31. Wonder, Safety, and the Power of Showing Up

Summary:

In this episode, we dive into the complexities of neurodiversity, sensory modulation, and the importance of safety and curiosity in therapy and life. Through some of our personal stories and clinical anecdotes, we explore how embracing individual differences and showing up authentically can foster resilience, learning, and connection.

Key Topics & Highlights:

• The challenges and humour of listening to yourself as a podcaster.

• Embracing “neuro-spiciness” and the strengths that come with different ways of thinking.

• Personal stories about travel mishaps and learning to “go with the flow.”

• Reflections on ADHD, self-discovery, and the journey to self-acceptance.

• The concept of “neuroception” and sensory modulation—how our bodies and minds detect safety and respond to the environment.

• The “matrix” of sensory and affective processes, and how they interact in therapy and daily life.

• A touching story about a young boy with sensory defensiveness and the power of curiosity, safety, and wonder in therapy (the “milk and butter” story).

• The importance of following a child’s lead, creating opportunities for engagement, and reframing challenges as opportunities for growth.

• The role of purposeful engagement and “sticky thoughts” in understanding behaviour.

• How safety and connection are foundational for learning, motivation, and flexibility.

• Encouragement to see every child (and adult) through a lens of possibility and hope.

Resources & Mentions:

• Ruth Lanius and Dr. Stephen Porges (on neuroception and sensory matrix)

• Lois Hickman, OT, and nature-based therapy

If you enjoyed this episode, check out our Instagram for more resources and Cory’s “Spirit” rap. Keep showing up, stay curious, and embrace your own unique innate qualities!

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 — Introduction, no context, just starting

0:08 — Hosts reflect on being non-professional communicators and podcasting

0:38 — The experience of listening to yourself on a podcast

0:55 — Balancing each other's communication styles

1:27 — Embarrassing travel stories and trusting the process

2:16 — Resilience and strengths-based language

4:33 — "Neuro spicy" and personal quirks

5:43 — Funny story about ADHD realization

9:13 — Learning from yourself and collective learning

10:19 — Embracing neurodiversity in the podcast

11:41 — Recap of last episode and moving into new terminology

12:47 — Discussion of neuroception and modulation

14:15 — Sensory matrix and evolving language

17:02 — Sensory affective dual process

18:22 — Mobilization and nervous system responses

21:02 — The importance of safety and curiosity in therapy

29:23 — The "milk and butter" story: using curiosity and safety in therapy

36:05 — Reflections on the story and its impact

39:23 — The importance of following the child's lead in therapy

43:58 — Wrapping up, next episode preview, and social media plug

43:26 — Final thoughts and goodbyes

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Cory: Okay. I'm not even gonna give context. Just keep going.

[00:00:08] Michelle: Okay,

[00:00:08] Tracy: Okay, so you know, one of the things that we share is that we are not trained professional communicators, and yet we have this podcast and we love communicating with each other. And we know that when we share our just authentic communication and dialogue that it's landing for all of these, I don't know, thousands and thousands of people that we're so grateful are listening.

But so here's the funny thing is that. You, when you create a podcast, you are forced to go back and listen to yourself, which is hilarious and instructive.

[00:00:50] Michelle: how and humbling.

[00:00:54] Cory: Oh dear.

[00:00:55] Tracy: Yeah. So that is, that is true. And. Baseline. You know, we all have quirky minds and our beautiful kind of trial log here. We balance each other in really beautiful ways, in the way that each of our approaches to thinking and communicating and, clinical reasoning, all of these things, we support each other and we know that, and it's really cool.

Also sometimes in my world, you know, I, I end up traveling and I just actually came back from an extended trip, and I'm a bit jet lagged. But here's the thing, in my quirky brain, I, I allow myself to. Just trust the lack of specificity, and it's happened to me a few times, so I'm gonna tell you two embarrassing stories.

Early, early in my career when I was first doing a lot traveling for training, this was like before internet, okay? So a long time ago, and I landed in this airport in Ohio and realized that I hadn't written down for myself where I was supposed to go.

[00:02:05] Michelle: Oh right.

[00:02:07] Tracy: So here I am in this airport and I. I was like, how, how, where am I going? It was

so, that's kind of hilarious. But in a, in a flash forward moment, I was flying home from Europe yesterday, and I knew that I was flying from Poland through Germany back to Denver, Colorado, where I live and somehow in my head, I had coded the airport in Germany as a different airport. So when I got to the airport and I check in.

It said, oh, you know, welcome to this flight from here to here. And I was like, wait, I don't think that's the right flight. And it was this weird moment of me being kind of like, I, I know I put all the pieces together, but then sometimes I release the detail and I just go with the flow, which is sort of what I learned how to do in therapy.

Because in, the clinic, I wanna hold on to a lot. Of thought and detail. Outside of the session. But then once I'm in the session, I just wanna allow whatever unfolds and unfolds and living a life like that over the last several decades where I can be quite precise and specific, but then quite open-ended and flowy.

Sometimes those two things run into each other in hilarious ways.

[00:03:40] Cory: Oh, well, I think it's, to me, that's like resilience in a I, I don't know, but your strengths based language is so wonderful to hear because you can describe, not you, but people, anybody can describe moments like that and just be really. Hard

[00:04:01] Michelle: Mm.

[00:04:02] Cory: And that tendency is very strong for many people.

And so it's what a beautiful model of just, you know, enjoying the way that you are and just going with the way that you are. And I think yesterday I did a you Tracy, where. Um, I was very loose brainwise. Um, having babies, uh, brought to life. The fact that I'm a little spicy in the way that I'm,

[00:04:31] Michelle: Neuro spicy.

[00:04:32] Cory: my

[00:04:33] Michelle: Yeah, sure.

[00:04:35] Cory: And,

[00:04:36] Michelle: Yesterday.

[00:04:36] Cory: Yesterday.

I was like. Oh my brain, I've lost something. I love your brain. You know, like, so I did a Tracy, because I've seen Tracy do that, and I'm like, okay. You know, get hard on

[00:04:49] Michelle: Yeah.

[00:04:50] Cory: pull it back together. Get a little grounded if you can. Um, but I need to share a really funny story because it's, um, it's, it's quite hilarious.

I think I'm, you may have heard this story before, Michelle. I dunno. So, um, hopefully you can just listen

[00:05:07] Michelle: you've gotta fuel them. I dunno.

[00:05:09] Cory: Um, so I, as a, like a new therapist, maybe two years in. I was treating this little boy and he had significant A DHD profile and I was like, to his mom. Don't you think it'd just be like fascinating to just be in his brain for a day?

Like what would that be like? And then like fast forward, not thinking, I'm not knowing anything about like whether I might have a DHD or what. Fast forward 10 years and I'm in seed with Michelle and then we're like learning about A DHD and I'm like. Man, do you think I'll have this?

Like, and, and she just, my God, you just laughed and laughed. You're like, dude, how long has it taken you? Potentially figure that out. And then I thought about this kid and I'm like, is so funny because I'm there not knowing anything that like, yeah mate, you're on the same bandwidth. Like yeah, you are in his brain, probably not his brain, but like you no wonder you love this kid.

And so fascinated by him because you get him in a way that you know, is just fun for me. Like, and that's why

[00:06:20] Michelle: are curious.

[00:06:21] Cory: had to do, yeah. And I've had to do so much. Work on matching the kiddos that need the less intensity and also holding my regulation in higher intensity. 'cause I tend to go a little bit, at the top end, which I like.

It's great,

[00:06:39] Michelle: It's fun.

[00:06:40] Cory: I don't wanna be not therapeutic, right? So I still have to know how to, be aware and then. Just feel it, see it, help, match it. All the, all the above. Anyway, that's my one funny story of, coming to realize, oh yeah, maybe there's like something going on here. And then, you know,

[00:06:59] Michelle: of course.

[00:07:00] Cory: course being the way that I am, it's like you go through the diagnosis and then you never even bother to go back for the final appointment

so whatever. Isn't that diagnostic in itself like.

[00:07:09] Michelle: Oh, I forgot. Oh, I got distracted. I think, what have in common, I guess, is that we, are positive. And it's not that we don't know our individual differences and, we can have a little giggle, but at the moment we, you're at the airport going, oh my god. It's not beyond me to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, like, you know, so it's like, oh, here we are, old friend.

You know, you've kind of got the wrong airport in your mind. How did I not realize that and I not micromanage that, but we could be fearful. Like I know when Cory said, Hey, how about this podcast? Do you wanna do it with me? I was like. don't speak very well. My thoughts are a bit erratic. I don't know the neuroscience psych, you, I probably never, ever will 'cause I can't remember it. The, the other features I remember vividly the feeling and the knowing. When you, when we had that conversation and I, you know, those felt experiences of, oh, Cory's just had a dawning that she might be a DHD hold this space Michelle, like, giggle, not too much. Like, could just be like, oh. maybe, but we could be fearful.

And I certainly know when, um, you invited me, it was like, oh, it's not going to my strengths, having a podcast where we used to speak and we are, you know, gonna get into the neuroscience. Oh, that's not my strength. And I listened back and it's the same thing. It was like, oh, I have to drop out of this podcast, but you keep showing up.

It's like, oh, come on Michelle. You know, people. We get lots of positive feedback I think we're modeling. Part of it is modeling that we all, have individual differences. We all have strengths, but it's a value and of service, and it's like, oh, I just hope that it is 'cause I, you know, we'll keep showing up.

[00:09:03] Cory: Yeah, like I think for me, I listen back later and I'm like, who is that

[00:09:08] Michelle: Yeah.

[00:09:08] Cory: It's not me. I don't know. How did I have that thought? That wasn't my thought. What's happening?

[00:09:12] Michelle: I

[00:09:13] Cory: I literally feel like I'm learning again from myself after listening because I'm like almost out of body sometimes, like in doing the discussion. Anyway, I'm, I'm just like, I love it so much because it just. I, I think it's the learning and, you know, and if people along for the ride, then that's just amazing because it's become, it could become a collective

[00:09:33] Michelle: Yeah.

[00:09:34] Cory: for all of us, which is so good. And so, yeah, you just have to, um, be aware that we love our neuro spiciness and it comes to the podcast in great ways.

[00:09:44] Michelle: If you are wondering, do we know that when you are a spicy Yeah, we do.

[00:09:49] Cory: Yeah, it.

[00:09:49] Michelle: Yes, we are tangential. We actually have different interests. So I feel sorry for you trace. 'cause I, Cory and I will have thoughts at probably the immediate same time she goes, Bing I go the other way. And then it's say, Hey Trace, like what do you think trace? So thanks for holding both of our different thought patterns. And listeners, thanks for sticking with us. We know we're and gentle and not always the most polished speakers, so So.

[00:10:18] Cory: because last, um, episode I

[00:10:21] Michelle: had to help.

[00:10:22] Cory: help my girl at the end. I missed some of the neuro perceptive, modulation, onto state autonomic state terminology and the way that Tracy was describing it, I listened back while I was editing it to try and get my head around it. I dunno if I fully. Hold it. So what I was gonna try and do is. Um, say what I, where I'm at, and then what we were hoping to do today. But we are flowy and so we were hoping to sort of move towards the high route of s and a I think because last time we kind of sat in those low networks of the sensation and affective systems and tried to nut out some terminology in those spaces. And so now we. to move towards the higher route. But I'm gonna start us back in the low and see like I'm already like, I don't even know where to try to say something, but I wanna start with Neuroception. neuroception is kind of that constant surveillance of safetyness and then I was thinking about that in modulation.

'cause I feel like they still get really tricky for me to, um. I think it's because I wanna really separate them and they're actually kind of not one and the same, but they're so integrated. I think that's where I kind of landed was well, if you're constantly surveilling safetyness, you kind of have to do that. sensorily

[00:11:49] Michelle: That's where yeah.

[00:11:51] Cory: And so, but then I landed on the whole fact that, well, if you. Have decent ability to modulate as in respond to the sensations that are coming in without them overwhelming you, then you are inherently going to feel safer, so

[00:12:13] Michelle: I.

[00:12:14] Cory: I, I feel like they're not quite the exact same thing, but they're so So I don't, I wanted to clear that first, Tracy, is, is that a correct kind of way to think about these two things? And are they kind of a network that are very shared? are they almost like a inter hashed networks or something?

[00:12:34] Tracy: Yeah, absolutely. So I think at the end of the last episode, we were sort of talking about this phrase that. Comes from Ruth Lanius mostly. And that's this idea of a sensory matrix. Okay. And that kind of caught Michelle and sort of related to your question, Cory, this is evolving, languaging that.

I feel like we're right on the forefront of wrestling with it right alongside people like Dr. Lanius, Dr. Porges, and other people. , And the next year for me, I'm hoping to be able to collaborate a bit more in that space and, and help to bring our perspective into the mix a little bit. More so that's just, an accountability thing that I am not, in charge of, but I, I know it's one of my goals because of the question is a question that I feel like, like the answer is yes, it's this, um, it's this very.

Integrated matrix, um, that can be hard to separate out when you're talking about the modulation circuitry separately from the. Perceptual circuitry that we'll talk about, you know, later, as we are today as our conversation unfolds here. But that perceptual circuitry is a lot more specific and it, it's a lot more mappable and discreet and clear, whereas this circuitry that happens in the modulation system, even all the way from the peripheral receptor level.

It, starts to have this cascading influence that can be a little bit tricky to, keep discreet. And in that the line, the division between what is neuroception versus what is sensory modulation is a super. Artificial one almost. So we have to be comfortable with the, with the matrix of it, with the fact that this is this set of over lining kind of hashes that are helping each other out with this very broad goal of, really the neuro perceptive goal of surveilling, detecting and mobilizing what's needed in order to resource. And the first level of resource is basically, adjusting and modifying thresholds of responding and garnering activation or deactivation as is needed.

[00:15:13] Cory: Mm.

[00:15:14] Tracy: So. All of that is kind of happening simultaneously based on the code, the tag or the label.

You could use any of those words of relative positive or relative negative. That comes in. So we, we always say that it's a sensory affective, dual process, and that's because the affect is coding the relative positive or negative value of the sensation.

[00:15:40] Cory: Yeah.

[00:15:41] Tracy: So sensation and affect kind of ride together, but right away the way that that starts to influence if, if there's a detection that something is potentially too much for the system, then there you're gonna have this massive set of shifts that start to happen around the thresholds and the activation or the deactivation. So we might use the word mobilization, to summarize activation and deactivation 'cause it's some change.

That happens. And all of that is happening, not just in the sensory circuitry. It starts to happen in the motor circuitry, it's happening in the autonomic nervous system, in the general arousal system. And then it'll start to affect the other, A functions like attention and

other even higher functions that we don't always label in the wheel of A's, for instance. But, our orientation thresholds change and

[00:16:42] Cory: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:43] Tracy: what becomes, source versus background kind of starts to shift and all of that is happening across the sensory systems based on what's gonna happen. So it, it isn't like an all or none phenomenon, like whatever happens in the tactile system doesn't necessarily have to happen across all the systems.

And so there is, this variation in, um, if you start to have. A detection that something doesn't feel quite comfortable. The discomfort might arise first tactily because perhaps the source was, some crawly feeling you had. And so you might then mobilize, co-mobilize auditory or visual in that direction, but you don't necessarily have a vestibular

[00:17:31] Michelle: Hmm.

[00:17:32] Tracy: overactivation in the same way.

So They differentiate in that way. Yeah, so the matrix of surveillance and detection is sensory based for sure in neuroception, but it's also kind of more complex than that because what you were just saying is so pivotal is that if the sensory system itself is already sensitized, then.

Then how does Neuroception relate to that? And so our knowledge of sensory based issues, it isn't subsumed by what we know in neuroception. It's actually additive, but I don't think that most of the world understands that. Is that, is that making sense to both of you?

[00:18:16] Cory: I was picturing when you said like if a situation for a person, Is going to overwhelm them, like

[00:18:22] Tracy: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:23] Cory: outside of their window or their optimal range of capacity or whatever you're gonna call it. I was picturing that circle of best capacity for an individual and if something's gonna overwhelm you, then it's gonna shrink down your circle or your window or your range.

And then that was where I was. Picturing you then saying, okay, and when your range is shrunk down like that, and anything that's falling outside of that is going to make all of your a, a functions more difficult. what you said in the last episode around now, is their ability to attend

[00:19:01] Michelle: Hmm.

[00:19:02] Cory: impacted, or is there arousal now way. Um, higher or not, just not where it needs to be for them to actually in and land and engage? Or is there autonomically, it's usually the mobilization piece to deal with the fact that now I'm in a situation where the experience feels outside of my ability to actually be able to manage it. And so now is mobilizing me. you know, that's where you said the thresholds change in terms of my whole nervous system, my amp up, the need to detect and surveil everything. So the threshold will be way down for my ability to tolerate anything else because to really protect myself from any new information I feel like now a bit of a sense of. What was happening

[00:19:58] Michelle: Mm

[00:19:59] Cory: episode, but I needed to start there because I wanted

[00:20:01] Michelle: mm.

[00:20:02] Cory: like how I'm thinking about it. 'cause I again didn't want to think that sensory modulation is neuroception. 'cause it doesn't tangibly, intuitively feel like the same thing to me. But I just felt like they had to be closely interacting somehow. Um, and so I am glad we

[00:20:19] Michelle: hmm.

[00:20:19] Cory: I really wanna flesh out the matrix thing that made me laugh so much. Michelle,

[00:20:23] Tracy: There, she's.

[00:20:24] Cory: are you, got the hat, she's got the glasses. she, when's the movie coming? Anyway. Anyway, so, um, should we start?

[00:20:34] Michelle: can I just jump in there? Something you said around attention, that attention might dial down or it might dial right up for the thing that's salient for the person.

if,

yeah. So if it's tactile and it's that, you know, sensation, perhaps it's spider like, or it's the woolen jumper, dials up. Too

[00:20:59] Cory: in,

[00:21:01] Michelle: in. Hyper-focused. Maybe that's not the right word either, but it's like I can, only think about tactiles. So when the educator's like, Hey, we are doing our phonics now, it's like, ugh, ugh, I can't do phonics 'cause I've got a scratchy wool and jumper on, or whatever it is, and they can't shift off that, which makes people look rigid and inflexible or

[00:21:22] Cory: yeah,

[00:21:23] Michelle: whatever it does Anyway, so that, that, it's interesting, isn't it?

It's like, oh.

[00:21:28] Cory: haven't we all had an experience of like something that's stressful or feels like a threat to us, really just. Ha grip

[00:21:35] Michelle: Yes.

[00:21:36] Cory: Like I can't not think, like everything

[00:21:39] Michelle: Yeah.

[00:21:40] Cory: just keeps going there and going there and going there,

[00:21:42] Michelle: Well, and that's where the sticky thoughts come. And I think we all do particularly, 'cause you know, Tracy, the airport example, it's like, oh, have I got the rest of the things right? Like, where, where am I? So then you start going, oh, where am I landing, darling? I don't know where you're picking me up from because I can't check my, I mightn't be right. You know that thought. It perseverative, you know, because there's validity in it. It's like, ah,

[00:22:06] Tracy: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I think that that idea of kind of the sticky thought is, is really important for us to consider here because, when there's ease in this system. This low route of S and A that includes the autonomic functions that are sort of supporting it and drawing from it. The ease of it allows for shifting and selecting and honing in and then shifting off and all of that, all the way through the system from the lowest sensory levels all the way up into cognition and, and deep meta

[00:22:44] Michelle: mm.

[00:22:45] Tracy: like, thought about thought. So it kind of rides all the way through the system and the stickiness that can happen. Is so interesting because I think one of the things that we get really good at in the therapeutic space with individuals is that we understand a sticky thought, not as a difficulty, but rather as a portal into understanding where their mind is and where their body is, and where the integration or the difficulties with integration are.

And so if I'm working with a child who is uncomfortable in their body and that feels like a sticky thing, to them, I'm not gonna label that as a deficit, right? I'm gonna think about that as. What can I do? What can we do? What can the world around you do to help you find comfort where that discomfort is arising from?

And the same would be true where a lot of our kids find that if I just attended the thing that I understand and know and hone in on that, that gives my world sense and I can create shape and meaning and get rid of this stuff that's so hard for me by just honing in and it can feel like a sticky thought.

Like, yes, let's talk about, door openers, or let's talk about, fire extinguishers, or let's, let's learn about all of the ways that the wires run through the building, but understanding that those sort of sticky thoughts are there for a reason. I always think about how in occupational therapy we learn about purposeful engagement as like a cornerstone and it's such a gift to

interpreting how people are in the world to understand that everything has a purpose. And I use that phrase a lot, right? This idea of for the purpose of what, but that's one of the phrases that I think is just emblazoned in my logic pattern anymore. And that allows me to see the positive side of that coin instead of the hard side of it.

Then we can think through the layers. So thinking through the neural networks is something that I think I've trained my brain to do, and that's what the spirit does for us. Right? So we kind of started in the low route of s in the low route a and, and then, the brain doesn't stay in one circuitry.

It doesn't stay in one network because the purpose of. Modulating or detecting either neuro perceptively or through sensory modulation if something is safe or not, is so that we can engage in it. So we can do something with it. And the doing isn't just, it's rarely just to experience and savor the moment.

Because it gives rise to all the other functions, right? my attention gets bigger and deeper, then my creativity starts to roll. My social engagement system allows me to start to share that with other people and then I can co-create that and through co-occupation experience it. So it's always for this broader purpose and

I think that unfolding, it's such a cool model that we have to operate from in our practice. You know, it's, it's powerful.

[00:26:10] Michelle: And it's really. Positive and allows us to reframe, I guess I absolutely see my job. I think, Kim Barfield talks about, she's got a course behavioral detective and you know, that phrase, I feel like I'm a detective and I've got this suite of understandings, um, that you are.

Helping to build trace that it allows me to be like a translator. You were talking about being in Poland and having a translator. Sometimes I feel like I'm a translator. It's like how some people are perceiving a child. The behavior that's tricky to understand unless you have a map or a way to kind of reframe.

Like for the purpose of what, like yes, they're talking about the flags of the world. A lot at face value that's getting in the road. And he needs to stop talking about flags in class time. And he can only talk about flags in recess time or, you know what I mean? It it can lead you down the path of thinking in that way where this is like just positive and Hopeful and it leads a path forward that feels, helpful, but, but it. Allows us to translate in a more positive way what's happening for that child. And so with, someone who has that lens to look through possibilities, open up rather than close down. And you tend to get a bit more behavioral and containing and you know, we've gotta do these things to help them adapt or cope really with a world where this is like, oh wow. Let's see this child through a different lens that allows us to be different and, with that child and, build capacity for all of us really.

[00:27:55] Cory: It makes me think of the other day in, one of my sessions in mentoring, I was like, you can't work on the tactile system when they're outside of their capacity. I'm sorry, but you're not gonna help them process touch sensation if they aren't inside their

current

window of tolerance.

You gotta get inside it and then help from that space where they feel safe to then try to maybe broaden out capacity or broaden out the ability to move into like a discrimination orient and approach response to touch, rather than, , an overwhelm, withdraw and, and fearful response.

you gotta get on the other side

[00:28:33] Michelle: Mm You do totally.

[00:28:36] Cory: the same pattern of protection.

[00:28:37] Tracy: I remember. Oh, so, uh, this whole visual story just came into my mind. So when I was very first learning about being a therapist. I was in my, really, in my first job, and I worked four 10 hour days on the last day of the week. I spent a year every Friday with Lois Hickman.

Lois was one of the kind of original. OG OT sensory integration therapist. She was a colleague of Dr. Ayers and was on this very initial faculty that Dr. Ayers had put together for the C-S-S-I-D. That doesn't, hasn't existed for a very long, long time. But Lois is this wise, incredible person who was my mentor and is my mentor still.

I haven't talked to her for a couple years, but she, she's amazing.

[00:29:28] Michelle: her?

[00:29:29] Tracy: Yeah, she's, I hold her right here and she, has a farm where she's done her therapy, wrote the first, chapter on nature-based therapy, 30 years ago. And she's just, she's amazing. So anyway.

I remember that she was telling me that on this particular Friday we were gonna work with this little boy who had really significant sensory defensiveness and his tactile defensiveness was quite extreme. And, he was a little guy who was about seven years old and he, was a toe walker.

He. Didn't like to have touch contact with the surface. He had just one or two pairs of clothes that he could wear, had limited all of these things. And he had come to Lois, at this early part of elementary school, having lived for seven years in this nervous system that was always in protection and always in defense.

And so I, had understood this more academically, but I don't know that I'd ever seen a child with that kind of classical and intense presentation of defensiveness before. And so I get to the session and Lois is kind of, you know, planning some things and has a variety of things available in the clinic, and we're gonna just kind of see what happens.

But she also had brought with her a couple of jars, that had milk from her farm that she had taken from her cow before she came in and I saw them sitting there. I didn't really know what was gonna happen here. So this little boy, he, he was pretty interested in Lois and he was new to her too.

But he was interested that she knew all these things about farm animals and we weren't treating on the farm that day. We were treating in her clinic in the bottom of a church, but. Anyway, she had brought this milk and she started to tell him about how we could make butter, and he got really interested and curious about that.

So we took the jars and poured the milk into these little jars, and then started to just jump on these trampolines and shake and shake and shake and shake and shake and shake and the milk is, you know, shaking and it's transforming. Over time it was kind of cream, obviously it was fresh from the cow.

So, and it's transforming over time into butter. Okay. So it takes, it takes about 20 minutes, but it became super motivating because at first it starts to change a little in quality, and then you're looking at it, and Lois is quite magical at drawing these moments of glimmer and wonder to any little thing that's happening.

So this was, this kind of shared moment with this child of, let's get really curious about what's happening here. I realized that what she was doing was she was using the warmth and the touch and the contact, but mostly what she was using was wonder and curiosity, and creating a space of safety so that his nervous system and his body and his sensory systems could experience the experience through the lens of safety and connection and curiosity and that that was really what the treatment was all about. And I could feel it and see it and understand what was happening. And as this session proceeded, we ended up having this beautiful golden butter that kind of emerged in these little jars.

And then,. we could decide what to do with the butter. Should we put it on crackers or bread or carrots or strawberries that were all available? What would be the best way for us to experience the butter? Should we paint pictures with it on some black construction paper that would take the oil?

Like what should we do with it? Or should we mix it with ice cubes and see what happens when it gets firm? And so all of these were possibilities. And again, just such beautiful classic occupational therapy using activity and exploration and engagement. But this undercurrent of let's create safety and see what happens versus, let's chase this symptom of defensiveness, and in that the pressure and the vibration and the rhythm and the bilateral integration. Were the qualities, through the vestibular system, proprioception, tactile interoception, that were allowing all of this to unfold and enhancing those sensory qualities. But it was the container of safety that allowed it all to be meaningful.

And anyway, it was such a beautiful. Learning for me to sort of be like, aha, I understand. And I, I know that those moments with her, allowed me to crystallize a lot of thinking that I could then, carry forward. But Wow. So cool. So anyway, somehow that story came to mind.

[00:34:40] Michelle: but I think it brings to life, you know, neuroception and modulation, sensory modulation. And so obviously there's, in real life for this 7-year-old boy opportunities to engage tactilely in the world That, He was neuro accepting as a no, as a threat and, withdrawing and even coming into a clinic. you know, he could have kept doing that, I think that speaks volumes about having lots of opportunities in clinics. and following that child's lead and need, because the milk might not have worked. Do you know what I mean?

Like, that's just one of our things that we go, oh, I'm on a farm. I did actually bring milk, however that came to be. It's like, oh, I'll bring that in today. It might land or it might not. You know, how many times have we all had, oh my gosh, I think I've got it.

I've got this great idea. And he might be interested in the farm because, you know, sometimes when we are hearing stories about children, it's, you know, the first questions are, what's going really well for them? What are their in interests? What are their strengths? Because we're, we are trying to lead that. to, support safety and curiosity. It doesn't always fly though, but I'm sure magic of someone or the skill and maturity and the, um, trust in the process that Lois, has by the sounds of it, is that if it wasn't milk, it could have been. teddy bear puppet, or it could have been the ball or it could have been something else.

It's just these things being available letting go, or trusting that the child, We'll be attracted to or interested in a thing. And if they're not, I've got it. And if they are, I can follow that. You know? yeah. So sometimes the milk and the tramp and the, you know, the planning that we, oh, I've got this one that worked really well for that last child.

I'll bring in some more milk. You know, we'll do milk therapy. I'm being cheeky, but you know, it's like, ah. So yeah. So beautiful. So beautiful. I guess that's what we're trying to do is always find facilitate safety In space and in relationship and support it with the sensory input that might enhance continue to allow that embodied sense of safety and that we just keep inching and inching.

But, um, yeah, that, that's the trick.

[00:37:18] Tracy: And to, foster that sense of, safety and curiosity and wonder no matter what, you know, the plan happened to be because, even though that moment lives large, in my mind, I don't think I've ever replicated the milk moment like with milk, but many times with other kinds of opportunities.

Right. It's so funny. Yeah. It's so, so beautiful.

[00:37:46] Michelle: Gosh. And, don't they sit with you like I remember seeing Sarah McKinnis actually, um, treated in a similar way. But you know when you are seeing that, and I remember you spoke about, the scientists that were in your clinic, it's palpable and as an observer, you're not quite sure where it's gonna go.

You might, may or may not have noticed the milk when you came in. It was like, oh, she's left the milk on the bench in the treating room. That's weird. You know why she left that, , as an observer, it's. Like, I don't know where this is gonna go, but you're kind of watching it, knowing and feeling, and you got something in it.

Later on you come back, oh, that was just brilliant because you had all the components that allowed to occur. it's a felt sense of, oh, something's happening here. And then, you know, as you were saying at the start, Tracy, you've gotta come back and clinical reason, like, why did that work today?

Like why, why did that work?

[00:38:43] Cory: I'm sitting here

[00:38:44] Michelle: Yeah.

[00:38:45] Cory: I have to

[00:38:45] Michelle: Yeah. You're

[00:38:46] Cory: and

[00:38:47] Michelle: amazing sitting.

[00:38:48] Cory: sitting here, i'm laughing as I'm, I'm, so I'm breastfeeding with the whole, sometimes the milk's not gonna land, and Michelle being like, it's milk therapy. And then I just had this thought like, isn't it so powerful, Tracy?

How you flipped the narrative from deal with the defensiveness to let's get curious and get into possibility, and then how much that influenced

[00:39:17] Michelle: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:18] Cory: with touch and get into the discriminative functions touch and to settle into exploring

[00:39:25] Michelle: Mm

[00:39:26] Cory: you know, within a relationship.

Like all of the pieces came together. But the initial thing she did and amazingly well flip it

[00:39:34] Michelle: mm

[00:39:35] Cory: And like you said, Michelle, where do we

[00:39:37] Michelle: mm

[00:39:39] Cory: people that we're working with?

[00:39:40] Michelle: And I think it's, um. the trust that we have in ourselves to get to the end goal. So the end goal might be toileting, it might be sleep, it might be, increasing the range of foods that they can eat. Like sometimes we're given the task of is really what we need to fix because they're about to go to school next year and toileting has to come within the next three months to, you know, not. Feeling the pressure of that to pull out the toilet paper or you know, it's like, ugh, the toilet and the toilet paper and you know, all of that. We are not going directly there. there's something else. It's not that they don't have cognitive capacity to toilet. They know about. Time toileting all those things.

If they could do it, they would've done it by now. So we have to come at this a different way. And, there's no toilet paper for the next 10 sessions or, you know, whatever.

[00:40:37] Tracy: Yeah.

[00:40:38] Cory: Absolutely. Well, we almost got discrimination almost with the butter and the high. Like that example was pretty good for some movement through modulation to discrimination functions. But we didn't quite get that, so maybe we should do that next time.

[00:40:54] Tracy: Maybe we should do that next time. What I will do is I'll connect it just in one way, and that is to say that if we think about that session, a therapy has to start in that low re of low re of a, because if you don't have a sense of safety, you're not gonna get very far. And then once you spark

engagement and that social engagement system becomes available. The other thing that becomes available there is the high route of a, so lots of times I'm gonna follow the low route of A, into the high route of A, and then that's gonna open the door of where we headed here. And very often where we're headed is into.

Exploring ideation, exploring, you know, deeper levels of planning or deeper levels of schema development or affordance exploration. So we probably are gonna end up over in the high route of S because so much of the richness of our learning and growth kind of. Emanates from there. But the high route of A holds this motivational biasing system.

And if you're held in protection, your motivation is constrained by that. This whole system, these circles compress in and are constrained, then when they open up to the possibility of, let me try it again, let me do it harder, let me try it a different way.

Then you start to get the fluidity and flexibility and grittiness that's available from the high route of A, so it all does weave together and, we can talk next time about that more, but in the meantime, maybe people will listen to your rap, Cory, about the Spirit because. You pulled all the, all the fine points in that Diddy and uh, way to go.

[00:42:42] Cory: model, SA and MI. don't wanna do it here because I'll forget the words, but you can go and check it out on our, um, our Instagram page, um, on the Spirited Conversations Instagram

[00:42:57] Michelle: That was genius. You are genius. I love your mind. Oh my gosh.

[00:43:03] Cory: Yay. It was very fun. And if you're nerdy like us, you'll hopefully enjoy it. I wanted to bring you can, I can show you the curiosity and the fun that can come from the model so you can come and learn it with us so it's can bring you joy, like it brings us joy.

[00:43:19] Michelle: Yeah.

[00:43:20] Cory: Yay.

[00:43:20] Tracy: Wonderful.

[00:43:22] Cory: This is probably a good place to stop, so we will catch everyone next time.

[00:43:25] Tracy: Thanks guys.