What Friendliness Leaves You With

This is the transcript from The Felt Sense Podcast, Ep. 4

Hey there! MacPherson here, from It Begins To Move. This is the last episode in a series of 4 about Befriending Yourself. Today I’ll continue talking about friendliness, and the very important role it serves in healing, feeling calm and regulated.

In the 1st episode on friendly regard, I discussed how the word friend is in part, based on the word regard, which means “to take notice of.”  So, a true friend actively takes notice of your needs, wants and preferences, to learn about the unique things that make you, you, because…you’re probably different than they are in some way. 

In the 2nd episode, I discussed how important it is for people with different needs and perspectives to make enough space for each other’s differing needs, with curiosity, respect and engagement, and without dominating or acquiescing. 

And in the previous episode, I talked about how when you’re struggling, or experiencing emotional pain, friendly empathy can be the most helpful thing for that tough time.

In this episode I’ll talk about why that is, and what modern neuroscience has demonstrated occurs in your brain and body, when you receive friendly regard, validation, affirmation AND enough room for you and your experience, just as they are unfolding in the moment.

According to modern psychology in the second half of last century, there’s a process by which humans learn how to feel safe, resilient, self-confident and self-determined.  And just to be very clear, self-confidence is the feeling of “I trust myself to be able to figure it out,” and self-determination is the feeling of “I know that I have the power to make choices about what happens to me,” and resilience is the feeling of “even if it’s hard and doesn’t work out, I’m going to be okay.” These qualities are actually all relational, and therefore the process of learning them is also relational.  What I mean by relational is that, the feelings of safety, self-confidence, self-determination and resilience are all feelings that you have IN RELATION to other people.

According to Attachment Theory, the foundation for these feelings is laid by the time you’re very, very young.  By 2-4 years old. The theory is quite complex, but in short, it says that if you were raised by at least one regulated person who was able to predictably meet both your physical and emotional needs, predictably feed and change you, predictably soothe and comfort you, consistently be around you, then it’s likely that you developed the feelings of safety, self confidence, self-determination and resilience. However, if your care in early childhood was not consistent (and there’s a few different ways that this could have looked), then your ability to develop this great and steady sense of self and self-worth was likely compromised. As a result you might have a propensity for anxiety and fear, depression and sadness, low self-esteem, self-sabotage, relationship struggles, or perhaps more serious and debilitating states of being.

So attachment theory has been well studied, and in the majority of the last century, the studies have been behavioral.  Meaning, there’s great, solid evidence of this theory and process, that’s used the scientific method, through observation of how people behave and interact.  HOWEVER, at the very end of the 20th century, brain imaging technology developed and began to be utilized in the fields studying how brain, body and behavior interact with and influence each other. 

So, essentially Attachment Theory and the attachment process generally states that if there’s at least one regulated, self-determined adult, who consistently and predictably meets the needs of a young child, that child will likely grow up feeling safe, secure, self-confident, self-determined and resilient to adversity.

Attachment Theory ultimately asserts the importance of attunement.

Behavioral neuroscientist Dan Siegel - who’s written some incredible books by the way, like Mindsight and The Whole Brain Child - defines attunement as, “our ability to alter our own internal state to reflect the internal state of another person.” So attunement, friendliness and empathy really go hand in hand together.

Dan Siegel says that attunement is at the heart of “feeling felt,” which, by the way, is I think one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard.  Attunement is the process by which someone can really see - even feel - another person’s experience, and then empathy and friendliness are the behaviors that result from being able to really get where someone else is coming from.

If you’d like, take a moment to recall a time when someone else REALLY got you.  When you really felt like they were taking the time to understand your experience, from your perspective and without trying to convince you that you should feel any other way.  I mean, pause this podcast if you’d like, and take a moment to recall that time and notice how your body responds to recalling that interaction.

But here’s the deal - neuroscience has demonstrated that there’s something that happens when your pain, your struggle, is really attuned to by another person.  Your brain and your body chemistry look a certain way when you’re under stress, which is basically the scientific term that encompasses any and all kinds of struggle, emotional pain or state of overwhelm.  But when that same brain and body that’s under stress, receives attuned and friendly empathy, it changes.  It becomes, in quantitative scientific measures, less stressed. 

This is what Dan Siegel calls interpersonal neurobiology: the way we interact with others has the power to change their brain and body. 

Moreover, the groundbreaking work of another behavioral neuroscientist Stephen Porges says a very similar thing.  In the Polyvagal Theory - which like attachment theory is quite complex, but to state it very simply here - Porges says that when someone else feels safe, their neurobiology changes, and THEN their behavior changes.  I’ve heard Stephen Porges say: “Behavior follows physiology.” If someone feeling emotional pain is able to feel attuned to, and affirmed with friendly empathy, their brain and body response change, and then they’re able to feel and act with less emotional pain! 

Of course the big name in the neuroscience of trauma is Bessel van der Kolk, and his book The Body Keeps the Score does an incredible job of describing the specific neuroscientific research his lab has done, that backs up all these other researchers and attachment theory. 

Most of the neuroscientists I’ve mentioned have been men, but there’s a woman neuroscientist who’s research adds another layer of confirmation to attachment theory and the importance of attunement.  Lisa Feldman Barrett, who I first heard about through another trauma coach Dierdre Faye, has written a mind blowing book How Emotions Are Made. Barrett’s research proves that certain emotions are not protocol responses to certain kinds of stimuli.  Instead, Lisa Feldman Barrett demonstrates that though all emotions are universal - we all know what fear feels like, what anger feels like, etc - the things that make one particular emotion well up inside of us instead of another, is truly unique, and based on our past experiences.  So as an example, one person might feel anger in response to an injustice, while another person might feel fear. 

Barrett’s research is incredible in and of itself, but it also further highlights the importance of attunement, empathy and friendliness - that it’s not appropriate to assume the way you would respond to something is the only way anyone would.  But instead, it’s so critical to pay attention, to befriend and get to know what someone else’s experience ACTUALLY IS, instead of assuming you know what someone else must be going through.  It’s okay to be wrong.  Attunement, attachment building, empathy and friendliness allow for mistakes.  The only way to “get it wrong,” so to speak, is to assume, to dominate, to not make room, to invalidate, and so on. 

Great, deep and meaningful relationships require this kind of relating FROM us. AND we also deserve this kind of treatment from OTHERS.  AND, we also deserve this kind of relating to our own selves.  To our tender, full, gritty, wonderful and strong hearts. 

Perhaps, if it feels okay to, take a moment to notice what body sensations come in your own body, when I suggest that you deserve to have all parts of you, all of your emotions and experiences attuned to by your own self or another regulated person. Or, what comes in response to the idea that your brain and body might be able to find greater bearableness or greater comfort in response to a genuine attunement and friendly empathy, from your own whole person or another regulated person. Again, it’s ok to pause this podcast and take a moment to gently and fully welcome what’s there about this.

Ok, so this concludes the series of 4 episodes on befriending yourself, but this podcast will continue to talk about attachment, attunement, interpersonal neurobiology, the polyvagal theory among other topics related to embodied healing and relating.  Feel free to suggest any topics you’d like me to address, in a podcast review!

Take care, kind soul.