Safety is at the Core of Discourse with Dr. Cherie Bridges Patrick

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For those of you who haven’t heard any previous episodes with Dr. Cherie Bridges Patrick, she is the founder of Paradox Cross-Cultural Consulting, Training and Empowerment, LLC. She is a racial justice consultant, leadership coach and psychotherapist. She works with social workers, counseling professionals, educators, and organizational leaders. And she uses a trauma focused lens in her work to build leadership capacity for racial justice. Cherie holds a PhD in leadership and change, and her research is in racism, denial, discourse, racial justice, social work and the helping professions like education.

Healing Brings Us Closer to Justice
Dr. Cherie Bridges Patrick is so inspiring for her continuous work in healing as a means of social justice. She knows that getting to justice comes from multiple avenues. She was particularly drawn to what healing could do for people dealing with intense feelings and trauma after experiencing racism, violence, discrimination, and more. She said healing is a necessary step in order to get to liberation because you can’t truly enjoy liberation for yourself if you aren’t healing from all the systems of oppression that seek to control you. 

Trauma & Polyvagal Theory
One fascinating topic that Dr. Patrick has studied lately is polyvagal theory. Polyvagal theory, developed by Stephen Porges, is a theory that the vagus nerve serves an important role in emotional regulation, social behavior, and fear response.  Trauma has a connection to this nerve, and our nervous system overall, because of the way that trauma shapes us and our communication with others. When someone has trauma, they feel a loss of safety which can prevent them from being able to open up to others. The challenge for teachers, parents, and community members is helping create the conditions for those individuals to feel safe not just in the environment, but in their presence. 

“When we can understand our own sense of safety, when I can feel safe in my body, in my skin, my nervous system is regulated...that is what I can do to contribute to safety. Stephen Porges talks about how safety is not just the absence of threat, it is the presence of cues of safety. Right, and so that means we have to understand the cues of safety—the cues that can contribute to people feeling safe and then be able to embody those.”

How to Be Someone That Signals Safety
It’s time to rethink that notion that we can create a “safe space” for others. It’s not for us to decide if an environment/group feels safe, right? What we can work on is our own discourse and body language. This requires us to get in touch with our own nervous systems. Paying attention to your breathing, intonation, and more is a great practice that will help you and your fellow school community. Bringing awareness into your body as you navigate through the day could help you figure out what things get you from one state to another. Drinking some more water, doing deep breathing, massaging your muscles, getting out of limiting beliefs—these are all potential ways you could enter into a different state with more calm and ease. Teachers and leaders have the opportunity to co-regulate with students and display cues of safety that students will need to perceive if they want to talk about trauma and injustices. 

If you want to start striving for this today, learn more about your autonomic nervous system. Get a good idea of how it functions. Then you can read about the body’s three main responses that are dependent upon the input that the brain receives from the situation/environment around a person. 

To dive deeper into learning how to engage students, I have great news! You can register for my free 1 hour masterclass HERE or below. For more, check out my Curriculum Boot Camp course or the “Just the Protocols” module now so you can create your own project-based units grounded in justice in no time at all!

Continue the conversation below in the comment section and join our community of educational visionaries on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
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TRANSCRIPT
Dr Cherie Bridges Patrick is returning to the podcast to talk about how safety is at the heart of generative discourse. Doctor Sherry Bridges Patrick has been on previous episodes. I recommend you go check those out as well, but just a brief bio for her. Before we dive into the episode, she is a leadership educator and coach consultant, psychotherapist, scholar practitioner and the founder of paradox. Cross Cultural consulting. The broad work of paradox is to help organizations repair internal disconnects faster healing and develop capacity to normalize generative conversations around race and social justice using neuroscience and semantics. Her work seeks to heal invisible wounds of racial and social trauma and the impact they have on workplace relationships, practices and policies. Get excited for an amazing episode with dr Sherry Bridges Patrick, Hi, I'm lindsey Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities, take brave action to make those dreams a reality and sustain an inclusive, anti racist culture where all students thrive.

00:01:11
I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach, educational consultant and leadership scholar. If you're a leader in the education world, whether you're a pro principal Superintendent instructional coach or a classroom teacher excited about school wide change like I was, you are a leader and if you enjoy nerd ng out about the latest educational books and podcasts, if you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth and being the best version of yourself, you're going to love the time for Teacher Ship podcast. Let's dive in dr Sherry Bridges Patrick, welcome back to the time for Teacher Ship podcast. Thank you, I'm glad to be here. You've been on multiple times, so I won't ask you to do a full in show again, people can listen to your old episodes which are amazing, but is there anything that you'd like to either add to how you would previously introduce yourself or anything you want to say to frame the episode in the topic we're talking about today. Just a couple of things I am a racial social trauma growth coach and leadership educator.

00:02:14
And so this all ties in because I'm looking at healing as a form of justice and so I don't think I said that the last time this is sort of a shift into a mindset of this, you know, the the justice work that I want to do is really about healing and I see healing as a form of justice because without the without the healing then the, you know, the liberation, the freedom is not likely to come. I love that framing let's dive right into to how you've shifted and kind of how you've been thinking about healing as justice. You've gotten into poly vagal theory a lot, which is kind of a mouthful, but a really, really fascinating approach to healing as justice. Could you just say a little bit about how you got into this approach and what interests you about it, wow. So there's a couple of things that got me into it. Of course, my my my background is social work and I've been focused on trauma, trauma has been like a theme throughout my life, not only my life, but in my social work practice.

00:03:17
And so trauma just plays a big part in that. And then my research on racism denial and the ways that social workers talk to one another about race and racism, that brought a deeper level of understanding of the impact of, of how our silence is how our denial impacts us. And so that was like a step towards really understanding racism and racial trauma differently. Although that was not my initial intent. And so, you know, trauma and racial trauma, it shapes the ways that we end, it shapes the ways that we have challenges and it really shapes the ways we have conversations, which is talking about stuff right? Talking is the way that we communicate with one another. That's how we, that's how we get stuff done right and for social workers, that is the foundation of our work. So those are some things and you know, as I continue to look more deeply more closely into racial trauma and its impact.

00:04:21
Whereas momentum's work was very powerful and his notion of white body supremacy and in thinking that through and really looking at it, I think when when when he talks about right white body supremacy, it for me, it opens up a a pathway, a doorway to understanding how poly vagal theory can, can address that because, you know, because of the way that that this theory um utilizes or looks at the nervous system as the source of the general platform of our lived experience. And then finally, and like this was a big one and it was an experience that I had a couple of months ago where I was doing a presentation and the experience that I had and then the conversation just went left center and I can just remember being very impacted by that experience. And I continued to think about the harm to everybody and particularly the women of color that were in that presentation and that just stayed with me and I was like, okay, this notion of safety and and you know, thinking that I can, I or anybody else has the power to create a safe space.

00:05:33
Um it was like, no, I think that kind of goes against justice work, that's not anything I have control over for anybody else. Yes, I can create an environment that, you know, that allows for people to feel more safe. But the real issue is, can people feel safe in my presence in their environment, right? So those are the things that, that took me closer to pollen bagel theory and and how it can really address racial trauma and healing. Ivan recently was in a workshop where teachers brought this up and said, you know, I think safety and having this idea of a safe space is so important and also we can't necessarily create that for everyone because everyone's coming in differently and everyone's gonna experience that differently. And then the question is, you know, what what do we do about that? How how do we increase the likelihood that people will feel safe and do what we can do if that's even possible? And so that's such a complex conversation. And so I'd love to hear, I mean as you just kind of explain to us a little bit about political theory and how the notion of safety is wrapped up in that I'm so curious to hear your thoughts, I'm so glad that you brought that up, because I think the one thing that becomes possible is that when we can understand our own sense of safety, our own felt sense of safety, right?

00:06:59
So when I can feel safe in my body, in my skin, my nervous system is regulated, right? It is a calming presence, it is a safe presence, a peaceful presence, right? A welcoming, inviting presence. That is what I can do to contribute to safety, right? The other thing is um Stephen Porges talks about um you know, the the safety is not just the absence of threat, it is the presence of cues of safety, right? And so that means we have to understand the cues of unsafe t the cues that can um contribute to people feeling safe safety, right? And safe um and then be able to embody those and those get really nuanced and and and you know I don't know that we'll have time to go into it today. But it is so fascinating because because cues of safety are determined by the individual. Safety is an embodied subjective X experience.

00:08:02
And then when we when we overlay that with racial trauma right? And racial injustice, we have all these cues of unsafe T. And all the socialization that comes with it. And so another thing that comes from from polly bago theory is this understanding that intonation the way that I say, what I say comes before for information, right? And so before you can understand the words you are seeing my facial expression, you are hearing my voice. You are watching my you know my my positioning right and all those accused that only I can determine are safe or unsafe for me. And that is true for everybody else. And so there's a notion of being able to create safety can't do it right? Not for anybody else, right? We can just do what we can do for ourselves. And then when we can become that presence that people do feel safe in it's called co regulation.

00:09:03
So it's about this this back and forth between one another right? And then you can determine, oh I feel safe and from there we can you know continue and build and and understand how to to keep that that sense of safety going. That sounds too like there's a lot of work that in the education space, right? That that teachers and educators and leaders can be doing in addition to, you know, helping Children to do this, or, or even family members, right? There's so much work that we can each do and need to each do to enable Children to have that experience of, you know, feeling safe or maybe being more likely to feel safe around us as educators in the classroom and in the family context, even absolutely, it's it's across the board because everybody's nervous system, right? That's probably looks at that. I think it is it is not only things that we can do if we are talking about, you know, moving forward and and addressing racial injustice and racial trauma, we must we absolutely must do the work ourselves.

00:10:07
And so, and I've heard you talk about how, how this approach makes it very clear the work that we need to do as individuals. And so just understanding, for example, as a teacher, the way that I position myself a straight body, right? That can be a queue of unsafe t right? If I'm standing here as a teacher, a student may receive that as a cue of unsafe t right? And so, having the intention, right? And the awareness and the willingness to be consciously in touch with one's body with one's nervous system all the time so that they can project cues of safety and and they're not performative either. Right? So it's got to be this natural thing. Right? So the work is absolutely essential. If we are serious about moving forward in creating places where we can bring equity, we can address racial injustice or any other kind of injustice and bring justice forward.

00:11:12
I was initially thinking of like a, you know, a pedagogical practice of like I love circle because I'm sitting with my students, I'm not standing over them and there are various pedagogy pieces there, but there's also the individual practice of, like you were saying, becoming more aware of your own body and doing this in a way that's natural and not performative. So for people listening, I know it is probably way better to work one on one with a person who is certified in doing this work work and doing the deep work, you know, in that context. But is there anything that a listener could take away and do you know today, something that would help them be more in touch with this practice of being more aware of their body. You and I have done the autonomic profile, right? Your your map, right? Um, and just having a basic understanding of your autonomic system. So polly bagel theory defines the ways that the nervous system reacts and responds to experiences and how it regulates responses, right?

00:12:14
It also describes the ways that the autonomic nervous system receives information and then issues a response to help us navigate our days, the autonomic nervous system is the the system again the neural platform in which we live our days, right, in which we experience life. And so political theory also outlines a hierarchy of three biological pathways of response. And it offers a map of the ways that we can predictably move in and out of engagement and safety. And that is the the the top piece of the hierarchy. Um and that's called ventral vagal. And then in and out of mobilization or fight or flight that's called sympathetic. And then at the bottom of the hierarchy, the three tiered hierarchy is collapsed or disconnect, right? And so this the theory of uh posits that we are navigating this nervous system in this hierarchy every day all day.

00:13:15
And that there is a way to become more aware of of how we are navigating our days. And so just a basic understanding of that right understanding that you know, you can, your body sends a signal first before it even goes to your cognition, paying attention, noticing to what's happening internally, right inside your body in your environment and between other people. So it's yes, it's an increased awareness, but it's a real intentional awareness and a practice. And so like one of the first things to do is notice what's going on with you. It doesn't take you don't have to stop, you know, and and you know write stuff that you can that would be helpful being able to notice what's going on. Doesn't cost you anything, right? And it can create some balance in your own life. So if you notice that your stomach is you've got those butterflies in your stomach, right?

00:14:17
Your body is saying, hey, hey, hey, something's going on. And so they just take a moment and pause and go, oh something's going on here right before it gets to your to your brain to to send a signal that says this is, you know, somebody doing something to me. If you notice that first, um then you can over time um address that state, right? You can you can capture that state because usually what happens is um we have this feeling and we attach it to a story, right? And the story is what we go to um we attach it to an emotion and that that that emotion and carries a story. And so when we are able to understand that if we understand the state, we can recreate the story, we can label it with a new emotion. It doesn't have to be danger. Like it was from before. It can be something else, right? So we're reshaping our nervous system. That was pretty complicated. But at the end of the day, one thing that people can do is just become intentional about noticing what's happening in their bodies, taking moments of pause to just feel themselves and what's happening.

00:15:29
That's something that you've helped me practice a lot. I mean we do that at the beginning of every meeting, every friday we have a meeting and every friday we start with that. And so I'm wondering, are you comfortable kind of us modeling that now? Awesome. So today I am coming in in mostly dorsal not feeling 100% slept in, not feeling great. But I tried to tap into the things that brings me into ventral. So meeting with you. Cherie is always fun. And so I'm automatically a bit more ventral when I meet with you. But also like tactile related is like if I'm if I have a blanket or a sweatshirt and so now I'm sitting here in my sweatshirt trying to feel a little bit more ventral. Sometimes cold water helps me. I've noticed feel a little bit and ventral. So I've got cold water with me. And so just noticing that immediately brought me at least 10% more ventral I think than that I started the day, with wow! Right. And how much, how much did that cost you in money?

00:16:30
Right. Nothing. Right. Nothing. And so for me, I am coming in actually, I came in, I told you earlier, I was coming in with some sympathetic, some nervousness because because of the stories that I tell myself about um being visible to the public, right? So I was a little shaky and when I get nervous, I don't always think clearly. And then when I don't think clearly, I don't talk clearly. And so I came in and this and with this nervousness and a mobilization, the state of mobilization to protect myself. But in talking to you and naming that, just being able to say, you know what? I'm feeling sympathetic, I'm a little nervous. You know, it's it's a challenge for me too be seen, right? And to be okay with that was like that I could I could feel and I can feel it. Now, naming it brings a sense of okay, you just let you just released something from your body, right? And so now I there's still some sympathetic going on. But I also feel much more eventual, right?

00:17:32
I feel much more connected. I feel much more safe. I feel much more available and um, free to be me, right? And to make those mistakes and to say this silly thing or to go off on my little tangent and hope that I can bring folks back. Right? So, um, yeah, I started off in a real sympathetic state, but now I'm anchored in ventral, right? And still feeling that sympathetic energy. And I think that's one of the things that you've taught me through this that I had no idea at the very start was that you can be in multiple places at once. And so, you know, I can be a little dorsal, a little sympathetic and little ventral all at the same time and being able to identify like you were saying the mapping like what brings me to ventral. And I think about the applications of this for a teacher who's having a rough day or for a class of students who of course some of them are going to have rough days. And so how do we create those spaces for students or even family dinner conversations? You know how how about starting with just kind of a quick check in with our bodies.

00:18:36
There are so many really quick easy like you said, free applications of this work that would be transformative to that co regulation piece and just our relationships with each other that I think is great. Yes. And we've talked about this before, Lindsay. Just just imagine a group of people, a family, a team that has the basic understanding of what these these three states mean, right? And so for somebody to hear that they're a colleague is unsympathetic. Can go, oh, okay, so this person is um is not feeling it right? There's there's some fear, there is some tension, there's some anxiety that there's there's an inability to sense the other person and what they're going through, right? So then, you know, it allows that person to take that into consideration as they navigate the conversation, right? So it becomes this powerful tool which again, if you just have a basic understanding um of of what these three states mean, then you can work better, you can navigate conversations, you can you can sit in that discomfort when, when you see that facial expression and and allow yourself the time and the space to recognize that that's where that person is.

00:19:54
I don't have to get pulled into that, right? That's where they are. And to be able to hold your space and hopefully, you know, maintain a place in ventral where you can become that regulating person or just know just the the knowing of where someone else is and where you are opens up so much more possibility. Right? To me? It just it just is a gift that keeps on giving. I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before, but as you were talking, I realized that even, I mean I came into our meeting today with my hood up. Like not only do I have a sweatshirt on, but I have a hood up and I thought about one of the things that really irks me about school policies as dress codes and the no hoodie policy and I I have not been able to put it into words before, but I'm I'm wondering if kids are feeling like they're endorsed cell and they're trying to tap into ventral, they're trying to get that safety feeling and they put up their hood because it makes it makes me feel more safe. Like I imagine it makes some kids feel more safe too and imagine the different response that a teacher or a principal or someone walking down the hall, seeing a kid with a hoodie on is gonna have when they just have that understanding of, oh, you're just looking for some ventral, you're just looking for some cues of safety.

00:21:07
That's all you're doing. You're not being disrespectful, you're not trying to, you know, all the things that we give name to that are not probably what's actually going on. And that would just radically transform relationships with students. Right. Right. And and not only could it be, I'm trying to feel more safe, but it could also be if your indoor. So right. That that that could mean a number of things I'm hiding, right? I'm hiding because I don't feel safe. Right? So there's all these, this information that we can get. But I love the notion of being able to see a student as, oh, they're just trying to create a sense of safety and and hiding is a sense of safety, right? If you connect dorsal to a turtle, for example, right? When that turtle is not feeling safe, what does it do? It goes into the shell into its shell, right? And so just being able to have that imaginative connection of, okay, I see some safety stuff going on here because at the end of the day, if we ain't safe, we ain't gonna make no progress.

00:22:08
Yes. I said, ain't we have to have that sense of safety and we have to be able to determine what is safe for me, right? And so for me as a teacher to come in and be offended that somebody has on a hoodie, Whoa! That! I mean, come on now and and then that takes us into, you know, a whole bunch of other stuff that we won't get into. But I love I love that you brought that in in into this conversation and just that moment of awareness and clarity around oh, just the basic hoodie and the messages that extends right now and the possibilities that it could bring if we were able to recreate the story, the narrative that goes with the hoodie, I love that connection back to story to that is so powerful. I know political theory, there's so, so much involved and I know we only have about 30 minutes today talking about it. But is there anything we haven't talked about that you wanted to address? I've already touched on it, But I want to really bring home the point that our state, our physiological state is the thing that creates our stories is the thing that names our emotions, right?

00:23:22
And so when we can first understand our states and understand the the narratives that we have given our current states, right? When we can understand that, then when we can recreate we can remake that story and that I think is one of the core, my core understanding of what Polly bagel theory can do, it can help us change the narrative or just create a whole new story because the autonomic nervous system, it's always looking for context, it's looking for choice and it's looking for connection or so. So let me back up. The autonomic nervous system is doing two things, right? It's looking for connection or it's it's mobilizing for protection. I just positioning for protection, that's what it does, right? And so then when there's connection, we can start to create those new stories when when were mobilized for safety when I'm hiding in the turtle shell endorse.

00:24:23
So I can't get to that place where I can do to make a new story where I can rename the emotion, those things are are not possible when I'm in a sympathetic or in endorsing, you know, I'm sort of a nerd and I kind of get kind of lose my control when I start thinking about this. The other thing that I think is really, really fascinating about the autonomic nervous system. Um Again, it is the foundation upon which all of our experiences sit, right? So it's the heart of our limit experience. Um it's the common human denominator between us, everybody's got one, we have to have one. And so knowing that I was like, oh okay, so if we all have one, we've all been shaped by our experiences since we've all we all have one and we've all been shaped by our experiences, then we can all do something about how we've been shaped the nervous system.

00:25:26
It helps us navigate our days by sending those cues of safety Or um danger. But it's all in service of our well being. So you can see the autonomic nervous system as a 24/7 personal surveillance system that monitors inside internally outside in the environment, you know, in in in the the local environment and then more broadly and then relations between in between. Um And so it's doing this all the time. 24 7 In service of us, right? Um We are wired to connect our basic survival, depends on our ability to connect. And so what we see in the larger social system now, we are so disconnected from ourselves, right? First of all ourselves, so not only ourselves but from one another and so hierarchies of race, hierarchies of gender um and and sexuality um and and preference.

00:26:29
Those all create disconnection. And so the autonomic nervous system is that place where we can we can make that change. And and for me that's delightful. That's like that gives me some real hope of of what we can do from a justice perspective. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing those pieces because I think they really they really help one give us grace to our own bodies. I can't tell you how many times I've been angry at my body for not responding the way I intellectually wanted to, but knowing that it's a personal surveillance system gives a little more grace to nobody. Like, oh, thank you. I know you're doing that for for protective reasons. That's cool. I don't have to be mad at you. I can just recreate the story. And so I think that's that's really powerful to give people the language and the framework to be able to have some more grace with themselves and ultimately seek to reconnect with people around them by knowing themselves better. It's really powerful stuff. And so as we wrap up the episode, I know we covered a lot of things there. What is maybe one thing that's like the most important thing if someone takes it away from this episode, whether it's a particular practice or a particular just idea to remember what would that be?

00:27:39
One get to get to know your nervous system right? Um, and I'm happy to help with that. Um, but to in, in getting to know your nervous system, you don't have to go through a whole bunch of formal stuff, although that is really important. Um getting to know your nervous system is taking a moment um multiple times a day and noticing what is happening inside of you, notice what happens when you get that butterfly in your stomach or that tension in your, your shoulders and then notice what happens with your reaction to that, right? And so that's just a basic, very basic thing. So it's just some awareness, some intention, bring that into your day to day, just try it out. You know, do an experiment for the next seven days, write it down, see what happens, see what you learn about yourself because when we can start to notice those things, um, you can, you pause and you take that moment. Um, there's a wealth of, of wisdom that, that our bodies are offering us if we would only be willing to accept it's a great suggestion and I know you mentioned that you are available to coach people through this.

00:28:51
You've developed a coaching practice around this that where can people learn more about you and your coaching. So Lindsay believe it or not, I'm developing, I've got a new site coming up with some stuff in it. Right. And so that site is Cherie Bridges Patrick PhD dot com. Um, C H E R E R I D G E S P A T R I C K PhD dot com. So that that's where in the next few days or weeks that people can, can reach out if they are interested. Excellent. Thank you so much for agreeing to come on and talk about this. I think this is transformational for education and for so many folks. So thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening. Amazing educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me at lindsey Beth alliance or labor review of the show. So leaders like you will be more likely to find it until next time leaders continue to think big, act brave and be your best self.​

Click here for access to Cherie's Resource: Dangerous Dialogues