S1E9 - We Need to Calm Down

Learn about how reactivity can be a trauma response, and the many others reasons driving reactivity in ourselves and society. Where does it come from and how the hell did we get here? We discuss coping measures, how to cultivate self awareness around why we're reactive, and of course, we'll get on our respective soap boxes just a bit, because just like you, we're tired of the high reactivity in society that causes unnecessary pain and suffering, and sometimes violence and death. We really do need to calm down.  

Transcript

Sandi: Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to episode nine of the Cloak Tatters podcast. I'm Sandy 

Candy: And I am Candy.  

Sandi: We are happy to have you with us today. Today we wanted to talk about reactivity and more specifically how reactivity can be related to trauma., when I was working in the prison system, I worked with primarily men, and that's where I started, was men in the prison system who were either on probation or parole. And they had done all manner of horrible things in society. Many of them, most, all of them were using drugs. Most of them had a co occurring mental health condition of some sort. Sure. That had been diagnosed, not necessarily the way I eventually came to see these cases, but diagnosed according to the behaviors that they were doing, and not totally being aware of what their history was. 

Candy: What was driving the behavior.

Yes. And so I have tussled with, the last eight years or so, witnessing people in the general public behaving in many of the same ways that the people that I worked with who were incarcerated were behaving.

Candy: Oh. That's heavy. 

Sandi: I don't like it. 

Candy: No. 

Sandi: Not a little bit. 

Candy: No. Tell me more about that.

Sandi: So think, as we start to drill down on like what causes reactivity, what's involved in it, where, what can we do about it and all the different ways it could potentially show up, I think it's important to note that  again, like in most podcasts, we're not saying all people, we're not saying every single person. If we happen to separate things out by gender, age, culture.  it's just sort of a general idea that I have wanted to dig into and I often comment about it to myself or to my family or my friends all the fucking time because I see so much of it. Like we had an episode a while back where we talked a little bit about, you know, the woman who threw the soup on the cashier during the pandemic because it was too hot. That's a level of reactivity that's not healthy. And I always want to stay away from normal, but that doesn't seem a normative or a reasonable response. 

Candy: Reasonable. Yeah, that's a good word.  Over the top.

Sandi: It is over the top.  I spend time Driving my kid places, being on the highway, going to the store, just like y'all do, same kinds of daily activities of living. And I am often shocked at how I see people showing up in the world.  Because I'm a clinician and because I'm a curious beast,  I always want to look at those folks and go, what's going on with you? Right. 

Candy: What's happening here? Why are you behaving this way? 

Sandi: Yeah. So, we thought we'd talk a little bit more about what might be causing those things, how they're interrelated to each other, and eventually, what can we do about it? How can we make that better? 

Candy: Right. That's a lot. 

Sandi: It is a lot. 

Candy: Um, you know, prime examples of that are just road rage. And I talk about this, you know, in, in the rooms all the time. It's typically program related when we're talking about it, it's because we're not working our program, but outside of any 12 step program, this happens all the fricking time.

Sandi: All the time. 

Candy: And I know a lot of it like In my part, like with Road Rage, just using that as an example, it's, it boils down to, and a lot of this will boil down to, a lack of control. over something. I'm gonna be late. Or, I need to get over in this lane and this motherfucker's not letting me over. Like, that is when I use the most MFers, is when I'm driving. 

Sandi: Right. 

Candy: And I hate that. I hate that. I'm like, dude, you know better. Like, why are you acting this way?  And there are other factors that go into that too, like vulnerabilities, like you're tired or you just had an argument with somebody or whatever that will also affect that. Uh, so anyway, that's, that's just you bringing that up. The road rage stuff is, I think, something that we can all relate to, whether we have engaged in it ourselves or been on the other end of it. 

Sandi: Sure, sure. I often sit in traffic and I'll Very often, and I'm not picking on y'all, but very often it's young dudes who are sitting at the stoplight and I'm like sitting over here as the 51 year old mom like Did we not move past this? Like, this seems very 1970s, like, you know, action adventure, you know, show, like, chips or something, you know? Like, I thought we moved past this. Some people have not moved past the need to be fast and be the first. 

Candy: Right.

Sandi: And I see the behavior on the road, like there was a situation last week. I was driving home with my kid in the car. I was already a little punchy because it was 92 degrees and it was 930 at night, and my body was like, wiped. And, but I was not driving like, too fast. I was not doing too fast for conditions normal speed, riding in the right hand lane.  And I look in my rearview mirror and it's just start it had just started to sort of get dusk, maybe it was around nine ish, and I see lights behind me and they are coming up  like this and I am bracing myself. And he was in my lane and I just Okay, what do I do? Okay, don't move lanes. Stay where you are because he's probably going to go around you because it looks like a nice fast car that maybe he doesn't want to wreck. So hopefully that's going to be his motivation to move out of my way so I don't have to move out of his way. 

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: And it scared the shit out of me. And I'm usually a pretty assertive driver. I'm a defensive driver. I've never been into an accident that I did cause, but I saw him weave around me and then weave around like 14 different cars. And I could see the stretch of I 25 that I was on. And I'm just saying, I'm sitting there to myself going, What could possibly be going on for this person, right? And I don't like to assume the worst about people  But I think he was a young guy who wanted to drive his car fast and just didn't have the self awareness to be even worried About anybody around him

Candy: The collateral damage.

Sandi: Yes, right. 

Candy: That's funny because this has come up so much in in meeting and What keeps me in check. It's a little bit of a digression, but keeps me from engaging in my own road rage around behavior like that is to tell myself, maybe they have an emergency. Maybe, uh, somebody brought up the example, maybe they have a cake in the front seat of their car, right? You know, that's why they're driving so slow, you know, shit like that. Like I've got no idea what's going on in this person's world and it helps me with the don't attribute. malice to that, which can be explained. Yeah. It's a little bit of a, that's how I handle it myself to keep me from getting to that, matching that energy. Yes. and being a douchebag myself. 

Sandi: And I used to teach the same thing when I was working in anger management and we're teaching the guys anger management in corrections. Um, they would get pissed off if just somebody looked at them wrong. And I'm like, guess what? They may not be actually looking at you at all, right? Maybe you're in a restaurant and there's a TV above your head and they're catching the game and you just think that they're looking in your direction. And most of them would sit there and go, huh, I've never thought of it that way. And then they would instantly want to like go up and fight this person and like be aggressive and be like, What the fuck are you doing?

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: And no, we can't live our lives like that because if you want to go from inside the walls to outside the walls, you need to learn how to be polite in society.

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: Get along.

Candy: Right.

Sandi: So, How is responding different from reacting?

Candy: Well, I would say responding is more mindful. You're thinking about, thinking first about how you're feeling, how it's affecting you, taking that into account and also playing the story through when you, when deciding how to respond, playing that through and seeing if that is going to be the best option or the best way to go. Yeah. Yeah. You know.  rather than reacting, that's, that's the frickin reptile brain, rather than the prefrontal cortex taking in the information first. 

Sandi: Right. And I think, personally, and as a clinician, Because I see it in both worlds. I think we have sort of a specific problem with overreacting or reactivity in our culture due to a variety of stressors and things going on. 

Candy: Most definitely. 

Sandi: So, as we think a little bit about what influences people's level of reactivity, some of the things that I learned in the prison system that unfortunately now I'm, look at on a pretty regular basis in the lives of the patient, patients that I work with are home life. What did you learn? What was modeled in your home? What was your family of origin like as far as handling conflict?  What did that look like? And then what do little people, as they're forming and their brains are developing, what did they learn from that?

Candy: That's a big one, right there.

Sandi: It's huge. Yeah. And when I was working in the prison system, these gentlemen, started with men and then continued working with both men and women, um, these gentlemen had had very hard lives. But that was not the focus of what their sort of center of care was based on the prison system because they're looking at it from what did you do and how are you going to make amends and what do we need to do so that you don't do this again. I was looking at it from, yes, all of those perspectives were included, but what happened to you to cause you to behave like this?

Candy: Right, and that's, that's the most important question to ask because that's what drives our behavior. 

Sandi: That's right. 

Candy: And like what you were just saying, what do we learn in our formative years? How do we learn how to handle stressors when they present themselves? 

Candy: Right.

Sandi: And I would estimate that 97 percent of my caseload, and I probably worked with 600 offenders over the course of my career when I worked in corrections. 97 percent of those men had severe childhood trauma. 

Candy: I would believe that. 

Sandi: They were beat by their parents. They suffered with poverty. Their parents were not appropriate parents. They were not parenting in a way that was helpful to development. They were parenting the way they were parented oftentimes.

Candy: Sure. 

Sandi: So there's this generational cycle that we sort of pass down what we learned and then we pass it down again and we pass it down again. Thankfully we're hitting a point in society and I see it all the time of people literally coming to therapy and saying, My grandparents did this. My parents did this. I know that I'm at risk for doing this and I don't want to. 

Candy: Yes. And I love that. 

Sandi: I know. 

Candy: I love that so much about, the younger generations and how they recognize the importance of acknowledging mental illnesses and generational trauma. And their willingness to stop it. I freaking love that. 

Sandi: Yes, I do too. That's where a lot of my hope lies these days.  Around mental health and the access of such and the continuation of people learning and growing and changing across the lifespan and adapting to be better able to face adversity, conflict, challenges, life transitions because we all are going to experience those things as humans. Why not try to get better at rolling through the punches, if you will. 

Candy: Yes. Without throwing them. 

Sandi: Yes. For sure. The other thing that I know played a huge role in some of my clients lives, um, that had problems with reactivity is the culture and the communities that they were raised in. Some of that oftentimes involved their religion or their belief systems. And again, if anybody's listening and I want you to feel targeted in any way, but because I have a specific interest in treating religious trauma, it's a cluster of symptoms and I see it a lot in people who have been raised in very religious households sometimes rural, lacking some education, lacking some awareness and having that combined with the modeling of how we do discipline, how we treat kids, how we raise children. And, and that is a constellation that I have seen more and more and more in my last seven to eight years of practice. 

Candy: Um, I've, there's been a lot of religious trauma talk in, in my personal circle and thankfully I don't know what that has been like, uh, but I can't even imagine, I can't even imagine the damage that, that does cause, using using God as a general term or higher power, whatever. That is supposed to be a source of comfort. Love and kindness. All the good things. And to have that muddied by the behaviors of, Some of the followers of these religions, I can't, I just, my brain can't even comprehend the dissonance there.

Candy: Right.

Sandi: Between the abuse and what, what a higher power is supposed to provide, you know, and its followers. Presumably. I've had many people who were raised in environments where religion and going to church and being with your religious community was very important to their upbringing. And then something happens in the course of that. Sexual abuse, physical abuse, by a person in position of power, sometimes a pastor, a preacher, a bishop. These things are happening and then that person becomes extremely afraid of their spiritual self. Oh, and now it's like a betrayal. 

Candy: Okay. 

Sandi: You took this thing from me that I can no longer trust because you abused your position of power  and you did things that were heinous and criminal and awful and harmful, and traumatic, and that person then not only has the struggle to deal with the trauma of what was done to them, but also the spiritual struggle of finding a spiritual groundedness and a sense of connection and community.

Candy: Yikes.

Sandi: It's deep doo dah when that happens, and it's hard, arduous work. 

Candy: Oh, I can imagine. I mean, I feel lost just not even having grown up with a religion. I can't imagine having grown up with that, having it sullied and then trying to find my fricking place within that sphere. Forget it. I just, I can't even grasp it.

Sandi: Yeah, I know.  It's hard to grasp it. And, and fortunately for me, I have learned a lot. I have read a lot. I have talked with about this with so many people and it's now something that when I'm doing an intake with someone, I poke around in that area. Okay. And I ask, do you have a spiritual support system. Because I really want to work on whole person treatment. Right. Right. Right. And spirituality is often something or, or some sort of religion and those two are separate in my mind, but people cling to that often, like your, your step programs, right? Yeah. There's a higher power involved that we lean into for assistance and strength and motivation and comfort. But when people don't have that, and the other part that happens is that oftentimes there's a lot of gaslighting in those situations from people who are in the system who don't believe the person who is now being jettisoned from the system, and  they're told that didn't happen, oh you made too big of a deal out of it, and they minimize and they gaslight the person, which is just adding another trauma layer on top.

Candy: Right.

Sandi: It's an absolute shitshow. 

Candy: Ugh.

Sandi: I know. So that culture, community, religious belief systems, that's all sort of intertwined. And I like to poke around in those areas to find out what, what was that like for you? 

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: Who were your supports? Right. Um, the other thing that can drive reactivity is mental illness. We're talking anxiety, depression. 

Candy: I can relate to this one. 

Sandi: Right, yeah. Same, same.

Candy: Trauma, of course. And then the organic disorders. 

Sandi: Like, people on the spectrum, people who are neurodivergent, people with social anxiety, that, that can influence them to feel very reactive about things that are not within their purview of being able to handle as far as like a distress tolerance.

Candy: Right. Right? 

Sandi:Yeah. So what is something that I can handle and then you tell somebody else about it and they go, and they freak out. Right. Okay, now we've pushed too far and I'm curious what just happened here. 

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: Right?  So, those are some of the things that I think really promote, um, reactivity in our culture and reactivity in each and every one of us. Um, and then of course we have the activities of daily living and stress and how are we going to put food on the table. and all the decisions that go into just running a life. It's exhausting. Like y'all, we're fucking exhausted out here. 

Candy: It is exhausting. You're, we were just talking about before we started recording like all the different societal things that are expected of us nowadays. And I remember when cell phones first came out and then, so there was, there was text messaging and I'm like, okay, this is fucking cool. And then Facebook and then there's messenger. I'm like, okay, all right. Then there's Instagram and I'm getting messages on Instagram and then there's Snapchat and then there's fucking tick talk and, and now, and and in addition to that, there's good old fashioned email. So it's like, how many things do I quote unquote have to check on a daily basis to stay in contact with my people? That gives me anxiety, or I should say it used to give me more anxiety. I'll still get a little touch of it and then I have to talk myself down from that ledge and be like, dude, if it's really fucking important, the people will call you. because I make that clear. I'm like, if it is an emergency, do not message me. Period. Because I had to teach myself to get to those messages when I can, because otherwise my anxiety would get up and I would get reactive and I get pissy and snippy to those around me. That has probably been my biggest reactivity, emotion or, is it anxiety and emotion or feeling? I'm feeling anxiety, feeling. I know, I'm like, what's the fucking difference? But in my life, anxiety has been the biggest driving factor for some of my erratic behavior.

Sandi: I can say the same. And it's pretty common for those of us particularly who have childhood trauma Mm hmm And it happened to us at such a young age that our brain was still developing That we sort of get hardwired and a neural pathway starts to form That now every time that something reminds us or it's reminiscent of That neural pathway gets tickled. Yep, and we call that a trigger And we know that that word has been horribly misused in culture, and I hate that, but here we are. Right. It's the internet, and we all spread the shit around, thinking we all know what we're talking about all the time, and sometimes some of us just don't. So, use the words right. 

Candy: Tell me how you really feel. 

Sandi: I'm triggered! Okay, um, alright, I've got feels, I'm going to just not focus on that part because we'll talk about it later. No, I am. Just damn it!  We're in a safe space right here We can be a little bit more reactive because this is we're teaching ourselves and everybody else a lesson here Yes, so I think that when those things happen like people are under such load and I think when we add a very stressful collective meaning everything that's on the outside of us and around us... what's happening socially, politically, culturally, at the time. And then we have these fucking devices that will warn us of every stupid thing that ever happens in the world, which is why my phone is on silent all the time. It's just on silent. Oof. Because I would flush the thing down the toilet. 

Candy: All the sounds. 

Sandi: I know. 

Candy: Oh my god. And beep, beep. Yeah. No. And if you have sensitivity, like I did sensory overload to sounds especially. And even if it is a fucking Star Trek communicator beep, which I fucking love, it does it enough times. I want to fucking, you know. chew glass, you know, it's, it's like too much. So I'm, I'm the same way. I'm like,  that's why I do not disturb  is a blessing because I have it set up so that phone calls will come through if it's fucking important. 

Sandi: Right. 

Candy: Call me. Don't fucking message me. Yeah. I have my phone turned off for the same reason. Yep. And what I like about that and sort of back to your point about the lack of control, I can control when I go into my phone and check my messages or log into Instagram. Or I can see a message that pops up that's just my close people, my husband and my kid, the two most important folks, and a couple other people too. And if I see something from them, I am more than willing to go and boop and see what's happening. But I can control the flow of it. 

Sandi: Yes. Yes. 

Candy: It's finding ways, tips and tricks to help reduce the stressful load on, you know, I had to teach myself, if I cannot respond to a message right away, don't fucking look at it.

Sandi: Right. 

Candy: Because I will forget. if I look at it and I can't address it, I'll forget about it. And then a couple of days will go by or even a couple of hours and I will flip out. I'll get stressed because I didn't respond to this message and then, Oh my God. And it's a whole fucking downward spiral. So I'm like, just don't respond to it unless you can fucking respond to it.

Sandi: Correct. 

Candy: You know, or don't look at it unless you can respond to it. 

Sandi: Yeah. 

Candy: Yeah. It's, I mean, it's taken, especially for, I would say,  Gen Xers and older. We have had to like dig around in our toolbox and find new tools to figure out how to deal with the stressors of new technology and what they bring. Because we're not used to any of it. 

Sandi: Yes. 

Candy: What is this noisy world we fucking live in? Yeah. 

Sandi: And that is, going back to the point of, how, how overwhelming life can be just generally living it every day and doing all the things we have to do. And then when we add that collective lens of stress. 

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: And, and what's happening in our culture, and what's happening around us in society, that can literally push people over the edge. And then we've seen people who are everywhere, and that's what I'm seeing now. We see people everywhere. I'm one of those empath people. I can read you, like, immediately, and I can tell and sense if something is not right. 

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: And I do this experiment all the time, and sometimes I push my own boundaries and I get real uncomfortable, but I'm like, that's not yours. It's okay. But I observe people, Because a people watching is fun. Yes, it is. And there's a lot of amazing humans in the world to watch and look and see what they're doing and just marvel at their life And the way they show up and that's great, but there will always be those people that you can pick out You know the miserable son of a bitch at the grocery store Who a year ago, I went to the grocery store and I'm minding my own business doo doo doo picked up a few things and And this older man, probably 60s or 70s, he did not look infirmed. He didn't, he just, he, he just looked kind of crusty. Like he was having a bad fucking day for like 30 years.  And all of a sudden he looks at me dead in the face and he starts snorting at me like a pig.

Candy: Oh, what?  

Yeah. 

Candy: What the fuck. 

Sandi: That's what I said. And I immediately went into counselor mode because that's sort of how I view the world. That's like my lens Like what does this mean? Sure. And I could have been upset because you know, I'm a heavier set person and he was oinking at me like a pig.Like what my brain just went to why the fuck would he do that? And I don't know I don't know what his issue was, but he was having a moment. 

Candy: No shit! 

Sandi: And there we had some animal Farm noises coming out of him directed right at me because he looked me dead in the face And I'm like who goes out in public and does this?  What? 

Candy: Somebody who's going through some shit. 

Sandi: Yeah. And I could recognize that. And I immediately was like, girl, that ain't about you. That's about him. 

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: There's some shit going on over there. Just get your milk and get out.  And so I go home and I tell my husband, I was like, some, some older guy just oinked at me at the grocery store. And he goes, what? What a fucking asshole. I'm like, well kinda yeah on the surface, but he's clearly got something going on.

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: That's not about me. And so I'm gonna pick and choose around that. I've got enough sense and balance to be like that doesn't seem like it has anything to do with me So I'm just going to walk the other direction Yeah, I'm never going to see this person again in my life likely and even if I do I don't know. Maybe I'll oink back the next time. I don't know but like maybe it's a mating call or a bonding thing You know  

Candy: He grew up on a farm, dude.

Sandi: And he could have had some sort of mental illness, but I consider all those things and that is sort of, that guides my response. Is this worth my time to respond? Probably not.  

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: But if it was more in depth, if I was being attacked or if, you know, they kept on and were following me, like the situation would've been different. 'cause I would've turned around and been like, do you need something? 

Candy: Right. Can I, can I help you? 

Sandi: Can I help you? 

Candy: Right. 

Yeah, but he didn't, he kept his farm animal along his, you know, the wall and I left and went on my way.

Candy: He could have been singing old McDonald in his head, 

Sandi: You know? I think that’s a really nice way to give him credit, but at the end of the day I didn't care, but it's one of those things that I've experienced where I'm like, okay, I'm confused. 

Candy: Yeah. 

Sandi: Who knows what was going on with him, but I could have made different choices I could have chosen to be reactive and go what's wrong with you I can't but and snort myself and like really go off right but there was no reason for me to do that I Yeah, that's me. Some people Could not stop themselves from doing something or saying something or escalating it and going up the ladder.

Candy: 30 years ago. I would have reacted to that. Mm hmm, you know and it has taken I think like what you and I have that I Don't even want to give a number to it, but some of the general public don't have is knowledge, experience, and practice with skills that we have learned over the years. You as a professional, me as the fucking patient. And practicing these, these tools to pause. Pause when agitated. Halt. Are you hungry, angry, lonely, or tired? You know, all those things. There are so many different, different, um, skills to make you stop right before moving forward.

Sandi: Yeah. 

Candy: And then responding rather than reacting. But unless you don't, unless you've done therapy, you know, uh, to teach you those skills or you've learned them on your own, uh, or you've gone to school, you know, to learn them and then practice them regularly. 

Sandi: Right. You're not gonna fucking know any better, you know, and so then we have a society of people running around Reacting to shit.

Candy: Because they don't know they have their own Issues whether it's anxiety or it's some kind of trauma response making them feel like they need to react to things rather than pausing and being like, oh, hey Maybe this person's having a bad day and I don't need to let their bad day. Give me a bad day, it can be I I have the skills and I've been practicing them and it's fucking hard to pause sometimes I'm like, well, fuck you back motherfucker, you know  It's real easy to fucking you know, it's like those kinds of behaviors. You're talking about the cycle and how it, it tickles that part of the neural pathways cause you used to behave like this. It's really easy to, you might have this nice paved concrete path over here that you've built yourself or whatever. You still have the ruts over here in the fucking gutter and it's real easy to slide right back into that. 

Sandi: Yes. And I want to normalize that from my professional lens and my personalized lens. we all do it sometimes to varying degrees. It's going to happen, especially if you're a person with a traumatic background or a brain issue or you're just still trying to work however out of it. Right. Trying to do things to make it better. But I think that, you know, the way we learn about that too is by taking feedback from the people closest to us.

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: You know, um, yeah,  but it's, it's something that I think about all the time. And sometimes like when I read news stories, there was a news story recently that really, really upset me. And I try not to let that happen because again, we know about algorithms and we know that, you know, our interest in things is going to be fostered by the things we're already looking at. And then it throws more of that in your lap. And then we consume, consume, consume. Right. And they're doing that to make money off of us. And that sucks.  But if you figure out the game and you can tailor your social media, If you're using it to certain things, you know, I have a good array of horror stuff, burlesque stuff, coasters, and cats.  Right? Like, but there is a fair share of news research that I do or news consuming that I do. But I go to specific sources to look certain things up or to read about certain things, right? But there was a story a few weeks ago, and I don't know when this happened, and I cannot remember where but it was two women who were in a relationship and a long term relationship together. I think they'd been together maybe 10 years ish and they were in a town square. I think this might have happened in Canada. They were in like a town square in the evening at, you know, like bar time. It was pride month  and a whole group of men came up to them and started  throwing things at them, yelling at them, and they beat the shit out of both of these women.

Candy: Oh my God, 

Sandi: Because they were gay and out. 

Candy: That's awful. 

Sandi: And, and they didn't do anything to precipitate for my understanding. I looked a little further into it. There was nothing that they could have done to cause this kind of reactivity. 

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: So my immediate thought went, what is going on with the men who did this? Why they thought this was an appropriate action to take. 

Candy: Yeah.  It's not okay.  

Sandi: And that's where, when I look at the prison population that I worked with, and then I look at general public, y'all are doing some of the same stuff, but you haven't been busted for it yet. 

Candy: Right.  Ooh, that's the big difference. People in the general public are getting away with it. 

Sandi: Yeah. Until they don't. 

Candy: Right.  Or if they're privileged enough to have money to get them out of getting caught. 

Sandi: Sure.  And unfortunately, because of levels of income, levels of privilege, connections, how you're networked, the communities you grow up in, there are people in the world who get away with a lot of bullshit, and they don't ever get in trouble for it. They never have to serve a consequence, and they don't come to understand that they can't just go out into the world and purposely hurt people. 

Candy: Right. Yeah. And, and then learning does not take place. Because there are no consequences. 

Sandi: Right. 

Candy: Although the way that our system is set up, and you could probably attest to this, is not the healthiest for rehabilitating people. It's punitive. 

Sandi: It's only punitive. 

Candy: Yeah. We don't rehabilitate. We fucking punish. Because we don't care, I say we as in a general collective, don't care about getting to the, the bones of why this happened. We just like, you're a bad person, we're gonna fucking punish you for it, for the rest of your life, and then send you out into the world. You know, the prison system, like trauma drives these behaviors. They commit an act as a reaction to something. They go to fucking prison. Prison creates even more trauma that stacks on top of the old trauma. They come out and they're expected to fucking blend into society?

Sandi: Yeah. Preach. Preach. 

Candy: Right? Yeah. And I know you know. I know, I know.

Sandi: I mean that was my life for the years that I worked in corrections. And we were literally the people that were, we would be the first in line. They'd get out of, they'd get out of jail or prison and their PO or probation officer would drop them off in our office. And we're doing four and six hour assessments with these people and hooking them up with a clothing closet and getting them food stamps and getting them a bus pass so they can go out and try to earn a living while they're doing nine hours of treatment a week. And we did some pre treatment. The program that I was on, it was a grant and it was fucking amazing. It was a grant that the goal of it was to reduce recidivism. 

Candy: Okay. 

Sandi: So that they, while they're on probation or parole, they would not re offend in the community. and get yanked back and go back to the hole. Our program over a span of three years with approximately, probably 600 clients. And this was our work in Denver drug court as well. We had an 84 percent success rate.

Candy: Damn. That's impressive. 

Sandi: It was amazing. Wow. And it was hard, hard, hard fucking work. 

Candy:

Sandi: And it was also heartbreaking because many of the people that were there were. literally shot up with drugs by their parents when they were five years old, beaten every day within an inch of their fucking life, kicked out of their home because they were LGBTQ plus folks.

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: All these things that could have been with education and prevention largely been non existent in their lives and poverty. Poverty is always a huge one. 

Candy: Oh, that's huge.  That's huge for so many different fucking reasons.

Sandi: You want to say more about that? 

Candy: Well, it's, if you're living in poverty, you don't, first of all, you don't have the fucking resources. You can barely get food on your table,  let alone get any kind of mental health that you need. Yes, there are programs, but a program, I mean, you're talking about, public health programs. There are only so many resources. There are only so many people willing to do public health work. That's right. Because it doesn't fucking pay as much. That's right. You know, that's not the only reason there's, there's a lot of reasons. Yeah. Okay. That's just the first one my brain went to.  And while I can appreciate that there are the programs,  it also takes a willingness. There is a, yeah. causation. Yes. It's not just correlation. Right. Of mental health issues and poverty. Yes. Because it's a fucking cycle. It's, you're talking, you're going to, uh, generational trauma. Yep. And being able to break that cycle, you need to get the help that you can, but you can't fucking afford it. Or you don't have the car to get to the public health system to get the therapy that you need. You can't even fucking afford the bus, or maybe you don't even have shoes that you can fucking walk to the clinic.

Sandi: That's right. 

Candy: There are so many prohibitive factors that go into poverty and getting the help that we need. 

Sandi: Yes. 

Candy: You know, I grew up in fucking poverty and look what happened. It's taken me how many fucking years for me to get my shit together and I'm just barely getting it together at 46. 

Sandi: Yeah. 

Candy: You know, I've had to dig myself out of the fucking trenches. That's I have privilege because I'm fucking white. 

Sandi: And, and a female. 

Candy: And a female. And so, I, it's, I've had it easier, you know, and I lived in fucking Boulder. You know, it's, it's a lot of, there's a lot of entitlement there, there's a lot of fucking money. You know, so I was able to get that help. 

Sandi: Right. 

Candy: You know, but, but I look at other people that live on the fucking streets and like, five points. Five points even still a thing nowadays? 

Sandi: It's been totally gentrified. 

Candy: How do we expect these people to, they can't. They don't have the mental fortitude, let alone the fucking finances or physicality to be able to go fucking get help. 

Sandi: Right. One of the interesting experiments that was done when I first started working in, in a community corrections facility., My supervisor told me that they had done this, and I wasn't there when it happened, but I was told the story. And so, Community Corrections, people live there, parolees and probationers, they live there, they have to do a job search, they have to check in, they have to pay rent every month, and they've got to fulfill, they've got to do UAs, they've got to be in Medline, they've got to do all these different, and they've got to do classes and, and treatment in order to stay in the program. And so, in order to go out and job search, at the time, They would not allow them to have cell phones. 

Candy: What? 

Sandi: Right. You heard that right. 

Candy: What? 

Sandi: They were required to do job search, but they did not have a cell phone. 

Candy: Wow.  Okay. Keep going. 

Sandi: So they get out, they go out in the morning, they get their pass, they check out of the facility, time out, they go to the bus, they ride the bus, and they walk up and down,  I won't say the major street, but they walk up and down the major street and everything that they can get to on foot.  Can I fill out an application? No, sorry, you need to do that online.  So they can't apply for the job right there. So that's, that's a, that's a, you know, that's a disappointment, right? So then we just keep walking up and down the street and we go to every single place to try to find employment. Then they have to come back and spend several hours in the computer lab to apply for said job online. So when they try to get the call,  They can't actually answer the call because they don't have a phone. They have to leave a message at the facility. And then the person has to pick up the message from the security desk. And then they have to use the public phone to pay to call the person. Which, they've been out all day job searching from 10 to 4 or 9  to 3 and now they're struggling and they've got a couple hours or an hour to make phone calls and try to return phone calls and get in touch with the person who called them. 

Candy: Go ahead. I'm thinking of going back to the trauma.  How much trauma does that cause? And demoralization. 

Sandi: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. 

Candy: Because they're trying to do the fucking thing that they need to do to get better. And they're coming across roadblock after roadblock after roadblock, but hey, you're not trying hard enough. Yes, that is going to cause trauma in and of itself. So that when they do, when they are able to, if they're able to pick themselves up off the fucking ground, get an actual job or an apartment or whatever, like the first thing that comes up that reminds them of that fucking experience, how do you think they're going to fucking react if they haven't had it a healthy dose of therapy to help deal with their,  all their trauma of being homeless, of having to be, uh, shackled to this program that's very rigid. That's a good word. And, and, and then the, the feelings of failure or not being good enough. Oh my God. 

Sandi: Yeah. 

Candy: How much do you think that is a driving factor for a lot of people's reactivity in everyday life? It comes up so often. Oh, I feel like I'm on this big fucking soapbox. I know, I know. I have more to say about this than I realize. 

Sandi: Sure. Well, and to what they, what they ended up doing, the clinical team decided, Okay, we're going to do an experiment. We're going to let all the case managers go out for half a day under the same conditions.

Candy: Mm hmm. What was the result of that? 

Sandi: Well, I don't know that there was much shift or change, but they became much more conscious and  maybe slightly compassionate, depending on the case manager,  about the process of this. Okay.  So, yeah, so when people say, Oh, I don't know why these homeless people just can't pick themselves by their bootstraps. I want to say Okay, where are the bootstraps? 

Candy: Right. And where are the shoes? It's like, that one doesn't even have, that person doesn't even have a pair of shoes. 

Sandi: And so we would help these, when our program was working with them, we would give them, they had access to a clothing closet, they had access to our internal and external food banks, they would get, they were given a bus pass so they did not have to make money to pay for a bus, they were given job contacts, and we had multiple agencies that we worked with to help get these guys employed. I had one guy. He was one of the best clients I've ever worked with. He was very sweet and very nice and just really had a really shit life. He lived under a bridge for like the first three months of his treatment. And that boy would come to treatment nine hours a week and he would come to the food bank in the clothing closet and until he was able to get a job and get enough money to actually get a place, he was literally living under a fucking bridge. He would come to our office in the morning for his session. We'd let him use our sink to do sort of a shower type thing in. He could wash his hair in the sink. I mean, we did our absolute best to support all of his needs and he was so grateful. And I know I have this white savior sounding thing, but like, that's not what it was. It was this idea that we are seeing this person as a human in need, whose behavior has been kind of dysfunctional and he had a drug problem because you can't, you want to numb out from all of that when you're in that position. 

Candy: Oh yeah.

Candy: I have privilege and I want to fucking numb out from the shit that I have to deal with. I can't even imagine being in that position. Like, yeah, of course you want to not deal with that. And so I wanted to ask you just real quick that, that one case that you're talking about, was that an exception? To the success like no, no, there were a lot of people that had that the drive and the Fortitude and the mental wellness to keep doing the things that they needed to do.

Sandi: I mean, these are people who had lived incredibly difficult lives, very many of them, and started using drugs at a very early age to self medicate against harm and abuse, sexual, physical, psychological, all of those things, and so largely, and generally what would happen is that when they were released, they would be given a a hotel voucher for a short period of time while they were getting their shit together. 

Candy: Okay. 

Sandi: But guess where the hotel was? 

Candy: Oh, for fuck's sake. 

Sandi: Right in the same place where they used to use, or deal, or score. Yep. So, like, and so they basically send you out. They're like, here's some bus tokens. Here's a voucher. Good luck. Be good. 

Candy: Yeah, oh,  that's frustrating. 

Sandi: Yeah, so, but we were able to intervene in that, and we were able to sort of collect all these guys together, and in group therapy, that was the primary modality of treatment. Those rooms were fucking magical.  These guys bonded. I, it was, there was a lot of reparenting sense that I had of how to help these guys, how to reparent them with the tools and the skills and the support and the empathy and the compassion so that they weren't just out in society popping off on people, you know, if they're walking through a crosswalk and walk into a bus and somebody tries to  You know, okay rather than go and beat the car, right? I need you to stop and take some breaths and worry about yourself. Yeah, and don't get off your program, 

Candy: Right.

Sandi: So reactivity can come from all different kinds of places But largely I think it relates to what you said not having things within your control, right? And There's often that's rooted in like fear.

Candy: Fear. Yeah, fear based. 

Sandi: And as I look around at society right now I'm like, there's a lot of fear based people walking around I mean there was just a there was just a a snippet of news that I saw today that I couldn't even look at it I was like, I'm done. That's enough internet for today Like I was on it for like five minutes and then I just shut it off and it was the headline was something about a young boy had taken  An air shooter gun, like one of those fake, you know, things like a nerf type of thing back to a store and some Quote unquote good guy with a gun saw him and shot him.

Candy: Oh 

Sandi: A fucking kid taking a toy back. Like what are we doing?  

Candy: And Reacting to the societal trauma that we've had to go through with all the fucking shootings. 

Sandi: And I don't know what was it and I I'll go back and read the story more and maybe we can follow up on it It's not it's not and I don't want to say it doesn't matter because it does matter right because each one of those incidents that happens Yeah, it's up to us to figure out. Why did that happen? Why did that man think it was a good idea to shoot this kid? He didn't ask any questions. He didn't pause. He just thought oh I have a gun and I'm fearful And I don't know what the child's race was. I, I don't know any more details, but what were you so afraid of that you literally shot a child?

Candy: Right.  And there's so much, there's more and more of this, all the, and, and I don't, I don't want to get into the gun ownership or anything like that. It's just, it's all fear. It's all fear. 

Sandi: Right. Right. 

Candy: You know, I think you could take everything and boil it down.  To just fear, you know, and what that particular fear is, is just depends on the demographic of the person you're talking about, and their history, and what they've had to deal with themselves, on not only just the personal level, but on the larger, meta, societal level.

Sandi: So, just to recap really quickly, things that influence reactivity, home life, family of origin, home training, cultural stuff, community stuff, what do they tell you, religion and belief systems, what are you learning about how to deal with adversity or things that confuse you, make you fearful, things that feel out of your control. Of course, we have the organic disorders, mental illness, And then just the plain old fashion trauma response, right? Like that's going to continue to be an issue because I look out at the world as a provider right now And I'm like there is so much trauma. We are bleeding trauma on so many different levels cultural, societal, political, Ecological, you know interpersonal like it's just all around us that's so heavy.

Sandi: And I don't love it. 

Candy: No. No, it's heartbreaking. 

Sandi: It's heartbreaking. So, um, what helps this?

Candy: There's so much stuff.  There's so much stuff. 

Sandi: This is the hopeful part!  What can we do? 

Candy: I mean, this could be a whole other episode in and of itself is what helps. You know, personally speaking for myself, like tons of therapy. You know, being the willingness, the willingness to recognize that there's an issue and I sound like I'm talking program, but I'm not like it's, it's recognizing that there is a problem with my behavior. You know, I had to come to terms with that and then do the work behind that. And then it's, it's gathering tools.And the way to do that is to first recognize the problem and then talk about it. whether it's with a therapist or even friends or a religious figure, a spiritual guide or, um, a person in your religion that can help you, a priest or whatever.  Um, and then going from there. But the biggest thing is, As far as a step is to recognize that there's something going on. That's not working. Yeah, you know 

Sandi: Yeah I know on my side of things I I teach I do a lot of skill work with clients Because most of the time when they show up and I'll just kind of my average client lots of anxiety lots of depression and underneath that is where I go with my trauma seeking, honing device. Like Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep. You know, and it's like some of those things that those surface level things, which, yes, can we have anxiety disorders and depressive disorders sort of organically? Of course we can, but a lot of times if we look at where that started,  And I have to walk clients through this all the time because they don't put it together and there's this  and part of the reason I think is, and I want to use the word marketing, but I don't mean marketing, the way many people look at trauma or PTSD  is they think it's only for veterans, 

Candy: Oh my god, it's not. 

Sandi: Nope.  We know that. But sometimes when clients come to me, they're like, I'm having all these symptoms. I can't sleep. My behavior is erratic. I can't focus. I'm panicking. I'm having panic attacks. I'm having anxiety. Some days I can't peel myself up off the floor. I'm feeling so depressed. Sometimes I have suicidal thoughts. Sometimes I have these intrusive thoughts that I don't know where they're coming from. And they're really like violent and visceral. And I get like, I'm just, what's wrong with me? And, they asked me the question, what's wrong with me? And I, I'm like, it's not my job to answer that, but I think we should talk about what happened to you. And then we start uncovering and we go back, right? And I swear to God, nine times out of 10 to trauma is the trauma. Mm-Hmm. . And that exacerbates , right? The, all the symptomology of those disorders. And so, and, and sometimes yes, there's bipolar disorder on board. There's other sort of Oh, sure. You know, there, there can be other, lots of other things.

Sandi: But the, the, the, the general populace right now, I'm gonna tell you, we are an anxious, depressed.  irritable bunch. Yeah. A lot of the time because we have so many pressures on us. So we have to figure out ways for ourselves that will help us out of that space. So we can feel more in control. 

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: We can feel, we can know how to self soothe and comfort ourselves. And we know how to, and we need to learn how to ask for what we need. 

Candy: And that, as you're talking, I'm thinking about what is the most important factor here. Yeah. communication.  Being able to communicate, Hey, I'm feeling this way.  I'm uncomfortable. I'm distressed. I'm whatever.  being able to communicate how we're feeling  is a huge first step into the realm of healing.  And right now, we have poor communication skills as a society. Very poor communication, very poor interpersonal skills. 

Sandi: Yes.  We can't just walk around as a society and say, Well, fuck this guy and fuck that guy. 

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: And, and that be the end of it. That's not a conversation. No.  That's a conversation stopper.

Candy: Yes, it is. Right? It is, yeah. 

Sandi: So, I think people working on their self awareness, um,  And, and this is where I sort of get on my soapbox, where we've got people who are railing against social emotional learning In schools. 

Candy: What? 

Sandi: Oh, you didn't know that? 

Candy: No. 

Sandi: Oh, yeah. Oh There's a lot of folks who really have trouble with that. Don't teach my kid how to communicate I'll teach my kid that. Ok, cool.  When, when little Johnny's melting down all fucking day and poking other people in the eye with a pencil and stepping on the teacher and like, you know, writing cuss words, like we have a problem here. What are you going to do about that as a parent?

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: And I know everyone has their own sorts of situations and things going on that could lead to those things. And not every kid is perfect troublemaking than others and hashtag brain development. Sometimes kids just do dumb stuff. 

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: It's just part of being a kid and growing up and learning. 

Candy: Yeah.

Sandi: But if we don't have modeling at home about how to talk about our feelings, yeah, and we know that emotions drive behavior,  We need to teach that.  And we have all these other schools in other countries who are letting their kids go out and play in the dirt. 

Candy: Yes! 

Sandi: They're outside. They're lighting things on fire. They're playing. I mean, not in a controlled environment, you know. They're learning how to make a campfire. Maybe I should just restate it. Let's go teach the kids how to set the fire, you know, but.  So we're we're teaching kids these skills of like how to figure out the world on their own and they're not afraid of the world.

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: Right. And they're also able to articulate. I'm a Japanese kiddo and I'm riding the train and the bus at five years old by myself. And I'm also stopping by the store on the way home to get some milk for our tea. And taking it home to my mom, right? Like those kids know stuff, right? 

Candy: And that goes into a cultural thing.

Sandi: Yeah, they got taught that right?  

Candy: Right  

Sandi: And in America, we're either, we're either like, the kids, you know, leave and they're gone all fucking day like Gen X and go drink out of the hose, don't come back, you know. 

Candy: Totally. 

Sandi: I don't care if you're hungry, figure it out, go to so and so's house. Or we have kids that are literally latch keyed to their parents and they won't let them do anything. And of course, there's in between all of that. Yeah. But like the extremes, we always gotta find somewhere in the middle. 

Candy: Yeah, like what's the gray area? 

Sandi: So if we teach and they've done studies on teaching mindfulness skills to kids in kindergarten. And there these kids are good at it. Kids are good at learning those things and they like to learn those things. And you know when we teach them how to do breathing we take a stuffed animal and we put it on their belly And we teach them how to do belly breaths and lift the bear up  And put the bear down.

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: Lift the bear up and put the bear down. And so now we have six and seven year old little kids being taught mindfulness, which can reset their nervous system when they get upset and they know how to self comfort. They know how to self regulate. 

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: And then they know how to co regulate and they'll go up to their little friend and say You seem sad. Do you need a hug? 

Candy: Oh, I love that so much. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy. 

Sandi: Right.  And what is wrong with giving your kids emotional language? And I think a lot of times the people who oppose it were children themselves who did not get that. 

Candy: Right. And I have been in that mindset. It's like, I had the shit beat out of me and I learned how to be obedient. I'm like, well, it fucking worked for me. Until I began to understand the consequences behind getting the shit beat out of me as a child. Like, oh, maybe that wasn't the best way to go about this. Sure. But it took it took some self awareness going back to that on my part and being open to the possibility that the way I learned it is maybe not necessarily the best way to go about it. And that's hard, that can be really hard. You know, we live in a  country of hyper independence or thinking that we know better or like, you can't tell me what to do, I got this, you know, hold my beer, you know, that kind of shit. Right. And though it's really tough to fight that, that mentality or push back, you know, push back against that mentality of thinking we know better.It's like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Well, yeah, but we could be doing it better. 

Sandi: That's right. There's so much. 

Candy: I know. I know. 

Andi: So learning how to pause and just stopping, like just hold the press, you know, like the Joker stop the press! 

Candy: Yep. 

Sandi: Stop. Take a breath, observe what's happening, and, and pause before you say the next thing, or do the next thing, or move your body in a certain way. Just stop.  No communication most of the time. Is that important that you have to react to someone else's reactivity.  It's not useful a lot of the time. 

Candy: Correct. 

Sandi: And it leads to going up the ladder. Now we get louder, and now we get bigger, and now it gets uglier, and now we have more to apologize for. We could do a whole session on how people never apologize when they fucked up like this, but that's a different episode.

Candy: I'm gonna write that down.  

Sandi: So learning how to pause. It's doing counseling to learn some of the skills. And I guarantee you, if you're struggling, you can go into a counselor's office and say, guess what, I’m a little bit reactive  sometimes, often, all the time, and I don't know what to do to stop that. And that counselor will help you.

Candy: Right.  

Sandi: But sometimes you have to be specific of like, I have this problem and it's okay to own it. I know it feels maybe shameful or embarrassing or you feel guilty and you're not proud of yourself.  But part of self awareness is being able to dig into your own self and see yourself honestly. 

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: For the flaws and all the things that we have going on as humans because we all do it.

Candy: Yes, we do. 

Sandi: The other thing is bodywork, somatics. Working with your body, focusing on, okay, when you feel something in your body, like you, when you have a panic attack, or when I have one, where is that coming from in the body? 

Candy: Right. 

Sandi: And what do we need to do to soothe that energy?  

Candy: Yeah. I haven't done a whole lot of that.

Sandi: Okay. We're going to talk about TRE and we'll do a little bit of that because it's fun. 

Candy: Okay. 

Sandi: Um, but body work and being in tune with your body and making matchy matchy from the cognitive to the somatic and understanding how the two relate. 

Candy: Matchy matchy. That sounds fun.  I'm down. Sign me up. 

Sandi: There's always we can try medication routes to start off with to help people calm down.

Candy: I've had to go, I've been on Lexapro several times. Yeah. I've learned, but it took communication on my part with my physician. 

Sandi: Yeah. 

Candy: Be like, Hey, I'm, I'm feeling sideways or I can tell I'm dipping into a depression and I need help because my skills are not working. 

Sandi: Right. 

Candy: What can help me regulate? You know, Fucking, there's nothing wrong with medication. 

Sandi: Right. 

Candy: Absolutely nothing. Nothing. 

Sandi: And very often, it takes both things. 

Candy: Yes. 

Sandi: Especially with the longer standing trauma disorders, like these things have been happening and they've been your whole life.

Right. 

Sandi: Complex PTSD, specifically.  People with bipolar disorder often are really helped by adding sort of a mood stabilizer in and I'm never one who wants to push meds, but Ideally if things are really bad and there's a daily struggle just to function and things are just topsy turvy all the time Having a conversation about medication and how that intersects with talk therapy or somatic therapies or any kind of therapy is really helpful.

Candy: Yes it is. 

Sandi: And it doesn't mean we have to be on meds lifelong. Sometimes it's just enough to take the edge off of it so we can learn how to think and pause and control it and work through it. 

Candy: Exactly. I am not on medication anymore. Yeah. Because I have learned how to. If I was, if I felt like I was going to dip back down into that and I was still struggling, I would go back and say, I think, you know, I need medication. I need help. And then work on this. 

Sandi: Yeah. 

Candy: Until I can get well enough to not be on that medication. 

Sandi: Right. Right. Sometimes it just really helps as a stopgap to sort of cut things down because then that person feels better and more in control of their internal self so that they can better manage their external self.

Candy: Yes, that's an excellent way to state that. That's exactly it.

Sandi: So I guess the other couple of things it's deep breathing exercises. There are all, there's all kinds of breath work that we can do to literally reset our nervous system. Like you reset your computer when you push the button cause it's acting a fool. You're like, ah, fuck this. It needs a restart and you want to push it and you just push the button. You hold it, you hold it, you hold it. You're like, okay, get your shit together now, snap to it, you know, and sometimes that breath work can be super helpful Just to reset and calm down and give yourself a moment.

Candy: Yep 

Sandi: And then exercise. Move your fucking body. 

Candy: Mm hmm. Makes a world of difference. 

Sandi: Yeah. Yep. One of the things that do. There's this thing called bilateral stimulation aka walking…. that's one form of it. There's lots of other forms. There's tapping, there's all kinds of different things. But when I was working with guys in the prison system and I could see them getting kind of agitated in their session, let's go out and take a walk. And if you can get guys walking, yeah, they'll start talking.

Candy: I like it 

Sandi: So it's called walk and talk therapy and it doesn't work for just men But it is particularly helpful for men who tend to have a very physical externalized response because many of those guys, especially men who have not been told there's an emotional language, you tune into your emotions because emotions drive behavior. If we can get them walking and moving, they start to open up and talk and they tell you all the things. Yes. 

Candy: And it's great. I love it. Yeah. I love it. 

Sandi: So exercise swimming, going and hitting a frickin racquetball and just whacking the shit out of the ball like that will burn that extra energy out of your body 

Candy: Yeah, you know, yeah, it's transforming that that extra energy you got going on and it's pushing it outside the self. Fuck yeah!  

Sandi: So,  I hope that if anybody is listening or has stuck with us this long today, we thank you for that. But do something for yourself. Recognize and pause and check in with yourself and go, what is going on with me? 

Candy: And communicate. 

Sandi: Yeah. 

Candy: Whether it's to yourself, via self talk, writing, or to a friend. You know, it just starts with communication.  

Sandi: So. Is that it? I think that's it. 

Candy: I think that's it. 

Sandi: All right. Well, we thank you for joining us today on how reactivity can be handled, how it's related to the massive things in our lives, daily living, and what we've maybe suggested can help it. We hope you can learn from that and use it

Candy: Yeah. Thank you for being here.  

Sandi: Thanks so much. We'll see you next week. 

Candy: Bye.