How to Live With What You Can’t Control with Ana Rodriguez

MeSsy with Christina Applegate & Jamie Lynn Sigler

In the series finale of 'Living With It,' Jamie Lynn Sigler sits down with her therapist, Ana Rodriguez, to explore the psychological impact

Key takeaways

• Ana Rodriguez compares the brain's processing of overwhelming events to a computer system being flooded with too much code at once.
• The concept of 'the body keeps the software/score' is discussed in relation to how physical memories of trauma are stored.

Main topics

• Neurobiology of trauma
• Grief and meaning-making

Notable quotes

The body keeps the score.

Conclusion

The episode offers a compassionate framework for navigating life's unc

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hi, I'm Jamie Lynn Sigler and welcome to Living With It, a 10-part series about what it means to keep going when life doesn't go according to plan. Through honest conversations with people who've experienced loss, illness, grief, and life's unexpected challenges, as well as experts who help us navigate them, we hope you'll leave each episode feeling inspired, understood, and a little less alone. Speaker 1 (0:30) Hello, everybody, and welcome to Living With It. This is our final episode of this 10-part series. And over these 10 episodes, we've talked to people who have lived through so many different kinds of loss, illness, uncertainty, grief, trauma, change, and we've listened to what those experiences have taught them. And I think it's a perfect way to end this series with someone who Listen, has her own life experiences, of course, but has a different perspective because she helps people navigate that. One of those people being me, my personal therapist, Ana Rodriguez. So welcome to Living With Speaker 2 (1:11) It. Speaker 1 (1:11) Thank you. I'm so honored and excited to be here again. Thank you. So you've been my therapist for a few years now, and you've walked me through and are currently walking me through a lot. And you were previously on Messy, but this conversation feels different to me because I want to step back and ask you not just obviously about my experience, but what happens to all of us psychologically when life changes in a way that we didn't choose or we never would have chosen for ourselves. So I want to start with. When something fundamentally changes in your life, what's the psychological process of adjusting to a new normal? Like, what does that look like? Like, I feel like it can feel almost like it's like you'll never be able to sort of adjust or adapt to this new life now after whatever it is. Thanks for asking. It's Speaker 2 (2:09) so tough when we have. Any event in our life, whether it's one event or a series of multiple events that have created, I'd just say a profound impact. Sometimes, I'm sure as you guys have been talking about in your series, we're looking through a lens of trying to find meaning in some of the most unimaginable things that have happened in our lives. We're asking the existential questions, and we're also sitting with the impact. that those events have had on our mind, on our bodies, on our soul. And not only that, but on the way maybe we understand our history of what's happened in our lives and also questions about how we're going to navigate a future in which we are fundamentally changed by these events. Speaker 1 (2:56) Yeah. Speaker 2 (2:57) And so back to your question, the first thing that came to me was thinking just as a neurobiology geek. the literal impact and change that something that is overwhelming has in the body. And when I think of, I'm a trauma therapist, right? So I use the word trauma loosely. When I use the word trauma, I use it more as like a negative impact or a negative event that overwhelmed the body. So when we think about our brains like a computer system. And if our brains were like a computer system, as we know so much, actually our brains have even more neurons and more energy in our system than even some of the most hyper advanced computers are. So they really are like that. And when we haven't, just normally, like we're living our lives every day, our brain is processing. thousands of millions of bits of code at all times. And so it's always scanning for things. I mean, the sheer idea of you and I just talking right now, our brain is processing so much more than we're even aware of. Speaker 1 (3:57) And Speaker 2 (3:58) when something overwhelming happens, we're not just processing that code. At that pace in time, I want you to imagine like all of a sudden the computer system is being flooded by 100,000 bits of code really, really, really fast. And so when that overwhelming event happens, the brain has to make a decision. The body has to make a decision. It Speaker 1 (4:18) says, hey. Speaker 2 (4:19) All right, I need to survive in this moment. I need to get through it. I need to just like power it. I need to figure out how to navigate, how to manage it. And so what it starts to do is it starts to only process the pieces that really need to happen in order for us to just be present enough or okay enough or strong enough to manage it. And all of the other pieces of code almost just get put into like a folder. like another folder and another file in our body and our brain. And this is where they say the phrase, right? Like the body keeps the score. Because oftentimes what happens is then in the aftermath, of these events or this event. We're left, we kind of come back to our bodies really navigating, okay, like we're kind of in the present now, what am I to do with all of this? And then we're left with the neurobiological impact of so much overwhelm and also the physical memories of the overwhelm of the cortisol, of the chemicals in our body that happened, whether it was one event or a prolonged series of events. And with that, a large piece of us is also trying to put those pieces together from the past as we're also trying to live in the present. And you can understand how complicated and scary and confusing that might be for somebody. Speaker 1 (5:35) Yeah. You know, so when somebody first comes to you, so like when I first came to you, it was after an incredibly traumatic event with my son, right? And I was really intent on making sure that I wasn't. Speaker 1 (5:50) not burying anything, right? I want it to be like, these emotions are here and raw and very available, I believe, but like, let's get to work because I don't want this to sit in my body or get put away for another time. So when somebody first comes to you after something has fundamentally changed in their life, what are you listening for? And I ask this mainly because for those that may not have the means or the availability to go to therapy, but they're just talking to their friends or their families or whoever it is in their lives, like, and you're speaking, what can we also be listening for for ourselves as clues of sort of where to go from there? Speaker 2 (6:30) Yeah. So I'm going to answer your question, and then I'm going to start with a piece before that question, which is the first thing I notice even before the language. Speaker 1 (6:42) is the body language. You always call me out on my body language. I Speaker 2 (6:45) know I do. You're like your Speaker 1 (6:46) hands. You just crossed your whole body when you talk about that. Yeah. Speaker 2 (6:49) So even before somebody opens their mouth, one of the things I would encourage us to be curious about is how are we actually holding ourselves in our body? Are our shoulders collapsed forward? Are we hunching? Do we feel contracted? Are we tense? Are our hands physically in tight fists? Are our jaws hurting all of a sudden? I know so many of us sometimes hold stuff in our jaws. Do we have, right, like, is our tone monotone? Oftentimes when people are out of their... like nervous system, they're dysregulated. They'll either have a very Speaker 1 (7:25) quick tone and they'll talk really fast and they'll move blah, blah, blah. And you can see that they're sped up or Speaker 2 (7:30) they'll feel a little bit more bland and monotone. And that'll also be a cue that maybe they're a little bit more hypo aroused or Speaker 1 (7:37) more of that depressed. Speaker 2 (7:42) Disassociated shutdown state, which is also another cue like, oh, okay, these people's bodies might still feel like they're in survival and they're in threat. And one of the things that you mentioned is you came with the understanding that you needed to look at some of this stuff. You understood how trauma was stored in the body and you really wanted to make sure that that didn't happen to you. Oftentimes people walk in and that's not even something that they're aware of. They're not even sure. They might think that they've moved through it, but their bodies are communicating something different. And so I would, before I even start to notice, hey, how am I communicating? I would say, how is my body communicating something that I might be missing? So that way it will give me a cue into. how they're feeling. Are they sped up still? Are they feeling hypervigilant or like they're needing to control or are they feeling a little bit more slowed down? And those are two ways I like to say that. Are you sped up? Are you slowed down? Or do you feel like you're actually in the present? Do you have a time orientation that feels like you know what today is and that you know where you are? Or are you still thinking about the past or overthinking about the future? That's another cue too. Speaker 1 (8:52) Yeah. Is there a... predictable emotional process people tend to go through or is everyone's process completely different? Speaker 2 (8:59) Oh, I think that's Speaker 1 (9:02) a Speaker 2 (9:02) great question. So There's somebody that actually came to speak to my clinic. She was an expert in grief. And she was talking so much. She gave us some really interesting information about the five stages. The five stages of grief were actually originally researched on cancer patients that were towards end of life. And they were helping them navigate the stages of grief for their own journey. Speaker 1 (9:33) Wow. versus Speaker 2 (9:34) the reality that what we've kind of now taken into psychology now is like, oh, anytime there's something hard or anytime you've experienced a sense of loss or a sense of overwhelm, you're kind of going through these five traditional stages of grief that you jump through. And what we're really seeing now is that that's actually not quite the case. It's way more complex than that. I do think that there's fundamental feelings and beliefs that all humans navigate through. Speaker 1 (10:02) And Speaker 2 (10:02) in those, that's more of what I've found has been thematically a pattern that as humans, we have to deal with things like loss versus gratitude. And as we've lost certain pieces of ourselves, how do we navigate that into a way to understand that the reason we're feeling loss is because we have had something that we cherished? I've had a lot of times after things that are overwhelming happen, the theme of responsibility. And is it my fault? Did I contribute to this in any way? Versus, you know, how can I forgive myself and give myself compassion for these things and also hold myself accountable but not responsible for things? That's Speaker 1 (10:51) a big theme. Speaker 2 (10:52) A theme of I now have... Whether I didn't have access to my emotions before and now I feel like it's a whole big flood of waterfall that's coming towards me and I realized I haven't ever navigated my feelings before and my emotions or the opposite. Hey, I used to be somebody that was so much, so much more embodied than I am now. And now I feel like I can't access that piece back. That's a common thing. So as I'm just even thinking out loud and kind of popcorn hitting some ideas and answer to your question. Speaker 2 (11:24) overwhelming events boil us down to some of the most important values and life themes that as humans we all have to navigate i feel like Speaker 1 (11:37) they just expose us right it's like we're just and it's Speaker 1 (11:43) that's where the opportunity can be that can come from the tragic event, right? It's like not because like we go through this whole thing right about acceptance. It's like acceptance is such a big conversation constantly around illness, chronic illness, yes, but like everything, right? And it's just like. Speaker 1 (12:07) To me, that's where real acceptance lies is just like the opportunity that you're given of how much is laid bare from this moment, how much is now just like it can be exposed that can help you. In your life as you move forward. Absolutely. And from what Speaker 2 (12:29) I was understanding from this beautiful series you guys have been doing and it is you've been listening to people's stories who are navigating different trials in their lives and they're sharing with you, you said these. The meaning that they've made, how they've taken these things and really created a new story for themselves, how they've unraveled things that were mysterious and complex and created. more understanding for themselves and how they've reshaped their lives. And maybe we use the word cosmology in Indigenous studies, essentially like our worldview and the way that we see the world and the understanding of how we live in a world with others and in a world with nature and how we interact with all of the things. And that's a really wonderful path. I think that's the path your series is. inviting us into and oftentimes when people step into therapy or just self-exploration of better understanding with these situations that's not necessarily the path they take either the path they take is is these things are too scary they're they're too painful i don't know how to navigate them how do i even you know create meaning if I still feel so frozen by it. And one of my things I also really wanted to share with that, too, is like, that's also really okay and normal as Speaker 1 (13:54) a step. And that's Speaker 2 (13:56) an Speaker 1 (13:56) okay place to be, too. See, sometimes I feel