Neurodiverse Love with Mona Kay Interrupting the Defense Cycle: A Nervous System Perspective of Neurodiverse Relationships-Heather Parks
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Oct 1, 2024 Heather Parks, a neurodiverse family coach with firsthand experience in a long-term neurodiverse relationship, challenges common myths about relationship change. She emphasizes that improvement doesn't solely rely on partners changing, but instead on self-awareness and interrupting the defense cycles we contribute to. Parks explores behaviors like fight, flight, freeze, and fawn as responses to stress and encourages listeners to focus on their roles in these patterns. She also discusses the healing practices that can calm the nervous system and promote personal growth for healthier relationships.
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Stuck In A Family Defence Cycle
- Heather describes being stuck in a family-wide defence cycle before finding the key to interrupt it.
- Her recovery experience became the foundation for coaching other neurodiverse families.
Defence Modes Are Nervous System Patterns
- Defence modes are rooted in unconscious autonomic nervous system responses to perceived threat.
- Recognising these patterns reframes relationship problems as nervous-system-driven, not solely character flaws.
Realising 'The Problem' Wasn't Only Them
- Heather initially focused on changing her partner and children before realising she was also operating from defence.
- That shift in perspective was a turning point in her family's ability to interrupt their stuck pattern.