In this episode, I'm going to be talking about a number of different things amongst them are a little bit more about co regulation to build on last week, regret, trust and vulnerability repairing relationships. There's a whole bunch of stuff that I'm trying to address in this episode and it all starts off with a reading a question that I got from one of my community members. But before we get to that, hi, I am Justin Sunseri.
I'm a therapist, a coach, and the creator of the Polyvagal Trauma Relief System. Welcome to Stuck Not Broken, where I teach you how to live with more calm, confidence, and connection without the psychobabble or the woo woo. This podcast is not therapy, of course, and it's not intended to be a replacement for therapy. And I actually have a huge Announcement for you at the end of the episode. So stick around for that.
But the question I got here was from someone within my Stucknaut Collective community, my private community. This person writes, I have hurt people who I'm close to with my defensiveness in my unregulated state, which makes it hard for them to co regulate with me. Distancing further from them and seeking out those who can be a hundred percent for me without having any needs of their own seems like a risky path.
So every week I have an episode here on the podcast, but in my community, every day we journal or brainstorm or discuss the episode or the week's theme. And so last week the theme was co regulation. And, well, self regulation as well, I think with my community, I made it more about self regulation leading to co regulation. And this person had responded to that.
They're basically, if I can sum it up, they've hurt somebody or people from their dysregulated traumatized state, which makes it hard for that other person to co regulate with them. And yeah, that makes sense, right? So, they're saying distancing further from them and finding other people who are more trustworthy seems difficult or risky and yes, of course it is.
By the way, you might hear, I have a couple, or my children and their uncle are playing Mario Kart, so you might hear them hollering in the background. So this brings to mind a number of things for me, I'm going to try and handle these one by one. And the first one is, yeah, what if you have actually hurt people in your life, expecting those people to co regulate with you.
And if you don't know what co regulation is, listen to the previous episode of this podcast, and you'll get a nice deep dive into what co regulation is. But the basic idea is it's not just supporting each other, it's, and listening to each other. Co regulation is this neurobiological communication happening between two mammals. That's the nerdy way to put it, but basically we send signals to each other that help each other feel better. We'll put it that way.
So if you've hurt people, if you've wronged someone in your life, yeah, then they're probably not going to be able to send you cues of safety. They're not going to be able to send you warm and fuzzies. That's not going to happen, and it's not realistic to expect that, right? When it comes to co regulation, it's basically the giving and receiving of safety cues, or at least giving of safety cues.
And other person who's in more of a defensive state, or mammal, in a more of a defensive state, they receive them, and it helps them to get into their own safety state ideally. But it doesn't always go that easy, easily. And one thing that might happen in co regulation where you, maybe you're hanging out with someone and this is the example I used in the last episode, you're hanging out with somebody chit chatting and they stop and look at their phone.
So that's called a rupture, and it's really easy to repair. There's another thing that can happen called misattunement. Misattunement is when you, you and the other person that you're communicating with maybe, are in different states, so you might be in a flight fight sympathetic state and the other person is in a dorsal vagal shutdown state. You are in different states, so you might be misattuned. The person in flight fight is going to have a lot more energy in their system.
The person in shutdown is going to lack energy. We call that misattunement. Let's take it back to ruptures. To repair ruptures, it's pretty simple. You might just give an apology, say my bad. You can smile, give eye crinkles and get back on track and listen to that person. And you know, that that's usually enough. It's not, it's not that complex. But basically acknowledge the hurts, empathize, listen, and provide them some space if needed.
If you really hurt that person and they need space, then that's fine. That might be part of repairing a rupture is giving them a little bit of time on their own if it's something more serious. For misattunement where you're in different States, they might need more space for a longer period of time. And that's okay. Especially someone who's in shutdown. Maybe not especially, but someone who's in shutdown, they do well when they're alone. They kind of need quiet and lower stimulation.
Someone in flight fight, they also need a lot of space potentially. So giving that person space to help repair misattunement might be helpful. The other thing you can do to help out with misattunement is self regulate. Access your own safety state. So that when you do interact with that other person, you're going to offer them safety cues and really start the process of co regulation.
If that happens, then the other person is more likely to be able to access their safety state from your safety cues. Let's backtrack to the question that I got. It, it's probably unrealistic or it's not realistic to expect co regulation from somebody that you have flat out hurt or flat out wronged. That person is not going to be able to provide you with adequate co regulation, probably. They're probably in rightfully in a defensive state.
They might have not just like they're feeling upset, but like they're in more of a flight fight state based on your actions. So the onus is really on you to repair that relationship, to repair that rupture, to self regulate, offer them co regulation, and hopefully repair the misattunement. It's up to you to begin that process. It's really not up to them to do so for you.
Although, yeah, they might, they might be in a position to where they can self regulate through it, and You know, offer to reconnect with you, dear listener. That might happen, and you actually might be in that position where somebody wronged you in some way. They hurt you validly, or that's valid, that you feel that way. I mean, and it's normal. You feel that way. So they, they may have hurt you and they're not gonna be the one to start the process of healing or, or repairing the relationship.
And that might fall on you. And maybe you're not ready for that, that's fine, but maybe you are ready for that. That is pretty darn common in my time as a therapist working with my clients. A lot of times the people in their life need therapy a lot more than they do, but they're not getting it. And so the person in therapy is actually the one who's in a better position to begin to self regulate and to begin to heal that relationship.
It doesn't mean that the person's open to it, but the one who was wronged or hurt. might be the one to start the process of repairing the relationship, sadly. And, like I said, that might be true for you, that might be part of your journey of healing, but that's totally up to you and what you want to do with that. Ideally, though, I believe that the one who has hurt another is the one to initiate some sort of repair.
So then if that person that you have harmed or hurt in some way, if they can't provide you co regulation, if they can't self regulate and offer connection to you, do you abandon them and do you try to find it somewhere else? And, you know, it depends and I think the answer is maybe. Or maybe not, but, you know, maybe, maybe you have created that much of a rupture and that much of a lasting misattunement. Maybe it is irreparable.
And I think that is pretty common with severe childhood abuse, neglect situations of kidnapping, torture, all those extreme sort of examples. If you have CPTSD, your parent, your caregiver who was supposed to do good enough for you, Uh, they didn't. So there may be something that's irreparable there for you. Something that you cannot uh, offer to repair. And I don't think it's up to you. So, do you move on from somebody that is not able to provide you co regulation?
Well, if you've done something that heinous, then yeah. And they're not willing to repair it with you, then maybe you do move on. And find connection and trust and co regulation somewhere else. Maybe. But, also, maybe not. Maybe you do apologize. Maybe you do make amends. Maybe you do try to make it better. But I don't think it has to be a process that goes on forever. I think you can definitely make your attempts.
Especially after you've self regulated, you can make your attempts to try to repair the relationship. But if that person is not willing to accept it, that is their choice. You can't force it upon someone. I don't, I don't think. So, offer up your attempts, and if they're batted away repeatedly, then you've gotten your answer. The other thing that might happen is that you're, if you're offering to make things better, the other person could potentially take advantage of that.
So if they're asking you to do something that is sacrificing of your values, of your morals, of your dignity I think it's okay to say no to that. But you know, basically, you do the best you can. And if it's a no, it's a no. Eventually, after repeated no's, it's out of your hands, and you need to eventually, I think, take solace in the fact that you tried, even though you may have lost the relationship.
If you can honestly say that you have done the best you can to work on yourself, and offer to work on the relationship, there's, there's something to that. So yeah, maybe, maybe you try to fix it. Maybe you don't try to fix it. If it's something that's irreparable, maybe you try and do something better to make it fix it, but you have a boundary you won't cross. Like you won't, you know, cross your own or violate your own morals, your values, your dignity. I think it's fine too.
When it comes to these relationships that maybe you violated and hurt and left a lasting impact on, if you have regret, if you have guilt, that's a good thing. Those feelings, those emotions are there for a reason. They're telling you that you harmed somebody, that you did something wrong. And that's a healthy response to things when we, that we do wrong. It shows you have empathy. It shows that you care.
If you were to harm somebody and not feel guilty, not feel regret, that's more of a red flag for me. So listen to that. Use that regret. Use that guilt as motivation to reach out, to apologize, to try and make a repair in the relationship. So all of that I think addresses the first part of The question that was submitted to the community. I've hurt people who I'm close to with my defensiveness in my unregulated state, which makes it hard for them to co regulate with me.
And it will be until the relationship is repaired. So that's what it could look like. And I think that guilt and regret are indications that we, or whoever's feeling those feelings, need to do something to repair the relationship. Of course, Guilt can also be kind of imposed upon you by another. So even though it feels like guilt, it's not really because you did something wrong. It's just more like an unhealthy kind of guilt that's lingering in your system.
That, you know, that's something you'll have to take stock of, basically. So this brings us to the second part of the question, which is about seeking out others who might have Or it might be a hundred percent on our side. Now, I don't know if that's a thing. I don't know if anyone has ever a hundred percent on our side. I think that what they're trying to say is that they're looking for people. Should I go look for people that I can trust completely? Trust is earned.
It's not something you're going to find right away. It, it develops, it builds over time. So saying, I'm going to go find someone I can trust or who's a hundred percent of my side. That is not going to be a short journey. I don't think. Co regulation can lead to trust. So those little moments that we share with each other of safety that can over time lead to an experience, an emotion of trust. Co regulation is the sharing of safety cues with each other or from one to the other, at least.
This leads to healthier relationships and that will include trust. Co regulation by itself doesn't require that you trust the person. I think that people view it or think of it as the the moment of, like, discussion and supporting somebody else emotionally. That's what it can kind of look like, but Co regulation is really like these micro moments of exchanging safety with each other.
So, a smile, you know, giving somebody a genuine smile, eye crinkles, using your eyebrows, these are all indications that I'm in a safety state and I can offer you safety. It doesn't require that you trust me, it requires that you pick up on my safety cues. So, co regulation happens in micro moments of unconscious communication. Repeated co regulation, I think, can help build trust. I think actions are a big part of that as well.
But repeated co regulation can help lead to trust, can help lead to connection, healthy attachments. If you're thinking about sharing with somebody else and being vulnerable and opening up, yeah, that requires trust. Opening up to somebody else requires trust built on co regulation. But I don't know if anyone's going to ever be 100 percent for you or for somebody else. And I don't think we should expect that either. I think that other people will always have their own needs, their own agendas.
I don't think we should be expecting somebody to be completely for us. And honestly, the people that are, Truly, I think supportive and quote unquote on our side, on our side. I think that that support can also be challenging. It can be them expecting us to do better. It doesn't mean that they're going to hold our hand while we self destruct. It might mean that they back off and, and, and say, I can't be a part of this anymore. It could also be them saying.
You know, pushing us to do better with our life, to make better choices, to challenge ourself to grow in some way. I think people who are supportive and loving can do those things. I don't think that trust looks like agreement with whatever it is you want to do with your life necessarily. Actually I know, I know it doesn't because I have my, my kid, I'm completely on my kid side. my children's side, but that doesn't mean that I support all their choices.
If they choose to not do well in school, that is not acceptable. I love them so much that I will not allow that to happen. They, they must do better in school. Failure is not an option. If I was spoiling my kids and wanted to be their friend, then yeah, I'd probably let it slide, but that is not the standard we have in our household. So, you know, does anyone ever have 100 percent on their side? I don't think it looks like the way one might think it looks like.
So let's go back to the question hurt people. They can't provide co regulation. Should I seek somebody else out and try to find trust and co regulation? And, you know, maybe, but Cause, you know, co regulation is very needed. We need that. We need each other, but the place you start might be with self regulation. You might work on yourself first without trying to get co regulation from somebody else.
I'm kind of worried about that idea of I burned these relationships and now they can't co regulate with me. Let me go find new relationships that are of people that are completely for me and on my side. And I don't know if that's what that person meant when they wrote it, but that's how I'm, that's where I'm going with this. That idea concerns me. We can't just jump around from relationship to relationship without working on ourselves first.
We can't bring the best version of us to a new relationship unless we have developed it, unless we've worked on it. So even though, yeah, we all need co regulation, you might not have it in your life and that it is what it is. So, you do the best you can to start off with self regulation. In the episode I did on co regulation, I had some ideas on what you can do if you don't have co regulation in your life but basically just keep it really simple.
Connect with people that have shared interests if you can uh, connect with people in your life or develop relationships in your life where there's a little something, put a little more time to it maybe. You might be able to accept professional co regulation from a therapist or a community that you're in. In my online community, we don't have co regulation because it's all digital. We don't quite see each other.
I mean, we do have the meetups, but when we communicate in the, in the forum, it's text on screen. So it's not co regulation, but. This week we had called, I was talking with one person and we called it virtual connection, I think it is, but basically it's not true co regulation, but it is a sense of connection. So maybe you can't get co regulation, but can you get a sense of connection from somewhere that might be better than nothing.
But what it comes down to is eventually self regulation might be where you need to go, and that might be the first step as well, honestly. So if you can self regulate and access more of your polyvagal safety state, it's going to help out a lot.
That's going to help you to make amends for the past, to take ownership over what you've done, reach out to someone, offer apologies, try and make things better with, while holding strong boundaries and never sacrificing your, your values and your dignity. You'll be able to empathize with that person. You'll be able to act from compassion. Eventually, as you build self regulation, these things become options. Self regulation is not easy to do. It does. It's a, it's a long process.
It doesn't happen overnight. One thing you can do is to start to build a, an environment within your home that feels safer than not. This is actually the first thing I recommend in my building safety anchors course. And I walk you through how to do that with a whole bunch of environmental pieces. But if you can build an environment that feels safer than not, that sets you up with passive safety cues, passive safety cues, just provide this steady stream. It's a foundation you can build off of.
And then once you have the foundation, then you can use more active self regulation techniques. Building safety anchors is actually part of my total access membership. I'll have a link for you in the description if you wanna learn more about that, but basically it's total access to my private community and my trauma recovery courses. All three of 'em for one low subscription price. Again, check the link in the description, I'll have that, you can learn more about it.
I'm really worried about the idea of seeking out co regulation from dysregulated, from a dysregulated place. I'm worried about seeking out co regulation from desperation. If you're desperate for connection, which you might be fully entitled to be, there's no judgment here. But if you're desperate for connection and you're looking for somebody else. To make it better, to make you feel better, to fix your problems, that is probably not going to end up anywhere healthy.
That might end up leading to more hurt for somebody else when they don't live up to what you want. But it also could lead you to yourself being hurt when someone exploits your desperation. So that really concerns me, and again, I don't know if that's what this person was intending, but that's where my mind goes with it. So, for now, build safety in your home as much as you can.
Find safe and predictable avenues of connection with others, and if that's just through community, that's something, but if it's through simple exchanges with family, friends, acquaintances, co workers, a therapist, that's fine too, like, as you notice those opportunities for co regulation, really mindfully experience them or think back on it later on in the day and try to experience them all over again.
So like I said at the beginning, this is kind of all replaced, my mind went different places with this question, which I think all connect and relate, but yeah, it's kind of smattering. I did say I have a huge announcement and that huge announcement is that I created A free resource for you it is called StucknautBot. It's an artificial intelligence that is trained on my brain. Basically, all the information from this podcast, all the information from my blog has been transcribed.
For this ai, it was a tremendous amount of work, but basically I transcribed everything and then I refined that knowledge, and I'm still in that process actually, but I, I formatted the knowledge to be formatted for an ai, and then I told that AI how it should behave with you.
So when you chat with it, you can ask it whatever you want, as long as it's something I cover here, it'll be able to talk with you and share more information, teach you about the political theory or whatever else you want to know about, at least as long as it's stuff that I cover and it'll connect you to helpful resources as well. I have launched it to my email list. I've had about 80 people try it out and gotten some really good feedback on it so far. People seem to be liking it.
So as of right now, it is at a point where you can play around with it and hopefully have a good experience, but it's not quite done. I'm still refining the knowledge. That's a process that's going to go on for a while. And basically every time I add a new episode like this one, I will update the AI with brand new knowledge as well. So it's basically it's knowledge base will always grow as long as I'm putting out new information.
So, if you want to give StucknautBot a try, I'll have a link in the description. Sign up for my email list and you'll get access to it right away. But so far it's really cool and it's only going to get better. Can't wait for you to try it out. Fellow Stucknaut I really hope this episode has been helpful for you in, you know, thinking about repairing your relationships or building them or what you can do different in the future.
Bye. This podcast is not therapy, not intended to be therapy or be a replacement for therapy. Nothing in this creates or indicates a therapeutic relationship. Please consult with your therapist or seek for one in your area if you are experiencing mental health symptoms. Nothing in this podcast should be construed to be specific life advice. It is for educational and entertainment purposes only. More resources are available in the description of this episode and in the footer of justinlmft. com.