Chelsea speaks with Karden Rabin, co-author of The Secret Language of the Body, about the power of co-regulation and how parents can foster better connections with their children through nervous system awareness. They discuss practical tips for calming both yourself and your child, why self-attunement is crucial, and how to use simple techniques like breathwork and body awareness to create a sense of safety and harmony at home.
Chelsea speaks with Karden Rabin, co-author of The Secret Language of the Body, about the power of co-regulation and how parents can foster better connections with their children through nervous system awareness. They discuss practical tips for calming both yourself and your child, why self-attunement is crucial, and how to use simple techniques like breathwork and body awareness to create a sense of safety and harmony at home.
Project Parenthood is hosted by Chelsea Dorcich. A transcript is available as Simplecast.
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CHELSEA: So what inspired this topic today is a book called The Secret Language of the Body, Regulate Your Nervous System, Heal Your Body, Free Your Mind, written by Jennifer Mann and Karden Rabin. Jennifer Mann is a mind body practitioner, yoga instructor and functional movement therapist and has battled severe chronic fatigue.
She began researching alternative approaches to healing chronic fatigue and was able to completely recover using trauma informed mind body healing. She now leads a community of over 100, 000 followers on Instagram and is the co founder of Somia, which has helped thousands of people from all over the world regulate their nervous systems.
Karden Rabin is a nervous system medicine practitioner and an expert in the fields of trauma and psychophysiological disorders. Over the last 15 years, he has combined principles of body work, brain retraining, and somatic trauma therapies and helped thousands of clients across the globe heal from chronic pain and illness.
Karden is the co founder of SOMI and a regular contributor to Bessel van der Kolk's Trauma Research Foundation. He has led programming for the Wounded Warrior Project, Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, and Starbucks. Today we'll be speaking with Karden and talking about co regulating your kid's nervous system.
Welcome Karden. Thank you so much for being here.
KARDEN: Thank you for having me.
CHELSEA: I'm so excited. This was, this book was one of my favorite. I felt like it actually took Many different, studying Polyvagal theory and studying a lot of Dr. Bessel van der Kolk's work, but also act, I'm a big act therapist. So it felt like it just pulled everything together and made it very.
Practical and, it felt very applicable, not only to like myself, my children, but even to my clients. So just so much for
KARDEN: you've just made my whole week. That was what we were, that's what we hoped to do.
CHELSEA: Okay, great. and I love this. So I think, and I, as I read for, I love it because. You can, you don't have to be a practitioner or a therapist to actually, just read this. This is so much easier to go through. And like you guys even talk about in the book, you can go right to the practices.
You can skip the, all the jargon of the brain work. And so tell me about, let's talk about just how our listeners, we're all parents, and you yourself are a parent, of two, how we can apply this even to just parenting on a daily
KARDEN: Yeah. I think that the, big gap that I see a lot, and I actually, it's, something that we're really trying to solve is that there are a lot of parents who are educated about attachment principles and about attachment parenting. And then they, go through what I'd simply call the behaviors.
And if you will, best practices of attachment parenting, with their language. But their language only. And then maybe they're also, when they're doing some attachment principles, they're like trying to be attuned and connected to their child, but while doing so they are actually in a state of anxiety and thereby one, a state of disconnection.
And that really compromises their capacity to co regulate with their kids. And so I think a huge bridge here, the gap that needs to be traversed, and that our, our work is really all about, is by teaching parents the secret language of their own body, by teaching them attunement to self first, by teaching them how to understand the messages of distress from their own bodies, First, by teaching them then how to use polyvagal therapies and other, we generally just call them nervous system modifiers, interruption techniques to bring themselves into a better nervous system state, better window of tolerance.
That is the most important thing for a parent to learn how to do so that their body. Becomes a refuge for their child.
CHELSEA: I love that. I don't know. I'm thinking of just example and you can tell me if I'm way off. It's just like when you're maybe in a public place and your child's doing something you don't want to do and you're trying to do that. Like you said, you're trying to really do the right language and give the right, but your body on the inside is whether it's from embarrassment from other people or what, if they'll judge you and then your whole nervous system is out of whack.
And so even though you're speaking those words to your child, it's not the same connection or regulation. Is that kind of, would that fit under what you're.
KARDEN: right. That's exactly right. And I think even one more layer to take it is, if, if you're a parent, you know that from basically, birth to at least one, but really birth to two, three beyond. It is not your words that comfort your child. It is your body that comforts your child.
It is the tone and prosody of your voice, not the words, that comfort your child. It is your body. I'm just gonna say it is your body and our bodies, the reason why lie detectors work is that the body is always perfectly expressing the truth or falseness, the regulation or dysregulation of the nervous system.
And there's no better truth teller on earth or lie detector on earth than a child's nervous system and body. They just know it, right? Like my, daughter, let's say I get short with her and I get, I just, I, my temper comes up and I'm angry about something she did. she'll look at me and she'll go, daddy, stop making that face.
It's the, she's so attuned to my facial expression, to my, vibe, right? And then let's say a minute or two later, I'm, not super angry, but I'm like still internally bent. I haven't really come back to connection yet. And she'll ask me, are you still mad at me? And I'll go, no. And she'll go, and she'll have this silence and she'll have this skeptical look on her face because her radar is correct.
She knows that I'm not back yet, So they're just so attuned to
CHELSEA: I love that they are there. we have to give them more credit for what they pick up on from us. And yeah, and definitely. So that's where this co regulation, right? It's not just about regulating our kids. It's, about the self first and
KARDEN: It's about the self first and foremost. And, as every mother knows father too, but mother in particular. Nothing scrapes and scratches and claws at your own wounds and trigger points than parenting. not just because of the dynamic of it, that relational dynamic, but because of lack of sleep and low blood sugar and a million other things.
So that's, that the self work becomes critical. It's there's nothing more important.
CHELSEA: I agree. I, yeah, I think about that with, when we, As parents, we are so on autopilot and probably giving, like what, like you said, work and it's kids and it's extracurriculars after school and, by the end of the day, we're done. But then it comes down to, okay, when these moments come up, whether it's kids are anxious or they're acting out or what have you or not motivated.
They're not doing homework. It's, We're so quick to react and, we think that we're actually selfless by doing all these things and not focusing on us. But it's actually at the day, it actually helps to be a little more selfish and actually look at yourself
KARDEN: Yes. You say that 10 more times.
CHELSEA: I'm trying, I'm doing that every day this week. Yeah. So yeah. So what are some, I'm trying to think about what, we can tell parents, like that, what, where we, where do they start when we're saying, okay, yeah, so we're listening to your own body. and I know your book does a great job telling us, but if we can give our parents kind of the shortened version of or get entice them enough to come out and get the book, but what are the, first steps as a parent, whether it's when we wake up or then the day, what are we, focusing on?
KARDEN: Let, I'm going to start with one that doesn't have to do with our book as book at all, because it takes. like no learning or skill to do this.
CHELSEA: I love
that.
KARDEN: and it's, logistical in nature, excuse me. It's logistical in nature. I like to give this metaphor that if you have a balloon that's filled to its maximum capacity, a hundred percent, and it basically bumps into anything, It has no rebound left to it.
It has no shock absorption left to it. but if that same balloon is filled to 95 percent capacity, Guys, this is just 5 percent less. It can bounce into a lot of things. and not explode. So truly seizing back, I don't care what it costs you, seizing back an hour of time a day. And this hour of time is defined by one primary thing and one primary thing only, which is it needs to be non, not only non parenting time, but it must be non parenting. productive time. It has to be some kind. And by the way, and preferably not unwinding on social media because that doesn't count, right? it, could be taking a nap. It could be going for the walk. It could be, sitting in nature. it could be listening to music. It could be dancing. It could be actually deciding to do some kind of nervous system practice, yoga, pranayama, breath work. But, as like one of my mentors say, it must be.
like meditative and resourcing as opposed to medicating and distracting, right?
CHELSEA: So not like picking up
KARDEN: no, it can't, no, I'm sorry. It can't be picking up your house. and this is where you must have something in your life, whether that be the neatness of your home or that, moment of not being able to be with your kid the way you perfectly want to be knowing that by letting that give you are giving your mind, body and nervous system.
That 5 percent of space and time and room that it needs to be pliable. And then without learning one dang skill, you are naturally more resilient. If you can do that, everything changes. So that's going to be number one. And, know that whatever area that gets compromised in your life, it will work itself out if you're doing this thing for you. Okay. So that's numero uno. number two, in terms of. Self state. we teach something called BASE, which stands for Breath, Action, Sensation, and Emotion. And those are the, lenses by which we teach people to tune into their body. Which lets them know the state of their nervous system in the same way that attuning to your child by being present with them and just Listening to them and in the same way that attuning to a friend and just being present and listening to them when they have a problem Even without solving the problem just your loving friendly listening presence That alone is, that's, attunement, that's co regulation, it is therapeutic and productive in and of itself.
And when you really are able to do that for a friend, you'll see that they often sort out their own issue or problem without your advice or me mansplaining, right? And when you use bass to attune and listen to your own body and nervous system. You are doing a form of self co regulation. You're using your mind and your observing awareness to compassionately listen to the distress in your body. And often that simple one to five minute act of being like, Oh, I feel that tension in my muscles. I feel the constriction around my heart. I feel the shallowness of my breath. I feel the buzz in my body. And simply being with that, noticing it, labeling it, and allowing it is hugely regulating even without taking the next step.
by the way, in our work, we use a framework called AIR, awareness, interruption, and redesign. The awareness step that I just described is phenomenally regulating and you can then proceed into I, interrupt. Interrupt is basically any practice that brings regulation like Box breathing any kind of breathing technique a movement technique some yoga postures any of the polyvagal stuff that you and your listeners might know That's the next step.
But that first step a tuning and listening self co regulation enormously helpful and then it allows you to be more available to co regulate anyone around you.
CHELSEA: Okay. I love that. So yes, it's all about the awareness first, just taking that moment to, or attuned, to but just being, I love that you said that in and of itself, That we, if we're just attuned and that's to ourselves, it's not I love the example of a friend, but if we can actually do what we can do to others, to ourself, that's that first step of just that awareness of, like you said, Oh my gosh, this is where I'm carrying.
this feeling of this emotion, no wonder I'm like so tight right now, or, you can get those feelings and
KARDEN: Just an example in real time is that yesterday, I had a very, I had a very fun and stimulating morning, a good one. but I could feel myself in that kind of, manic state. the overachieving, what's the next email I can respond to, the next text I could respond to. And specifically I wanted a third coffee. All right. And I could feel it. And I, This is the self awareness part, and this is why one of the things in BASE is action, right? Action is synonymous with behavior, which is synonymous with coping pattern, which is synonymous with things we do to self soothe, right? And my body, it, I could tell, it wanted to go to the coffee shop again. And I, know from my pattern, one, that's a form of distraction, right? Two, it's like, my manic state wants even more fuel, right? instead of going to take the action of getting my third cup of coffee, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to take three minutes to do bass. And the process itself, I noticed that manic energy that was just it's habitual.
It's just what my body does. It's, solution to everything is more, do more faster.
CHELSEA: Yes,
KARDEN: And so I stopped, I did base and without doing anything else, I didn't have to do any interrupt. The buzz started to come down. I felt like instead of my whole body being carbonated, it became liquid again.
It's settled in a little bit. then in that state with that more regulated body state, I was in the way I would ask myself, what do I want to do now? Do I want coffee? Do I want to respond to a bunch more emails? And it was like, actually go get a glass of water. and just instead of trying to fill the next 12 minutes before your next client with that quick run of the coffee shop, get a glass of water and we're just going to take some breaths before our next client.
CHELSEA: I love that. Yes. So for me, it's, if I'm working, not in the office, but doing telehealth at home, it's, the picking up of my home and it's so funny cause I laugh because when I think about when people, someone will come in and say, Oh my gosh, your house is so clean. I actually don't take it as a compliment.
It's yeah, that means I definitely was not like I was distracted all week. I was not, regulating myself. I was not, Turning into what was going on and I was definitely avoiding what was going
KARDEN: I get it. And I think it's important for us to have a couple options, right? Like Sometimes we just have to be in that momentum of the day, right? Just the momentum of the day. I'm doing my work. I'm in the zone. I'm going to do my phone distracting, coping, soothing pattern. But then if part of my life is that one hour I was talking about.
Whether that happens in the morning or the evening. then I've built in my buffer somewhere else. the goal is not to stay. In fact, it's impossible to stay permanently regulated, right? Or permanent in some kind of ever state. that's bogus, right? The real skill is that within a certain time horizon, that being a day or a couple of days, if we've been dysregulated, Either up down in a sympathetic kind of vigilant anxious state or in a parasympathetic more dorsal shutdown collapse depressed state that we find our way back to generally midline.
within that time horizon, but trying to stay in it all the time. not only have I not figured that out yet, but I don't even try.
CHELSEA: Oh, yeah. I don't think that's, I don't think that's something we should ever achieve or try to achieve. It's just like all the right, when we explain to our clients do like feelings, they, rotate. It's not, we're never going to be always happy or always calm. It's, just, that's just the way of life.
Yeah. But it's what you can do when you are, let's say in that state, can we pause, like you said, and do a base? Can we pause and actually take a moment to attune and acknowledge where we're at and judgment free, right? I know you guys stress that too. Big judgment free
KARDEN: Big judgment free zone. And you just made me think that we also live in a really fortunate time, right? It's, it's the Dickens quote of always the, it was the best of times. It was the worst of times, right? We live in the best of times in that, Even just 10 years ago, doing what you and I are talking about, involved going to a full 90 minute yoga class, right?
or like a 30 minute Jon Kabat Zinn meditation thing, and both of which take time, skill, and dedication. Now, I'm not saying this practice doesn't take time, skill, and dedication, but pausing for two minutes to cycle through feeling what you're feeling, and then to do something as simple as The VU breath or the VU intonation, which we could do together, from Peter Levine's work that, that, vibrates and stimulates your entire vagus nerve and gives you a profound shift into regulation in about 20 seconds.
We got awesome things now that work well and work fast.
CHELSEA: Yeah. I know. I love it. And I love that this is, I agree. And I, love that this, like you said, not even 10 years ago, this, Peter Levine was writing back then too, but This wasn't such a, such a readily available literature. Like it wasn't like so known. Like I just, remember going through training 20 years ago and mindfulness was still this Ooh, I don't know.
it was just, and I was just like, I loved it. Like I was like, what do we do?
KARDEN: The pop culture,
CHELSEA: Let's bring it on.
KARDEN: global cultural acceptance of this work into the zeitgeist, basically it happened at quantum speed, basically COVID and after, right? Why? Cause we all needed it.
CHELSEA: Needed it. Exactly. Oh, this is what they're talking about. We absolutely need this. Yes. yeah, but let's do the breathing. I love, this is, one of my favorites. yeah, let's do it. Let's
KARDEN: Oh, sweet. Yeah. So
CHELSEA: them.
KARDEN: I'll, give the instructions and then we're going to do it together. just as a little background, the vagus nerve called the wandering nerve goes from your brain, and then enervates, it actually has two tracks of ventral and a dorsal, which means front and back. We're really only gonna talk about the front one for the moment, but it enervates your face, your throat, your diaphragm, your heart, your guts, and your internal organs.
It goes a lot of places and it's, although. It does send messages from the brain to the body. if I'm not mistaken, approximately 80 percent of its fibers of go to the brain rather than the other way around. And this nerve is primarily responsible for activating the anti fight and flight, right? The parasympathetic, the rest, digest, restore, It's also responsible for co regulation.
Porges, Stephen Porges, who is the pioneer of this theory, talks about something called the social engagement system. When we feel safe and embodied, that's when we can connect and truly co regulate with someone else. this technique is it's a trifecta. It's a super bang for your buck. It, one, activates your embodied awareness.
Two, it activates that parasympathetic nervous system to move us into rest and digest and restore and relax. And three, it is responsible for co regulation, for attunement, for connection with other. So we're getting all those in one and it's simply, believe it or not, by vibrating and stimulating this nerve through the voo sound that we're about to make together.
That's all it needs to start sending to the body and the brain, the signals that, begin the process I just described. And so I'll just try them. We're going to do it. We're going to take a full inhale, and then we are going to let out, just like an OM, we're going to, but we're going to do a VOO, V O O.
And we're going to do it till our breath fully releases. And then we're just going to pause and notice what happened, right? So take one, take two seconds to notice your body in your current state, and then let's inhale. Most of you will notice that after the breath, this really nice, spontaneous, diaphragmatic sigh happened, an inhale and a sigh. And there's a little bit of more ease, a little softening to the structures of your body. Let's do one more to be kind to ourselves, right? So inhale. It's actually really nice that another technique which is called the physiologic sigh happens automatically after the VU. And by the way, as a parent, we know that our kids don't always play the games we want them to play and we'll ask them to breathe sometimes and they'll tell us to go, get the heck out of here.
But this is one that's fun. It's one that's gameable. Our kids love making tones and sounds. By the way, toning all forms of tonation and vocalization. Almost all of them are spontaneously regulating. And as I said, kids love it. And, Bessel van der Gogh talks about how a huge part of trauma and stress is or is that attachment, the attachment ruptures when they happen can also be characterizes a loss of synchrony, a loss of harmony between self and other, between parent and child, between family, right? The one of the most ancient ways humans have of coming into synchrony and harmony is through song, through humming, through toning, through Right? So it will be, we will just for fun, my wife and my two daughters will be around the table and we'll just, I will start, I'll be like, all right guys. And I'll go, I won't even do V I'll just do, any of the, scales I'll go, by the way, which is like a funny face and then each of my little daughters will try to go, And then I'll invite them and I'll say, what's the next sound you want to make? And one of them will go, Oh. And all of them, me and my wife will go, Oh, and so it brings joy. It brings connection. It brings toning. It stimulates the vagus nerve. So anyway, thank you for reminding me of that. It's such a lovely. Lovely thing to do with family to bring regulation and can also cut the ice when there is a fight or a rupture or break.
CHELSEA: Yeah, I agree. Oh my gosh. Yes. It's such a, I think all ages, the kids, I agree that they get, they can get into this. And, it's one of those where you're right now when we ask kid to pause, take a breath, like maybe a third of the time they'll actually listen. But it's like most time you're like, Like one of my students said, what would you do if I told you to take a breath right now?
I was like, okay, fair enough. I guess I probably wouldn't want to hear that. But this is such a fun, playful way to have that connection.
KARDEN: also makes me want to point something out that the goal is not always, the goal. so let's say the overall goal, if we're activated in fight or disconnection is to down regulate to reconnect, kind of James Brown style. I like to say sometimes you got to get up to get down. I think he actually says you got to get down and get up, but I flip upside down.
So what I mean by get up to get down is like your son just said, I'm sorry, I'm restraining. I usually curse a lot more and I'm not cursing at all in this podcast because I'm trying to be a piece of PG here. your, son, when you told him to take a breath was basically telling you to F off, right?
Cause he's pissed, right? So when we're in a sympathetic state, when we're in a fight state, it actually can be really helpful to lean in and actually support and metabolize the fight, the anger, right? And I, call it the, machi, the macho man, Randy Savage technique, the pro wrestler thing, this is another playful way.
One thing that can break the ice, but also really be helpful is like, all right, you know what? Don't forget breaths. Let's do this together. And, really, like a bodybuilder, I want you to imagine, if, I don't know, most of your listenership might have an idea or remember who Macho Man Randy Savage is, but he'd go, Oh, yeah!
And he'd flex his arms and his pecs and his face would go all intense. So when you can lean in and go, Oh, let's just, get, let's get, let's contract. Let's get angry together. Let's make some lion or dragon faces, right? Once again, believe it or not, now we're bringing some connection even in a more heightened state.
We're bringing some play in, but we're also allowing the animal of our body to metabolize, express, and complete the survival response of what you said hurt me. I'm angry. I, let me burn off the jet fuel of the anger with some contraction techniques because let's just go back to have every, spouse in this space and listening right now.
What is your response when your partner says, honey, just calm down. Yeah. Murder. Okay. All of a sudden that's, when, the mug flies across the room, right? So, just when you actually understand it neurophysiologically, no, I'm angry. Don't tell me to come down. Okay. Okay. Okay. then especially with our Children, maybe I can support you and in your anger and then on the other side, by the way, the nervous system, once it does, that is going to come back down. Most likely spontaneous.
CHELSEA: It's an amazing disarming technique, right? Like I've talked about in the show, just to disarm your kids, right? match them. Yes, absolutely. I'd be angry right now too. Like it's, but it's, I love, it's just such a great way to actually meet them where they are, connect where they are, not force this, like you said, down regulation.
I never, I've actually thought of it that way. And I love that. It's such a great way to actually, when you are also in the moment trying
KARDEN: Sometimes you got exactly. Sometimes you got to go up to get down.
CHELSEA: Yeah, exactly. I love that. any last like tips or anything for our listeners before we sign off?
KARDEN: Yeah, I'd like to leave them with, the title of our book is The Secret Language of the Body. The title of our book is not a pile of biohacks, right? It's not a pile, it's not a collection of vagus nerve techniques. It's called The Secret Language of the Body, and that's biohacks. It's so rich, it's so dynamic, it's a conversation, it's a get to knowing, it's a journey of discovery.
When you really start being able to self attune to your own, the messages from your nervous system through your body, the, needs and, meaning that's coming from behind those things. It's not that you're just more regulated. It's that you know thyself more and more deeply and, in the same way that we strive to really know the depths of our partners, of our friends, and our children, this is a process of knowing the depths of us.
And I just want to leave you with that message because That's what this work is really about. All dysregulation, all of it, at its heart, is a message of distress, a message of hurt, a message of danger, a message of being unseen, unheard from ourselves to ourselves. And our entire lives transform when we get into that conversation.
CHELSEA: I agree. I love that. I think that, that's been a savior for me is that, I think we, Even as a practitioner of all this, that we have this, sometimes can have this sense that oh, I should be doing better or I should know this or, and then when things got too much, like three kids, a job, a podcast, right?
You're, it's, it comes to a point where actually, I need to just stop. Okay, so I'm gonna just stop and like it's okay to take a moment for myself and get to know myself again and I came back to your book and it was like one of those things was very serendipitous, that you know this fell in my lap.
When it did, and I think it's just it's it's. such an amazing tool and just, practice and almost, a spiritual endeavor. Just, yeah, it's amazing. So I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to the parents here that are listening and really sharing your and Jennifer's, wealth of knowledge.
It's
KARDEN: Thanks for saying that so beautifully. I appreciate being here with you.
CHELSEA: Yeah. Thank you, Carden. All right. Awesome. Thank you so much. Such a fun treat. All right. Bye.
KARDEN: Yay!