Hello and welcome back to
Line by Line Survivor Notes.

This is Jon Murphy,
psychiatric nurse practitioner.

Welcome back . let's jump into it.

So I've been talking a little bit
so far on this podcast about the

therapeutic modality I've created.

Survival modes and there's eight of 'em,
and it's tied to a screener I developed.

It's all based around nervous
system responses and clinically

it's been a major breakthrough.

A lot of really complex patients I
can understand and help individually.

It's just been tremendous.

I'm looking forward to discussing it
more as I collect data and build the

screener out in a more sophisticated
way to collect data and hopefully

screen some of you guys out there and
figure out what survival role you're in.

But today I wanted to just kind of
pull back and maybe get a little bit

broader and just talk about emotions.

And even though I started psychiatry,
psychology, what have you, patient

care when I was 23, I'm now 40.

It wasn't until just a few short
years ago that I absorbed a new idea

and I really started to live by it.

And that is all emotions are normal.

Yes.

You've heard that, right?

Lemme say it again.

All emotions are normal.

In a world where we just had this
second movie of this Inside Out

franchise, Disney, Pixar, I haven't
seen it, but many of my patients

tell me I should and I ought to,
and I understand the basic concept.

And that being a theme in the mainstream
culture, tells us we've come a long way.

However, with that being said, I
think that it's a lot easier said

than done, and many clinicians like I
once did, can have confusing beliefs.

'cause where do we learn
about our emotions?

Well, where do we learn about anything?

As we grow and survive?

We're around a group of people.

Usually that group of people
is our community or family,

our attachment figures.

Be it mother, father, whomever,
the other adults that are around,

the other humans that are around.

We need to develop bonds in order
to survive for our nervous system

to calm down and feel safe.

We need to observe through our lived
experience what we see, what we hear,

what we feel and our body interprets it.

Through this input, we react
and respond accordingly.

Either an environment is for
the most part, predictable

and we find our place in it.

Can we be vulnerable?

Is it safe to remain immature?

Is it safe to let our guard down?

And as we do so, are we learning based on

the responsiveness of the people
that are taking care of us?

Do we have to react naturally due
to an environment where emotional

safety of children is not prioritized
or maybe even physical safety?

However, an interesting duality
presents itself culturally where

many people, myself included for
most of my life, would say, oh, I'm

not traumatized, or I wasn't abused.

I don't have abuse.

And the interesting thing there
is we can have societally parents

and there can be families that
really do on paper look great.

Parents that are really trying their best.

In their heart of hearts,
they really want to succeed.

We don't have to be quote
unquote, toxic to be affected

for us to experience the fallout

of an unsafe childhood.

When I say unsafe, what do I mean?

Well, it's we, the child,
the one that would do best

remaining dependent, we cannot
do so effectively in accordance

with our developmental age.

In other words, we're not able to
be afforded with the opportunity

to embrace immaturity, physical, emotional
otherwise, or just basically be kids.

So we have to adapt, we have
to learn, and we do that.

We do that very well.

And it's all to remain dependent on other
people, and we grow and we become adults.

And then now as an adult, the very
confusing change, the very interesting

change, the very culturally novel
idea that when we're mature, we

are aligned and we'll do best by
understanding what our emotions tell us.

However, that isn't always the
case if we're in a childhood.

Where emotions are internalized
and everything on the

external looks perfectly fine.

These are some of my
most tortured patients.

No physical abuse, no sexual abuse,
nothing on the surface, just quietly

internalizing because as adults
there's a major cognitive dissonance.

We've been living life a certain way on
autopilot and then suddenly drastically.

Something changes.

We feel stressed, we feel anxiety.

We're overthinking.

We feel like we're gonna pop.

We gaslight ourselves.

We don't understand or distracted,
whatever it is the dissonance

means what we observe and what
we feel are two different things.

So we feel one thing, but we look
out in the world and we see other

people, environments, social
environments, and otherwise.

And those environments
tell us you're wrong.

But what about this feeling?

So this incongruence, I would
say is relative to the amount

of distress a patient has.

Some of the most distressed
patients I have, you know, they've

already figured out their life.

They survived.

Whatever they've been through, they're
kind of chugging along doing their thing.

When all of a sudden, boom,
something hits different, oh

my gosh, heart starts racing.

One patient of mine outta nowhere
became extremely jealous and didn't

understand where this was coming from.

So we don't always need to be
aware of these things, but this

incongruence, what does our body
tell us versus what do we experience?

All emotions are normal.

Even anger, even disgust,

even silliness.

Even sadness.

All of those emotions are normal.

The limbic system, the
activation, the felt emotional

experience, it's all normal.

Well, what's not normal?

Behavior.

We can behave in an unsafe way.

We can take that input and
not know what to do with it.

Have an inability to process
it, internalize it, whatever we

do with that emotional stuff.

Usually as a byproduct of what we had to
do in the group environment growing up.

So

there we are.

Regardless of what your parents said
or didn't say or what was going on,

and doesn't mean anyone is a bad guy.

Your parents can still quote
unquote, do the best they can.

They did the best they could, whatever.

It's, we don't need to go there.

We don't need to condemn anyone.

This doesn't mean anyone is wrong or bad.

Push all that immediate stuff outta your
head and just understand there's something

inside that we're not in control of that.

And the stronger it is, the more
associated it is with a previous

adaptation, uh, oh, reading my
emotions, I'm scared, or I'm

overthinking, or whatever it is.

The first step is gonna be understanding
our physiological responses, fight

and flight, increased heart rate,
sweating, whatever those signs are.

Are we holding tension?

If we're stressed, that's
a survival response.

We release stress as a survival response
physiologically to protect ourselves.

We want this cortisol reaction
to take place when we're actually

fighting a gorilla or whatever it is.

Being attacked.

It's there for a very good reason,
but it's not meant to be activated in

the boardroom or hanging out with a
partner or just walking down the street.

That is the part that we need
to understand is not normal.

Meaning if it continues, it will have
health effects, lifestyle effects.

The cortisol physiologically
will take a major toll on us.

Well, I think that's a good place to
end for today, I just wanted to give

a quick overview about emotions that
they're normal, what that means as adults.

If I'm talking to someone over
the age of 21, you're an adult.

If you're not, there's more context to
consider, but anyone over the age of

21, we're gonna do the best when we're
aligned, where we can take that input

our body tells us and integrate it into
our reality, and eventually in time

become informed by it, to allow us to
live in alignment with what we feel and

to have what we think, support that.

This change that we can make ultimately
through lived experience will feel better.

We will trust it when we live
it, and we will feel better.

And for now, until next time, this
is Jon Murphy, nurse practitioner.

Check out my podcast, my blog.

That's my focus path.com.

Until next time, we'll see you later.