Maybe You're NOT Inconsistent and You DON'T Lack Discipline @rulesandrebellion

Tasha and Brandon and their membership - the Village-  have been a lifeline for me over the last few months, which personally have been incredibly difficult.

They work with recovering perfectionists, folks struggling with burnout and high-achieving humans who are navigating complex life circumstances (clcs) and have lost themselves along the way.

If you have ever felt exhausted and overwhelmed by the everyday, and crave some clarity and some space to pursue the goals you've pushed to one side, this is the conversation for you.

Although they don't work in the non-diet space per say, they work with humans who feel they always need to be doing more, being more, hustling more - a very relevant theme in this dieting culture, where "discipline", "restriction" and extreme thinness is celebrated above all else. *

In part 1 of our conversation, we touched on the following topics:

• What qualifies as a "complex life circumstance"?  I thought I was just making excuses.
• How can we honour our capacity whilst still providing for and caring for others?  How would it feel not to be NICE but instead to be kind?
• How to start pushing back?  What are the initial steps?
• Nervous System Regulation - why is it so important to recovery from burnout or overwhelm?

We hope you enjoy this chat as much as we did.

https://www.rulesandrebellion.com/guide <-- this is where they can get their CLC score and the guide to walk them through the first few steps to start integrating CLC nervous system regulation.

To join their monthly membership hub - The Village - click here.

You can follow them on Instagram or visit their website for more details.

*Tasha and Brandon Skillin are trauma-informed coaches and creators of The Complex Life Circumstances approach to nervous system regulation. They help high-achieving humans — especially those navigating AuDHD, cPTSD, parenting logistics, chronic illness and unpredictable energy, build a life they deserve and a business they love without abandoning themselves.

Their work centres nervous system capacity over discipline, self-loyalty over hustle, and adaptability over perfection. Their coaching frameworks blend neuroscience, lived experience, and values-driven strategy to create change that actually fits real life, usually in a way that doesn’t fit the “standard rules.”

They believe your CLCs aren’t excuses, they’re the context for everything. And once you learn to work with them instead of against them, progress becomes not just possible again, but inevitable.

Transcript

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Christine Chessman: Hello, we've got a great conversation for you all tonight, haven't we, Ella?

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Ela Law (she/her): Oh my god.

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Ela Law (she/her): Two of my new, most favourite people.

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Christine Chessman: I know! Now, I do say this a lot, like, this is my favorite conversation, but…

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Christine Chessman: I have to say, this one resonated the most. And it's actually two people, Tasha and Brandon, from Rules and Rebellion, who I… I'm in their membership. I think they're fantastic. I listen to their podcast on repeat constantly.

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Christine Chessman: And I think our listeners will really, really enjoy this conversation. I'm gonna read their bio, just to give you a little bit of background. So, Tasha and Brandon teach, focused nervous system regulation for people living with ADHD, autism.

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Christine Chessman: Complex PTSD, chronic illness, parenting demands, cycle fluctuation, and messy life logistics, helping them build lives and businesses they love without abandoning themselves.

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Christine Chessman: So they basically help people, perfectionists, people in burnout, people who are struggling with overwhelm. Now, I think that's the vast majority of us.

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Ela Law (she/her): Oh, 100%. I would say anyone who doesn't have these complex life circumstances is,

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Ela Law (she/her): probably living on a different planet, I think we've all got that, and, you know, to a more or lesser extent, we all have to juggle, like, tons of balls in the air all the time. And that's why I think this conversation will resonate with literally every single person listening to the podcast.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, and I think they've had the life experience of being in a place where they simply couldn't work that Tasha hit absolute burnout.

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Christine Chessman: And had to be bed-bound for a couple of years. And it's quite a powerful story.

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Christine Chessman: what they've learned, and what they've taken from that time, and how they've rebuilt their lives accordingly is just inspirational. I just find it… I could listen to them all day. So, without further ado, here's Tasha and Brandon.

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Christine Chessman: So, a massive welcome, Tasha and Brandon. We are so excited to have you here, and I just wanted to sort of let the listeners know that we're working on… Ella and I are knackered, and you guys are at the other end of the day, so we're at, like, 6pm, and you're at 10? Are you at 10am?

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Day ahead.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Yes.

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Christine Chessman: I'm ready for bed.

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Ela Law (she/her): Done the day. I feel it.

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Christine Chessman: So, I… really, why we wanted to have you guys on was because I've done some work with both of you, and I'm part of your membership, which is amazing, and we'll post all that in the show notes.

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Christine Chessman: But really, you did a post which struck me, and I've bored Ella to death with it, haven't I? Discipline versus capacity. It's something that I talk an awful lot about with clients.

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Christine Chessman: I don't like the word discipline, I don't like consistency, I don't like any of that. And it is… it is like, well, how do we increase capacity? And it's a conversation that is ongoing with… with us, and with, our clients, so…

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Christine Chessman: I just, before we even mention that, please let us know a bit about you.

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Christine Chessman: And just say as much or as little as you want.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Yeah, so… Thank you, at capacity…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): My hatred for the word discipline and the very rigid cis, hetero, able-bodied, neurotypical definition of, consistency.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): will send both of us through the roof, because it resulted in our lives being completely turned upside down, right? So, in 2014, I got really sick, and in 2017, I ended up bed-bound.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And it was because I was chasing this definition of… and this… this rulebook of discipline. Discipline, discipline. You have to be disciplined to be able to achieve your goals, you have to have more discipline. If you're not having what you want, you clearly don't have enough discipline, you need to be more consistent, you just haven't found the right productivity hacks, you need to push harder.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And I did until I couldn't do literally a single thing.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Any fucking more. For, for, for years, and…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): In that we were forced to kind of reexamine literally every rule that we had been following from our childhoods, from our family of origins, from

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Families of origin from our,

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): rulebook, both of our parents, we both grew up in entrepreneurial families, and so there was a huge push for discipline and consistency in that world, as you know, and so our takes on it, our takeaways from childhood and those experiences were very different, which has been helpful for us in our work together and our healing together, but the discipline versus capacity

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): is such a crucial nuance for people who have complex life circumstances, which is the thing that no one touches on at all, ever, and it is why so many of us are so confused. Well, and I… and one of the things for me that… that literally just blew my mind wide open was just…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): the internal conversation about capacity never existed. Like, what's your capacity? My capacity is until the end of the day. Like, how much stuff can I cram in to the next few hours that I'm still awake? Like, that's the capacity, not at the beginning of the day, what's my capacity? Only to work for an hour. Okay, then that's what I'll do. Like, that wasn't even…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I… I can't even remember the last time in my life when someone was like, what's your capacity for being able to do this? Are you gonna be able to show… no. They were just like, we've got more stuff to do, let's go. And so that… that conversation…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): about discipline versus capacity, like, capacity never entered that dialogue. And so it was just, we've got more stuff to do, you need to be more disciplined.

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Ela Law (she/her): Rather than, you need to identify the capacity you have for the things that we're trying to do.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Do you have it?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And then the permission to be able to say no.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): doesn't even exist. No. And so that conversation that we started when Tasha got sick was the thing that truly…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): changed absolutely everything, because she was bed-bound, and when she wasn't in bed, we had to use a wheelchair. And so…

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Christine Chessman: Hmm.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): capacity is the only thing we talked about all of a sudden. Discipline went out the window, the to-do list went out the window, and when people were asking us, like, hey, we want to go do this, our internal conversation for the very first time ever, because of

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): forces that were out of our control were, what's our capacity? When we started answering that question, and seeing how much it threw the people that we were answering it to.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): We realized, like, holy shit, this is absolutely… we've been upside down the entire time.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): because of how impactful working from your capacity really is. Well, and people were offended by that being the conversation. And when you, you know, when you said we had… discipline went out the window, it did…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): in our activities, but mentally, I was struggling because I had been ingrained… it had been ingrained in me, and I had practiced it. And embarrassingly now, I taught it. Like, if you have enough discipline, you can accomplish anything. I mean, I was in direct sales for almost 14 years, and teaching other women this. And…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I had, you know, my physical body was shut the fuck down. Like, it was saying, absolutely not, I don't care how much you want to do things, you can't. And it was a lot of work to not…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): try to keep pushing, pushing, pushing when my body was, I mean, just clearly was not capable of it. It was a lot of mental hurdles, which I think is part of the nuance of this conversation of discipline versus capacity. Sure, you have physical limitations, and those things do limit what you can do.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): But the mental part of it is what is actually so exhausting that is invisible to everybody else. If you have that wiring of, I should be able to do this, I… you know, looking at all these other people who can do this, other moms, other people who are, you know, for your community, other people who are exercising every day, but they're not taking into consideration

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): All of the other factors that contribute or reduce your capacity.

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Ela Law (she/her): Or probably also operating on the edge, where they actually haven't got the capacity, but they're still going until it's, like, burnout, right? Oh, I've got so many thoughts in my head.

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Christine Chessman: Now, can I just ask you guys to clarify the… for the listeners, the complex life circumstances? So what do you define as the CLCs?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Yeah, so CLCs is kind of our coined term. When we started reverse engineering how we were making progress in a world that did not at all accommodate our family's needs, and what our family really needed to be able to thrive versus just survive.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): we started looking at the people, honestly, that I had been obsessed with following in the personal development world. Brandon was in this entertainment… arts and entertainment industry for 20 years. I was, like, fast-tracked to…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): be, you know, running an empire, and I gotta be the girl boss, and all of these things that… that I was taught that I should be to be, like, a strong, feminine business leader, right? So…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): when we started looking at the people that I was following, who was like, oh, I love their book, and I do everything they say, and all of these things.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): they had a staff of 12, they had usually a wife who was managing the social calendar, and their family, and their children. They didn't have chronic illness, they didn't have a fluctuating cycle, they had nothing that… that…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): impacted their energy to the degree that our family of four was significantly impacted with. Or their mental capacity. Or their mental capacity. Or their emotional capacity, honestly, because the world is designed for able-bodied, cis, hetero, neurotypical.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): rich Christian white men, right? Like, that's the… our worlds that we live in are structured to support those needs and those expectations, and so complex life circumstances are those pieces and parts of our life that are often invisible, that

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Require more energy, require us to jump through certain extra hoops, contort, and shapeshift to be able to achieve similar or the same results that other people have been, kind of.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): taught as conventional, this is how you do it. And so the complex life circumstances, the CLC score, the higher your score is, the higher number of those

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): layers of complexities. The more energy you are putting out in a day that is often invisible, the more expectations you have of yourself, the more that you are having to calculate

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): to achieve whatever the hell success is for the people that you are in community with, the regional location, your family of origin, all of those different kind of parts that we are a contributing member of that then produce expectations on our roles and how we exist. One of the things that I like to think about when it comes to CLCs, because they can't… you can get in the weeds, and it can be very,

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): it can be very nuanced for every single person, and so sometimes it feels hard when we're talking to clients, it feels hard for them to say, like, I don't know what my CLCs are because everything feels complex.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): At the end of the day, when you give yourself permission to collapse, and all the shit you feel, your body, the things that you weren't able to get done, the emotions you have going on, the people that you needed to interact with, that needed things from you, that had nothing to do with you in the first place, that you feel a pull to either

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): see, maintenance, hear, whatever. Like, those things that take up the background noise of your life are your complex life circumstances, and in reality, should not be in the background, they should be in your foreground.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And so, your complex life circumstances are your life.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Everything else, everything on your to-do list is somebody else's shit.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Even if it's your list, even if you're like, I've got to do the laundry, and I've got to do the dishes, if you ask yourself why and for who, most of the time it's not for you.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And so, recognizing that, like, all that stuff in the background, those are your complex life circumstances. And those complex life circumstances, whether you see them, feel them, acknowledge them, whatever.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): They impact every single thing you do.

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Ela Law (she/her): And if you were to think, like.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Let's just pick your menstrual cycle. If you were to give your menstrual cycle the full attention that it deserves every single day of your life, how much space would you have for the other things that you do on a regular day?

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Ela Law (she/her): Less.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): As you should, because that version of you is very complex and requires a lot of individual attention.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And so that is complex life circumstances.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And they're… so important.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And those are the things that everybody asks us to ignore so that we can do more stuff for them in some way. Or they're explained away as excuses by mainstream.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Society.

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Ela Law (she/her): I was just gonna say, do you get a lot of pushback with that argument? Oh, that's just an excuse, you should just pull yourself together and just get on with it. Do you get that a lot when you explain the CLCs to people?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): It's funny, we don't anymore, because I think people are a little scared to bring that conversation to us. I mean…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And in all sincerity, the people who have said that to us in the past are no longer part of our lives, which is the part nobody likes to talk about. But in order for us to be able

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): to do what we needed to do to take care of ourselves, we had to draw a line in the sand and say, this is what we have to do for our family. And it didn't, you know, it wasn't like we just called up everybody on Monday and were like, fuck off!

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): We didn't make the cut. Sorry! But it's these conversations of, like, sharing a little bit of what our reality is, and people's reactions to it, and deciding, are you going to support and accommodate our family's well-being, our individual well-being, or are you going to be pushing back? And I don't have the capacity to… to…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): have to convince you of this reality, and so…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): when it comes to, are we convincing, we do have to oftentimes convince clients when we first start working with them, you know, this… this isn't a discipline. I mean, we literally had one of our clients we're working with right now, she's in the second part of her program.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): She… we literally had probably, like, a 10-minute… not argument, but, like, a…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): she was really fighting hard for her discipline being the problem when we first started working together.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And it is… it was…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): like, we had the list of her CLCs that were this long, and we're like, my friend, this is… this is not a discipline problem. You can't breathe with the things that are happening in your life right now. Of course you can't do your fucking 45-minute morning routine exactly the way you want, and go to bed at 10 without scrolling, like…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): what in the actual fuck are we talking about right now? So we do have to have some of those conversations, that… that push back

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): on CLCs, being real. But most of the time, it's the old rich white guys that are actually having that conversation.

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Ela Law (she/her): Out of… sorry, go on.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): No, no, please go ahead.

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Ela Law (she/her): No, I'm just thinking, when you were talking, Tasha, I was just thinking, there is so much self-worth and identity wrapped up in that, isn't there? And in a way, when you're new to this, your identity is being attacked. I am the productive one. I can do all of it.

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Christine Chessman: me.

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Ela Law (she/her): how successful I am. There's a lot of identity wrapped up, and if someone says, no, no, no, you've got loads of CLCs that are messing things up for you, it's like, no!

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Ela Law (she/her): You know, you're coming back at that from a very, sort of, internalized kind of identity kind of place, right?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Well, and then deepening that identity, like, there's a lot of the times that we have clients that are parents, and your children are your complex life circumstance. Like, if there's nothing more complex in your life than your children, I don't know what is.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Especially our generation of parents, who are refusing to parents… to parent, like… Doing this shit blind? Yeah.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): it's a lot of work to face our own childhood experiences while also parenting in a different way. Like, that in itself is probably, like, a CLC score of, like, 106. Well, and then just everybody going, well, but other people have children too. Yeah, and don't their lives seem interestingly complex? Like, so a lot of the pushback that we get from clients isn't so much, no, I don't believe you, but it's

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I'm not unique in this way, how could this be complex? How could my situation require more attention? Because that's the other thing that we, I think, when we really boil it down to.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Our clients are, at the core, perfectionists that have pushed so hard that they have burnout.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And… In… in that journey of being a perfectionist.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): A perfectionist is not a perfectionist to show you how much I am awesome. It's to do so much so that I can have the validation, so that I can be seen as useful, so that I can add to something, so that I can feel like I'm a part of something bigger and be seen as valuable. And not abandoned. And not abandoned, which means that when we're talking about complex life circumstances, it's putting a spotlight on you and saying.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Your individual journey and your struggle is important, and we don't need to talk about anybody else's experience. We don't need to talk about your neighbor having kids also.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): they also have a fucked up life with a lot of complex life circumstances. We're talking about you right now, let's put that light on you. And for a perfectionist whose goal is to do as much as physically possible, which requires not sitting still ever.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): The idea of a spotlight on…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): these are the complexities of my life that make getting from point A to point B challenging. When, as perfectionists, also, we're not allowed to admit challenges, that is a massive emotional ask. And so when you ask about, like, pushback, I feel it's more that.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): more, I don't deserve this kind of attention. I don't deserve to have my life scene for its full…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): complexity, because I've got so much stuff to do, and if I can't do that, then who am I?

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Christine Chessman: And it is… it's like, Ella, as you said, it's… you kind of get lost, your identity kind of meshes with your kids, I find, once they come… you… your whole… it's… I just find, like, I… the idea of paying all that attention to myself is…

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Christine Chessman: I love that idea, because I feel very much that I live for everybody else, and I think that's not… I'm not alone in that.

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Christine Chessman: But it is… it's a conversation that I did a bootcamp this morning, and I have to say, probably about three-quarters of the people were just wrung out. They had so many kids' clubs, kids' things to do, as well as their full-time job, which was really stressful, and then everybody's talking about Christmas in November, shut up!

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Christine Chessman: And it's just like, just stop it. Are you ready for Christmas? No! No, I'm not frigging ready for Christmas. But I just want to… for people listening who are kind of thinking, okay, this sounds a bit like me, but I can't, I've got too much going on, I cannot think about my capacity. What would be the first step?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Yeah. If somebody approached you.

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Christine Chessman: what would be the first thing? If they're, like, full, their life is full, their full-time job, kids, everything going on, you know, elderly parents, all of that, maybe neurodivergence, maybe lots of different stuff going on, what would be the first step?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): So, the interesting thing about this is we get this question a lot because most of the people that are part of our following and our audience and our client community, they can't add more shit to do. Like, they don't need another list of homework assignments to figure out their CLCs and how to integrate them and all of those things. It's really about looking at, because of

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): This group of people, the way we were wired and conditioned.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): It's about looking at what are you doing with 150% best energy.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): and reducing that to give yourself a little bit more room, a little bit more battery at the end of your day. So…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Cleaning your bathroom does… you don't really have… I… I know some of you are cringing thinking about this, but I promise you, if you don't clean your bathroom with 110% best energy, because you were taught that if you do one thing one way, you do everything that way.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): If you don't do that, you will have that extra 10-15% to then take 30 to 60 seconds to do nervous system regulation practices for yourself, which then reduces the harm. That's where we are. When we're at burnout, we're about harm reduction. We're not looking at rebuilding and building momentum and growth and expansion.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): When… this season, let me just say.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): anybody listening to this, this is not the time to add a new habit, this is not a time to try to set big, huge, audacious goals, this is… this is maintenance mode through the end of the calendar year, because there is nothing about this season that is…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): conducive to thriving with the systems that are currently in place for most people. I want to say…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): through the end of the holiday year… of the calendar year, and into the beginning of January.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I want to remind all of us that just because Christmas is over on the 25th does not mean that we do not have a week of cleanup and children freaking out because now they don't know what to do with themselves, like.

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Christine Chessman: You.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): So, and this is another… so, another one of those first, like, adding on to Tasha's first step of harm reduction, this is about being genuinely honest with yourself about the real life that you're living in. Not doing shit about it, necessarily, but just being honest. So, that example I just gave of, like, Christmas lasts longer than the 25th.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Just like if you have a baby, the next day you're not jumping up and running a marathon, like, we need recovery time from everything we do.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And so, being honest with yourself about that is also part of this first step of harm reduction. I can't assume that Christmas is gonna be awesome, and then it's gonna end, and the next day, I'm gonna just dive in, ready to think about all these enormous goals that I want to hit for the next year. I've still got to recover from the bananas experience of a holiday.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And so, that doesn't mean that you never set goals, but, like, give yourself some grace, and say, okay, we're not gonna talk about goals until, like, the 10th of January, because I've got to still get this tree out of my house, and I've got to get these kids back to school, and I've got to clean up all this crap. Like, whatever the reasons are, they're real.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And so, let's not blow over that, and just let's give it space.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And I think… in the harm reduction that Tasha's talking about.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): where can you give yourself that space? Natasha gave an example of not going 150% cleaning the bathroom.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Maybe that means you don't clean the whole bathroom, but you just clean the sink. And then tomorrow you come back and you clean the toilet. Things still getting done, it's still getting done with integrity, you're not just blowing it off, but you're giving it more space so that you, in a day, have more opportunities to, if nothing else, just breathe.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): The neurodivergent part, real quick, I want to touch on that, because I suspect your community has a higher rate of neurodivergence because of, what I know about some of the…

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): This… this doing a little bit less is… is really important. So…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): looking at where you can in your life. We're… places that we, like, through our values, we will not do less with our children. That is not a negotiable for us, right? So, that we are… we are willing to do the 110, 150% that sometimes requires, when you have kids with com… complex… their own complexities.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): the person at the grocery store, I'm not gonna be an asshole, but I'm not gonna go over and beyond to make you comfortable, I'm not gonna be chatty with you if I normally would if I don't have the capacity, and those are the small little things that can really make a difference.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And this is important for people with neurodivergent brains, because our brains in this time of the season, this time of the year, this is burnout 101 times 10. This is where that happens the most, and we really start to have those experiences. So acknowledging that there are little moments throughout the day to reduce that in those social interactions, in particular, outside of your core people that you are responsible for and that you're committed to.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Need to really be reduced to your… and your expectations.

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Christine Chessman: That… that feeds back into the kind of perfectionist mindset, maybe, because I feel really bad if I don't interact with people in the cafes.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I feel like if I'm sitting there, and then somebody's there, and…

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Christine Chessman: you know, they say something to me, I'm like, oh, should I… should I have a big conversation with them? So I'm just overthinking it the whole time, and then…

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And within perfectionism, there are layers of people-pleasing.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And it's… it… perfectionism really also is about availability.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): You can't be a good perfectionist if you're not available for everybody all the time.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And so, I mean, you just can't, and if we're going to be perfectionists, we're gonna be perfect about it, so we're gonna be available for everybody all the time. And so, with that conversation, Christine, it…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And the doing just a little bit less.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): It comes down to…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): knowing what your goals are and what your values are. And so, if I'm choosing to give less so that I can give more, where I really want to be putting the time in, then my values are…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I'm pointing all of my energy today at my children, because I've only got so much energy, and they need to be the ones to get it. And so when the person at the coffee shop says hi, it's a pleasant smile, and maybe a wave with no verbal response, if that feels safe and okay. But just recognizing, like, when you're making those decisions.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): We need to know why we're making those decisions, so that that decision lives deeply in us all day long, and then it… and then it becomes easier to say yes to your decision, rather than saying yes to everybody else that needs your attention in some way.

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Ela Law (she/her): But crucially, it is then your decision, isn't it? You are acting from a place where, you know, it's about self-care, and it's about being aware of what you need in that moment, or on that day, or, you know… I do really, really love what you said about these little things. I mean, people are probably sick of me saying about small steps and small little micro-moments.

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Ela Law (she/her): Because everyone just wants to fix it, just snap the fingers, and oh, we're there, you know, we've got this transformation. And I think the little, little steps, the little things, where can you take 30 seconds.

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Ela Law (she/her): to ground yourself, to calm your nervous system? Where can you find, like, what you said about going to the coffee shop, and maybe not engaging, or being engaged in a conversation, maybe just smiling? You're not turning anyone off, you're not being unfriendly.

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Ela Law (she/her): But you're working within your capacity. I love that so much, and I think people might not be aware that that is…

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Ela Law (she/her): an option. They might think, oh, I have to do this grand thing.

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Ela Law (she/her): Whereas the little small steps, they're so much more powerful if they're done.

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Ela Law (she/her): when you need them, right? Would you say?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): For sure, and the part about this that can be challenging is that because most of us who are in that go-go-go mode, and that perfectionism, productivity, this time of the year kind of rush.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): it's hard to catch yourself in those moments, and so one of the most beneficial things I've found to do is, in this moment, for whoever is listening right now, look at the last 24 hours. Just do a quick little reflection of, like, where could I have

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Knowing what I now know about how to do this.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): what… where could I have just done a little bit less? Oh, I had, like, a whole 5-minute conversation with the cashier about her dog's treats that I was getting, and, like, I don't need to do that next time. And it's important to have.

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Christine Chessman: I'm.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): conversation with compassion with ourselves, not judgment, but doing that reflection can then say, okay, now I know when I go to this grocery store the next time, right? Because we need predictive… you're going to the same places, doing the same thing, so there's a pattern there that your brain is just naturally kind of sliding into.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Now I know when I go to the grocery… when I go to that grocery store next time, I'm gonna smile, and I'm going to consciously choose not to have the conversation that I would normally have to make the other person feel okay, to make sure they know I'm a nice person, to make sure I have a good impression when I leave.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Because what I know now, and so does all of our listeners at this moment.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I'm not responsible for their feelings, and so if they don't like me when I leave.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): That's their shit, and that's… You'll be fine.

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Ela Law (she/her): It's a them problem, not a you problem.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And the reality is that what if that was actually a gift you gave them? What if they were like, my God, I'm exhausted? And I didn't have to talk to one more goddamn person at this store. And you were just pleasant and friendly, but not asking more of them as well, because I think there are a lot more people out there operating in that

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): social expectation of niceties and continuing conversations than is actually beneficial for anybody, especially this time of year, especially in the way society is right now.

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Ela Law (she/her): I think you watched me at my supermarket the other day, where I…

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Ela Law (she/her): I unfortunately got in the wrong queue, and I had this one person at the checkout who always wants to have a conversation. How are you today? What have you been up to? What are your plans for late? I'm like, I don't want to talk to you. So I'm dodging him now, generally.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Yeah.

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Ela Law (she/her): But, I didn't manage the other day.

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Ela Law (she/her): You must have seen me, and I felt

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Ela Law (she/her): felt all of those things, like, you know, I have to be a nice person, people need to like me, you know, that sort of…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Yeah? Where were you saying?

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Ela Law (she/her): Notice me.

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Christine Chessman: I have to just say that maybe you guys have not ever been to Ireland. People talk. I mean, you cannot go in a shop and not talk. I mean, it's… I'll try it next time I'm there. I'll do an experiment.

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Ela Law (she/her): Just smile.

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Christine Chessman: It is just… you get on the bus, and everybody starts, like, in the south of England, it's much easier to go into a cafe and just not talk, but in Northern Ireland, it is just… it takes 20 minutes to get served, because people are like, oh, hi, you know, it's just a culture.

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Ela Law (she/her): So that's an interesting one, because you… what you're saying is, and what's quite clear there, is that there is the… the CRCs are also cultural expectations, they're weighs in, right? That's part of it, and depending on where you are in the world, there are certain expectations on you that are cultural, and you have to be, you know, at least aware of them, that they also take…

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Ela Law (she/her): energy, right?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): My question is always…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Truly, what is the worst thing that is going to happen if you don't follow the social norms?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): If the answer is, I will not be safe, then we need to find another way around this problem.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Because safety is…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): you were burnt out because your nervous system does not feel safe, so it created all of this shit for you to do so that it can constantly feel safe. It can manufacture, because you're actually feeling safe still. It's manufacturing a sense of safety in these,

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): programmed habits of niceties, and going up above and beyond, and productivity being your base of your self-worth, and all of those things. It's not actual safe.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): So, we might as well dip into what the actual sense of safety is. Right, and I mean, and sometimes, like, in my case, sometimes they were, like, much more impactful coping mechanisms. Like, that safety came, like, I… I was an alcoholic for 18 years, and I smoked a lot, and, like, all kinds of other shit, and it was just…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): It was just for safety.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And I wasn't able to let any of it go until I started creating, like, I let go of smoking cigarettes before I stopped drinking. And it was because I found a way to feel safe without smoking before I found a way to feel safe without drinking. And so…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): really, that truly, and I'm so glad you brought this up, Christine, that truly is where these complex life circumstances get shoved down. It's not safe to talk about the fact that I'm sick. It's not safe to talk about the fact that I have a menstrual cycle and I don't want to fucking talk to you today. It's not safe that, like, whatever those things are, and so we push them down, and then we just start performing. And so…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): to your point, I'm so glad you said this, socially.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): is the ramification of you not engaging unsafe? And if it's not, but you're super uncomfortable, what cues can we give the outside world

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): that I'm not a bastard, but also I'm not engaging with you right now. I'm not available. So, is it headphones? Is it a pair of sunglasses inside? Like, what kind of cues can you tell the outside world, I'm not open for business today? So that you can…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Then start to live in the world with safety while aligned with your complex life circumstances.

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Christine Chessman: And bringing it back to you guys, this is… do you ever get moments where you… the people-pleasing comes back in, or have you… I mean, is it a practice thing, where it… did it take…

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Christine Chessman: Like, a long…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): it did take us a long time, because we didn't have anybody talking about these things, right? Like, this is the… this is why we're so hell-bent on this mission, because we don't see anybody else talking about… you know, people will talk about ADHD, or people will talk about cycle-syncing their business, and their workouts, and their food.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): But it's not one… it's not singular, and this… this… you know, social media, we have, for all… for all the good and the bad, the reality is that there's only so much you can put in a single post, and so you can't always talk about the nuance of cycle thinking with ADHD, with parenting, with, you know, all of these different pieces, and so…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): the people-pleasing aspect… so here's… here's my hot take on this. We're supposed to be that way.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): we're supposed to care what other people think. Like, we're wired for that, right? Like, this is… it's one of the biggest lies that we've been told over the last 20 years of this, especially in the U.S. I don't know that maybe this is true for everywhere, but, like, this independent… be independent, you can do it on yourself, self-care, self-trust, self… all of these self-things.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): But the reality is, we're not designed to be in solitude. That's exhausting. And so, the difference that we can make in this is when we are looking at people-pleasing.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): choosing intentionally, and this is a word… the phrase that I have started using a lot, because I… it feels real good.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): In order for me

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): to please you, to want to you, to think fondly of me, for me to care about your opinion about how I'm doing things. You have to have some eligibility requirements in my life. It used to be everybody. It used to be all the people I know. I needed everybody like me. Now it's… it is barely a fraction of a percent.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): It's… and it's people that I know have my best interests in mind.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): For me, in particular, my own healing journey.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): they are always giving me the benefit of the doubt. If I'm not… if I'm not perfectly showing up, if I say something that sounds off to them, they're not assuming I'm mad, or I'm an asshole, or I meant, you know, malicious intent. And so…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): the people-pleasing process, it is wired in our nervous system. Remember, the brain-body loop is… is constantly communicating. It's not one or the other, it's the combination, and so it's rewiring these things, and it's honestly taking what you learn in one relationship or one situation

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): and kind of getting your brain and body kind of calibrated with that, and then turning and saying, okay, what can I take from that in this relationship, in this area of my life.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And then you build that… that familiarity, that predictive, response in your nervous system and in how you think about things, and it becomes reflexive

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): to not people please, and if you do, because we're human, you're still gonna have, like, oh, I chose your comfort over my needs in this moment. You catch yourself, and you either

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): say, didn't crush it today, but I… I have a relationship with this person that I can say, hey, I said I could do this thing, and I realized after reflecting on it, I can't actually do it to the degree I said, can we talk about a way to adjust the expectations? Or, I need to not do this going forward, and this is what I need. It's being able to communicate those things, which again, is only possible when you are talking to people who value and accept your complex life circumstances as valid

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And part of the expectations of being in a relationship with you. And are regulated. Like, the people you're… if you're talking to people that are dysregulated, you're having a dysregulated conversation. And so…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): being able to acknowledge and understand that also is a really, really important part. When we're talking about CLCs in general, and coming back to this idea of safety, it doesn't feel safe to share anything with a dysregulated person. That's a wild card, and I don't know what you're going to do with this really personal information.

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Ela Law (she/her): And so, recognizing that.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): the conversations that are effective and successful are the conversations that are had that are regulated when both parties are regulated. And so.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): being able to identify, you're not regulated right now, I am not available for this conversation until you are. That's not a, we're never gonna have this conversation, but I need to be able to have a regulated conversation so that we both can hear each other. The other thing that I wanted to say to people-pleasing.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): the question, and again, like, now I'm gonna be thinking about you in a cafe for the rest of the day.

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Ela Law (she/her): emotionally…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): If that's a real concern, the question that I tell our clients to ask themselves is, is the action that I'm about to take to be nice.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Or is this me being kind?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Nice and kind are two different experiences.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): When we are being nice, more often than not, it is a people-pleasing action.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I'm trying to… I can't… one of you said, I'm trying to be nice to this person while they're talking to me. What if you were kind instead? Because the options aren't nice or asshole.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Like, we can… we can have some scale in there.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah!

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And so, what is the kind option when someone in a store comes up to you, most likely because it's their job to chat you up, because they wanna… because they were trained to do so, because that's their company line? Like, how can you be kind and send this person on their way?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Rather than, I'm gonna be nice to this person and have this, like, social transaction that I know I need to have before I get to be able to buy my own stuff.

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Ela Law (she/her): And…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Where can you be kind with your family? Instead of people… like, your question, do you still… do we still people please? Like a crazy person with her all the time.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Like, she is my kryptonite for everything.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): In order to… in order… there are times when I have to ask myself for my own family, because I will give everything for them.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I don't have it today. How can I be kind to my children instead of being nice to my children today?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): How can I empower my children to go do their own shit, and be kind in that way, so that I can have a break, so that I can power down, so that we can do that thing that Tasha talked about, of like, I can't give you 150% today, because I literally only have 5% to start with.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): So, I'm gonna be kind to you, and maybe that looks like me sitting with you quietly, as opposed to inviting you to tell me about everything that just happened with you and whoever. But, like, where can we be kind instead of nice?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): is a great way to address this people-pleasing conversation if it feels really scary. Because it does.

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Ela Law (she/her): Mmm.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): this with your… family of origin and the people that you're closest to.

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Ela Law (she/her): Is that something?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): important for people to understand, is that the people-pleasing is going to take longer for those close relationships than anywhere else, which is why oftentimes we don't start with those close relationships when we're working with clients, because it's too much, it's too much activation, there's too much history, there's too many rules, there's too much weight on it.

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Ela Law (she/her): With the… I, yeah, completely agree. I think the kind of nice distinction is…

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Ela Law (she/her): Can you give us an example, either of you, of what that would look like? I get what you said about, you know, today maybe I can just sit with my child in silence and just be there, and I can see that that's a kind thing to do, but I feel like there needs to be a preface of communication, because if someone expects you to perform, or to talk, or…

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Ela Law (she/her): the other person is coming at you and thinks that the kind thing for you to do is engage in the conversation, you have that mismatch, don't you? So, do you need to actually go out there and go to the store and say to the person, look, I'm, you know.

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Ela Law (she/her): Well, what do you say?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Yes! Yes! I mean, that's… that's a part of this transparency, as part of this practice that is probably, not talked about enough, is this transparency of my reality.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And part of it is people-pleasing. I don't want to make you uncomfortable with telling.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I have a migraine today, so having a conversation, it's just easier for me to play along with this nicety than to say, I really appreciate how friendly you're being, I just need you to know I have a migraine, so I'm probably not going to talk much through this transaction.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And being okay with that. It's fantastic. Wouldn't it be lovely?

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Ela Law (she/her): Mmm.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): that from some… wouldn't someone coming to you and saying, I am so invested in what you're saying, but I don't have it today? Can we… can we do, like, God, yes, thank you.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, they're probably relieved.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): me show up for you.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And so it's those things, and that's what it… the kind of rules on our household is, is you can…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): have whatever you need in our home when you're taking care of yourself, just communicate that to us so that we know where you're coming from. And we have that within our community, our membership community, too. Like, one of the things that Christine knows when you come to our calls, you don't have to come in any certain way.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): However you can show up so that you can be there to get what you need out of it. And that's a kindness that we… we were committed to so that others who don't have it elsewhere can have that experience. And so it is, it's… it's saying, I want this.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): like, this connection, this… I want you to know that I wish I could be this way in our relationship, but I actually have this limitation and that honesty, which is… it's so simple when you say it, but it is so not the practice that we're used to having. And I think people think the alternative is to lie.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Yeah. And to, like, you know, make something up, right? Because we don't want the other person's feelings to be hurt, but if we're just truly talking about what I need and how I am today, it doesn't…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): it's very endearing, and it's very, oftentimes welcome. I do want to touch on

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I think that's true for outside of the… of your family of origin, but with these relationships, and I'll speak to just, like, the family of origin, like our parents, our siblings, our partners who we've had, you know, long-time patterns in our relationships, or all of a sudden, we've now decided, oh, I had an aha, I'm not gonna do this anymore.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And then shit changes, that is gonna be rough on everybody. And so, one of the things that we learned the hardest way possible.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And please learn from our trial and error, is proactively saying, hey, I just had this moment of clarity that when we do… I'm trying to think of an example. So, I am a morning person, and Brandon is an evening person. Our energy just naturally flows there.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Okay, so for a while.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I also love talking to Tasha, so I need that to be known. So, for, like, in the evenings when I'm going to bed, I am… I'm zapped, like, especially at this season, like, with chronic illness, like, I am… my battery is low, and I don't have the capacity to have any new conversations, for sure, and I don't want to have the conversations we're probably finishing up still, right? Okay.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Brandon is winding up, and… for a while.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): it was hard for me to say to him, I can't do this with you, because I was so nervous to hurt his feelings, I didn't want him to think I wasn't interested in what he's talking about, because I genuinely am. The conversation… I want to be clear that if you had done that at the beginning of a relationship, you 100% would have hurt my feelings. Right. And not for anything that you did, because I wasn't healed. Well, and this is what I'm getting at, is that when we have these patterns of, I've…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): for the first 10 years, I didn't communicate what I needed, and so his expectation was valid. Like, you're gonna listen because you've always listened. Like, no matter what time of day it is, if he wants to talk, I'm listening.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And so it comes down to saying, hey, I had this moment of clarity. I realized I've been doing this thing, and I need to make some changes so that I can actually show up to our relationship better. I want to hear what you have to say. I want to hear your ideas. I want to hear what you're excited about. It has to happen before 8pm. Like, if there's something that comes up before…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): at 8 for you, send me a text so we can talk about it, talk about it on our walk tomorrow morning, or go have tea, or whatever, but it's communicating when it's not in the moment that is… that became our superpower, so that we could have the moments where we say, hey, remember that thing? Because it's… this is reality. At 8 o'clock, he's still excited, he still has shit he wants to say, and so I'll say, hey, I love you, can we talk about this tomorrow? And because we have this understanding before the moment, there's not this rejection.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): not this abandonment, there's not these hurt feelings. Now he's laughing, going, yep, you're right, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I forgot, it's 8 o'clock, whatever, whatever. And the same thing, just for the record, same thing for me in the morning.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): downstairs, and I'm like, I've been going for three hours, and we have this idea, and this idea, and this idea, and he's like… Hard pass.

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Ela Law (she/her): Wow.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Yeah, and so we… it's communicating in advance when you can, when you can have those conversations.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, I think you learn. I've learned to kind of not talk to my husband for the first, maybe, 2 hours.

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Ela Law (she/her): Good.

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Christine Chessman: Because I'm very much, morning! What's going on? I am so productive and amazing in the morning, and it just goes like that throughout the day. And the same thing, I've got an amazing daughter who saves up all of her stories, emotions, everything, until I'm saying goodnight!

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Yes.

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Ela Law (she/her): No, Mommy?

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Christine Chessman: I can't, I just can't, I just can't. And you're sitting there going, please…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Stop talking, please. Well, and what's funny is we… both of our kids picked a side. So, our oldest is a morning person, and our youngest is an evening person, so Tasha gets our oldest, and all that energy, because when I look at them doing that, I'm like, I…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Both of you right now.

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Christine Chessman: Huh.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And then in the evenings, it's me and our youngest just fucking rattling everything we've thought about all day at each other. The other two of us are just running to our separate rooms to get away from it all. One of the things that I want to say about this is…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I am a caregiver through and through.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I love being able to know how I can support you. It makes my life easier, it makes me a happier person, because I can support you being anybody.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): In a way that you need, which, as a caregiver, feels like gold.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And so, to the question of, like, how do we bring this up? How do we approach this? What do you do?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): as exactly as Tasha said, being able to, with your people, share it. But also, if it's not your people, recognize that, for the most part, most people walking this planet

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Don't want harm to come to others.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And so, while the vulnerability is scary.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): it's rare and wonderful and beautiful, and I've never been met with anything other than acceptance.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): it gives other people a thing to do. Like, it truly gives somebody an action to be able to say and walk away from that interaction with you saying to themselves, I was able to do something small that made that person's life just a tiny bit easier.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And even the person in the grocery store. So, like, I have a similar… I go to the grocery store all the time.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I wear a lot of pink, and I wear pink sunglasses when I go out. And there's this one grocery store that I go to that if I'm wearing those sunglasses, it is like a homing beacon for this one person that works there, and they, like, beeline me to me in the store, and it has gotten to the point where sometimes, like, I can't go in there today, I just don't have it.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And this one point in time, she came up to me, and she was, like, super fired up about all the pink shit that I was wearing, and I just looked at her and I said, thank you so much, it means so much to me that you really appreciate this.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I'm really wiped out today, I hope you're having a good day. And then she said, oh my goodness, I'm so sorry, is there anything that you need? And I said, no thanks, I'm just gonna go do my thing. And then she went on her way, happy as hell, that she was able to do something, and I was able to cut that off at the pass before it turned into a very long conversation about nothing.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): it gave us both a moment of connection, but also gave us both something to do. And that's another thing, I think, socially. We don't know what to do when people

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): have real moments, and so we shy away from them. And so being able to know, I'm giving… I'm empowering this other person to be a good person that they want to be.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): is…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): In reception of it, I find it lovely. Like, God, thank you for letting me know exactly how you need me to be for you, so that we both have a positive experience.

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Ela Law (she/her): I love that. And you're also role modeling, right? You're giving someone else the permission to do the same, so that it sort of snowballs then. Yeah. She will probably think, oh, that pink guy in the shop.

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Ela Law (she/her): he just told me something that made a lot of sense to me. I was able to help him. Maybe I can try that, because I'm going to the gym, and there's always this person there that…

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Ela Law (she/her): bothers me with all sorts of questions, and maybe she can now do that same thing.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Ella, that is my dream. Like, my dream of all dreams is that we can model these things in little moments in our communities, our local communities.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And it ripples and ripples and ripples by modeling these little micro-moments of permission

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): and kindness, and connection without having to self-abandon. And self-awareness. Like, me being able to say that to her, and the other people that I've said similar things to, gives them the opportunity of, like, hey, maybe I'm coming in real hot, and I need to, like, back up a little bit and let people just have an experience.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): you get to see so much in such a small interaction, and the language we choose is also really important. Tasha and I…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): started a long time ago using the language effective and ineffective. Instead of good-bad. Instead of good-bad. And so when we're sharing these complex life circumstances, like, this interaction for me is just not effective today. Like, I just… or the way that we're talking isn't effective.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): it… because X, Y, and Z. Like, it gives… it takes away the judgment. It's like, you didn't do anything wrong, this just isn't effective for me. So how can we find another effective way to communicate? Or, as in the example of, like, I'm gonna be quiet with my kids, if they're like, I need more from you.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): that's not necessarily the most effective thing for me today, so what can we do together that effectively gives us both of what we want? I need less stimulation, and you need more attention. So maybe you pick the show, and I'll pick the snacks, and we'll puddle on the couch together. Like, what does that look like? What's the effective way to go about doing this? Really takes the, you did something wrong to me, or I did something wrong to you out of it.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And now we're just problem solving. Together. Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: I mean, I absolutely love that, and sadly, we're almost gonna have to close up.

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Ela Law (she/her): Can we have you guys back?

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Christine Chessman: No, no, no.

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Ela Law (she/her): I've got, like, about 120 I have questions. I was gonna… I…

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Christine Chessman: There's something I'm really interested in, there's two things, but we don't really… well, we'll see, we'll see. So, because you're a business, I want to ask you, it's a slight devil's advocate, do you ever get swept up in it all, and find yourself falling back into those patterns? Because as the business grows, and

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Christine Chessman: you know, there's new offers, new people coming in, and you want to do more, and you see, and it can snowball. Do you… how do you keep yourselves

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Christine Chessman: you know.

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Christine Chessman: In that place that you've…

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Ela Law (she/her): Great question.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Yeah, so one of the things that I think is important for this, that I wish I had been able to tell myself 10 years ago.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): is that the expectation that it's never gonna go back to the way it was, even for a second, is just unfair and unkind to my future self. Because we've been doing this version of life and business and family and partnership and all of, you know, people and humaning for 5 years.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I had 40 years of practice doing the other thing, the other way.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): And so, it is gonna come back up. The difference, though, is that when it comes back up now, it's a blip.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): it's… it's a day worse. That's only if I'm, like, 5 days before my theory starts, my luteal phase, it's a full day. But, like, most of the time.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): it's, like, an hour, maybe a half an hour, maybe it's even a moment, and it doesn't take up my time. And so, one, knowing that the old survival mechanisms, whether it's people-pleasing, productivity-based self-worth, procrastination, any of those perfectionism patterns that we developed to create this sense of safety for ourselves.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): They're gonna surface

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): multiple times going forward. They're gonna surface when you have new stress that comes in your life you've never had before. Oftentimes, they kind of resurface then, because your nervous system is still wired in that way. And they're going to resurface when your complex life circumstances are stacking actively.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): so much that you don't have a new model of what to do yet. You know, your brain is predictive, and so it's like, I don't have data on what to do when all of these things are happening at the same time, so we're just going to go back to what we learned when we were 4, when we were 7, when we were 12. And so.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): When we know that's what happens.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): when we do find ourselves in those situations, we… we as a practice have met those, and that has become automatic of compassion. Like, oh, I did this thing again.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I'm not an asshole, I'm not gonna judge myself. I'm just saying, okay, like Brandon was saying, it's not effective, and so what… what do I need to do to bring myself back to me, back to, you know, my values, my goals, my capacity? Those are the three things I'm always checking in with, like, is this the thing I'm doing aligned with those three parts? And…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): knowing that it's part of the journey, like, it's always going to be part of the journey, has relieved me from the perfectionism version of healing, which is so easy to get into. So yeah, in business and in our personal lives, it's… it's always going to be a…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): parallel road that we can have

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): lean over into, and then get back on our own road again, and then, you know, jump over to the parallel, then jump back into our own lane again. It's why it was so important for us to redefine consistency, so that it's not, well, now we're never doing this again, and we're forever only doing these things.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): It's… we've committed to a life of consistently returning to these practices, so that when those moments do pop up, because they do.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Because life… complex life circumstances

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): do become incredibly overwhelming when they all collide. And so, recognizing, like, this isn't a failure, now it's not like we turned the switch off and now I have to operate in this old mode forever again. I'm just gonna consistently do the things that I did to get myself here now.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Which is nervous system regulation, and giving myself grace, and pausing, and drinking water, and eating food, and, like, just normal, like, body stuff, but reminding ourselves, like, the goal is to consistently return.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): to the practice, not forsake our entire life before this moment, and never… and never… and pretend that it's never gonna come back, ever. I want to give a specific statement that I use for myself for speaking to that.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): My commitment is not to never stop doing the thing again. My commitment is always to circle back no matter how many times I've taken a detour. Yeah. And that has actually built consistency for me, and it has challenged this

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): every day the same way, the same time kind of rule that I learned about consistency, you know, 20 years ago in personal development, and that commitment to circling back to the things that work for me.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): no matter how long the detour was, no matter how many detours I've taken, has built actual consistency that allows for capacity at the same time.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah. It's just redefining consistency. I think we have this kind of vision of consistency, it kind of feeds into perfectionism, doesn't it? It needs to be. It's discipline, it's related to all of that. But your consistency definition is very different. It's about

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Ela Law (she/her): Just going back, circling back, doing it again, and knowing that nothing is perfect, and that things will happen.

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Ela Law (she/her): And you're just going back to, well, I'm dealing with it. I'm going back. I'm doing it again. I'm doing it again. I love that.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Trying it with context rather than creating a standard.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah. It's internal.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): External direction rather than an external direction.

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Ela Law (she/her): Love that.

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Christine Chessman: And it is very similar to, sort of, the work that we do around body image, movement, and sort of repairing that relationship with your body. The thoughts are still going to come back.

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Christine Chessman: the thoughts that you've had for most of your life. You're gonna have those days, or really bad body image days, where you want to delve back into the diet, and you're gonna have those thoughts, and it's better not to beat yourself up about those, but just, as you say, keep coming back.

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Christine Chessman: So the work that you've done, and the things that feel good in your body, and…

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Christine Chessman: I think that's brilliant. Ella, if you go.

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Ela Law (she/her): No, I'm gonna stop here, but, can you guys come back? Because what I really want to do also is ask you about all of this in, relation to neurodivergence.

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Ela Law (she/her): I'm also… I'm just doing a course on somatic trauma integration at the moment, so I'm really interested in anything nervous system related, so I'd love to ask you loads of questions, but we're kind of out of time, Christine, for this one, aren't we? But, yeah, can you come back pretty, please?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): I'd love to. We'd love to. Thank you. I just want to, real quick, to say, one of the things I love about the work that you guys are doing is it is so aligned with how we see human functioning. It's such a functional…

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Practical way to go about

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): health, and your actual physical being, and Christine, every time… I didn't know to follow you, Ella, so I'm looking forward to following you back, but Christine, all the posts I've seen.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): for you promoting the work that you do and the way you do it, I'm like, yes, that! Yes, more people need to see that, more people need to understand that's how it actually works, and that's actually what's effective.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Versus so much of what we've seen.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): That I'm also rolling my eyes with, that you guys roll your eyes with when it comes to health and wellness.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): For women.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, that means a lot. We're very on our soapbox, aren't we, Ella?

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Ela Law (she/her): Oh yes, we love a soapbox.

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Christine Chessman: Well, it's fine. Well placed, so I appreciate it.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Very deserved, yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Well, Emma…

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Christine Chessman: We are going to add all the details where people can find you, everything that you guys have got going on, courses, membership, etc, which is so much amazing stuff. We're going to put it all in the show notes. Where's the best people, or best people? Best place for people to reach out to you?

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): The place we're most active is Instagram, so at Rules and Rebellion. Rules and Rebellion on Instagram is probably the easiest place to know where we are. We're there daily, so that's probably the fastest.

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Christine Chessman: I love… I was gonna say I love Instagram. I don't love Instagram. I love… that's the platform I like better than the others.

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Yeah, yeah, that's the easiest. Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Thank you so much, and we will have you back in the near future, but for now, bye-bye!

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Tasha (she/her) Brandon (he/they): Thanks! Thank you so much!