrate what we know into functional practice. And there is some very intelligent people who are increasingly well resourced, [00:08:00] putting a lot of energy into bringing this stuff together.
It's apparently there's some huge studies going at major universities. I was listening to a podcast just yesterday from a leading researcher at Stanford University, talking about the stuff that they're doing, trying to get big programs running out. teaching mindfulness and yoga to kids in schools in the US. And look, I've got an underplaying theory. And it's in fact, the impetus for this show, The Gentle Revolution, it is meditation. It is awareness of the state of our nervous system that will change the world. That will change the world. In fact, on this podcast, Andrew Huberman made an assertion. It was just speculation that most of the bad things that happen in the world are due to people who have a dysregulation of their autonomic nervous system. And so by learning, respecting, understanding, and nurturing our nervous system, we do have a really powerful way that we can actually fundamentally [00:09:00] change the world.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: Yeah absolutely.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: So Simon we talk about regulation. You've brought it up a number of times, as have I already. I think what's gonna be useful to have some definitions about what is regulation, and on the flip side, what is dysregulation.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: I'm going to I'm going to talk from a polyvagal perspective and for people that are jumping on board, I encourage them to, And I just do a bit of research around polyvagal theory. There's a lot of writing and a lot of different ways that polyvagal theory is being packaged as apps and and podcasts.
So a lot of really good information out there, but polyvagal theory is really concerned with understanding and being able to see how our nervous system is operating and being able to engage with that. Your question was. What is dysregulation? It's a really good question again, because we use the term a lot.
I guess maybe we [00:10:00] just begin with, what is being regulated? And I guess in its pure form, if we are in a regulated state, if our system, and I'll talk about our system in, in quite general terms, our physiological system, our neurological system, that nervous system in there, biological systems, If they're regulated, then they're in a place where they're able to work with and absorb and respond to experience in a grounded way, where we're feeling like we are managing with what is happening to us, around us, or within us.
I guess a dysregulated state is a sense Of not coping of not managing, that there is a sense that things are too much and when it becomes too much, there's then a way that we go, we can sit in the too muchness and that's still regulated. I think that's very much what meditation is about being able to sit with things as they are, [00:11:00] not how we would like them to be.
I guess dysregulation in its pure form is when we're feeling a sense of discomfort, what is happening in and around or within us, and we're not able to manage or cope. There's a sense of that being lost. And I guess in, in an every day, that's getting frustrated and shutting down. It's getting frustrated and getting angry or upset.
That we are reacting to our environment in ways that we know are harmful to ourselves and harmful to other people. There's a sense of, not in a, not an obsessive sense of loss of control, but a loss of being present in our interactions and reactions. And we know on some level it's harming ourselves and harming others.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: Reactivity is a word that comes to mind that the lack of ability to choose a response when we're in this dysregulated state where we're moving more out of preconditioned. fear based [00:12:00] actions, pre patterned, pre ordained in a way. And it's actually, it's an interesting space where I think yogic philosophy, and there's a whole field of yogic psychology, which I'm very interested in. It paints a very clear picture, which Really, this world of modern psychology, I think, is just starting to catch up on it. But they, it's useful to examine both sides of the coin. In yogic psychology, they talk about samskaras being experiences, sense impressions. So anything that's ever happened to me in my life, basically it's recorded.
And I had a teacher actually, who was a psychiatrist Dr. Brian Thompson, who's passed away. And he had, he ascertained that he, The everything that we had ever, every sense impression we remembered, and they talk about the chit, the memory the chitta, which is the memory and everything that we had ever Every piece of information we remember, however, [00:13:00] what we forget is how to remember, what forget, we forget how to remember. And the idea developing neuroplasticity that we remember how to remember, but through this, what happens when we have a series of similar experiences, similar samskaras, they build up into what they call vasanas. So the vasanas become the tendencies. And when you are triggered in a certain way, it becomes a vritti.
And so what we can learn perhaps through mindfulness, through meditation, to cultivate this disposition of vairagya detachment, so that we might not be so reactive, we might have this ability to respond. So when we become, we're less likely to become dysregulated. And so there's this beautiful interplay between the teachings on the nervous system, the teachings on regulation, and also this field of yogic science.
So my next [00:14:00] question to you, Simon, is about stress and trauma. What does stress look like? Is stress acceptable and healthy? And, what does trauma look like?
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: Okay. Great question. And it gets me, it gives me the opportunity to talk about. My most favorite part of polyvagal theory is neuroception. So Stephen Porges helped us to understand that our nervous system is concerned with identifying two fundamental things, safety and threat.
It does that by.
Taking in all the sense impressions that happen and all those sense impressions that are being collected by a nervous system from within our body, from our environment, and from between people, which is particularly important as mammalian animals. We have, we decided somewhere in our [00:15:00] evolutionary journey that safety comes with being with others and being connected with others.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: yep.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: So our nervous system's right in this moment, Mark. It's taking in all this information. Smells, temperature on the skin, how the organs are feeling, the interaction between you and I, the environment we're in. Taking in all that information and then making a decision. Making a decision about how to be in this environment.
To be in it. Yeah, to be in a place of, with a sense of safety, which we know is the central vehicle system. Or a place of sympathetic awareness and kind of preparation for threat. Or, you know what, it's all so much and so overwhelming, let's just shut down and wait for it all to pass, and then we'll come back and see if everything's okay.
So then we have the idea of neuroceptive accuracy, and this is where we're going to start introducing the ideas of [00:16:00] traumatic impact appropriate or inappropriate responding. So if we have been, had a relative fortunate, if our nervous system has had a relatively fortunate experience in its growth and development, it's experienced enough secure attachment.
It's experienced enough healthy experience in the world rather than toxicity, which can cause harm.
We will develop a neuroceptive accuracy, which means our nervous system will identify threat when threat is there. And it will identify safety when safety is there. So in answer to your question, a healthy response?
We definitely do want to respond appropriately, particularly when there is threat. However, it gets really problematic when our nervous system is perceiving threat when, or a level of threat, which is not there or not in the order. That it's being perceived by the nervous system and that's gets us back to [00:17:00] dysregulation.
We're dysregulating when we just don't need to. I've got a favorite example I use by using clinic because it did actually happen where I was having a conversation with someone and I said, Oh, why did you do it like that? I was intrigued. And the person said, what do you mean? Why did I do it like that?
I do it like that because that's the way you should do it. I was like, oh, a bit of nervous system dysregulation. His nervous system was perceiving that I was questioning his ability, actually just asking a question
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: You were just curious.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: So there was a neuroceptive, inaccuracy,
Mismatch.
So one of the, one of the tricky and unfortunate things, and a very few of us have been untouched by traumatic experience and then causing neuroceptive inaccuracy, is his traumatic exposure. You're very classic, one in single incident traumas are really good examples. And then we get into the complexity of traumas that we've experienced growing up.
But a lovely single incident [00:18:00] trauma where we can see that the nervous system is now mismatched is the person who was in a car accident managed to crawl out of the car physically unharmed. Now the nervous system believes that cars are death traps. And so that person tries to hop in their car and their nervous system goes, what are you doing?
Are you kidding me? We're not going in that thing again. And there's a lot of agitation for that person. And usually our nervous system heals over time. And that person gets comfortable again with being in that car. But when we think of complex trauma exposure or, the sort of traumas that happen into human interactions, fundamentally the same thing, but more of a complexity.
Experience for us to unravel and undo and we've been watching you and I've been watching each other for 20 years. I'm doing these things
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: It's a
journey.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: it's a journey, but what a relief to start working it out, right?
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: You start where you are. I think that's one of the things that we need to learn and [00:19:00] understand of just being empathetic to each other, empathetic to ourselves, and just, okay, look, we are all traumatized. I mean, I teach on this stuff and run various programs, and one of the first questions I always put to my students is, are you traumatized? And anyone who doesn't put up their hand, I'll come and raise it for them because we are it doesn't matter. how traumatized you are. We all have a level, have experienced levels of stress, which have created samskaras And this is why I love the yogic model. There is a level of shame when we say I'm traumatized, but there's no shame when we say I've just had samskaras I've had life experience and the yogic model doesn't differentiate whether it's a good one or a bad one.
In fact, it's just stuff that happened, just stuff that happened. So I had, I've had some scars they have built up and created. Perhaps I had a parent. who used to drive too fast, and I felt constantly a little bit unsafe in the car. That could build up to a point where I just do [00:20:00] not want to be in a car that goes fast.
Or, you know what, I just avoid being in cars. I'd much rather catch the train. That is a samskara that's built up into a vassana that has created a vrittia, basically. a modification. So when I see a car, I'm having a preconditioned, preordained thought. It could also be a really positive one. Maybe I had a lovely experience of having beautiful drives with one of my parents as a young person.
They had a fantastic car and it was a really happy time where we used to bond. So I, my tendency now is to get into a car and to actually just want to go for a long drive. I feel comfortable. And safe there, it can go either way, but it's sort of the same thing from the yogic perspective. And they do suggest that through meditation, we can learn to create some space between whatever it is, that preconditioned experience and where we sit. So, and look, I think most Scientists, psychologists, whoever is [00:21:00] teaching on polyvagal theory, they understand the fundamental importance of meditation to really come into this space. So my next question to you is what's your journey, personal journey with meditation and how do you now work with your clients in creating an awareness around the possibilities with meditation and yoga?
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: Yeah, at the moment interestingly, at the moment it's very much around the process of a nature connectedness. This has become very popular within psychological circles and, really
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: Tree hugging.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: all the way baby Shinrin Yoku, a nature connectedness forest bathing it's not lost on us Northern Shire residents that
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: we've been at it for a long time.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: is queen, we want to spend a lot of time in that and particularly healthy for the nervous system training and development.
Really make sure that when I am walking or, [00:22:00] uh, just really observing and noticing the natural environment and. As we're aware, Mark, we're, there's sort of two jobs in the mindfulness space. One is attending to things that are around us or within us as they are, but always keeping a gentle eye on the.
On the mind that wants to go off on all sorts of interesting journeys and take us away from that space. It's very it's very nature embodied at the minute.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: This
Practice. This is
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: yes, my personal practice
here. So I'm really trying to do my practice. It's very much in, in real time and in, in everyday activity, as opposed to a practice at the moment, which is Specifically sitting down.
Although having said that our when I say our Brendan and I, our favorite go-to is Tara Brock. And we always love to listen to a Tara Bru, which might be happening I don't know, on a good week, two or three times a week. I'd like to say more, but
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: It is what it is. I think that's one of [00:23:00] the great things with meditation practice is to understand that it has ebbs and flows. We have journeys with meditation. So it. what you were doing 20 years ago is different to what you are doing today. And it, so it should be because you're dealing with a different set of problems and a different reality. That I was listening to something beautiful the other day from a friend of mine who is a yoga teacher based in Bali. And he was talking about nature being the ultimate teacher of yoga. Like we go back to nature and there's a lineage of teachers. And actually in the yoga tradition, they talk about Shiva being the original teach, but Shiva lit. yoga from the forest. So it was the, most of the yoga postures are in fact named after animals, which the animals of the forest and nature is the great teacher. And probably so much of human's discomfort is this dislocation from nature. And so through coming into harmony with nature, spending time in nature and just paying attention to that.
So not sitting there at the [00:24:00] beach with our smartphones, actually being there and experiencing nature for what it is perhaps the ultimate practice. So what about with your clients, Simon, what are you're dealing, you're working as a clinical psychologist. You're not a clinical psychologist, but you were working in clinic as a psychologist. Uh,
how are you bringing this consideration into your client work?
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: Yes. So I I'm very pointed at teaching people about their nervous system and being mindful of their nervous system and how it works and what benefits nervous system and developing nervous system regulation. I'd say it fairly often. At the end of the day, our purpose for working together is bringing a more comfortable and regulated sense to our system.
And then second to that is if it's not regulated being able to sit with that with equanimity, I think was the word that he used. But certainly working super hard to get out of a place where we are feeling that discomfort and it is it's taking [00:25:00] over and making life really tough. Bolly, Polyvagal theory is certainly a big framework, but within and around that, I use the modalities of, EMDR, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing and internal family systems.
Now what EMDR does and, is super interesting and again I keep coming back to a polyvagal framework. Psychology is very much about creating the space in which a person can come back to a body. Thank you. a psychological injury and do some further processing and repair. But the problem we have is that we psychologists, we're very clear now that to create the conditions of repair, you can't just talk about it.
We know that there has to be an activation of the injury. In a sense, we are bringing up the feeling and experience and sensation of that memory experience related to the [00:26:00] trauma. Now, the problem with that is that these memory networks are completely hardwired into our amygdalas.
Because if there is, if it's coming up again, then we need to be ready. We don't want that to happen again. Psychological practice has to be very attuned and very good at putting one foot in the trauma memory but keeping another foot in present safety and awareness in regulation. And the unusual kind of eye movement, bilateral stimulation process of EMDR is a mechanism by which we are supporting the person to keep one foot in present safety and awareness.
Now, I've got a really interesting question for you. Because I suspect yoga has been doing that incredibly well for a very long time as well. How do you suspect yoga frameworks do that too, Mark? Because things come up from what I understand.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: They're supposed to. That's the point. Yoga is a, is actually a practice of personal psychology. I think it's one of the things that people get [00:27:00] lost in yoga and think, Oh, it's a process of looking after my hamstrings and mastering handstands. It's not. It's a practice of personal psychology. And if your yoga practice isn't that, then you're missing on the good stuff because the idea is that we are going in there And unpacking these samskaras, these traumas, and doing it intentionally over a period of time.
However, we're not just going in there willy nilly, as you say, and just you know, digging things up. We do it from a perspective of balance. So we,
Work with our bodies, balance the body, bringing the nervous system into harmony, the physical body into harmony. We're using breath work. We're using the meditation techniques, and then there are specific practices.
I work with a technique of an mona, which is a, essentially a mindfulness practice, Ana, which you know, is a. very similar practice where you actually at a point intentionally go in and look for that stuff, look for that traumatic memory. But [00:28:00] you do it wisely, you do it hopefully with the support of a teacher or a counselor, therapist who can support you through the journey.
But you're going there, but you're doing it when you're regulated. The first thing we need to do is come into our window of tolerance using the practices and yoga, meditation, breathwork have some fantastic tools that. can quickly. And consciously bring us into regulation. And then we go there,
but we do it from a distance. So that's, for me that's this. disposition of the witness. So you can go in there, I can see whatever that traumatic memory is, but I see it from a different perspective. And I can sit with it in a space where I'm not being triggered, but I still go there and I can look at it, pick it up. It's like picking up a stone, interesting stone on the beach.
We look at it from, Oh, that's interesting. Okay. But then I can actually consciously choose to put it down. That's where the magic happens.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: Yeah, and that that, that process really explains the internal family [00:29:00] systems process where we go inside and we find the dysregulation and we find the part that, that brings this dysregulation to the system and from a place of kind of self energy, which is explained to people as we, we call the observer self self awareness.
We're able to look in and on this part and understand why do you come up? Why do you come into my system, my sympathetic system, and tell me that this is really dangerous? And that, you've got to get away from here or no, you can't get involved in that. Like, why do you think that's the case?
What was your lived experience that informed you that this is actually a very dangerous thing? And so we get to develop that, that very similar orientation of, Oh, I'm really interested in you. I'm actually feeling an interest in curiosity and compassion as well, because you've been working really hard to make sure that I'm safe. [00:30:00] Um,
but I've started to get pretty upset with you too, because you make me have panic attacks in public. So it's pretty hard to like you, but there must be a reason for it. So let's find out. So to be able to, again, we come back to equanimity, to be able to sit with this regulation we have to Of an agitated part, we have to find another part of ourselves, as you say, gently and considerably moving into a relationship with that experience that allows us to sit with it with interest and intrigue and not overwhelm,
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: I've been.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: We're a bit done again.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: I've been loving the work of Gabo Marte and he taught these talk of compassionate inquiry. So going there, making the inquiry, be inquisitive. Who am I? How did I get to be? This person who I am today, this wild and wacky human, and go there and really seek out, he talks a lot about the core [00:31:00] wounds, these, which often happen when we're young.
And it's been for me a very valuable process that I've explored in my meditation to go back and find moments in my childhood where I was unsafe, where I was really unsafe and you see the ripple effect. I've really got to know now the ripple effect that had, the moments in my childhood where I was unsafe and that fear, which I can sit with now, I can go back there and go, Oh, wow.
Okay. You were a scared little boy. And as a result, X and X, all this other stuff happened, but we can perhaps for a moment, choose to step away from that. It's still there. I don't. believe that stuff ever really goes away. And I don't want it to go away in a sense because it's my story. It's who I am, but I can learn not to react in the same way and see that coming up and go, Oh, there you are again.
Hello. Hello. [00:32:00] Not,
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: a point you made about feelings of unsafety that most of us have at some point. Some of us, unfortunately, have in a very toxic way that leave big harms that have to be addressed and worked through. And that's Again, through the polyvagal lens, the understanding of what's really healthy and good for a nervous system to develop with with a, a very sort of inbuilt settledness and with that neuro perceptive accuracy.
And there are some things that our nervous systems really respond to and love. And one is, familiar context. Just the consistent and familiar context, the context that's known, and is there for us. And within that context, the other thing that a nervous system love is to have agency.
That if there is danger, you can get away. If there is threat, there are options, but there is agency to act and move in [00:33:00] that environment. And then the third thing that nervous systems really love, Is his connection to other now, horror movies play on these three principles to purposely activate a person's nervous system, because strangely, some people like doing that to their nervous systems and
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: not me, not me, but no,
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: What do they do? The young teenagers are driving away from the frat party at 3 in the morning. And guess where the car breaks down in the middle of the dark forest. Then they hop out of the car and the keys fall out of the kid's hand and go through the only, grate in the whole of the forest and disappear down the hole.
And then thirdly, and they do this in every single movie, they then say, let's split up. unfamiliar context, no agency, and then you get to watch one person all on their own scrambling through the forest and it absolutely [00:34:00] lights up the system. We know the sorts of conditions that are really healthy for us to try and generate In and around our surroundings and, this is one of the lovely things about where we live, a community the consistency and people we can connect to having a sense of agency in that space, because we are a region which allows for difference.
Unfortunately, what can happen is for people who haven't had that experience, they, their nervous systems really get very rigid about consistency and very rigid about, what needs to happen in those spaces to feel okay. And that's when we've lost the capacity for internal regulation when it's not available.
And the external environment has to do it for us. And we get, we can get pretty pushy. And then we have this unfortunate self fulfilling prophecy where people find us a little bit difficult and, interaction becomes hard. But it always [00:35:00] fascinates me just, the extent to which people in movies really know how to activate systems.
They know how to activate ventral vagal, oh, that's so beautiful, oh, that feels so lovely, and then they can just take us to those other parts of our system really quickly. And all
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: People
are fairly predictable. We're not, we're, if we know how to play the right music, there's pretty good chance that humans are going to dance in a fairly predictable way. And there is a field of psychology, behavioral science, behavioral psychology, where for better or for worse, there's psychologists out there who could, they know us better than we know ourselves.
And I will. using social media. There's literally behavioral psychologists who work for the gaming companies and program addiction. They know how to make humans addicted. So it serves us all well to know ourselves and to know these predictive behaviors to a level that we can Step away from the mobile phones or God help us [00:36:00] step away from whatever addictions that we've got Programmed in our body and in some way shape or form.
We're all addicted to something some are crippling people, you know through drugs alcohol certain behaviors that are just destroying lives and there's many tragic cases out there and
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: those are mechanisms that are the best we've got at the time to try and bring a sense of regulation to our system. And this comes up a lot in my work because people feel really bad and very terrible about what they're doing. Hang on, this is just Your best effort at this moment and at this time and with more knowledge and more awareness and a greater sense of cultivated safety in your system, those choices about what we do to bring regulation will be broader.
There'll be more choices and it's a simplification. We're complex neurobiological physiological beings. We've got to work on lots of [00:37:00] levels. We've got to work with food and, digestion to support regulation. We've got to work with movement to, to support regulation.
It's not all. It's not all psychology but where it is, understanding that most of our actions are really about just trying to help feel a bit better inside in that moment and feel a bit regulated is usually the driver.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: Yeah, I love your compassionate language around this and there's a level, the quality with which you communicate. One is very compassionate, but there's also this dispassionate. part of it that it's it's just your nervous system. It's not you being a bad person. And that's something that I've invited into my own world.
And it's fantastic if there's a couple of people like you and I can converse in that level. And when you've spoken and shared this in our trainings and with my partner and different people who can talk, it's actually, I'm out of my, I love that with the window of tolerance is such a simple model of understanding.
There's a, basically a [00:38:00] window that's so big. And then if I'm in that window, I'm okay. If I'm out, sitting outside that window, I'm tending, I'm going to become dysregulated. So my job is to try and, I stay within that window and through the practices, perhaps I can make that window a little bit bigger. bigger over time, but it's understanding of okay, there is a language that we can describe this, but it doesn't make me a bad person. I'm at the moment I'm dysregulated. It's my nervous system that's letting me down. I could, I've got all the symptoms, a racing heartbeat, I'm snapping, I'm breathing sharply. I'm not in my window of tolerance and seeing that and perhaps having other people in your life who can reflect on that with you. It's a language and a model that helps us to cultivate detachment, vairagya, this quality of being able to see things, but that's not me. That doesn't mean I'm not just an angry person.
I'm having an experience of feeling dysregulated and it's [00:39:00] introducing that language into, no doubt, your. your client work and showing people that this is the pathway forward.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: Absolutely.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: Just to help mitigate the shame. I think a lot of people carry shame for whether it's, I've got an addictive behavior. I'm ashamed of that addictive.
I don't want to behave that way. I don't want to be using that substance all the time and all the behaviors that go with it. I don't want to be angry all the time, but I don't have another pathway. This is just my, this is my RITI. This is how I am programs to operate. So what would you suggest Simon for people, just, obviously, as you say, we are sophisticated, but just some general steps forward, if people are listening to this and they, or they know people who are experiencing dysregulation, what would be some tools or some tactics that they could implement?
And
Think that's
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: like there's a getting up to speed with this, just getting online and doing a little bit of [00:40:00] reading. There's a Deb Daner is one of the fantastic translators of Stephen Porges work into everyday application. But there are many people that are doing great translations, and I made a translation because Stephen Porges work is steeped in quite a complex neurobiology that you need a bit nerdy to get right into it which I welcome anybody to.
But out of that, Deb Dana developed the Polyvagal Ladder, and the Polyvagal Ladder is great. It's very simple. It's a ladder. At the top of the ladder is, the top of the nervous system, ventral vagal safe and social regulation. Middle of the ladder is sympathetic fight, flight, freeze form, dysregulation.
And at the bottom of the ladder is dorsal vagal shutdown collapse. Disregulation, which shame is a part of, depression. Print a bunch of ladders and post them around the house. Stick one on the fridge, put one on your, put one next to you. It'll fall off the, it'll fall off the wall in a couple of weeks.
But it's just a, an invitation to [00:41:00] go, okay, well for the next couple of weeks I'll just identify. What part of my nervous system I'm in at a particular time. So I think you acted it out quite well. It's a lot. Oh, ah, that person's such a, you know, that person's such an asshole. Oh, oh, I mean sympathetic.
Oh, my nervous system got clocked. I wonder what that was that got me. Oh, that's interesting. Oh, you know what? Just need to self soothe or regulate and then maybe I'll get back to the issue that got me, see if it was an issue. It was a neuroceptive mismatch. Okay. There's not really an issue there or actually there was some accuracy.
There's an issue there that I need to work through, but it would be much nicer to do it. We're not a bit regulated. Do a bit of reading, get some polyvagal ladders out and then just start, you give yourself a task for the next couple of weeks, which is. Clocking dysregulation, but just as importantly, clocking regulation as well.
The ventral vehicle, different parts of my nervous [00:42:00] system it's quite fun.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: Yeah, it is fun. It is fun. Look, one of the things we've often measured our body mass index, I can do my VO2 max. I know how, what my cardiovascular health is. Am I physically fit? physically active, but it's very new to our field of awareness. How's my nervous system? How am I today? And seeing that if I'm a little bit pudgy, perhaps on my VO2 max is not at its best.
I'm a bit short of breath. It doesn't make me a bad person. I'm not, Oh, okay. I'm a bit unfit because probably I haven't been exercising enough. Fair enough. Or I've been eating the wrong food. I can do better. But people, when they have dysregulation, there's this sense of shame of like, Oh, I'm all over the place.
I'm a bad person and it can put people into real spirals. Having some understanding about that. One of the other elements it's often goes, I think, unspoken and unseen is this dorsal vagal response. And it's not just the [00:43:00] form, the complete collapse. I think a lot of people go into this and I've certainly had this experience where I've just been going too hard for too long.
And I just want to go into couch mode. And that involves probably Netflix and just almost shutting myself down to just a comatose. And I used to drink alcohol. I don't anymore. Thank goodness. But that was a part of that picture where I just couldn't deal with the anxiety in my head. So I would put myself What I realized now is, oh, that was a dorsal vagal response.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: Absolutely. And there's, there's a combination of nervous system responses to and one that's particularly horrible that can be experienced and some at a very high level. So it's super unpleasant is that their sympathetic system is activated. So there's a real. anxious distress, but then a dorsal vagal dissociative experience around it.
So you feel yourself floating through the world, disconnected. Your nervous system's working super [00:44:00] hard just to get everything away. So there's just no more stimulus coming in. But within that, there's a real agitation. And that's, it's,
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: to be.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: again, it's building this language of awareness, Mark, like you've mentioned, that we talk about pain.
Well, and pain is part, it's really unpleasant, but nervous system dysregulation is really unpleasant to, to walk around with as well. And I, like you say, we've got pain assessments. What's the level of pain you're experiencing? The equally important question, what's the level of distressing dysregulation are you feeling in your nervous system?
For some people, it can be an eight or a nine for weeks or months.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: Yeah. I've been there. I've been there and it's the worst. The worst. I've physically, I've always been fairly fit. I've never had any significant disease or illness. I'm touching some wood right now, but I have had, nervous system dysregulation for extended periods of time. And I [00:45:00] think when we carry a mild stress over a long period of time, we normalize it to ourselves as this thing.
It's just normal. That's just the way it is. It's not, there's an opportunity there. And I think when the conversations can be improved at a societal level, at a community level, at a family level, we can support each other to see it. more clearly and having that touchstone of what regulation feels like.
I think that's what got me out of it because I had spent a lot of time, thankfully, as a young person in nature, and I had moments of absolute bliss in my childhood. And when I was dysregulated, there was a period in my late twenties into my early thirties, where I carried anxiety and stress for a fairly long period of time to a point where it was really debilitating. But I could just. I could remember and I could remember that what regulation felt like and that thankfully there was also help [00:46:00] available to me and I, at a certain point was, I was desperate enough to reach out to help this uncomfortable enough help. is amazing. And we do have a high quality of help available to people.
I'm guessing that there's people who are going to listen to this. And I hope what we can convey is a message of hope because you've seen some amazing changes I'm guessing in people over, over your career.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: Totally. Amazing changes in you, amazing changes in me, it's one of the reliefs about getting older because the physical body can't do what it can, but to have a development in an internal sense of rest and peace is And I was like, okay I don't mind aging at all, actually, if if this can be cultivated, I can live with the physical body that is slowly degenerating because this cultivated sense of settledness in pieces.
You look back at your 20s and go, [00:47:00] yeah, that was pretty uncomfortable.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: I had a good six pack, but other elements, I wouldn't, I'll take the six pack back, but other elements, no, thank you.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: Yeah,
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: Simon, we're running a little bit shy on time, but I do want to just wrap up with a bit more of an understanding about, this message of hope. I guess this message of hope of how the protocol of I'm a big believer in talk therapy and bringing people together with other people.
So we can talk about this stuff and creating a culture where there is a lack of shame and a courage, a willingness and enthusiasm even to want to talk about this stuff because we're all human. in my experience that immediately can help to relieve the burden, but also supporting that with the work of mindfulness, yoga, [00:48:00] breath work.
Some system of meditation where there's a level of self awareness that's being cultivated and and some tools that we can learn Where do you see this going for people individually now and and into the future?
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: it's an interesting question and it's a big one because we, I think for a lot of us, and understandably we feel like we're living in a time and a place that there are things that we need to attend to globally. We don't seem to be winning those I don't want to use the word battles because it's it's not a very regulating word, but very important things for our world that we don't seem to be grappling with, but.
Equally and strangely, we are grappling with our sense of ourselves and understanding ourselves and knowing what's important for ourselves and other people at a very, very high level.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: Mm
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: I mean, thank goodness we've lived the time that we have as generation [00:49:00] Xs. The information wasn't around much, but the information and the support is at a completely different level now.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: It's cool.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: It's a bit hard to hold those things at the same time, but it appears to me that the horse has bolted this understanding of ourselves and being able to cultivate health and well being. It just seems to be galloping along with just incredible people engaged and involved. In terms of hope on a personal level, particularly for people that might be listening to this and feel like they've struggled with just a dysregulatory distress and discomfort for a long time, people commit suicide because of this.
It's just so uncomfortable. It's just so internally distressing. It's, some people choose the option just to cut it. The invitation in terms of hope that I want to give is that our systems are naturally poised and naturally designed to heal. If we cut our [00:50:00] hand, We don't have to think about it or do anything, our system heals.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: Mm mm
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: what to do with that cut. And it's the same with neurological and nervous system and emotional psychological injury a lot of the time. Our internal system has the capacity to heal, it's just that sometimes it needs additional resources. to get to that full state of healing. Like we might have to do with a cut, maybe we have to add a few more stitches or we have to bring an antibiotic just to help it along.
And that's what these processes are. Yoga, psychology,
other forms of emotional and psychological work. It's helping to put the cast and the ointment and the the conditions in place to help this system, just do what it knows how to do best and that is to heal things. So just to bring, just keep bringing resources if you can, just keep bringing them, whether it's yoga, which we know has got the big tick from Bessel van der Kolk
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: mm
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: being understandably so as an incredible way to [00:51:00] help system repair or whether it's through the more traditional process of psychology and counseling.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: Yeah. Or together? Together. I think for me that's the gold standard. Implement them both. Do all the things. Make it your life's work to be well and vital and happy, because indeed that is our birthright. That is what I think most of us are capable of. If we reach out and if we seek it, if we want it. That there's support is available. Thank you so much, Simon. I
feel like we could just continue this conversation on for a much longer period of time, but it's healthy to cap it at at this point and we can circle back and analyze and no doubt we can continue this conversation on in the not too distant future.
So
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: so much.
mark-purser_1_10-11-2024_110517: thank you for all your work, all your support for me personally, and for all that you bring to the community. You're a good egg and a very inspiring human. You've inspired me greatly through not just what you do, but just how you are. You're a good friend to have in the scheme of [00:52:00] time. So thank you.
And I look forward to talking with you soon.
simon-dubois--he-him-_1_10-11-2024_110521: Thanks.
