Co Regulation Quotes

“emotional regulation flows naturally from being in the presence of someone we trust”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“We humans are always seeking the warmest attachments we can imagine”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Since we began with a felt sense of safety this day, several neural streams are initially supporting the renewal of our connection.

In our midbrain, the energies of the SEEKING system are animating the CARE system, which can both foster the good feelings between us and support offers of repair should we have a rupture (Panksepp & Biven, 2012).

Once in connection, our ventral vagal parasympathetic system is affecting the prosody of our voices, our facial mobility, and the attentiveness of our listening, maintaining social engagement (Porges, 2011). Since ventral lateralizes to the right hemisphere, we more easily stay rooted in the right-centric way of attending that keeps us in connection with this moment and with each other (McGilchrist, 2009).

In this intimacy, our brains are coupling in many regions, so there is an experience of social emotional engagement and embodied communication as we become a single system in two bodies (Hasson, 2010).

Because we are trustworthy partners in this healing process, social baseline theory tells us that our amygdalae are calming just because we are together (Beckes & Coan, 2011).

All of this is happening without doing anything, even without saying anything, in microseconds below conscious awareness because of the safe space we have cultivated over time.

We can more clearly understand why Porges says, "Safety IS the treatment".”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Our brainstems take in the rhythmic movements of [our mother/primary attachment] as she attentively follows our bid for play, our drift towards sleep, our signal that it is time to be quietly together.

In our midbrain, our SEEKING system finds the waiting eyes and arms of our mother's CARE system in times of PLAY or GRIEF, patterning the expectation that connections will be restored when they are momentarily lost, that ruptures will call forth repairs.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“We might ask what role relational neuroscience plays in these kinds of experiences. For me, it begins with the body. Cultivating an understanding -- and most importantly a felt sense -- of these neural pathways helps us attune body to body with our people as they enter these deeper, more challenging realms. Through resonance, our capacity to attend to our bodies while remaining in a ventral state gradually becomes theirs. An indispensable support comes from our left hemisphere's deepening understanding of the particulars of the healing process. The stability this provides helps our right stay as engaged as possible in the relationship with all its emerging uncertainty. When Joshua became so suddenly depressed, Jaak Panksepp came to mind, so I could remain curious rather than scared. When Caroline entered increasingly intense states with her mother, Stephen Porges helped me remain mindful of our joined windows of tolerance and the necessity of staying in connection for co-regulation and disconfirmation to occur.

The whole process of leading, following and responding rests on his statement, "Safety IS the treatment". In the broadest way, Dan Siegel's voice fosters deep acquaintance with the principles of interpersonal neurobiology, which supports hope for healing, confidence in our inherent health, and appreciation for our co-organizing brains. Each of these strands of knowledge increases our trust in the process. You may sense yourself adding to the list those that have been most helpful for you.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Bit by bit, our people begin to embody the changed anticipation of being cared for and treated with kindness and respect.

Part of what strengthens this new way of being comes from us having co-internalized one another.

We continue to be their reflective companion on the outside, and they will also feel how we continue to carry them with us in our inner world.

It is quite beautiful to watch this healing unfold, often revealing itself as changes in body, feeling, behavior, relational choices first, then later affirmed in more frequent words of tenderness toward themselves.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Each time we offer a reflection, we are also quietly repairing/disconfirming attachment wounds that always contain elements of our parents or others not being able to see us because of their own injuries.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Each of our parents and others close to us offer their unique version of attachment, so while we have four categories to give us a general outline of what may occur, we will find that each person's expression of each style is as individual as a fingerprint.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“our brains are continuously yearning for the arrival of a co-organizing other”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Yes, being human is a staggering act of near-impossible bravery.

But you were born to be the hero of your own story.

And true heroes do not try to do it alone.

Lean all the way in.
I promise,
I’ll catch you if you fall.
Or you’ll catch me.

Either way - there are arms at the ready,
Strong enough to hold us all.”
― Jeanette LeBlanc

“We internalize not only living people, but characters who come alive in our reading and viewing.”
― Bonnie Badenoch

“So many of us who choose this work come from backgrounds of pain and fear that have been instrumental in calling us to now co-suffer with others as they find the courage to approach their wounds.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“the presence or absence of reflection of our state can make the difference between whether fear and pain embed or are able to integrate, even if the circumstances don't change.

As our people come to us for help with traumas that did embed for lack of companionship, it is our reflection of them in their state in the moment that offers enough safety for them to become vulnerable to remembering .

This is the core of our practice of following, to ... be available to take in and reflect back what our people bring, with no impulse to fix or change anything.

This is so counter to what we are mostly taught in our training and what our culture tells us is the path to healing. Yet the wisdom of the relational neurobiology we have been studying and our felt-sense experience repeatedly point us in this direction.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Our infant muscles let go and mold to the shape of our mother's bodies when we are securely held.

Our bodies learn the meaning of the sensations of hunger and thirst from the interpersonal sweetness of our need being seen, met and satisfied by our mother as food is offered.

We take in her attentiveness along with the nourishment, and this shapes our openness to all kinds of nurturance throughout our lives.

Our hearts beat more slowly and our amygdalae calm when she is in a ventral state, her presence reassuring us of the possibility of safety in connection.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“It sometimes surprises me that people don't find questions addressed to their bodies silly, especially in therapy, but they rarely do”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“An implicit foundation of assumed security has slowly grown beneath our feet so that we believe we will go forward together through whatever stumbles may come.”
― Bonnie Badenoch

“Struggles between our people and us over the pace of therapy can disregulate the process into a frenzy or stall it. Returning to following and responding may ease this.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships