Unlonely with Dr. Jody Carrington - Why Are Parents So Emotionally Dysregulated? with Dr. Brooke Weinstein

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

If you’re a parent, partner, helper, or human who feels like you’re holding it all together by a thread, this conversation is for you.Dr. Jody Carrington sits down with Dr. Brooke Weinstein - occupational therapist, nervous system educator, and expert in sensory and emotional regulation - to talk about why so many parents are emotionally dysregulated right now, and what it actually takes to come back to yourself.They unpack the impact of social media, pressure, burnout, and self-neglect on parent mental health, why understanding your own brain and body has to come before trying to “fix” your child, and how nervous system regulation changes the way we show up in our relationships.This is a deeply honest conversation about emotional regulation for parents, single motherhood, partnership, grief, and the slow, brave work of choosing yourself without abandoning the people you love.You’ll hear:- Why modern life keeps parents in a dysregulated state- What occupational therapy sees that many mental health conversations miss- Why self-regulation is the foundation of supporting your kids- How to stop taking a partner’s needs personally- Why caring for yourself is not selfish—it’s necessary- What small, sustainable regulation work actually looks like- Why doing your own work often helps the whole family riseIf you’ve ever wondered why you’re so exhausted, reactive, or checked out, and why quick fixes never seem to stick, start here.---Links & Resources:• Dr. Jody Carrington: https://www.drjodycarrington.com/• Unlonely with Dr. Jody Carrington: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unlonely-with-dr-jody-carrington/id1708644669• Dr. Brooke Weinstein: https://drbrookeweinstein.com/• Dr. Brooke Weinstein on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brookeweinst/• Carrington Practice: https://carringtonpractice.com/• Dr. Jody Carrington Courses: https://drjodycarrington.teachable.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, welcome back, welcome it to another episode of the Unlonelly podcast. I needed a really good occupational therapist on here. And did I land my favorite? As you look here in this episode, Dr. Weinstein and I, Dr. Brooke Weinstein, we talk about the exact same things. I followed her on social media for years. And I felt super honored when her team reached out to me to ask me to be on her podcast.

And then I was like, only if you agree to have a conversation. conversation with my community. And I want, I cannot wait for you to listen to this episode because you know, I talk a lot about emotional regulation. In this episode, we break it down. Like, what the fuck does it actually mean? And how do you know in your own life what emotional regulation looks like and what you need to get there? It's not about deep breathing all the time and just dropping your shoulders. I know I say this shit all the time around here because I'm looking for some really easy things to get you back home. But we really break it down in this episode in terms of what it really means. And so just so you know, she is a world-renowned thought leader on neuroscience-based parenting.

She speaks to corporate. She does all of these, because people are people, as we know, but she specializes in sensory and emotional regulation strategies that empower all humans to lead their lives and clarity, calm, and resilience at home, at work, and beyond. Through her wildly popular digital community, her highly engaging online presence and her top 10 podcast, thrive like a parent. She supports people around the world and making real life change that starts in the nervous system and then ripples out into every relationship routine and responsibility in their lives. She combines her background in occupational therapy and neuroscience, a deep knowledge of the brain trauma and sensory regulation principles.

Dr. B isn't quite like any other doctor you've encountered. Brooke and her team don't just show you what regulation is. They track your pattern, spot your triggers, and practice new responses in real time. She is a true self-starter. Dr. B built her first pediatric clinic while navigating two high-risk pregnancies and caregiving for her critically ill husband. She is now widowed.

As you'll hear, we'll talk about her first husband, Jonathan. He died by suicide. And she is now raising their children in Texas. She works with clients globally, supporting families, professionals, and cycle breakers alike. So, listen, she's featured in today, scary mommy Forbes.

She is America's go-to neuroscience expert, helping humans and families thrive by calming chaos from the inside out. Sink in, buckle up, and I cannot wait to hear what you think. We fight for air time in this episode. I wanted to pack it full of things that I think will be super useful. I hope you love it. Dr. Brooke, Wadstein, everybody. Listen, I have been such a huge super fan, despite the fact that I just talked all

about your greatness in the intro there. I want to really be clear that I watched. you and loved you long before you knew about me. I watched your magic as you sort of navigated grief, as you were being a single mama, as you were figuring out the nervous. You were one of the first occupational therapists I've ever met, and I've worked with some fine ones at the children's hospital who really could articulate so well the role of occupational therapy in this sort of concept of understanding the complex world of mental health. Yeah. And you have stood on the stool, the, the, I was going to say a bar stool, but I feel like it's like you have stood on the,

whatever it is, when you, what do you stand up on that thing and you start to like pound your chest? Like when you stand for something, anyway, it'll come to me. On the concept of emotional regulation before anybody else even knew, it was sexy and you've made it super cool. So bring us into the world of Dr. Brooke and why you're so passionate about this stuff, start with me around emotional regulation. Why is the world so fucking emotionally disregulated right now? And why do you love it so much? Yeah. Thank you for having me. I think that you're pretty awesome as well. And, you know, this has been part of my life for well over a decade and a half at this

point, right? And I think there's multiple questions wrapped up in what you just said, but I would say that the reason I am at where I'm at and why I love what I do and why I do is because the world is so fucking dysregulated, right? Right. I think that because of social media and because of technology and keeping up with the Joneses and trying to make a living and taking care of our children and still smiling and getting the Botox and wanting to. look beautiful in, you know, the carpool line and smiling and pretending like you have it all

together and having a bigger beautiful house and wanting, you know, the range rover. Like, whatever the thing is for you that's like, I wish I had this. I wish I had that. That is driving you on that hamster wheel to continue moving forward. That is at the core of it, what is completely disregulating us. And there is such a crisis of mental health within the world today. And our own mental health is what most parents don't realize is the most important before we ever start supporting our children, right? Like I'm in. I'm in. And I started with pediatrics, right? And so like if we don't, it just my treatment wasn't working. I felt like I was banging my head against the wall. I felt like I was like if you build it, they will come. Like,

yes, they came, but it was the kids who were coming. And I was like, hey, here's some O.T. homework. And the parents were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, see you next week. Like, you're the professional fix my child. And I'm like, you don't understand one hour a week is not going to fix jack shit. Like, it's, if you don't understand your brain and body and if you don't understand how your brain and body works, there's no effing way possible. You're ever going to be able to support your child into succeeding with these goals that you have set out or longing for your child to to succeed. To do better, to be better. Absolutely. Can you start us at the beginning? What is an occupational therapist? Because I think for a long time, people really struggle to understand that.

So let's start, you know, why OT and the world of emotional regulation, let's define both of those things if we could. Absolutely. So the world of occupational therapy is really very, very, broad and very, very vast. You can have one person who specializes in hand therapy and another person specialize in geriatrics and another person specialize in pediatrics or the NICU or or activities of daily living or handwriting skills. I mean, what we are doing and what the role of an occupational therapist is is, let's say you get hurt. Okay. If you break a hip, you're going to go to physical therapy because they are going to physically help strengthen your muscles and get you back to, let's say, walking.

Yep. But let's say you're in a car accident, right? And you're now, you have a TBI or you have a spinal cord injury and you're now in a wheelchair. Well, how do you function in life in that wheelchair? And we teach everything from catheterizing yourself to making your bed, to learning how to put on your clothes, to showering to, I mean, like, it is, the world is just vast in terms of what OT can cover, if you will. And I think it's such a misnomer for me, the title of your occupation, because occupational

therapist seems to be, it has to do something with your occupation. It seems to be something about work. But really, the most brilliant piece about occupational therapy is getting people to function in a world with whatever they have going on in their body. How can we make that system around you the best so that you can function the best at home, at work, at school, all of those things together combined? And it often then results in a deep understanding of what is happening inside the body and what you need to make each situation a whole lot easier to function within. Is that fair? It is fair. However, what I would say as a caveat is when I went to college, listen to me, when I went to graduate school and I got my doctorate, they taught us about sensory and emotional regulation. And that was a piece of the puzzle. However, they did not teach me what I know now, if that makes sense. And when I first started doing what I do now and what I've done for multiple years, years, to be quite honest with you, and there's no ego in this, but no one was really doing

this. No one was really taking sensory and emotional regulation and saying, this is, this is it. Like, this is the core. Like, if you want your child to understand how to behave, you need to understand the brain and the body, and you need to understand yours first so that you can then see what's going on with your child. There's so much that was so unknown and not tapped into as well as not promoted or educated on and still to this day. I mean, it's like handing a child a driver's license and being like best of luck. Like best a luck. Have fun. You know what I mean? Like it's bumper cars. That is theoretically what every single human is doing when you do not understand your brain and your body.

Right. Right. So I give you numerous examples to like understand what. what does that mean understand my brain and my body or like how does that work? What do you mean I'm going to just like play bumper cars if I don't understand my brain and my body? Yeah. And if I think about like on a multidisciplinary team and I just want to sort of be clear about sort of the huge contribution you make to sort of understanding a human being in the occupational therapy world because, you know, psychologists were sort of meant to assess what's

going on in the brain, what's going on from a psychiatric perspective, specifically. speech and language pathologist, which is also a common role on a multidisciplinary team, would be like, how are you taking in information and giving it out and communicating it? And an occupational therapist is really much more about what is happening within your functional ability to sort of show up in the world, either, you know, do you need a move and sit cushion? How do you grab things? How do you dress?

How do you functionally operate at home at work at school? And ideally, those three came together in addition to psychiatry, so we can look at sort of the medical model of things. to be like, how do we look at the whole well-being of a child? And I think what has become really critical in the last decade, neither of us, I think, were trained in the way to sort of consider what happens from a neurophysiological perspective across both of our professions. But I also don't think that those disciplines were utilized in every single...

Oh, no, this is high-quality treatment. I'm talking about multi-duty, right? And so, like, if we had... That's not the standard of care. Like, PT didn't talk to the... O-T didn't talk to the... speech didn't talk to the psyched and like so siloed day it's not happening so if you go and you talk to your doctor and your doctor let's say you're pediatrician and they're like well we think your your child

has ADHD sure I'm happy to you know die no or sure I'm happy to give them some medicine right like so then does do they talk to your psychiatrist and your psychiatrist decides together or the OT that you're seeing for the child like no one still no one is talking about this and the interdisciplinary teams are not happening. And so it is up to the parent in order to gain and gather the information and be able to make the decision. It doesn't mean that just because I'm Dr. Brooke Weinstein and you're Dr. Jody, it doesn't mean that we had the end all be all and you should just take our word as that's it, right?

Like you know your child, you know your brain, you know your body, hopefully better than all of us or at least your intuition or your gut. Oftentimes you're not listening to it. but like at the end of the day, you have to find the right providers who actually know what the fuck they're doing. Right. And I would argue that as, you know, my career has evolved and as I've sort of watched you do this, we would come together and sort of believing that there's a lot of respective disciplinary

models that have come and went. And the most critical in this season, and this might change in future generations, but the most critical thing that I talk a lot about, you talk a lot about many of my speech friends and my PT friends and everybody who sort of has one goal of assisting kids, families, is really to understand the neurophysiology behind this, this idea of emotional regulation. Why does that matter for optimal human functioning? And first of all, define it. Define for me what it means from you as a brilliant OT. What does emotional regulation mean? Yeah. So I'm actually going to say two pieces to this because it's not just about emotional regulation. It's also about sensory regulation.

And those are the two missing pieces that most people. That's why you're the O.T. Right. It's most people have no fucking idea what they mean, nor do they understand like. So take it from the top, girl. Right. Okay. So I'm, I'm not bashing psychology. I'm not bashing therapists, social workers. I'm not bashing any of that. Help is help. Support is support. But what is happening oftentimes, with run of the mill, let's say, if you're like, yes, I have a therapist, right? That is talk therapy, okay? What is not happening is the emotional regulation piece or the sensory regulation piece. Okay. And the emotional regulation piece is when we are leaning in and listening into what our brain and body is telling us. And so most of the time, everyone believes

that the language of your brain is the words coming out of your mouth. It is not. The language of your brain, look at you like, yeah. The language of your brain is your behaviors, right? Is your body's reaction to a stimuli? Right. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. So when it comes to emotional regulation, let's think of we've got an emotion, how do we support that emotion? That is emotional regulation. And that doesn't mean I need to go box breathe or journal or meditate because not everyone has time for that. Not everyone enjoys it. And it doesn't work for everyone. I don't meditate. I don't box breathe and I don't journal. And I know exactly how to regulate my nervous system because I understand my individual brain. My brain probably works pretty simple.

similar to yours. However, if we took a few standardized assessments, I guarantee you, our brain still would not look 100% the same, right? What I mean by that is you are pretty much a gas pedal, and so am I. And that means that we are a sensory seeker. We really seek out sensory input into our body. And the sensory piece of it, like I'm saying, I've kind of shifted from the emotion regulation piece, but if you don't know how your brain functions in terms of, do you have low registration? Do you have seen? Low registration.

Describe that. I mean, define that. Yep. So let me say the four and then I'll describe H. So it's low registration seeking, avoiding, and sensory sensitivity. So number one is low registration. Do you trip over things? Do you bump walls into walls?

Do you have bruises that are unexplained? do you have piles all over, little piles all over the house that you're not, you don't really care about or does your partner do that and drives you up the fucking wall? And you're like, the fork goes this way. Like, do you not care how you throw dishes into the dishwasher versus someone else who moves it to be like. Is it like body awareness? Is it like environment awareness?

Are you just sort of like some are very hyper? During your environment. Registering your environment is registration. No registration, but it is registering your. environment, right? Take away the low, but it's it's registering your environment. Some people register their environment really, really, really, really well, right? And so there are those like type A, almost people who are like, I'm OCD, I need things to be this way and that way, right? Because you're registering the world around you and you need, there's a reaction to that registration,

right? That's your nervous system again, your sensory and emotional regulation where you're reacting to the stimuli of that's crooked, I need it to be there. And some people don't give a shit. And some people cannot go on unless they move that pen. Exactly. Everything else just starts. It matters. It matters, especially in partnerships.

Because if one of you has low registration and the other one has high registration, you want to fucking rip their head off. You want to be like, you have piles everywhere. Yeah. And it's so hard to say to that person, just let it go. Yes. Because that's really within their nervous system. for whatever reason.

It's not that they, they are, it's a lack of respect for you. It's not that they, they don't want to do these things. It's, they literally don't see it. It doesn't bother them. Their nervous system doesn't pick up on it and they're not like, holy shit, there's a fire. I need to stop, drop and roll if I don't pick up this, this lump of clothes, right? But some people that is, okay, so registration's number one.

I love that. What's number two? So seeking is, our. are we seeking stimuli and input into our body? When I was moving through grief and trauma and all the different things, my body, and I'm a natural seeker and I guarantee you you are as well, but my body craved so much input into my body. I walked an obscene amount. I worked out an obscene amount because I craved deep pressure and I craved movement within my body. Now that's because I also understood my brain and my body and I knew that this is what it needed and this is what it would

benefit from, right? Because I had done the work prior to Jonathan passing, which newsflash, my husband passed and took his own life in 2021, just kind of throwing that up in there. Yeah, we'll circle back to that. We can totally circle back to that. It's just not going to be a hit. Sweet Jonathan, yes. But the work of my life for me is that I know I am a seeker. I raise my shoulders. I clench down my teeth. I want to go fast and furious and all the different things, but that disregulates my brain and my body and that burns my brain and my body out. My body can't withstand how fast my brain is going. My body, my physical body can't keep up. And so the work of my life has been to not only learn how to step on the break, but throttle

between the gas and the brake. Okay. What does a non-seeker look like? So that's more of an avoider or a non-seeker would just be one who kind of is more even keeled, who like doesn't ramp up a lot. And again, right. So Carter, my partner, I would say is not as much of a seeker. And so I think that that's very interesting that you just said my husband. I think oftentimes we find regulation within our partnerships. I would say that that did not serve me in my first relationship, but my current partner

who I've been with for four years is hands down one of my pieces of regulation for me. And he can look at me in an instant. And if I'm not making eye contact or if he sees I'm not doing well and he's like, hey, like, how you doing? And I'm like, and it works the other way too. I, you know, I think also for the Carter's and errands of the world, there is the point where it's so lovely to be married to a high seeker. Because you also then sort of organize the things and get them out of their shell and like,

let's think about this, right? And so there's a, like, there's no right or wrong here. No. This is really about just sort of trying to sort of bring some light to the fact that all of our bodies are organized a bit different. And so you're right. When you just say regulate your emotion, we got to know what that means. So we got registration seeking.

Number three, is that sensory? Number three is avoiding. And I'm giving tons of examples so that you as a listener can hopefully see some pieces of yourself within these. Like, oh, now I get it. Right. So an avoider is you don't need a lot of stimuli. You may not want a lot of stimuli.

You would prefer to be in a quiet, dark room and not be around a lot of people. And it's more of the introvert, right? Think of more of the introvert. And so you are not wanting a lot of stimuli. And sometimes avoiders require a little bit of like a smack in the ass. Kick in the ass. Yeah, yeah. Boost them up, right?

to get them going and moving and jumping and doing all the things, to get them to a little bit higher state to them perform at the rate that they want to or need to perform. Nice. And then the last one is sensory sensitivity. Think of all the different stimuli, touch, sound, taste, light, right? Or order, all the things. Are you sensitive to light? Are you sensitive to sound?

Are you sensitive to touch? Are you sensitive to taste? Are you sensitive to movement, right? Really understanding all the different pieces of what I just explained will help you understand your brain and your body and therefore be able to then help regulate your emotions because you will then understand what is going on with me. How do I feel it in my body? Why do I feel it in my body?

Why am I feeling this way? Why am I eating the entire bag of chips and numbing out on the phone and scrolling or what? Like, what is going on with me and why? how do I support myself through that, right? So let me summarize that for a minute. So the last thing is around sensory stimulation. And I think sensitivity, I'm sorry. And I think that piece I just want to zero in and a little bit because I think we're

really, if you think about any child that you know, this is sometimes easier to think about in kids, but it's also so true in big people is that like you know some certain people that are bothered by tags or the noise is just too loud or they just can't focus until we get this out of the way. Yes. And then when you know that about people, it's really helpful. So if I just summarize those, you know, three basically registration and then we're looking at seekers, either your seeker or avoider, and then your sort of sensory capacity.

Yes. Those three things, when you sort of think about them, it really contributes to your ability to be able to easily regulate. To show up in the world. Yes. And what contributes to that is like neurodivergence, trauma experiences, and genetics. A thousand. Some of these things are just who we are, right?

So interesting. So when you sort of know these three things, how does that feed us, Brooke? What do you, where do you go next with that? You have to collect and start collecting a lot of data within your own brain and body of recognizing your patterns of how you're showing up in the world, right? And then the way that you're currently showing up in the world, is that a way that you want to continue showing up in the world? Or is it disregulating you and burning you out? Or are you happy with it? Or does that not feel good? And you're neglecting yourself and you're serving everyone else besides yourself. Like how from this data can you, you know, I look at every experience as kind of like a hypothesis, right? We have, or a science experiment, right? We have a

hypothesis. We then have the experience. We look under a microscope and we analyze the data. We don't shame it. We don't guilt it. We don't rip it to shreds. We don't say, We suck. We just say, cool, that's what happened. Maybe I enjoyed it or maybe I didn't. And what would I do differently for next time, right? And so we have to continue collecting data and be able to see what is working, what is not. Why am I struggling or why do I have brain fog or why do I have chronic fatigue or why am I snapping at my kids or why is my child jumping off the walls or like you have to get.

curious and start observing what is going on in your brain and what is going on in your body and you need to feel in and lean into those feelings. And that can lead you and guide you to figuring out maybe that's not what I need. Maybe I need something different. Okay. And I hear oftentimes people say, I just don't know what is for me. I don't know. And so I think we can have two different conversations here. And I think the most important conversation is really self-focused, because we often want to think about other people like, oh, that's my kid or, oh, that's my partner. But I really want you to spend some time, you know, when you're hanging out with Brooke and I here to think about those three things for you. And you actually do know, some of those things when you think about, you know, what is my registration?

Are you a guy, are you a person that is quite aware of their environment that you're, you know, you can go with the flow. Just notice that. You don't have to do anything with it. Just notice that. If I were to think about this in terms of me for myself, you know, I understand that I, I need to take a minute to regulate my system if I'm going to be at my best. I need to do that by myself. I cannot do that in a crowded room full of people.

My best intervention when my babies were little and loud and noisy and I wanted to throw punch my husband was to take a five-minute pee break. A thousand percent. And that time is because I love people. I love hanging on to people. My number one tell is when I want to throw a punch everybody. When I want to get away from everybody, I know something's wrong because I love people. And so those are a few things that I notice about me.

Now, my husband, on the other hand, Erin does not like the people. Okay. So in order to tolerate a party that I would love to throw Christmas 57,000 times, we're going to do a little bit of prep before then, right? Yeah. You know, he loves my family. He loves his family. But how do we know when he goes and takes a break in the, you know, I just need to

have a 10 minute nap. Can I do that? And now I'm not like, fuck you. Do you even love our family? I know that if I say absolutely, but having that plan before, when you know that a little bit about each other, it is so helpful in terms of this relationship piece. Also, you don't take it personal. You recognize that that's what they need for their brain and their body to succeed and to

show up for you when they can. Yes. Rather than you saying, fuck you, you're not showing up for me. No, actually they are. Yes. And your greatest investment, would you say, Brooke, is in yourself. Before you start diagnosing each other, the greatest assessment I want you to take is in your house. Why is that so hard for us?

I think it's really hard for people for multiple reasons. Number one is usually the greatest investment you can make in yourself is oftentimes something that we as humans. And yes, I'm going to point out women in particular is we have been taught that everyone else matters besides ourselves. And so we're focusing in on everyone else around us as well as oftentimes we need the permission that we are worthy enough, that we matter. And so even when people are thinking about working within my community, they want it so desperately bad. They know they need it. Every now and then. Every now and then, sometimes they'll say, I need to speak with my partner. I need to speak with my spouse. And I'll ask, I'll say, what do you think they're going to say? Sometimes they say,

well, they always support me. And so, you know, right? Like, I think they're going to say yes. And then I'm like, well, then what is, what is you really asking them about? What is that really about? And it's like, well, I just need to know that like, it's okay for me to do this. And I'm like, but you have to believe in yourself. Like, you have to trust yourself enough to know that you matter. Right? Like, there was a pivotal moment within my relationship with Jonathan where I was fucking drowning. And we could either drown in that bed together. And he was withering away and completely depressed. And he was taking me down with him. And I was like, I don't want to live like this anymore. Like I don't want to live like this anymore. And I made the personal choice to say, I know I can do this. I want to learn my

brain and my body. I want to feel better. My kids are getting older. They're going to see this. This is not the way I want my children to grow up. And it is like the biggest gift you could ever give yourself. And people think of this either as like therapy or think of it as like an extra expense or think of it as like, oh, well, that's a luxury. No, it's not. It's actually beyond. Like that's, that's like complete opposite. It is a necessity. Yeah. Hands down a necessity. If you want to stick around, if you want to live long, if you want to be here for your kids and watch them grow up, because every time you're neglecting yourself and every time you choose not to take care of yourself, and every time you make the decision not to learn about what is going on within your brain and your body

and how it functions. Like how does your engine run, right? You are never, ever, ever going to recognize when the dashboard says check engine. You're never going to recognize when the dashboard says change oil. You're not because no one has taught you how. how to physically feel these things within your body. And you're patterning them over and over and over and over again. So your patterns in the opposite direction of taking care of everyone else is getting stronger rather than beginning to slowly, very, very slowly. You have to do it slowly because your brain and body craves structure, stability, and

control. And if you don't have that structure and stability and control, your brain's going to go haywire and say, hold on, my smoke detector's going off. I need to stop, drop, and roll. There is a burning building, and I got to get out of here. We don't want your brain to do that. We want your brain to slowly say, okay, this feels uncomfortable, but I can manage it. I'm capable of doing this. And that's how you make really small intentional shifts within your brain and within your life every single day. And you can get to a place where you're living from that place. It's not that you have a mile of to-do lists long of like, well, well, they told me to box

breathe. Like I said, again, they told me to, you know, journal or they told me I need to walk 5,000 steps a day. Or they, like, that's not going to work. That's a diet. That's a prescription. That's a, that's like a, I need a quick fix, right? You need to be committed to like, I know this is going to be a journey.

I'm excited for this journey. I don't know where I'm going to land at the end of this journey. and all I know is that I matter and that I really, really, really want to understand my brain and my body. Because if you don't, what that leads to is chronic illness and plaque build up within your brain and even potentially dementia down the road or heart disease. It's going to be one or the other of those, right? So like if you don't take care of your brain and your body, something will show up, whether

it's perimenopause or some thyroid. It's so connected. It's so connected. It's all connected. So if in your practice, if we just slow it down for our listeners today, what are sort of the top five things you end up talking to people about in terms of making those small shifts? Yeah. If you just could sort of give those five, and I know everybody's different. I know all of the things. But what are sort of kind of the five top things that you notice with your patients when you're starting to say, okay, if we're going to draw more attention to your.

body and your brain, here's the things that were a number of people start. What would those be? You know, I'm truly asked this on every single podcast that I go on. And it's usually the top three. And if I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me that, whether it's in DMs or on a podcast or in person or this or that, I would be a bazillionaire. But the problem is that And like you said, knowing that everyone's brain is different, if I give you a specific prescription of like, I need you to do this or I need you to start recognizing that or I need, I don't know how your brain functions, right? Every single client that I see, I give a standardized assessment where I'm seeing what your

scores are and how your brain is actually functioning. The best thing I can give you is more of like an outcome or like an example, right? So let me give you an example of a client that I had. She came to me and she even went to the Amon's clinic. She saw Dr. Amon spent thousands and thousands of dollars of getting all these scans on her brain because she had joint pain. She felt chronically fatigued. She was miserable. She was almost like bedbound for a few years of her last five years while her children were young.

And she was miserable. She was not able to really function in life. And what they said to her is they looked at her and they said, based on your brain, we need you to rest. That's what they said. And she was like, okay, I spent thousands of dollars and all you did is tell me to rest. But what does rest look like? Right. So rest for me, right?

Rest for me looks different. Sometimes rest means a yoga class. No joke. And that's movement. That's not just going to bed, right? Sometimes a rest for me means, walking the lake. Sometimes a rest for me means being by myself or going paddleboarding or taking a rest and going and hanging out with girlfriends or laying down or doing something different, right?

And so what is going to get your system? Yes. Back to a state of reminding it, it's not in danger. Okay? So I wonder if that's going to help. Like what what do you do if you can think about this in your life that really relaxes your system. And you've got to pay attention to this because this will require a little bit of internal focus to know that in this moment, my body feels safe. And if I think about this in therapy oftentimes,

what I'm asking people to do is just go inside for a minute. Yeah. Where are you? What are you doing? Who are you with even? And if you can answer any of those questions, that your body feels safe. And as Brooke says,

sometimes it's in a yoga class full of people. sometimes it's in a meadow in my mind my safest place is a child when I was five okay we can do that in your mind we can do that physically somewhere where for you does your heart rate start to decrease does your jaw start to relax does your fingers start to be easier to wiggle that's what we're looking for yes and it could be anything anywhere it can be movement it could be rest but that definition of resting your body is a beautiful prescription, but you're right, our biggest mistake these days, is knowing what that means for you.

And there's so many fucking reels out there that are like, if you stick your face in a bucket of ice water, if you just shake your body and sematically da-da, or if you release your hips, all of your trauma will disappear. And I'm like, fuck that. Like, that doesn't necessarily mean that, right? That's clickbait. That's for people to say,

I'm going to teach you how to regulate your nervous system in 30 seconds. Now, the prescription that I do have my clients do is I need you to, and if you really want to figure this out, instead of me giving you the five like go-toes, my biggest piece of advice is three hours. Blame it on us, be like, I listen to this podcast and they're forcing me to do this. And so like I'm going to do it because I listen. You know, whatever you got to do, I need you to give yourself three hours. three hours in order to be away from your family, your children, your life, like, make it happen,

right? So then the first hour, what's going to end up happening is it's all the to-do list, it's all the running stuff, it's all thinking about what's going on back at home. And your brain is still processing that. It's trying to transition from everyday life of being in the thick of it into the place that you've stepped into and stepped away from, right? the second hour a lot of my clients are like I don't know what the fuck to do with myself like I don't like I don't like I don't know what to do with myself this hour right I'm like okay cool like that's your again brain transitioning you've stopped the thinking and the to do list and worrying about all the other people at the house and you've started kind of shifting into you the third hour is really the place where you start to have a meeting with yourself you start to really be able to listen into your internal dialogue you're probably able to process through things that you haven't been able to process through in a really, really, really long time, things that maybe were pushed back, far back, because you didn't have time, because you had to take Johnny to soccer and then Stacey to baseball and, like, whatever it is, right? And then you had a tournament and then you had the Christmas carols

and then you had the Santa Secrets, whatever elf on the shelf thing. Like, it's all shoved, back, back, back, back, back, back, back. And I need you to be able to recognize how did I feel when I left and how did I feel when I went back? And that is the, difference between feeling like just regulated and how you're living on a regular basis versus what could be. What could be on a regular basis if you choose to shift some things in your life and within your brain and give yourself the things that you want. But the biggest first step is that every human needs to literally and physically feel the

difference between what it feels like to feel dysregulated and what it feels, like to feel regulated. And an hour, that shit's not going to cut it. So if you're going in to therapy and you're talking for, hello, an hour, sometimes when I'm talking with my clients, I see them go from an eight to about a two. And a lot of times at the end of our sessions, they'll be like, and I'm like, there it is. Like, I wanted that. But my clients for me have 24-hour access, 24-hour access, because I want to continue bringing

them down. And if you only have an hour a week, the same way that I only had an hour a week with kids, it's not going to be enough in order to help you shift the patterns within your life that are truly impacting your life on a daily basis. I love that so much. And I think some of, a lot of my work with people who have severe PTSD or who have never been in therapy, a lot of men in particular have never taken a moment. And it's a lot of sort of, sort of, mission to just guide you to go, I want you to close your eyes for me for a second. And I want you to tell me where you feel it. Now, police officers, first responders hate this question in particular because they just

want to fix it. Yeah. So just tell me what to do. But where do you feel it is a really hard question for people to answer. And often what happens is we start to house some of that angst in our body. Yep. And when we give you the permission to slow down and look inside or you take that block of three hours, I'll even take 20 minutes.

You're right. It's not ideal. But when we slow down and take that piece, right? And we slow down and take that piece. What you, what is the greatest challenge right now is that you don't fill that with block blast. That you don't fill that with something that allows you to numb because it is so easy to step off into anything else. You watch yourself. Attention fragmentation right now is the interesting piece that people before us have never had to deal with. So even in moments of silence, even when we sing into a movie with our family, we're doing two things at once, attention fragmentation, which means we're also scrolling, we're also playing block blast, okay? Because we don't like the quiet in our brain, because guess what lives there? Feelings. Yes, the truth. And you have to name it to tame it. And all I think you and I both talk about, Brooke, is this idea to hold a little bit of space

to feel. Because if you don't make that time, your body fucking makes it for you. At 3.03 a.m., it wakes you up. and you start to think about such unbelievable things. Like did I send that email? But also, did I marry the right person? Totally. Like, you know, just little things.

Just little things. I saw that guy the other day and I haven't seen him since high school. He kind of looks so cute. Like, your brain will go a million different directions. And not only that, your brain has a natural ability to regulate its nervous system. And we have stripped that away, right? Hundreds of gatherers, like they were regulating because they were running out in the forest, they were doing their thing, right?

Like they were in nature. Now we've got tight-ass jeans on. We're like cutting off the circulation and we're like we're not, we're not paying attention and we're stripping away our ability to naturally regulate. So when your child is going from task to task to task to task or climbing up the side of the railing and you're like, what the fuck are you doing? That is them regulating despite the fact that you want to wring their neck at the moment, right? Yes.

But what happens is if you don't regulate your nervous system on a consistent. consistent basis, your brain and body will do that for you. And guess how it looks? It looks like an adult meltdown, not a tantrum, but a meltdown. And it's where you're sitting on your bed or you're sitting on the couch and you're like, I don't know what. Like you're the victim, which is okay. But like you're just in this victim mentality and mode of like everything is wrong. Everything sucks. Nothing is going well. Life is hard. Like it, it's not just like there's one issue. We need to tackle it. We need to go for it. We need to figure it out. It's, your your body and brain is literally having a flush of emotions and letting it all out and guarantee you

you feel better after it. You might feel tired. You might get really good rest. But like next time your child has a meltdown, not a tantrum, but a meltdown, okay, watch how they react after a meltdown. All of a sudden they want the, you know, cassidia cut into squares and then circles and then triangles and you're like, like, now it's just strips. Like, I don't really know what to tell you. It's all going to take this fucking saint. Like, just eat. Like, and that's from experience.

Literally, that happened to one of my child, children. And at the end of all their meltdowns, they're like, I love you, mommy. And they're like so snugly and lovey and cuddly. And it's like this pot of gold at the end of a storm and a rainbow, right? And then we're mad because they don't, we don't feel like they deserve it. Yeah. Yeah. And you're trying to fix it.

Don't fix it. You're off. Like, that child is offline. Yeah. But in order for you to see what a meltdown looks like, watch your child. Like, why? Because that is a complete overhaul of your nervous system and flushing it out to get to the point of being regulated. Yes, yes, yes.

Can you tell me how this concept of emotional dysregulation contributes to the loneliness epidemic? Yeah. When you are disregulated, there's a. Okay, so let's back up. When you're just regulated, you're basically living in fight or flight. When you're living in fighter flight, your brain, just like that meltdown, your brain is offline. It is meant and supposed to do that, right? So I'm sure you've watched a movie somewhere in your lifetime, or I'm sure you've had friends or family or heard of someone who has been in a horrific car accident or something has happened, and they wake up in the hospital and they say, I don't remember anything. I don't even remember my time in the hospital.

it is very, very vague. It is very foggy. It is very unclear to me. What I do remember is leaving the hospital and heading home after all of my rehab, right? That is what the brain is supposed to do. Your brain is supposed to push cortisol and push all these hormones, which you don't need on a regular basis. And that is, again, what naturally causes you to be sick, chronically sick long term when it's

pushing all these hormones that you don't need. but it is trying to protect your brain because your brain is going to do what your body is saying. So if your body's like, I'm in fight or flight, I'm in fire or flight, I'm dysregulated, I'm dysregulated. It's going to keep producing all those hormones and you're going to be completely offline, which means brain fog. You're not going to be present with your children. You're going to have zero eye contact or very little eye contact.

You're probably not going to even remember to touch them or be physical and like love them and hug on them. And burnout and exhaustion and irritability. You're not going to even remember the years that go by in a blink of an eye. And maybe you're like in the thick of it and you're listening to this breastfeeding. And you're like, oh, I'd really like for this to go by fast. Trust me, I get it. There were many years where I was like, can this shit be over?

Like, I fully, fully get it. But you don't want your entire life to be like that where you're like, I don't really remember because I was so offline. Yeah. Right. And that really is such a deep connection to loneliness. Yes. loneliness and being offline is so intimately connected.

Stop you from connecting. Yeah. And I think, so can you then tell me the story of Jonathan and grief and how this really solidified for you just what deep, deep grief does to your nervous system? And it's supposed to do this PS. This isn't the fault of anybody who dies or this isn't the fault of anybody because we're all going to be in states of grief and mourning as we listen to this podcast today. Tell me, though, how.

this contributes to our functioning or lack thereof and why this is so normal for so many of us. And I want to know the story of Jonathan again. Yeah. You know, I think that not only there is there like this, this epidemic of loneliness or pandemic of loneliness, but there's also this terrible crisis of mental health. And the suicide rate is higher than ever. And it, I mean, I hear of someone, this happening to, you know, know all the time. Yes, I'm in this world and I'm open about it because that's what happened to my

husband. But it is happening over and over and over and over. And it's because we are going so fast on a hamster rail that we don't see any way out except for I need this to stop. I need this to end. I need this to be done. So Jonathan and I met, fell hard and fast. I was in graduate school. He was working full time and doing graduate school at night as well to get his MBA. We had like all the stars aligned and I was like, this is the perfect guy for me. I can't believe I found this perfect guy, got engaged on our one year anniversary. I started to see a few red flags, but I thought it was the stress of us getting married and the wedding and all the things, but it just kind of continually got worse. Jonathan would work from his bed

at times. It was almost the best way to describe it as like I was pulling a dog on a leash, like a puppy on a leash. I was like, come on, come on, we can do this. And so I met this unbelievable human of a man, but the problem is that so many people are masking and so many people are putting on this facade and so many people are, as they're masking and putting on the facade, completely ripping apart their nervous system and completely abandoning themselves that they are causing such anxiety and depression. And before the chronic illness comes the anxiety and the depression. And I was with Jonathan for 12 years. It continually got worse and worse over time. Jonathan and I eventually separated and we did begin a divorce.

I could not physically hand him divorce papers. I was like, okay, I'm just going to push through. I'm going to make it on my own. Like I'm just going to focus on me and the kids. I can make this work all the while knowing like this was not going to work. But I felt deep down in my soul if I was the one who handed him divorce papers and he eventually took his own life that I would blame myself forever. Fast forward to the actual pandemic.

He had attempted a few times throughout our marriage, and he attempted the night before the boys were supposed to go to his place for the first time. That's kind of when my solo parenting journey began. He was gone from March, literally shut down. down until March, April, May, like June-ish. He then came back into the picture and I slowly trusted him to take the kids. And by April of 2021, he took his own life. And it has almost, it's been four years plus.

And it has been a wave of emotions. and I'm grateful that I had the tools that I had. Yes, I'm not sitting here crying. And like it almost seems very flat when I talk about it, but I've talked about it so much. And I've talked about it so many times that, yes, going back to the brain, like my brain is used to talking about this and being so open about it. So it's not that I don't have any feelings around it.

It's that I've really done the work to heal myself and heal and support my children around this. I didn't have the tools that I had prior to Jonathan passing, I don't think I would be doing as well as I'm doing in terms of running a business and running all my social media pages and having a team of 15 and traveling and public speaking and writing a book and, you know, taking care of my kids and having a life and a partner and a social life and doing select baseball and traveling for select baseball, you know, like the list goes on and on. But how do you know, I mean, now as you sort of reflect in your time. I think it's a really interesting question for women in terms of

how do we support our partners and how do we know when supporting our partners come at the risk of us being, as you sort of said, you know, being pulled down with a, talk to me a little bit about this space because you've been so wise in this space about, you know, we're together as partners. We're intended to be together. And then sometimes when somebody is ready and willing and able, I think, to do the work and another partner just isn't. shame the guilt, the worry. How did you navigate that? What would you say to people these days? It's a really great question. I think it happened naturally. And for years and years and years, I kept saying, if I just do this, if I just do this one thing, that's going to fix it.

If I just do that, maybe if I just do this, maybe if I run to the grocery store while he naps, like he'll have more energy at the end. If I, if I do things better, if I change, If I, like, I always felt like I could be the source of like, I knew who Jonathan was, right? Because the guy I met, I was like, that's who you walk. Yeah, can we just get back there. Right? Yeah, like, let's go. Let's get back there.

And I kept trying and trying and trying. And once I finally did the work on myself and started implementing and it did coincide with my career and selling my first, I had a pediatric clinic. And I sold that six years into building. at and took some time off. And I was like, this isn't working. Like, this medical model is not working. And so it kind of all came together in terms of me doing the work on myself and implementing nervous system regulation and sensory regulation and all the different things on myself. And then recognizing, huh, like, got it. Like, I'm actually, oh, like, once you start leaning in

and listening to yourself, you become worthy of those feelings. You become worthy of hearing and listening in and like, oh, wait, I do matter. Hold on. It's not just me. Wait a second. second. Like, maybe I need to wave the light flag because I am so fucking exhausted from taking care of everyone else. Maybe Jonathan's a big boy. Like maybe he can start to take care of himself. And so it happened over the course of years, like years where I was like, little by little, I was like, I'm going to, I'm going to choose me here. I'm going to, and it was scary as fuck and it was hard and it was miserable and it was lonely and it was exhausting and it was wrong. And is it supposed to feel selfish? Yes. 1000. I use that word. I tell everyone I'm like, go be

selfish. Like being selfish because the craziest part is no one's actually going to be selfish. They're going to move the needle a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny bit because it feels so gluttonous or it feels so wrong to be selfish. It feels so wrong to lean into you rather than everyone else. But like the problem is that, and I've lived it, right? The problem is that I was drowning too. And I think everybody else will die too. Yes.

I finally recognize that. I was like someone, someone's got to be feeling good. Someone's got to be thriving here in order to help your kids or support your kids. Like someone's got to be doing this. So like either I can continue having our life revolve around Jonathan. and like that is our number one goal is to get him to where, you know, I know he could be, or to wave the white flag and say, you know what, I'm going to love you and I'm going to accept you for exactly where you're at.

And that's all I can do is love you and accept you for exactly where you're at. And I think the dynamic shifted so much for Jonathan that it was like his last manipulative type of I'll get her back to taking care of me and focusing on me if I if I do this one final jab of like then we're going to get a divorce. And I was like, yeah, we are. Yeah, we're, yeah, we're going to do that. Because that this is what's best for all of us. Yes. And sometimes there is that desperation when there is no language or nothing left to sort of like pull on this process. And I think it's the greatest conversations you will ever have with yourself, with your therapist, with your people about what do I need to do to be the healthiest? That's got to be the number one question for me. And I will also

have a caveat to that is I've worked with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. And many, many years ago after this took place and I was already supporting people and doing the work that I do now, there was a part of me that was projecting of like, our, if you do this work, are you going to then see that your relationship doesn't work or your dynamics not working? It's actually quite the opposite. There is literally, I can count on one hand, maybe the amount of clients who have said, I'm not in a healthy situation and we need to focus on supporting me. And it's not like they come to us with that conclusion. They maybe get to that conclusion through the work that they do with us. But 99% of the time, the partnership rises. Even

if one person does the work, again, the person that I talked about earlier who went to the Aman's clinic, I have never, ever, ever met with her husband and the things that are happening within his life and how he is utilizing this work on him because he has seen it modeled from his wife is unbelievable. And most couples rise. I am the anomaly. I am not, I am not the norm. So don't be afraid to do this work. I think that is, that's the greatest, that's the greatest, That's the greatest caveat of all. Because I think sometimes what we feel like in this space of, you know, death by suicide is could we have, should we have done more. And oftentimes, you know, there's always room for that conversation. I'm always, you know, for years, this is how we have

hard conversations over here. I think what becomes really interesting sometimes is that even with the best, the finest, the biggest wish and hope and prayer for the people we love the most, we're just not good enough to be able to fix everybody else on this planet. And so with our limited, sacred time, what becomes really critical, and I hope you hear this in this conversation, is how we regulate our own nervous systems. That gives us the best capacity to walk each other home. And so, Brooke, I think you are brilliant. Yeah, for each other. I think you are brilliant. I think you have lived the hardest journey on this earth that we're called to live. And you are just rising, teaching us how to do this. Your babies are so lucky to have you. And I can only imagine

that Jonathan is very proud of you too, as you continue to show this community how to do great things. So I am going to link every piece of where to find Dr. Weinstein in the show notes. And from the bottom of this mama's heart, thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. Thank you. All right, everybody. Take care of each other. And I'm going to meet you right back here again next time. You know, the more we do this, people ask, why do you have to do the acknowledgement and every episode? I got to tell you, I've never been more grateful for being able to raise my babies on the land

where so much sacrifice was made. And I think what's really critical in this process is that the ask is just that we don't forget. So the importance of saying these words at the beginning of every episode will always be of utmost importance to me and this team. So everything that we created here today for you happened on Treaty 7 land, which is now known as the center part of the province of Alberta. It is home of the Blackfoot Confederacy, which is made up of the Siksika, the Kainai,

the Pekina First Nation, the Stony-Nakota First Nation, and the Métis Nation Region 3. Our job, our job as humans, is to simply acknowledge each other. That's how we do better. be better and stay connected to the good. The Unloanly podcast is produced by three incredible humans, Brian Seaver, Taylor McGilvery, and Jeremy Saunders, all of Snack Lab productions. Our executive producer, my favorite human on this planet, is Marty Pillar.

Soundtracks were created by Donovan Morgan, Unloney branded artwork created by Elliot Cuss, our big PR shooters are Desvino and Barry Cohen. Our digital marketing manager is the amazing Shane A Haddon. Our 007 secret agent from the Talent Bureau is Jeff Lones. And emotional support is provided by Asher Grant, Evan Grant, and Olivia Grant. Go live! I am a registered clinical psychologist in Alberta, Canada.

The content created and produced in this show, is not intended as specific therapeutic advice. The intention of this podcast is to provide information, resources, education, and the one thing I think we all need the most. A safe place to land in this lonely world. We're all so glad you're here.