[E232] When You're Tired Of Trying with Melissa Corkum

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign to the Empowered to Connect podcast where we come together to discuss a healing centered approach to engagement and well being for ourselves, our families and our communities. I am here with a dear friend of Empowered to Connect, Melissa Corcom, and we're so glad to have you back on the podcast with us today, Melissa. [00:00:26] Speaker B: Thanks for having me. And we get to do this in person. [00:00:28] Speaker A: I know. [00:00:28] Speaker B: Often get to record podcasts in person. [00:00:31] Speaker A: I know even when I am in the same city with people, sometimes we're not in person doing our pod. So I'm glad to be here. We're at filled and thought we'd grab some time together and just have a chat about what to do when we're tired of trying. [00:00:47] Speaker B: What do we do when we're tired of trying? [00:00:49] Speaker A: I don't know. I'm hoping you have some advice for me and those listening. [00:00:53] Speaker B: Yeah, we're going to figure it out. [00:00:57] Speaker A: Tell me, you were telling me a little bit about a study as we were starting and I want to hear about this because it was really fascinating. [00:01:05] Speaker B: So all of my work really revolves around burnout, blocked care, like people who are sick of trying. And I was fascinated by another podcast I was listening to about the biology of burnout. And she was talking about this study that they did with dogs. And I'm going to apologize in advance. If you're an animal lover, you might just want to cover your ears for the next like 30 seconds. [00:01:30] Speaker A: I appreciate that. [00:01:32] Speaker B: But in the study they put treats for dogs on the other side of like a shock line. So every time the dog would like go to get the treat, they would get a shock. And over time the dog stopped trying to go get the treats. Right. They, they stopped trying. And as she was talking about this, I thought there are like that deeply resonates with the work that I do with parents who are parenting in situations where there's a lot of stress and where the return, the return on investment for like the time you put in, like you might have a child who's really struggling accepting your bids for connection. And so it feels a little bit like getting shocked every time you go to offer something positive or do something kind for them or interact or, you know, whatever it is. And over time it's natural that your nervous system, out of a sense of protection for you is going to say let's not do that. And I think it's also interesting to know that emotional pain and physical pain register in the same part of our brain. So when we think about doing something physically painful, like pain is a self Protective mechanism. You know, we don't keep touching hot stoves because it hurts. And so when we're in a situation where we're doing something that could also feel emotionally painful, of course, like, the natural response in our nervous system is going to be, ooh, maybe we shouldn't do that anymore. And we're parents who don't get to check out of parenting. [00:03:40] Speaker A: Yeah, we don't get to check out of parenting. And I think I'm thinking of something while you're talking about that, because, you know, we teach the attachment cycle, and you've got, in this. You've got, in this alternate cycle, the cycle of unmet needs. It is reminding me almost, for caregivers, instead of needs not being met, it's like you're going to meet needs and receiving negative feedback for that or the negative reinforcement that then is causing you to literally want to stop trying. [00:04:26] Speaker B: Well, and we all have a biological need for connection, right? So I think even when we go to interact with our children, we. It is like, you know, parallel to that attachment cycle, like, we are asking for a need to be met. We're asking for a reciprocal relationship with another human being. And. [00:04:49] Speaker A: And that's okay, right? Because when I first hear. When I first think about that, I'm like, well, we meet needs as careg. Our kids aren't supposed to meet our needs, however. [00:05:01] Speaker B: Yeah, well, right. It's a fine line. Right? Like, yeah, they're not supposed. Like, it's not their job to meet our needs. [00:05:09] Speaker A: Right. [00:05:10] Speaker B: But it's also not like, we also have a biological imperative to connect with people. And it would be lovely if our kids were some of those people that we could connect with. [00:05:22] Speaker A: Yes, it would be lovely. It would be lovely. I think what I love hearing from you about this topic. The reason I love to hear about it from you is it's kind of one of those scary topics of, like, well, I just don't know. It's something that happens, but let's not talk about it. What caused you to want to start talking about this? Messa? [00:05:48] Speaker B: I think I live in a world where I'm heavily optimistic that problems can be solved. [00:05:58] Speaker A: Same. [00:06:00] Speaker B: And I just had to believe that there were. That there were solutions, that there was something better. I think going back, like, to this biological imperative of connection and what Dr. Purvis used to talk about, right. Like, what is broken in relationship heals in relationship. I don't know. I just. It never occurred to me that it couldn't be overcome. And now that I've been doing it for so long and living it. The reality is, is that it is an uphill battle sometimes to. To overcome this, what we call blocked care. This, like, my nervous system doesn't feel like it wants to try anymore. It's not easy and it's possible and it's like a practice. It's not like a one and done like, oh, I figured this out and now I'm good. Because it's caused by stressors in our nervous system. It's not always rejection from another relationship or a child, but just stressors. And like, we just have them all the time. We're not getting away from the stressors that we encounter in our nervous system every day. And every time there's a stressor, our body responds in a very physiological way. And one of those things is it could activate. Right? And the way that happens is, you know, a flood of neurochemicals like adrenaline. And if we don't complete that cycle to like release that adrenaline from our body or give our nervous system cues that it's safe, that it can like power down and stop releasing all those chemicals, then we get into like adrenal fatigue. You know, like, then our, like we become desensitized to those stress responses. And so I think that also contributes to this. Like, I'm not gonna mobilize to the stress anymore because I. It doesn't work. [00:08:23] Speaker A: Right. Or even over sensitized. Do you see that happen sometimes or is it desensitization most often? [00:08:31] Speaker B: I think oversensitization like that over sensitize is like that hyper vigilance. And I think that comes like before blocked care. Right. Because then we're like, we still have all that energy. Like, we're still in the battle, and we're in the battle for too long. Like, I look back at my journey and I'm like, before I hit blocked care, I was in like hyper drive. [00:08:52] Speaker A: Right? [00:08:53] Speaker B: Right. Like I was trying to control all the things and I was trying all the therapies. And I was, you know, I was in hyperdrive. It looked like over caring, over function. I was over functioning. There's a new term I learned in therapy this year. [00:09:10] Speaker A: Right. [00:09:11] Speaker B: And then it was like I hit a wall, like, and then I couldn't anymore. [00:09:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:16] Speaker B: And then I was like, I'm. I'm done. [00:09:18] Speaker A: Then you check out. [00:09:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's like with the dog, right? Like, you, you're trying, you're trying, you're trying, you're trying, you're trying. Nothing seems to be changing. And then you're like, Ah, I'm done. [00:09:26] Speaker A: And what you had told me about that study, and I think you alluded to it, is that they could even remove the shock, but the dog wouldn't go for the treat anymore. So it's a really tricky thing to be pursuing healing with a child, and maybe that child is even actually experiencing some healing. But if we have gotten to that place of blocked care, it's like it hasn't even occurred, right? Like. [00:09:55] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Like, so a lot of times I talk about it in terms of confirmation bias, right? So in the study right now, the dog's nervous system have a confirmation bias that, like, the world is scary or this thing is scary. And so it doesn't really matter what evidence there is to the contrary, you're still kind of locked in to that bias. And I think in blocked care, the same thing happens with our kids. We develop this confirmation bias and it's not wrong. Right. Because there is a history there and sometimes there is some healing or there's some maturity or just the day to day. Right. Like resilience is our nervous system's ability to respond to what is actually happening. I think is like one definition. Right. And so sometimes we have kids who might have a history of really challenging behaviors, but they also have hours and hours or maybe even days where they do really well. And we're. But we're still. Our nervous system is still responding to them. Like. [00:11:10] Speaker A: Not like the shock line is still present. [00:11:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like that walking on eggshells. And sometimes, you know, that's warranted and sometimes it's not. [00:11:23] Speaker A: I love how dignifying this is to talk about it in terms of neuroscience and what is happening in our nervous system and our body and our brain. In the same way that we wouldn't say that our children are choosing misbehavior or our children are choosing to have a hard time, we also are not choosing to have a hard time. We are not choosing blocked care. This is a response, a self protective response of our body. And I think that can be so dignifying. I don't know. I just know for myself when I've been in places like that, I've felt so much shame and guilt and even hearing you talk about it, it's just, I. I hope that if you're listening to this podcast right now that that shame and guilt is being lifted from you through the words of Melissa, because you didn't choose to get to this place. It's something that your nervous system has done to protect you is what I'M hearing. [00:12:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And. And we can celebrate that to a certain extent, right? We can thank our bodies for working. [00:12:36] Speaker A: Protecting us, for surviving. [00:12:38] Speaker B: And two things can be true. Right? We don't want to stay here. And I think, like you mentioned, Jesse, it's both, like, when our kids can't give us that reciprocal relationship that's also, like, it's a can't. Right? They're not choosing that for our relationship, and we're not choosing the response to that. And so I think just increasing the amount of compassion we have for each other, the cognitive narrative that we're telling ourselves about what's going on can really impact where. Where our nervous system goes even, Right? Like, if we can say, like, oh, they're not giving me a hard time. They're having a hard time. Right? Instead of our nervous system being like, oh, they're a threat, we can muster up some compassion, and again, we can still have boundaries and everyone needs to be safe and all the things. But I think the narrative and the same thing, the narrative of I'm a terrible mom because I don't like my kids is not helpful. That's not gonna. That's gonna push us further into stress, further into shame, further into dysregulation. But if we can add this more neutral, dignifying nervous system language about, okay, my body's trying to protect itself, what do I need to feel safe? What does my kid need to feel safe? Right? Like, we're back to a lot of empowered to connect principles, a lot of TBRI Principles, a lot of giving ourselves permission to do what each of our nervous systems needs. [00:14:27] Speaker A: I want to switch gears in just a second and talk about what can we do when we find ourselves in that place. But I think it might be helpful just before we do that, if you could give us any signs that we might look for in ourselves that might indicate that we are finding ourselves in that place. Sometimes, you know, you're in the thick of something and you don't have the perspective to realize, oh, this is happening right now. So what would you say are, like, kind of the warning signs or the indicators? Your little. Your little. You know, it's cold wintertime right now, so I'm getting the tire light, the low air pressure light, like, every time I drive my car. What are our. Our little tire lights that come on when we realize, hey, you know, this might be happening, or you're getting close to this. [00:15:25] Speaker B: There are 10 signs of blocked care that we talk about in our books on block care. And I think the most Common are the narrative changing about behavior. People are just have a very like behavior. Behaviorist mindset. Right. Like, there's just like, I just need the behavior to stop. Figure it out. There's like no compassion left for the behavior. The narrative that the behavior feels personal. It feels manipulative, controlling. I think there's a lot of resentment towards our own selves, towards our situation, perhaps towards our kids. We see a lot of parents isolating because of the shame or because they're just overwhelmed. Another one I think is super interesting, is really resistant to what could be helpful advice. Right. We're just done. We don't have capacity. We don't want to try anymore. We don't want to try. The thing that you're suggesting, it makes. [00:16:28] Speaker A: Me think about different seasons of my life when I've struggled with depression. And what is really difficult about depression is, you know, what will help you feel better? You should move your body. You know, get some serotonin. Serotonin boosts and some of those endorphins. You don't want to. I haven't wanted to. I want to lay in my bed with my covers pulled up. [00:16:51] Speaker B: You know, it's like the catch 22. [00:16:52] Speaker A: Exactly. So I'm hearing. I'm identifying with that definitely of like, you are resistant to the things that you know would help, but you're just over it. You're done. [00:17:03] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, there's just the sense of the lack of joy in things. Definitely a lack of joy in parenting, but sometimes that is pervasive in other places. But if you're listening to this and you're thinking, I, I think I might have blocked hair, there is a free assessment that I'll make available. And so folks, go to my website, Rise to regulation, all spelled out.com, etc. They can take. It's like just 10, 10 signs. And you can rank yourself and you can just see where you fall on the scale. [00:17:41] Speaker A: Super helpful. And we'll put those in our show notes too. So thank you. All right. I'm like, is it the dismissive leaning part of me that's like, let's fix this? No, I mean, I think we. We need to get there. It's unbearable. Let's turn the corner. How do we get back to that place where we're willing to try, where we're willing to ourselves out there and, yeah, do the thing that we don't feel like doing anymore? [00:18:10] Speaker B: I think the most important thing we discovered as we did this work was that we had to give parents permission to kind of put Aside their relationship with their child to start, like, this couldn't be about immediately fixing, fixing their child connection. Well, not even their child, but like their relation, like what they feel is broken is their relationship with their child. And so we want, like, I think that the impulse is like, oh no, they're going to ask me to do more things, to feel connected to my child. And so it's like you talked about with depression. You're like, I know, and I don't want to do those things. That's the problem. So we give parents permission to really just focus on themselves. Like we tell parents, you have to be the stable foundation for your family. And you know, this is the Empowered to Connect podcast. And I remember when I learned connected parenting the first time, I didn't feel permission to prioritize myself because it felt disconnecting. [00:19:21] Speaker A: Ah, yeah, right. [00:19:24] Speaker B: It was like, just do you know, behaviors are unmet needs, like do those things. [00:19:30] Speaker A: Trauma has so many impacts now go heal the world. [00:19:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, and for those of us who are parenting through foster care or adoption, it was like, oh, they've already had so much trauma or rejection. Far be it for me to put a boundary up and be like, I need my own space. What if they feel like, what if they feel rejected? So I think giving parents permission, that really the most connected thing we can do is connect with ourselves, our own nervous systems, and figure out what does our nervous system need to feel safe. How do we complete that stress cycle? How do we tell our body the stress is over? There's no imminent stress right this second. We have to figure out how to release some of those neurochemicals, not live in that hyper stressed response state all the time. [00:20:25] Speaker A: Okay, so you've said a couple times, complete the stress cycle. And I have heard some stuff about this before, so let's talk about that. [00:20:34] Speaker B: Yeah, so there's a, if there's a stressor, your body responds and it's gonna. We talked about that, like flood of neurochemicals, like adrenaline and you know, in theory, right. If the stress was a physical stress and your body activated, then we would do something. We would like run away and that process in and of itself would kind of like say we were running from a bear. I don't know why we always use that example, but that's what we do. And we're running from the bear and so we're using up all those chemicals and then we get to safety and then we're like, oh, we're safe, we're gonna survive, right? And our bodies weren't designed to be chased by a bear all the time. It was like, oh, there would be this stressor we would activate. We would get away from it and then we would be like the. Completing the stress cycle. Right. Is like realizing like, oh, we're safe. [00:21:30] Speaker A: The danger, the danger is over. [00:21:32] Speaker B: We're like closing that little chapter of our life. And I don't think we get to do that very much anymore. We just move from one stressor to another. [00:21:44] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not a bear, but it is. Might feel like one in your backseat on the way home from school, pick up, you know. [00:21:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And. And I think also culturally, right. Like when all the kids go to bed at the end of the night, we, we often don't give ourselves permission to then like care for our nervous systems, complete the stress cycle. From the day we, we get on social media, which is also a dumpster fire, or we catch up on work, or we just, we feel like there's so many unending to do's. We just stay activated all the time. [00:22:18] Speaker A: Because numbing out isn't the same thing as completing a stress cycle. [00:22:22] Speaker B: Correct. Nor is just staying activated. So we're probably doing one or the other. A lot of us are not really understanding our nervous systems. And so that could be physical activity. It could be some kind of positive social, emotional interaction that fills your cup and like laughter, you know, the kind of positive social, emotional interaction where you really get to just relax and be yourself with someone. And laughter is even better. Laughter produces a lot of counter neurochemicals that are positive. The endorphins, the serotonin, the dopamine, all the things, you know, like physical touch and affection. If you have a safe person in your life, I mean, there's just so many good ways. And every nervous system is different. Some of us need people, some of us need a little bit more quiet. I do think even if you're an extrovert, like I am, some solitude and silence is good for our nervous system. So. And none of these things have to be expensive and they don't have to be long, but it's really about getting to know yourself and like what is going to help you feel better versus like numbing out. Like I can numb out to Netflix and still go to bed and still feel kind of crappy about like, you know, like I still don't feel great in my body. [00:23:54] Speaker A: Right, right, right. [00:23:55] Speaker B: I don't often. Well now I've retrained my body, but like I didn't often want to Bundle up and go out for a walk. Right. That felt hard. But then I know every time I come back from that, even when it's 20 degrees out, I'm like, I have a little bit more. Like, my head's a little clearer. I'm a little bit more refreshed. Like, that was actually good for my nervous system. Even though the initial lift was a little bit harder. [00:24:24] Speaker A: You know, I have started lifting heavy weights this year. You get to a certain age, and especially with women, they start giving you all kinds of advice. And lifting heavy weights was one of them. [00:24:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:37] Speaker A: But I. I was doing it for my physical health. I had underestimated how good it would be for my mental health. Yes. Like, in my nervous system, just doing a clean and press, I just. I feel strong, and it's like working something out of my body. It has been so good. I had not realized I was probably completing some stress cycles, but, boy, that has kept me going for the last six months. [00:25:03] Speaker B: Well, and, like, what can you control? We talked a little bit about. I don't know if we said this word, but, like, the experience of those dogs in the study that we talked about is like a learned helplessness. Right. Like, they learned I can't control that, and I just kind of give up. Right. And so the way we reverse that is teaching our body. Like, there is a different way or something has changed. And I think for a lot of us. Well, I'll speak for myself. When I get really stressed with my kids, I get hyper controlling. Any of the six of them can attest to this. It is not pretty. I'm not proud of it. [00:25:41] Speaker A: My kids might say something similar. I don't know. But I don't want you to ask them. Okay. [00:25:48] Speaker B: And I don't know about you, Jesse, but despite all of my best efforts, I have yet to actually control someone's behavior. At least not in the long term. [00:25:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it's kind of a big fail for me as well. [00:26:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And so there's a learned helplessness in that. But then when we do things that are just for ourselves, like heavy lifting, all of a sudden you're teaching your body. You're, like, literally going through the motions. And, like, look, I am strong. See me demonstrate how strong I am. And I have control over this. I can make myself stronger. And your body's like, oh, okay. You know, and the way they had to solve it with the dogs, they literally had to, like, pick them up and carry them over the line now that it was deactivated over and over again, like, make their bodies do it and show them, oh, this experience is different. And so I think for us as parents that the way we do that is stop trying to control things you can't control. But we can all control things that we can do that help us feel better in our nervous systems. [00:26:59] Speaker A: That's really good. I'm thinking even about a stressed out teenager I was talking to last week. And you know, we were maybe catastrophizing about things happening in the future. Not even just the near future, but the far, far future. And we had a conversation about locus of control. But there was a little bit of. [00:27:22] Speaker B: Like a. [00:27:24] Speaker A: Little, there was a theme of helplessness even as I was talking to the teenager about that, of like, I'm going to fail, I won't be able to do any of these things. And it was like, hold on, we're focusing on a lot of things we can't control. We like to see the way that this person changed in the way they were even holding their body. After we talked about the small list of things we could control. It was really interesting to see the physical change in them as we talked about it. [00:27:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so fascinating. [00:28:02] Speaker A: So we find ourselves in a place of blocked care and we start taking care of ourselves is what I'm hearing you say we put the relationship aside for the time and we focus on self compassion, self care. What else can we be doing? And how do we know that? How do we know that as we're being carried over that shock line that doesn't exist anymore, that we are safe to try again? [00:28:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it's tricky. I think everybody's different. I think the tricky part is if we keep this analogy going is sometimes our shock lines are on and sometimes they're not. When it comes to answers with our families, yeah, we can't turn off our shock line 100%. So like I was saying earlier, like this is a practice, this isn't a one and done thing. So I think the reality of knowing that it's a journey, which if you're really deep in block care probably sounds just discouraging to even say that. But it's, it can feel better and still be a journey. And I think we have to do this with other people in similar journeys because we need the co regulation of other people when we're too tired of trying. Like we need another friend or a co parent or someone to kind of drag us along until we can feel a little bit better. And we need to not isolate. Like we need to have a different narrative than it's always going to feel this way or I'm a terrible person or I'm the only person who can't overcome blocked care. [00:30:03] Speaker A: You know, it works for everyone else except for me. I'm the first person ever. [00:30:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, we wrote a book, every Parent's Guide to Reclaiming Compassion. And I do hear from parents who are like, I did all the things and it's still hard and I think sometimes we need more. We, we didn't talk in the book about some of the, like, it's a very much a self help book. Like here's some really simple things you can do. And it radically changes so many parents and sometimes our nervous systems are really stuck and we need something else. Like EMDR or brain spotting or neurofeedback or safe and sound protocol. Like we need something to help us get unstuck. [00:30:52] Speaker A: An antidepressant. [00:30:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Meds, more intensive therapy. I mean, but there's always something else to do. And I've never met a parent who's so stuck they can't get unstuck. With the right resources. [00:31:07] Speaker A: That is. That is a message of hope. Thank you for spending time talking about this. And I'm wondering as we're wrapping up for the listener who's experiencing blocked care, what's your word of encouragement as we finish up? [00:31:26] Speaker B: I think it can't be overstated enough that blocked care isn't a character trait. You're not a bad parent if you don't like your kid. It has a name which means that there are many other people that are experiencing it. Enough people that someone named it and I didn't name it. So I should also say Jonathan Bailyn named it and I just have attached myself to solving it. And there is always hope and it will not always feel this way. And I know these seasons are long, but I'm on the other side with children, all legally adults and, and the, and the years were long and some of them were incredibly hard. And it just won't be this way forever. [00:32:18] Speaker A: Thank you for spending time with me today and with our listeners and we're really grateful for you. [00:32:25] Speaker B: Thanks for having me. [00:32:31] Speaker A: We hope you enjoyed the episode. If you're interested in learning more, head to empoweredtoconnect.org for our library of resources. Thank you to Kyle Wright, who edits and engineers all of our audio, and Tad Jewett, the creator of our music. On behalf of everyone at etc, thanks for listening and we'll see you next time on the Empowered to Connect podcast. In the meantime, let's hold on to hope together. Sam.