Caryl Williams Love
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I'm so excited to present to you Carol today on this podcast, she is our first. Interview with someone who is going to be explaining a really practical tool to us and helping us. Know how to use it to change the stories that are in our mind that are not serving us [00:01:00] in the way that we hope they would.
So I'm so excited to introduce you to Carol
Mel: hi Carol. Thanks for coming today. We have a Carol Williams love with me today, and I'm so excited to have her here.
Carol and I met in our Applied Positive Psychology course last year, and Carol's been doing some work with me on. Helping me manage the stories in my head and kind of retraining my brain a little bit to, uh, be of better service to me. And it's been amazing. And every time I am doing a coaching session or uh, applying some of the work that I've learned, Carol comes into my head and I am like, oh, we need to share what she knows all about Havening, which is our topic of today and how to support ourselves with it.
So thank you for coming today, Carol.
Caryl: Oh, my pleasure. I love that idea that I'm in your head, hopefully in a good way. But I definitely love the fact that you're changing those [00:02:00] stories. Yes.
As long as you're in, you know, saying Hi, Carol, with a smile. We'll, we're good to go.
Mel: Okay, good. It's a good Caryl in my head. Nice. Awesome. So do you wanna tell us a little bit about you and your life and maybe what lights you up?
Caryl: Uh, you always have the best questions and stuff. Um, my name is Carol Williams.
Love. I have, was trained and worked as, still working as a interpreter for the deaf for the last almost 28, uh, 28, 30 years. I was constantly working in professional development, you know, for myself and about eight years ago, kind of stumbled across, , E F T , tapping and wanted to learn more about that.
And, in that process started training to be a coach and not even realizing that that was like really a thing. And just really applying it [00:03:00] to my own life. And, there came a time where E F T wasn't working to the level that I needed it to work. And so I came across havening and, havening has been just amazing.
It allows me and others to be unstuck in our stories and to really remove that attachment, that emotional trigger. And, as well as just the procrastination and the self sabotaging behaviors and stuff. You know, that whole laundry list of actions that we tend to do, that keep us from getting what we want and havening, in a very gentle way, allows us to change those stories and to unplug from those emotional triggers so that we get into action, right?
And it works really in our nervous system. So what I really love about it too is it, it works for three things. [00:04:00] So it can work at removing, , what we've encoded in, uh, a traumatic event. That story, like you say, story that's really stuck. It can also be used in a way, and of course that's with a certified practitioner.
Also with a certified practitioner, it can be used in a growth way, right? We're working towards, enhancing, enhancing productivity, uh, performance, uh, working towards goals, that kind of thing. And then there's a third way that as you're learning, and so for you Mal, as you were able to, I imagine, Take those steps that we were doing together, then in any moment, you can use it as a self-regulating tool to just download or downgrade in the moment.
Anytime your emotions are getting a little heavy or the outside world is getting to be too much, it's like the perfect timeout, right? Yeah. That you in the [00:05:00] palm of your hands can gift yourself and you can gift to your children and others around you in the moment. It's amazing. So that lights me up because I've lived my life so stuck, and as I started learning about this and being able to feel the results and seeing results for others, what lights me up is collecting smiles.
As you know, you helped me figure that phrase out. And what I mean by that is when I get to see somebody go from stuck, stressed, frustrated to smiling and happy, that lights me up. To no end. So sharing this magicalness that we have in our hands to be able to, in that moment feel better and let that be that ripple effect that we're spreading out in the world so that everybody feels good in the moment that lights me up.
What an
Mel: amazing thing to light you up. I mean, spread some more smiles around the world, I think that's amazing.
Caryl: That's my [00:06:00] goal. Yeah,
Mel: let's do that. Brilliant. Brilliant. And I, and that's a great description, what you just gave of, of what Havening is. And, um, I thought it might be useful for me to share a little bit of our experience together.
Um, quite happy to share my story as like an example. So. Okay. Um, one of the things Carol was working with me on is, about, well it was about two years before we started working together. I had had, , an ankle injury and, uh, I ended up having surgery on my ankle, and I've always been a soccer player my entire life, and it's been like a huge thing for me.
And one of those things that as a mom, I really needed to feel me really, and I stopped after this, uh, ankle injury because of course I was healing. And then I moved across the world and there's a whole larger story there. And. And I connected that [00:07:00] injury and that trauma to my, everything else that was going wrong in my life as well at the time.
Um, so Carol really worked with me to, I, I got to this point where I was like, I'm gonna try out for the team here. I'm gonna try out for the soccer team here and I don't know how that's gonna go. Cuz every time I think about going on the field, I literally have the image in my head of hurting myself. And um, and I know that the way brains works is that if I just think about that I'm gonna do it.
Like that's highly more likely that I'm gonna injure myself again if I think I am. So Carol worked with me, um, doing Havening and uh, really got me to. Kind of disconnect those two things and to really believe in myself. And I started going for runs and like had these like affirmations that I was seeing in my head, which I still say to this day, if I think I'm gonna, like, I was at a boot camp this morning and I was like dying and um, [00:08:00] and I was trying, I got to get to this point where I, I start to think like, I can't do this.
And then instead of saying I can, or whatever, literally the same phrase, phrase goes in, which for me is, um, Uh, I'm strong, I'm brave, I'm proud, and I'm worthy. And it took a while, Carol, we can talk about that later. It wasn't just, I'm worthy right away. We, we worked up to that a little bit, but, um, in fact, I used to stick in, my daughter's name is Ira.
I used to Stick in Eira is worthy. That worked very well. She was worthy of a mom who was out there doing that. I was like, I can, I can believe that. Yeah. Anyways, so I say those phrases and then I'm like, yep, I'm good. And I'm going because my brain's like, yeah, you're on fire. So Carol really helps me using one-to-one with her to, um, get to this point where I now, every once in a while I still have a thought or I think about an ankle if I see a, like something I might hit or whatever.
And like I just, my [00:09:00] brain is programmed enough to like think those four phrases and be able to, uh, Be able to move past them basically. Um, which is, which is amazing. Um, and I'm not even doing specifically Havening in that moment, but if I was, and if I could run at the same time as doing that, then I would.
Um, but I might actually fall if I tried to do that. So that's more of an after thing in that exact moment. But, um, so that's one way we used havening together. And um, I thought I'd just give that as an little, a little example. So that was our, our kind of one-to-one.
Caryl: And I'm so glad that that was, that was so successful for you and to see you, to get your, your text saying that you were, you know, trying out for the team was, was just so exciting.
I mean, that brings me sparkles and joy in dancing to no end. Yeah. And, and being able to, you know, part of all of that too, um, is that I'm also [00:10:00] a neuro encoding specialist and like you mentioned, we're both, um, certified in positive psychology and all that research stuff. It's also woven in and we know that when we can catch those thoughts and we can shift those thoughts so that what you're able to do, um, is make those changes because it is our brain.
It's, it's all of those, those thoughts, those experiences and everything that we've had in the past nine 90% of our current actions or inactions. Thoughts are driven by those stories. And so when those stories are hijacking us saying we can't, or they're holding on to overwhelm or an event that we've deemed to have a negative meaning, um, then that's what's gonna lead us forward.
Willpower can only get us so far it's those recordings that 90%, some people say 95, even if you go at [00:11:00] the low end of 90%, even if I said 80%, that's a really strong pull towards going towards your goals or trying to get through this overwhelm in the moment, right? It's what those stories are that are, are embedded and encoded into our brains.
So the. A big part of this also in, in, in the work that I do with people and education, I try to give people is all of those different pieces of positive psychology and neuroscience, um, which is that whole, what's the story that's going on? Can we, you know, can we change that meaning that we've embedded, right?
Because our brains are neuroplastic. It's not, you know, that's what it is done. Otherwise, babies with what we're born with would have no other meanings, right? So we know that. And finally, science caught up with that in the last, you know, um, 15 to 20 years. And it's so exciting to, to hear you say that now [00:12:00] you're catching those thoughts and shifting so that you're not allowing 'em to encode and, and give yourself a new memory, a new story that gives you less than.
So that's, that's awesome.
Mel: For sure. And what I really love about what you just said and how you describe neuroscience and these big technical words is that the way you describe it is very empowering. You know, so like if, if 90% is these stories, they're not, they're not our fault. We don't need to be beating ourself up for having these, cuz we all have them.
Right. And we also have the um, Potential and the possibility to change them. And that is huge, right? It's like we're not like, oh, like victim, I've got all these things while I'm screwed. Right? No, actually we can change all these things. And especially for, for moms, which is who I tend to work with. Our stories are like, there's so many all around [00:13:00] worthiness and self-belief and confidence and so many, I could go on a list of all the stories Yeah.
That we've been kind of trained to believe. Right. And um, It really excites me, like how we can shift those and, uh, I'm sure Carol and I will be, will be working together a lot more on my stories and I'm sure over the, over the years because it's an ongoing journey and it's not something that just, we flip a switch and it changes overnight.
Um, so yes. Um, so tell, tell us more about, you know, we've dug into like what we're really excited about it and how our brain's working, but like, what is havening anyways? What does that, like, what would it look like?
Caryl: Havening is a psycho-sensory modality. Meaning it's our psychology, our beliefs, and our thoughts of who we are in the world, who other people are in the world, and if the world is safe, our psychology and our body somatically, [00:14:00] what are reactions?
You know, the heart racing, the sweating, the, you know, any way our body might be reacting to something. Right. So as a modality, there's, There are three locations. It's all using our hands. It's using the touch from our fingertips and in certain parts of our body. And so as we're applying that touch, what's actually happening in our brain is that we're slowing our brain down into delta waves.
So if you know anything about the different levels of, of your brainwaves, we're going down all the way down into the Delta wave, which is very, very slow. And in that, we're able to kind of open up where those previous, you know, let, let me go more into it as far as with the self havening. So when your self havening, your nervous system, say, you know, you're trying to handle, you know, getting to the children, getting the children to all their events in that moment, trying to deal with something from work, trying to get dinner on the [00:15:00] table, trying to get deal with Covid, trying to, you know, It could be any number of things.
The list can sometimes be very short. There could be one thing, and it just was the tip of the iceberg for the day, right? We know that. So what's happening is in our nervous system, we have two tracks. So it's the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. Now sympathetic means it's kind of like a car. The gas is going, you know, it's like woo.
I mean, hair to the wind, blow back, right? And we wanna shift it down into more the parasympathetic, which is the more relaxed. And our bodies are doing this all the time. That's how we're breathing, right? When we, when we inhale, we're going, we're engaging in the sympathetic, and then when we exhale, we are engaging in the parasympathetic.
That's at the slowest basic level. Well, how often is it when we are in a state of stress that we are holding our breath? How do we, and we notice that suddenly our [00:16:00] shoulders are up at our ears. Like, I don't, that's my place, that's my, you know, it's like, ok. Right? That's why breathing, when people just say, Hey, take a moment, take a pause, take a breath.
So Havening is getting our system into that parasympathetic much quicker. And so what we're gonna do is I'll show you some of the steps. So we are using our hands, and the first one, this is very common now with Covid, we're talking about right? Washing our hands, so the happy birthday. So we're just doing this gently just notice and we're calming down our heart rate as well, right?
So we're not looking at doing this. It's not a fast thing, it's, it's just a gentle pace. So this is Havening self havening with your.
Mel: And this is a great one. I have to say, Carol, because speaking of Covid times, we're on Zoom a lot, and I just move my hands down. Nobody can even see me doing it. I do at almost every single Zoom call,
Caryl: it's [00:17:00] the best.
Right? Yeah. And speaking of that, before I show, I I, before we jump to the other two locations, is that especially on these meetings or even in when we're out in public and we go back to any kind of in person, this is a very natural, you know, people do this all the time, right? So you're not only calming down your nervous system, but if people around you are getting a little bit out of control in any level of way, um, we have mirror neurons in our brain, and so that is just picking it up.
And so what we see, It's happening. We don't have to actually ha behaving ourselves. We can see somebody else havening and that's calming down our nervous system. So you're gifting anybody around you. So when your children are going a little bit, you know, out of control, once we, we end up matching their level of energy, right?
When they're ah, then we're like, ah, we are getting up to them. Imagine we're gonna be doing [00:18:00] this or we're doing this. Which I'll show you that at the wind moment. And as we start noticing where are my shoulders? What's my breathing? Then our children, our spouses, our coworkers can then also their little mirror neurons are gonna start watching and they're gonna shift over into their parasympathetic too.
So it's great. I love that. But I am always doing it to below camera or nowadays I, if I really want the person in the meeting to kind of notice, I will proudly be doing this. On camera. We're doing this one on camera. Yeah. Yeah. So love the self havening. Okay. So the other one, as I said, is, or showed it's down your arms.
We're starting the shoulder down to the elbow and our thumbs are kind of up top. And what's happening here is we wanna go in one direction. It's kinda like if you had a cat in your lap, cat's gonna be happy if we're going this way. [00:19:00] But if we start going up and back, the cat may not be so happy. So that can kind of trigger.
Now, if you try it and you see there's some people who are good with this up and down, if it feels nice, do it up and down. But as a general, we go in one direction. Okay? So the third location that you can apply your self havening is gonna be on your, on your. And again, this is your own, you know, touching.
And so during Covid times, depending on when people are watching this, we're always washing our hands first. And you're not applying it on somebody else without, you know, permission always. But if it's your child, you are just making sure your hands are washed. So it's across your forehead again, you're using the, the fingertips and you're just stroking outward.
And then you're just kind gonna come what feels good across your cheeks or your face. Wh which is your favorite to-do, [00:20:00] Mel, on your face? Uh, it's
Mel: probably the one under the eyes. I'm gonna de I'm gonna get you to describe it in even more words, just for the sake of anybody listening to only audio on this.
Caryl: Ah, okay. So what we're doing is facing
Mel: your, what are you doing up on your forehead here?
Caryl: So both hands are, your fingertips are meeting at the center of your forehead and you're stroking gently outward to your, towards your temple. And then you meet back again in the middle and stroke outward towards your temple.
And it should just be a nice pace and a nice pressure. Does that feel good? Mm-hmm. And then you can kind of just rotate your hands down around your temple and then pick it up again at the bridge of, of your nose. So each hand on each side of the nose and just kind of stroke outwardly, lightly under the eyes and down the cheek so that your fingertips and the, and [00:21:00] the finger pads of your fingers are touching and it feel, feels good.
Then just let the whole palm touch whatever feels nice. Well, it's like a little facial. Yes, it's mini facial. Well, if you see babies, you know, if you hold a newborn or an infant, they love this calming havening touch across their foreheads and their cheeks. Right? Yeah. We're, we, we're, we're instinctual. We know these natural techniques to do that are calming and soothing.
Yeah. So now we're using them. Yeah.
Mel: Brilliant. So we've got our couple of face ones. We've got our hand washing back and forth, and then almost like you're hugging yourself and stroking downwards. Yep. Cross
Caryl: your arms. One's your favorite, yourself a hug. Um, you know, I kind of rotate around. Yeah. Um, [00:22:00] yeah. And in that moment, um, I'm.
I'm just kind of allowing my hands to go wherever because sometimes it feels like it's too long. So if it's, I'll go a little little bit on my hands and I like to make this figure eight on my hands. This is just me. But you know, with that energy work, a lot of people who study energy work, they show that there's energy and figure eights the infinity and stuff.
So it's whatever feels good that you're doing in the moment. How about you? What.
Mel: Um, my typical is my hands. I'm not as much this one. I think as a woman with a larger chest, I find it sometimes it's a lot of effort actually, and I like to face stuff as well. Um, yeah, it's all very good and, and actually like, so a story of, so this is the self havening style, the what you're describing now.
And, um, I actually used it yesterday when I was, so I flew back from Alberta to [00:23:00] BC and on the way out it was fine. We were on an airplane. It was my first time on an airplane since um, COVID had hit. And uh, so I was, you know, an anxious, but the way there was, okay, it was only two and two in the rows. Um, so it was me and my son.
And then on the way back it was just me and my son, but it was three and three. So I had someone sitting right next to me closer than any person has ever been in the last two years that isn't in my family. Um, And I was, I could feel myself like, just like so anxious. And I sat in the middle cuz my son wasn't vaccinated and whatever.
I was like, it's the safest for me to be here. But I was just, and I could feel myself getting kind of worked up about it. Right. But, you know, there's nothing I can do about it in that situation except, and then I just started, I was like, okay, what can I do that this man won't think is too strange? And so he was just reading his book or whatever, didn't even really pretended I wasn't there.
And I, um, anyways, I, I just started going like this cause I [00:24:00] thought, okay, that's all right. And I was like, that's good. Yeah. Okay. And then I did my hands and I only did it for like, probably a couple of minutes, but it really did, it, it got me to the point where I could like, move on to thinking about something else and not, like, my heart rate was slower and it helped me get through that cuz you know, Depending on the situation, depending on your mood, depending on what trigger you have, whatever it could, you know, you can go into like a full, full, full blown panic attack, but this kind of just Yep.
Okay. Like back in the room. I'm good now.
Caryl: We're fine. And what were you doing while you were havening? So I, I noticed that, so for people on audio only, you were, you were using the one across your forehead? I was, or from the center of your forward outward. Um, and what were you, what else were you doing while you were doing that?
Mel: I was breathing as well, so I was, I was intentionally breathing mostly. I was actually trying not to think about anything. And I was, I, it wasn't an affirmation one for me. It was literally like just focus on, it was a bit of a meditations last evening. Right. I was like [00:25:00] just breathing, thinking about my breath and doing that.
Um, so that my thoughts didn't go anywhere else, basically. And uh, yeah, and I think I just very quickly moved on from that. I didn't. It was, I think because we've done it a few times, my body was used to that response. Um, it, it managed to get me into that place pretty quickly. But, um, but self havening, I think is it, that's why you're little carro comes up in, up in my head a lot because, you know, in a coaching session with someone where they might have a very emotional response to something that comes up, you know, you're talking about something very personal and, and like a story comes out and they're like, I didn't realize how like ingrained that was and the emotions all flow.
Right? Which is great. Like permission to be human, right? That's my, that's my business name. Exactly. And I'm a strong believer in the need for all those emotions. And what I love is that it's like, okay, and here's a tool to help yourself move through those emotions so that you don't just push them down, [00:26:00] right?
So let them come out and here's a tool to like calm yourself down. Especially as mom's, like, you know, we're finish up a coaching session and someone's in high, high state of emotion. You don't want them to have to go off. Usually like, you know, two minutes later they're chasing a child or they're, you know, doing whatever, like putting a bed or whatever they have to do and get on with life.
You need to be able to. Okay. Centered before you go, go on. So that comes up, that is where it's come up a lot for me.
Caryl: Um, one of the mag. Um, I'd like to, I wanna like, address two things. Yeah. I realize that probably. Um, so this is the motion, whether it's your hands or down your arm or your face. Yeah. Um, that's happening.
And what we wanna do is we wanna be in the moment, right? So we're giving ourselves a distraction. Um, so whatever caused you to really need to like down-regulate, [00:27:00] um, is that then we can, it's great if you have a, a, a favorite breathing practice. If you don't inhaling in for four, uh, through your nose, exhaling out your mouth for six.
We wanna always exhale longer than our inhale just to kind of get you into that parasympathetic right. Any of your other breathing mode, you know, techniques, um, adding havening is gonna get us into that delta state. Um, so it's almost like supercharging whatever your, your meditation practice or, or calming practice is.
Another nice thing is in the moment, um, especially if you're in a state of stress, and I'm not gonna use the word overwhelm and I know that we've been using it wrong. Thank you, Brene Brown. Um, because, uh, probably if you're in actual overwhelm, the stress is built up so bad that you're just now like a deer in the headlights can't function, right?
And if you're at that level, [00:28:00] you're probably not even gonna remember to haven. So, Um, that's kind of why I'm not gonna, I'm gonna be careful and use overwhelmed, so stressed and it's, it's too, um, is also as, you can just do this really big long stretch and yawn. Big, big, big, big beep beep. And yes, it's very exaggerated and you're supposed to, and just keep faking it.
And you stretch, stretch, stretch stretchers like you can. And then you shake your arms out and then you start to apply the havening and you're gonna do that three times. Then once you're getting into that havening, what you can do is if you, you choose to breathe and, or notice where's your feet? Just, we're just gonna put our attention on.
Feel my feet. Huh? Move my big toe. Okay. And now your eyes can be open or close for this. Um, if you can get to a place that you can start to close your eyes. If you feel safe to do that, you can get more in your body. That's what we're wanting while you continue [00:29:00] havening, whichever of the three locations that you're at, and move them around.
It's not like I picked one, I have to stay with it now. I can't go to another one. Nope. It's, it's a, it's a sm it's a flow. You can go anywhere you wanna go. Right? So what's happening with my big right toe? Okay, now let me wiggle all my toes on my left side, right? And start noticing different body parts coming up.
Notice the temperature. What does the back of my left hand feel like? Right? Um, where are my shoulders? Are they still in my ears or have they lowered a little bit to my chin? Right? Just be in that moment and do a good body check. A third way that you can be using havening when you're in that stressful.
Is after you've done your stretches and you're shaking out and you're starting to apply, the havening is to just take a breath and just do a really long exhale to start, because that's probably what you need in those stressful moments, right? So [00:30:00] making sound is good. That's always very helpful. And, um, then kind of notice in the room.
So let's start with notice four colors in the room and say it out loud if you can. If not, say it to yourself. That's fine. Then go down to what are three shapes I see in the room. Now let me see two things that are rough. If I were to touch them, right, um, let me pick something that would feel really warm or something new that's a ta you know, that looks really, uh, brings back good memories.
So you've got this little checklist that you're going through. If you can give yourself up to 10 minutes. Wonderful. That leads me into the other thing is that the more you can haven just for haven's sake, for haven's sake, boy, that's a tagline.
Um, because what we wanna do is, [00:31:00] and what you had said is how quickly you were able to go into that and how quickly that it just took a little bit of havening while you're on the flight to get you calmed down and feel good in that mo not, you know, to feel much better on the flight. Right? So what we're doing is it's, and I wanna keep going into the scientific, it's our amygdala.
It's that flight, flight freeze fawn part of our brain. So we call her Amy, Amy's there to keep us alive and keep us safe. And Amy only knows what you, you know, what you focused on. And so if you can start your morning, Before you even get out of bed, you either pick a breathing or get a soft sound or get a favorite song you love, or you know, sing a song in Haven for five to 10 minutes, starts your day.
Then pick a time, several times during the day, set your alarm, or if it's during the start of your lunch break or whatever it is [00:32:00] you're gonna do, so that you get in at least four to five times in a day that you are havening, that you're choosing to haven. And then one of those might be like, oh my gosh, child had a meltdown.
Oh my gosh, mommy had a meltdown. That could be one of those five. That's totally good. But the more you're, you're calming yourself down. What you're doing is you're telling Amy, we're good, we're safe. All that stuff out, we're good. So that when you do need to really call upon doing the havening, the breathing.
Then you're gonna remember to do it because it becomes muscle memory. You're gonna be a much more relaxed mommy, and you're gonna be able to then sh, gift that and shine and share that with your children and with ev all the other people in your life, because we're gonna show up better. We show up better when we're calmer.
Right? And when we can start teaching these tools to our children [00:33:00] that they can be, you know, do this with, do the Havening with a favorite song, right? And that, that becomes, we gotta do that two or three times a day. You get a lot more havening in, so do they. They're now feeling safe in their world. Right.
And it's havening in that good stuff, collecting more of those smiles. Right. I think you've used it with your daughter, right? Have you? I
Mel: have, I've, I've used it with both my kids actually. So I have a six past seven year old actually, and a four-year-old. And my seven-year-old daughter, well, both of them actually when they get in a state.
So, um, my, my, the oldest especially like, can understand it a little bit more of like what we're doing. So I'll say like, you know, what can we do in that moment? And if she's really over, like in a stressful straight, she, Amy's really strong. Then she's like, I don't know, I dunno. I was like, well, remember, and I'll, I'll kind of walk her through it and I was like, you could just wash your hands.
She's like, oh [00:34:00] yeah, wash my hands. Okay. And we, all those things you described with the, like, distraction techniques and, and such like that, um, I would say just listening to what you just said, I was like, yeah, I wanna do some more just like positive havening throughout the day so that it, it's not so much like mom telling me to calm down with Havening.
Right. Um, And, uh, and I think my, my son is just getting the stage where he might be able to, um, where I was trying to get him to do it, but actually your description earlier made me think with the mirror neurons, like, actually I'm just gonna haven if he's doing that, I'm gonna keep myself calm. And then he sees that and, um, and can use that as a tool.
Um, and I think another really good one, he's just getting, yeah, I think he's just getting to the stage where maybe he might, he might, uh, he might do it a little bit more. He got, he came, he magically in the car the other day. He was just like, mama at school. I learned that when I'm feeling [00:35:00] angry or sad,
Caryl: I just
Mel: close my eyes and take a big breath.
And I'm sitting there going, I've told you that like 60 million times. But it was school, that was the setting he needed to, for it to like properly kind of, um, Process, I suppose, in his mind. And I'm like, you know how many times you have to care, right? Yeah, exactly. I was like, I know, and, and it's great that that's what they're teaching.
And now I'm like, okay, well maybe it's just a matter of like, if I haven in front of him, then he'll be like, oh, what's mama doing over there? Right. Um, so I think that was a really good, good point.
Caryl: You said earlier, well, we know how many, you know, in the research shows, you know, the number of repetitions before it really gets in there.
Right. And especially for kiddos and for, for me, for many times, I need to hear it over and over and over and over. I need to see it role played naturally over and over and over and over. And then one day I'm gonna hear it in such a way that [00:36:00] goes, oh my gosh. You know, you just made sliced bread kinda a revelation, right?
And it was like, and as parents we go, wait a minute. I've been saying that all along. So the good thing is, is that yes, thank goodness you've been planting that and, and, and showing that and being an amazing role model to your kids so that when that extra piece outside was maybe, you know, the hundred, hundred and eighth time that he heard it, it, it like all came together right.
In such an amazing way. Um, one of the great things about younger, with younger kids too, um, or if somebody just isn't able in the moment, is that we can haven our animals. We can have in a pillow or a favorite blanket. You can have a stuffed animal that you just are, are applying some of that to, because you're still getting those benefits, you're still getting it.
And anytime, um, you've got, you're are, you're. Children or anyone in the [00:37:00] environment that you have havening, is that you always wanna be havening too because they, their mirror neurons are gonna be picking that up and they're gonna be getting it themselves or getting it themselves, you know, favorite blanket or a, a toy or something like that.
Even a pillow, as long as they're kind of doing that motion of it, they're still getting those really good chemicals. What we're doing is we're, we're also, we're releasing that dopamine Yeah. And the oxytocin and stuff. So, um, love all those good chemicals. Yeah,
Mel: and I think it's a really nice reminder of as well, the fact that like when Amy, that amygdalas is really strong and we're, we're not able to switch that other one just back on.
If we've got high emotions, we're usually then, then I think as adults we. It's a strong tendency to say, like, start beating ourselves up for like, oh, I gotta think of, you know, I, I gotta turn my thinking brain on. That's not necessarily what someone would say, although I would, but it's, you know, it, it's like, [00:38:00] oh, why can't I think of this?
Why can't I figure out how to do X, Y, Z? Right. And it's because, we'll, you're freaking out about something, right? Like something is, we're strong feeling in you and it's impossible for our brain to go in the other direction until we help soothe that and calm it down a little bit. And then we're able to think, and for ourselves, and, and also with that example of kids that you just gave in the sense that like, you know, you, my tendency is I might jump into like coaching mode, which might be like, okay, what can we do about this?
Or like, oh, like, you know, and you go down that road. But if they're still in high emotion, their thinking brain can't think of that answer. They don't know, right? They don't know the answer Exactly. Unless we've trained it for a long time. Um, So it's, it's, I think it's really important and this is such a fascinating and fantastic tool to help us, our kids, anyone that we love in the world, to [00:39:00] just calm ourselves down in that way and self havening.
I'm very excited about, um, the potential of that to like change the world and, uh,
Caryl: it totally does and it allows us to, cuz as we both know, in positive psychology, that kind of the. The positive emotions that spiral upward and outward. And we see so many great things. But then as that gets narrower, narrower to a neutral and gets more negative, we start going into a downward spiral.
And we can't, when we're down here, we can't suddenly jump up even to neutral, much less of the positive. Right? So it's that allowing your whole nervous system to kind of get a, a comfy warm blanket. I mean, havening means safe place. So I mean, for the doctor, Dr. Rudin to come up with that name, um, it matches it so well in such a nice way.
And so it's really allowing Amy to kind of go, here's your security blanket. And so let's just kind of, let's just let this all [00:40:00] kind of go from that really deep wide volcano of negativity and, and, and problems. And let's just slowly start bringing up, you know, coming back up. And, and we do, especially those of us who know some of these tools, we wanna put our coaching hat on, or we wanna help them just turn it off and flip it and go to something positive and amazing and, and that kind of thing.
And we have, we didn't get there, we didn't become stressed, we didn't get to the edge of or into overwhelm in one when one step, right? It's that whole, this went wrong, now this went wrong and now this went wrong and now this went wrong and now this went wrong and this big oh wrong. I can't just suddenly go back up to the world's.
Wonderful. We have to kind of bring that in. So yeah, being able to get our nervous system to a place where it can now safely go where you are ready to go in that moment is wonderful. And if we can behave in eating when we have something that, you know, for a child or for many of us adults, when we get [00:41:00] sucked into that vortex, right?
Um, it's like the whole world is over. It's a big thing. And if we can use ha when we can use Havening at the end of it just to go, okay, oh my gosh, that's done. Nope. Let's do some distractions. Let's, let's, uh, count backwards by, you know, threes or whatever we decide to do as a distraction. Then we are also telling Amy, this wasn't something that we need you to write down in the record books to keep track of for later.
We want to, um, so by being able to, at the end of a bad day or the end of a big episode of something chaotic, give ourselves 10 minutes, you know. Give me a second, and then you go someplace quiet or you get your favorite song that's, you know, dancey and you dance and you're havening with your hands and stuff.
You're doing all that stuff, putting a smile on your face. Just the muscles in your [00:42:00] smile is allowing those same good oxytocin and dopamine chemicals coming out that then we're telling our brain, this is not a warning that I need you to put into the encoding so that, you know to look out for later. I'm good.
I'm really good. I'm all good. Ending that in a very cushy way is going to keep those stories out of our, uh, out, out of Amy's playbook that she likes to throw up at us later and say, oh, we're not enough. Or, see, that always happens, right? Yeah. So yeah, self havening is amazing. See why it lights me up. Yeah,
Mel: I can see it.
I can hear it in your voice. You always get, you always get lit up when we talk about this stuff. That's amazing. And tell me a little more about like, so I could, I think when I probably first did hear about it, I'm like, what? Like why are our hands doing this? What does the science, like, what does that have to do with anything?
Well, how does this [00:43:00] do something to my brain? How does going up and down my arm do something to my brain? Like what's actually happening in there?
Caryl: Um, what's happening is it's allowing the ampa receptors of the neurons in our brain to, um, actually open up so that we're releasing a chemical, the chemicals that allow, um, it's almost like a clean wash, right?
And so, In order. So the way our brain is functioning, and the reason why we have those, those negative stories that get stored in our brain, um, is that as, let me, let's go back to to childhood. When I learned that, um, rational thought, that magical, um, section of our brain does not turn on until the age of 13.
For some people it's a little later, but science has shown we don't have rational common sense. Okay, [00:44:00] so now put that piece of information off to the side. Now I'm a child and I'm interpreting the world as good, bad, or indifferent. Every communication, I'm, I'm having everything I'm seeing between other people because our brain doesn't know the difference between something I've experienced, something I've physically witnessed, or something I've heard.
So all the, we love, we tell people, oh, let's use flowery language and describe it. Or, you know, TVs and film have gotten to high def, X, Y, Z element, n o p by now, right? Um, everything to get your senses engaged. Well, all those things are also engaging and embedding stories and beliefs that the individual person has to decide.
Is it a good thing? Is it a neutral thing or is it a bad thing? Right? And um, so these stories, we talk about it in story language, stories get written [00:45:00] in our amygdala. Amy's the master of that book, right? And so if we have experiences as a child, maybe, um, we struggle with, um, spell. Right. And spelling's a big thing in those first several years of school.
And then if you go up and you have, you know, live spelling competitions or whatever creative way the teacher chooses to do it, um, or you have your spelling tests every week and you get back a lot of red marks for wrong, or you get kids laughing at you, right? Um, because you didn't spell it right, or you speak with a list or whatever, whatever.
Then little, little Tommy or Susie's is gonna go, I'm, I'm a terrible speller. Um, people don't like me. It could be they, you know, I'm not accepted or wanted. It could be any number of stories that we tell, right? So Amy is just like this little secretary up there going, got it, no problem. Yep, I got [00:46:00] that one too.
Sure I got this one. And collects this little notes and creates this roadmap of your beliefs. Those thoughts become over and over time, become beliefs and they're encoded. That's why when we say that everything, and again, remember before 13, there is a lot of exposure. How do adults that you look up to and respect and love, how do they talk to you?
How do they react to you when you're doing something well? Did they op? Did they praise you? We know in our positive psychology, right, that the way we praise children can lead them into a more fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. Is it something that if I have to work hard at. Which means, Ooh, I don't want them to realize I'm really not very smart, so I'm not even gonna do it because that I can't do that.
Right. Versus a growth mindset that says that I'm having praise on my, showing my strengths. I didn't give [00:47:00] up. Yes, it was hard. And look all the things that I learned from it. And because I had this skill, I've learned this skill, right? The more growth mindset way of learning and, and having exposure from all the adults in our, in my life that are important, right?
Um, so that will also, I affect how I tell Amy or how Amy's taking notes, is she kind of taking notes from a growth mindset or a fixed mindset, right? So having all of that, it becomes this wired program. And it's that wired programming. And now we have the more rational thoughts showing up to say, oh, okay, now we have this rational thought, but I can only apply that rational thought to the belief system I've already built and written in it that, you know, is quote in stone.
It's my playbook now. And so now the rational thought is going to, instead of saying, um, [00:48:00] uh, of course you know, you didn't cause mommy and daddy's divorce just because you had a bad grade that week. Which, you know, in reality, mommy always puts your report card on the, you know, the refrigerator no matter what the grades were.
And the one day you brought home a b Mommy and daddy's fighting, and two weeks later daddy's gone. So that means I caused daddy to leave. Right? That, that's the pattern. Cuz there wasn't that rational thought. Rational thought. Now Amy's gonna look for. Proving you. Right? And this is your belief system and you can't tell me it's wrong, right?
Whatever you believe you is your belief is my belief, is your belief. So that rational thought and Amy are gonna find ways to prove this, right? And so that's where we get into that, you know, self, self-fulfilling prophecy. The i, the idea that the things I'm saying then are gonna come true. Well yeah, because it's driven by those [00:49:00] beliefs, right?
And even though I really wanted this job, or I really wanted to make the team the story, that belief system and my rational thought now is gonna be my belief system is, oh, I'm always lousy, they're always making fun of me. I'm picked last and now here I am in middle school or high school thinking I can try out for the team.
Of course I'm not gonna get it. I'm sure they're not watch, I'm sure they're gonna just, I'm gonna be the last to be picked in, you know, the team breakouts. And so when that then happens, because you've now held yourself differently physically, you're not, you're not like, I got this. Let's go, let me pick me.
And, you know, know, showing that it's driving our behaviors, it's driving our action and inaction. And then our rational thought's gonna go, see, I told you, of course it's gonna be, yeah, of course I am because I'm just stupid. I, I don't have the gene. It was easy for them. It's not easy for me. Right? [00:50:00] So then it all starts working together.
Amazing. I think I now forgot the question. No,
Mel: it was alright. It was basically a very general question of like, teach us everything about neuroscience. No apologies there. The question was just around like, what's going on up in our brain? Why does doing these movements like, you know, the up and downs in the face and the hands, how does, like what is actually going on in there?
And you know, I think you got back to the, like, the gist of this is the way our stories are created. So then when we haven what's actually happening to those stories,
Caryl: um, if you're self havening, which is what you would be doing at home mm-hmm. Then you are, that's like when I said we continuously providing it during the day all the time.
Then that muscle memory is gonna keep telling Amy that we're good and safe. Right? Mm-hmm. And so that when [00:51:00] we have, uh, something happen that we can then Haven Haven and, and find all, all of our resilient tools to get us through that situation, havening also is gonna allow us, um, to prevent or reduce the chance or the likelihood of it becoming a neuro, uh, encoded trauma, which is what then the other thing that Havening that does is with a certified practitioner is that we work with those traumas from the past, that we have those meanings for that says I'm not safe, or whatever negative story that now got built around it that we have for a meaning that we can now change the meaning we have around those stories and take away the reactions, um, that our bodies are having.
And it allows us basically to show up. Instead of having those, those fears, um, from it, those of course are with, um, a certified practitioner. [00:52:00] Yeah. Yeah.
Mel: And what does a certified practitioner do differently than self havening?
Caryl: A certified practitioner is gonna guide you, um, through a specific, you know, what, whatever it is that you're working on, that the fear, if it's an incident from the past, um, they're, they're working on that or something that you're working towards.
So like for you, when you were first talking with me, it was like, um, man, I'm, you know, I'm stuck. I've had this, you know, I really wish I could be playing soccer again. And, and, and as that was all unfolding, figuring out what's blocking you or what, what's the story that you're telling and, and where's the event?
And being able to really gently go in there and, um, Through the haven, be able to open up and have this ability to change how that story is interpreted for you, the meanings around it to desensitize and [00:53:00] re-traumatize that event. And then the other part of that with the PR practitioners building in those resilience tools and like you had mentioned before, um, it's not about, oh, here's my book of affirmations.
I can just start saying I am and give the whole long list. Well, the problem with that, and the reason why it doesn't work for so many people is if that affirmation is in direct conflict with what Amy has in her little book that she was making, whatever her updated version, you know, 823 version of what your beliefs are in that moment.
If they're in conflict, it's, it's not gonna happen. Yeah, it's just not gonna happen. So with the practitioners also, as part of those, we have protocols and steps that kind of guide you through shifting that and being able to, to make that connection so that Amy then starts believing those. Yeah. And
Mel: choosing, I remember, you know, going through that [00:54:00] process with you and getting to this point where I one realized that the, the trauma quote unquote, of this injury was about a lot more than that one second or whatever it was that that happened.
Right. It was a, all sorts of other beliefs that I had in there around, um, myself and my capabilities and worthiness and everything else that comes with it. Um, and what was the second part of that?
No, I've lost it there, but, but your point. Oh, and we also, you also got me to this point then when I was able to realize that and then, It's like, okay, this is the belief. You did this amazing thing with, like this, you say the word that it is, that's already like the belief that Amy has in her book there.
And then you're replacing it with someone that, which maybe isn't indirect conflict, but it's like, this is what I wanna actually believe. So that might be around my, um, uh, let me think of what it was. So, so [00:55:00] mine being, my story I was telling myself is that I, I didn't handle it very well those next two years after that injury.
And it, you know, I wasn't good enough in so many ways. And the, the thing that you replaced that with was, Was those words that I now say when I run, essentially, which was like, okay, what do you wanna, I wanna believe that I'm brave and that actually because that was so hard and I made it to the end, I am brave and I can believe that.
Yeah, okay, let's do that. Right? Instead of like something like you said, that direct conflict to what she is, it's more just like, okay, yeah, actually I am brave and I trust that if I ever injured myself again, which we can't make any promises that's ever not gonna happen, but that I can handle it. Right?
That's the point of what, what we got
Caryl: to. Um, yeah. And that's what the certified practitioner is gonna know all the protocols. So there's a lot more than started here and got here. Exactly. Um, which is beautiful. And, and the [00:56:00] nice thing about, and the biggest difference with self havening versus working with a practitioner is you don't need to know all those.
Steps, right? Yeah. You're, you're just going, you're going through that and being able to, to live and notice those shifts and changes. And whereas in self havening being able to, um, you're not handling those big, those big things that are hijacking you in life. It's more, it's more of a maintenance and it's a preventative, right?
It's, uh, let me keep, let me build up my resilience talking. That's, that's like the term of the day, right? How you building your resilience is to, I'm letting, it's my, it's my dose of good mental health. I'm, I'm havening several times a day and I'm havening a lot of it with my favorite dance jam, right? Or my favorite whatever.
I'm doing it with my children and we're smiling and [00:57:00] giggling, um, and I'm doing it when I start to feel a, a little bit of stress and I'm doing it the end of the day to kind of wash. You know, just think of the things that were a little bit negative, um, or stressful. And then just do the havening and notice your breathing.
Notice your body. Bring yourself into, into the now place some. We have, you know, a long list of different distractions we call them that you can do to then just kind of just, you're just taking care of Amy in the moment and you're giving her lots of love, um, throughout the day so that she continues to know that in general, the world is safe and it's fun.
It's like not only safe, that's a neutral, if we think about that, right? We talk about that a lot. It's like in traditional therapies, they, there's a trauma, there's an event that's hijacked your life. And typically in the, in the field of therapy, they bring you to. What we wanna do is, is yeah, we can take [00:58:00] care of some of that negative stuff and we cannot, we can then notice and build so that we're thriving forward.
Right. We're not just waiting for neutral and we have all these Exactly. We can use Havening to build that resilience so that when we get those bumps in the road, which that's life, right, that we can flow, we can ride them and keep going and not have more of those encodings that we're trying to still fix.
Yeah.
Mel: Yeah. And I, what came up while you were speaking about that for me is that, you know, self-care is something that, especially in the mom world, we're taught, like, you know, everybody's like, how are you taking care of yourself today? And you know, like the things that often come up is like, oh, I haven't been to the spa in about three years.
And we think of that as our self-care and of, of course, that's definitely one method. I highly recommend that I'm a big fan of this ball. However, however, right, what you just said, um, of these examples of the [00:59:00] time, start the day that we can do this, there's no excuse that we don't have time. There might be an excuse around, like, changing habits is hard.
So we have to build that in and work out how to, how to have those and create those habits. But we, we can do it. We don't have to take a whole weekend away to self-care. Self-care is about building those resilience skills, as you say. And like we can just fit that into even if it, even if we can only do a minute or like three minutes for a song or whatever, but we do that throughout the day.
Then, We can all fit that in. We really can. It's just a matter of choosing. And, um, yeah, and well, we get a whole, we can do a whole nother episode on, uh, habit change. But, but exactly. That being my point is that self-care can be, this can be a perfect form of it.
Caryl: It, it, it totally is. And it's definitely been my primary go-to for self-care.
And I, it's, it's, um, I was a single mom, [01:00:00] raised two, two amazing young men. And, um, it was like, I remember those times of feeling like I never have enough time. And, um, And now that I'm doing this more consciously and choosing and having these amazing tools is that for me it's, it's my bathroom retained so every time and I'm trying to up my water, so that helps.
So every time I'm going to the bathroom, I, people are like, why don't you take a long time in the bathroom? Yeah. Because I'm gonna go a whole five minutes or three minutes and I'm havening. Cuz if I'm sitting there right, or if I'm in the shower. The shower, if you actually allow yourself to, to notice and just be there and feel that I, I havening in the shower, it is the best and I can just hum a song or what, even if I'm only putting a smile on my face and saying what brings me a.
And just thinking of things and havening and having that environment, right? So someplace that you are [01:01:00] constantly allowing yourself and growing that self-care so that you can show up and be your best all the time. And what a role model that is. Right? So not like hiding it mm-hmm. But showing it so that your children are, are picking that up and they're gonna want it and they're gonna enjoy the mom that we get to be when we are at our best or watching us bounce back from when we're not at our best.
And they get to see that. Those are powerful lessons too. Yeah. Usually. Yeah.
Mel: That's amazing Carol. So as we come to a close here, um, I wanted one final question is, so if you had one thing that you want people to take away from this conversation that we just had here, what would that be
Caryl: for you? It would be that you deserve this type of self-care.
And to do it throughout your day all day and celebrate whatever it is that you're [01:02:00] doing. And allow yourself the gift of building your resilience and then pulling out the havening when you need it. Also for that reducing stress as it pops up and gift it to the kids. I mean like, this is something you wanna enjoy and make sure that you're sharing it freely.
Let that ripple effect happen.
Mel: That was so amazing.
Caryl: Thank you so much, Carol. Thank you.
Wasn't that so amazing to listen to Carol. Talk about this incredible tool called havening you can contact and connect further with Carol on her LinkedIn profile at Carol dash performance specialist. That's on LinkedIn and please do. Carol is such an amazing and friendly person, as I'm sure you can tell from this interview.
And Havening is such a powerful tool that you is literally in your hands and you can [01:03:00] go and do right now. And go even deeper with a practitioner such as Carol. I know it's being a big part of my life's ever since meeting her. So. Thanks for joining us. This has been. Permission to be human the podcast. And please, if you do anything from here on as well as havening with your hands.
Then, like the podcast, share the podcast with one or two friends who you think might benefit from. The podcast as a whole, but also from this tool of havening that Carol has been speaking about. All right. Speak to you soon.
