Welcome to Sensitive with an Edge for highly sensitive people who embrace their intensity,
uniqueness, and value in this world. Join us on the exploration of relationships, complex trauma recovery, non -conventional mindsets, neurodiversity,
and themes that involve healing, growth, and empowerment. I'm Chris Lyon, and welcome back to Sensitive With an Edge,
the podcast that is a multicolored twisty fidget for your nervous system. We continue with part two of our enlightening conversation with our guest, Becky Helwig, who has 12 years of experience and runs a multifaceted practice that is a safe space.
She has specialties in trauma, addiction, and sex therapy. So listen in, and you'll hear supportive insights from her that may make a significant difference in your life and healing process.
She's even helped people recover from BPD. So check it out. Now, do you share about nervous system regulation with clients?
Yes, I absolutely do. And when we look at, like, theory type things, there's this amazing, incredible thing called polyvagel theory, which looks at our fight or flight freeze system and how we regulate.
So it's really cool. They actually have some polyvigal cards that you can get, like, off of Amazon. They give you, like, little digestible bits of information, like, each day and help you look for the good things in day -to -day.
And then also help us recognize how maybe we are in fight or flight. And that nervous system regulation is designed to keep us alive.
Right. It was, you know, it's hardwired. We don't get a choice. We don't get a choice in how our brain is reacting to this. We get a choice with how we deal with it. Right. So what we're trying to do is,
I guess, get more skilled at being able to go from the fight or flight mode there, fight, flight or freeze, be able to go from there when we're not in danger to shift down into rest,
digest, and recover type of space. And the better we get being able to shift, the more regulated we are as far as our nervous system. Yeah. I think it's really important. I'm going to be using nervous system regulation every day for the rest of my life.
It really can help a lot. But besides that, what are some day -to -day things that someone with complex trauma can do to help with their recovery? We've talked about things they can do with working with a professional and some nervous system regulation.
What are some things that you can recommend that they would do during their day when things happen or when things aren't happening, when they start their day, when they end their day? And you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, tune in to your body.
Our body is the biggest Thank you. How can I ground if I'm feeling,
like, dissociated? Ah, ground. Yeah, grounding is great. And you can find so many amazing videos on, like, YouTube, on grounding,
on body scans to check in with ourselves, guided meditations, things like that to help us re -regulate and come back to the present moment.
Mindfulness is really important for that. Huge, huge. I tell people don't don't worry about. Great.
It's really about being in the present moment right here right now and being tuned into what's going on for us now. I agree. But let me ask you about a couple of issues with that that I've seen come up,
right? Number one, the people who have a hard time, the hypervigilant ones, right, that we talked about earlier, they have a hard time with feeling comfortable or safe enough to be in that moment.
sometimes it doesn't feel very safe or intrusive thoughts can come flooding in at those times when we're not protecting ourselves from them. So what are your thoughts on that? That absolutely happens.
So find a safe space. The world doesn't feel safe. Find a space that is safe. It might be your bedroom. It might be a closet. It doesn't have to be everywhere. It's just a space where you can go where you can feel safe and protected.
A lot of times if you have that really high hypervigilance, it's a place where you can lock a door or sit against a wall, sit in a corner. Sitting on the ground is great because it feels more grounding.
You're connected to the ground. And having things against your back can also feel safer because nothing can come up behind you that way. A lot of people do that instinctively. But it is truly helpful when you're trying to feel safe and grounded.
Ah, makes sense. Totally makes sense. Okay. And you did mention to tune into your body. Strong points on that one. What about those because of some of their trauma who have body issues and just don't tend to pay attention to their body as much?
What do you, what do you suggest then? So a lot of times people don't like to pay attention to their body when they have CPDSC because it doesn't feel good. Our bodies are tense. They hurt.
We might have digestive issues. It might be triggering to feel in your body. So starting small, if it's triggering to feel in your body,
work on identifying a part of your body that feels safe or not triggering. It might be your pinky finger. If your pinky finger feels okay, it doesn't have to be big. Wow. We start as small as you need and work up.
It also can be really helpful if you're feeling so raw and vulnerable to talk to somebody who can kind of help you get some of that intense fear down and help regulate.
Massage is a great way. If you can find a trauma -informed masseuse, can't emphasize that enough. You want somebody who's trauma -informed. Yes. And they're out there and they are worth their weight in gold.
they can help with connection. You can find trial -informed yoga classes where they should ask for consent before they touch you at all to make an adjustment or where they don't touch your body at all.
I hate when yoga instructors come up behind me and like trying to adjust your hips. And I'm like, don't touch me. I freaks me. No. So I always go to those classes. And sometimes before I'll even say the instructor,
hey, it just really wigs me out when people come up from behind and touch me, can you please, like, approach me from the front and let me know if you're going to and they're always great. There we go, of course. No problem. That's great.
Love that. Yeah. And I think it's probably pretty normal that people say that to them. I'm thinking, yeah. Yeah. It's just our shame gets in the way of being able to do it. Yeah. Good point.
Good point. So, yeah, the bodywork, having someone help you with that, with the massage or the yoga, even if you want to start with someone who knows reflexology in starting with the feet and hands,
maybe? Those are good safe places. Some have hopefully a lot of times for people, not always, but whatever feels safe. Right, right, for sure. Okay, that was super helpful.
Now, how can someone who gets, I love talking about this, and I'm sure you do, we talk a lot about nervous system regulation, but then there's emotional regulation,
right? It's coming up more in mental health care, which is fantastic. navigate them in a way that doesn't end badly for us and being able to bring ourselves back if we have to.
There's not always a time and a place for the feeling. As much as I hate to say that, sometimes we're in the middle of a meeting at work and we can't be sitting there feeling sad about a fight we had with a partner. We have to be tuned in.
Maybe we have to run the meeting. So it's being able to put that aside for the time being and then address it when you can. and being able to navigate your feelings without making it worse.
Do you find that a lot of people don't understand their feelings and it's hard for them to express it? That probably is what you get a lot of. Yes. It's we are not taught how to identify.
First of all, how to identify our feelings. We are not taught how to know what we're feeling. Right. There's an entire module in DBT dedicated to emotion regulation. And one of the first things we do in it is we learn how an emotion develops.
And then we learned how to identify our emotions, identify our emotion before we can do anything with it. Why don't we go ahead and explain DBT or dialectical behavioral therapy and the benefits of it?
And really what can, how can someone who gets emotionally dysregulated be more aware that that's what's happening. So DBT is dialectical behavior therapy.
It was created by this amazing woman, Marshall Ianhan, and was first published in the early 90s. It is an evidence -based practice. So there is a lot of research behind it,
a lot of studies, and it's proven very effective. So when you do comprehensive DBT, It has four different components to it, four modes. One is individual therapy.
You meet one -on -one with a therapist once a week. Also, there is skills training. And traditionally, skills training is done in a group. However, a lot of therapists also offer one -on -one skills training.
This is where you learn mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness skills. It's crucial. It is probably the most important.
what skill to use. Or I've tried this skill and it's not working. And usually it's five minutes or so and you talk through the next skills, come up with a plan and you go back to practicing your skills.
Then the therapist actually attends a consultation team meeting every week as well where the therapist meets with a group of other DBT practitioners and it's to help hold us accountable to keep us true to the model and to continue education.
should have the skills. I teach the skills to everybody. I teach them to my mom. I teach them to my friends. One of my closest friends is a DBT therapist and we skills coach each other all the time.
It's so helpful. It sounds powerful to me because I know there have been a lot of amazing therapeutic results from it. Have you seen people have recovery from it in a number of different areas with a number of different clinical clinical issues.
So I've actually worked with people who meet the criteria for one person disorder when we start that no longer meet the criteria when we're done. Wow. I still say wow to that.
There are people who have BPD who no longer meet the criteria after they have been taking a dialectical behavioral therapy, DBT, successfully. I mean,
it's not the kind of thing where you, you go get a book on it and you read it. No. Not a thing. I mean, there are great books and there are great resources, but really,
if you are in a place where you are feeling highly suicidal, self -harming, not able to regulate, not able to kind of keep anything steady, you want to do the full program with a therapist.
Yes. So you don't recommend that someone just settled just for a book or two. Those are helpful. Those are supplemental. Yes. But that wouldn't be them taking DBT.
No. You want to actually work with somebody on it. It helps to have another perspective. It helps to have somebody to talk through things with.
The individual therapy is really designed to help you take the skills you've learned and apply them to your life. Well, you're saying everyone should take it. I think that's fantastic, and I wholeheartedly agree. But I love the part about people recovering from BPD and probably other issues as well.
And I get a lot of questions about borderline personality disorder. What do you think besides DBT is most effective to help them with their recovery? DBT is the thing,
honestly, DBT is the thing. There are DBT self -help groups. There are DBT websites and things. Not all DBT providers are the same.
If you have a DBT provider that feels invalidating, cruel, mean, you want to find somebody else because some people is in any profession.
You sometimes get people who are not as great at it. You want to find somebody you click with, you fit with, and who feels empathetic. And like they hear you and they meet your needs. And that's for any therapist,
but especially with DBT. Right. I had a friend who was studying to be a social worker and she came to her therapist and said, listen, I feel dysregulated. I've been dysregulated.
I really think I should take DBT. It's been recommended to me, and the therapist said, you don't need that. I think to me that's super harmful, and it would have been much better to say,
hey, I don't do that, but let me give you some, you know, referrals. To me, that's a red flag if somebody's going to say, hey, no, you don't. Like, who's ever going to say you don't need DBT? I know.
And it might be you don't need the full module. You might not meet criteria for borderline personality disorder. But it's helpful for depression and anxiety. and I love you. that we're dysregulated,
which we don't always do. When signs were disregulated are like we're irritable, we're impulsive. You want to do this thing and you want to do it right now.
And nope, I'm not waiting. I'm doing it now. I might be really angry or really edgy. And when you notice those things, take time to check in with yourself and figure out what's really going on and look at what am I really feeling where wears it in my body.
Yeah. And I think it's a good idea, too, to keep in mind the safe space that you mentioned and the different ways to arrange that. I think it's super powerful. Thank you so much. This has been so helpful. It's been such a pleasure sitting with you and discussing these things.
You're just amazing in your work. I highly respect the work you do. So thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you so much. I love it. I am always happy to answer Questions or talk about it.
I think it's so important. Awesome. Thank you. We really appreciate you listening to Sensitive with an Edge. Join us next time and remember to subscribe, rate and share so this gets out to more people who can relate.
If you're highly sensitive, neurodivergent, and or have complex trauma, we're here for you. Please remember to do your own personal work. It makes all the difference in your life.
It may not feel familiar. You may have to experience difficult change or loss, but you will be much better off. You don't want to go back.
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remember to join my membership at coach lion .com. Check out my helpful resources in the links, and you'll hear from us next time. Sensitive with an Edge is a podcast created by Chris M.
Lyon for highly sensitive people seeking relatable and practical insights. While the content is designed to be informative and supportive, it is not intended as medical or clinical advice.
Listeners are encouraged to determine their own sensitivity level and consult with a healthcare professional if needed. Use and opinions expressed in this
