Our Guest:
Bill Porter, M.Ed. is the Director of Post Adoption and Client Services at Gladney Center for Adoption. He has over 20 years of experience in providing counseling, support and advocacy to at-risk children, youth, and families. Bill joined the Gladney Family in 2013 and he spends most of his time leading his team in providing “best practices” to adoptees, birth families and adoptive families. Bill has been trained through the Trust-Based Relational Intervention TBRI® at Texas Christian University and has provided clinical supervision and consultation in evidenced based programming. Bill received his Bachelors of Arts in Religion from Southern Nazarene University and his Masters of Education in Counseling from North Texas University.
Show Notes:
In this episode, we talked about:
In the ideal world, when we as children, were met with fear, anxiety, pain or any strong emotion, our neurobiology craved a secure base in where we cold run to unload our emotions openly and vulnerably. It is what is called a secure base. It is (or at least should be) our parents. If done correctly, our parents serve as this haven from the world where we can take our mistakes, our failures, our fears and be met with open arms of love, forgiveness, care, compassion and grace. Research has proven over and over again that this is the environment for ultimate neurobiological health. Once a child feels secure enough, they are once again able to leave the safety and explore the world with curiosity and felt safety. This process is what our neurobiology craved and still craves today.
Neurological vulnerability is the process of being brutally honest with ourselves. It is process by which we acknowledge our shortcomings, our emotions, our fears. We not only acknowledge them, but actually need to feel them. The process of vulnerability is the process of bringing ourselves back our brokenness and laying it out. Embarrassment, insecurity, rage, all of it. You cannot intellectualize this process. It must be experienced. There many of us that have not paused and allowed ourselves to feel. To feel the pain, the brokenness, the heartache. We are afraid to run back to our secure base, because honestly, we never had one. We want to avoid the vulnerability. But we can’t. Our neurobiology won’t allow us. Our neurobiology has a way of getting out, with or without our consent or permission. Do you think your kids don’t know what your going through right now. The emotions are literally seeping out your pores. We all wish we could go around the pain, but neurobiology is clear, we must go through it. We must, like a child run back to our safe place and lay it all out.
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