Hi, I'm Piper Harris, and welcome to the Untingled Mind Podcast, where we work to untingle your mind so you can navigate life's challenges with greater clarity and confidence. I'm a data-driven therapist based in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, specializing in third-wave cognitive behavioral therapy, neuropsychotherapy, and EMDR for individuals facing trauma, anxiety, and grief. On today's episode, we're exploring attunement, what it really is, why it matters for healing, and how it's tied directly to the way your nervous system experiences safety and connection. Whether you've struggled with complex trauma, anxiety, or feeling unseen in your relationships, today's conversation will help you understand how true healing begins not through fixing, but through being truly seen, heard, and resonated with. Let's dive in. It's crazy for our family. Our eldest is graduating high school and headed off to college. So the next couple weeks are going to be a whirlwind and ties very well into attunement, what we're talking about today. So let me talk about that. What is attunement and why is this important? So attunement is really this ability to sense and respond to what someone else is feeling, even if they don't say it out loud. And it's really about being emotionally present and creating this kind of sense of safety and connection through how we are with each other, not just what we say. So tying back into this wild journey that we're on with my eldest son, I really um crapped the bed, for lack of a better word, um, last night with my son with attunement. He got home and he had gone to an event with some buddies. And earlier in the year, he had stepped out of a leadership role just because he was focusing on a senior year. He took a lot of AP classes, all of that. And he came home. I'm tired. It's late for me. And um, I could tell by his body language that there was something going on. I said, Hey, what's up? What's wrong? He's like, Yeah, just you know, um it was just it was fun, but it was kind of tough. And instead, and he said, Well, by the way, they have a uh senior banquet next weekend. And keep in mind, I don't want to go to this place um because we left it. But instead of reading his body language and hearing his tone, I should have said, Hey, kiddo, you know, I know it's really hard to transition into college and saying goodbye, and however dad and I can support you, like this is great. But instead, instead, I was like, ugh, do we have to go? I mean, it was I really had a bad parenting moment. I was not attuned to my son, and we're not always 100% attuned. Um, but I really, really screwed it up last night. So, first thing this morning when I was at the gym, I saw what time it was. I knew I could text him. He was up for school, and I texted him and said, Hey, babe, you know, I love you. And mom really sucked last night, and I'm really sorry. So, again, it's really important that we understand what attunement is, not just as a therapist. We we practice attunement in the therapy room all the time, or we should. Um, but we should also practice this and and really fine-tune it in our personal lives because it just makes our personal lives so much more um abundant and secure when we can respond to how someone is feeling without them saying it out loud, and and we can have an effect on their state of mind. Same, same with us. Somebody can affect us if they're attuned to us. So, all that to be said, again, attunement is that ability to sense and respond to someone, um, what they're feeling without them saying it, and to be emotionally present, unlike myself last night. And you create that sense of safety and connection through how we are with each other in their presence, not just by what we're saying. So, some key elements to attunement um always include that deep emotional presence. So it's not that uh surface level attention. And before you just kind of roll your eyes, this is not woo-woo, this is not some woo-woo concept. Um, stay with me. There is science when it comes to attunement. We're gonna talk about that today. Um, a next, the next key element when it comes to something, this thing called attunement, is it's a nervous system-to-nervous system regulation. It's co-regulation. Uh, we are able to attune to someone and calm their nervous system. How amazing is that? It's it's like uh when a mother picks up a child that's upset and the child can just sit there and look at mom's eyes and becomes calmer. This is attunement. Attunement is also this nonverbal listening. So it's the ability to read body language, to notice breath, how people are breathing, even energy shifts. When you become uh adept at understanding attunement and really what happens within yourself, it really is a very somatic or uh physical-based influence. You really can notice it, and I'll share some of that with you today. Um, you can tell when there's an energy shift in the room. For example, have you ever um walked into a conversation, say at work, and it's a group of people and you don't know what they're talking about, but the moment you walk up, you just feel like, ooh, I don't want to be a part of this conversation. That is attunement, and we can really fine-tune that um to better navigate our lives. Also, attunement is this willingness that we can have to adjust our response to someone else's emotional needs without losing ourselves. That's the big caveat. When it comes to attunement, some of us are really, really good at it. And if we're not um in control of ourselves, then we can get lost in somebody else's emotionality. So, again, for an example, have you had that one friend that's Eeyore? And you're like, yeah, I'm just I'm gonna really support them and do whatever I can, and you're working so hard to support them, and they just keep being Eeyore, and before you know it, you are absolutely, utterly exhausted, absolutely exhausted by their behavior. Well, you got sucked in. You got sucked into their emotionality. So, as a therapist, attunement's obviously really important. It's it's the cornerstone stone of my work, it's the foundation. Sometimes in school they might call this a therapeutic alliance, but I think that's um hard for some people to grapple with. I will say that some people are really born with this innate ability to attune. They're highly empathetic, they're probably highly sensitive individuals. Some people, on the other hand, have to learn attunement. They have to learn this. And so, do I think people can learn attunement? Absolutely. Um, but I do believe that there are individuals, there's degrees of attunement, if that makes sense. Um, just like some people are amazing at math, and some people, like me, can barely do two plus two. So it's everybody, we're all on a spectrum, right? We're all on this kind of continuum of ability. And I believe attunement is the same thing. So I've explained to you what attunement is, and really the benefits of attunement is that we can enhance our relationships and we can learn to regulate ourselves and others. So attunement is amazing, not just in the therapy room. So, this is what I want to do though, is I want to clarify some of the common myths of attunement. Um, if you have followed me for any amount of time, you know that I am really, really, really, really, really, really sick of the self-help gurus. Um, I think so often we look at the types like Mel Robbins, we're like, oh my gosh, they they've got everything figured out. But if you really listen deeply, they don't have it figured out. It's surface level stuff. It's the things that you read, and they're, oh my gosh, I totally get it. Let let it be, I think is one of her sayings. Let it be. And okay, you try it on for size, but does it stick? No, because this is fluff. And so I really want to address some of the common myths that you're probably hearing from some of these self-help gurus that it's very surface level. Um, and so let's kind of talk about that. So, one of the common myths I think is first of all, is that it's woo-woo. It is not woo-woo. It is rooted in our neuropsychology, our neurophysiology. So it's not this woo-woo, you know, dancing out in the forest, kumbaya stuff. It's not, okay. Second myth is that it is not mind reading. It is not mind reading. When you are particularly attuned or an attuned individual, it might seem kind of weird, like, how did they know I was thinking that? How did they know I was gonna say that? So some people might be like, what in the world is going on? This is not mind reading, it's that you have um fine-tuned the ability to read those nonverbal signs and read the shifts in the room to understand what's happening with the person you're you're talking to. It's not mind reading. Um, it's also not fixing. Attunement is not fixing. Attunement is holding space for what somebody else is feeling. That's what attunement is. That you can hold that space, managing yourself, not absorbing whatever they're going through, but you can sit in that space. There's nothing more healing, more wonderful than being able to sit in a space and just be feel, feel seen, heard, felt, understood, uh loved, cared for. Conversely, if you're in a room where you're ignored, you're dismissed, you're um abused, that causes a tremendous amount of pain. This is the complete opposite of it. Okay, so it's not fixing, it's sitting within. The other myth that I hear too, a lot of people talk about is that it's analyzing. What I want to say is, as a therapist, as even individuals will say uh with anxious attachment or disorganized attachment, really any of those insecure attachments, um, analyzing is inherently part of this. So I'm not saying that you don't analyze, I'm saying that it's part of this kind of subconscious process that you're taking in this information, this nonverbal information, and your mind is analyzing what is taking place. So for me, when I feel something shift or I notice something in the room, in the therapy room, I am absolutely analyzing what I am seeing, what is taking place. Now, it's very quick, it's a very quick analysis. Um, and we'll talk a little bit about that. So, so those are some of the common myths. Those are some of the common myths about what attunement is. And again, true attunement is nervous system to nervous system listening, co-regulation. Freud had this really awesome quote when he talked about this, and he said, everyone possesses in his own unconsciousness an instrument with which he can interpret the utterances of the unconsciousness of other people. Isn't that gorgeous? Everyone possesses in their own unconscious an instrument with which he can interpret the utterances of the unconsciousness of other people. So he saw it too. I see it all the time. We have an ability. It's a matter of do I care? It's a matter of do I do I have the bandwidth to step into this? It's the matter of can I step into this and hold the space without being consumed. But I just loved Freud's quote about what is attunement. So that's what attunement is and what it is not. I want to start by telling you a personal story that I've carried with me. I mean, gosh, it was summer before ninth grade, and I'm 46, y'all. So this is a long time ago. Um, a story where I think I really recognized what true attunement was. So just kind of some some backstory. Um raised in a home with a mother that was highly, highly anxious. So I remember as a little girl feeling anxiety. I have um flashes of memory where I can remember times of high anxiety. And so why this memory I'm about to share with you is so key to me is that it allowed me to step out of feeling that anxiousness my whole life into a place where I was like, oh, this feels different. And it has sat with me to this day. So this is the story. Um, I grew up going to summer camp. I would go for a week every summer, and it was something that I looked forward to every year. I loved it, but I hated it. Um, when I started going to summer camp, it was in middle school, and I was definitely the ugly duckling. I had the big old giant glasses, I had headgear, um, I was obnoxious. I mean, what middle school or isn't? But I middle school was really tough for me. It was just a really tough time. I was heavy. Um, my folks struggled with how to help a daughter that was um fat. And so um I loved going to summer camp, but it was also very hard because inevitably I was gonna be teased. I was gonna be teased. So when I first started going to summer camp, Camp Spaulding, um, I met Krista. And Krista Hunt, you can look her up. Um, she was my camp counselor and kind of turned into this adoptive big sister that I never had. And I'll never forget it was the summer before or summer before ninth grade. I'm trying to remember. I think it was the summer before ninth grade. Um, we're at summer camp. I'm having fun. Things are great, but you know, inevitably I'm getting picked on. And I remember all of us went to the campfire one night and I was having a really hard time. Um, I can't tell you exactly what was happening. I'm sure kids were picking on me or something was going on, or I was just being a middle school girl. But I um cozyd up to Krista, my camp counselor, and I was I can see it vividly in my mind. I was to her uh left. I was cozy to my right to her left, and everybody was singing campfire songs, and I was just I was really, really feeling anxious and really upset. And I remember really tuning into her voice. She had a beautiful voice and she was singing, and um she stopped and she kind of looked down at me. At least that's how I see it in my mind's eye. And um she gave me this knowing uh slight smile, like it barely touched the corners of her mouth, but the smile really lit up her eyes. And she just kind of held my gaze. And I am telling you, it was instantaneous. I remember this um peace uh just washed over me. It just washed over me. It it I it really was the very first time I can tell you that um I've had such an incredible experience with what is this thing attunement? What is this co-regulation that can happen? And and she did it for me that day. You might be hearing me speak of her in past tense. I've talked about her before in podcasts, but she unfortunately lost her life when I was in college. Um, she died too soon. And so I hold on to her memory and I hold on to that first instance of feeling this washing over of my nervous system by somebody. And I hold on to that. I literally, when I have tough times and I'm struggling to regulate myself, I will bring to mind that moment and I will spend time in deep visualization and just imagining that warmth that I felt spread over me so, so, so many years ago. So it had such an enormous impact, not only in my life at that time, it regulated my nervousness, my anxiety. And again, I can't remember what was happening that day, but I remember this just peace washed over me. So it really calmed my nervous system. And even as an adult today, if I consider that time, and I, like I said, do this deep visualization, I can calm my my nervous system with recalling that first instance of this attunement with her. Like like Freud had said, she was able to interpret those utterances, that pain of my nervous system and calm it in just a moment. It was just incredible. So I hold on to that decades and decades later. So, really, what this is too, I want to say that even if you have loss of someone that you've felt attunement with, it does not erase it as a resource. It's lived with us internally. So if you've lost someone and you can recall a time, maybe it's your grandmother's hug, I can pull that to mind too. Maybe it's a cousin, maybe it's a really good friend, maybe it's a teacher, and you felt their calming presence, that is attunement. And even if they're not in your life any longer, just know it does not erase that as a resource to regulate your system when you're feeling anxious or sad or worried or afraid, you can live with them internally. So that's my little story about my first recall of attunement. I want to talk about what's really weird for me with attunement. And I've shared this with a couple of my clients, and they kind of look at me like I sprouted another head, but that's okay. When I'm there's specific attunement exercises that sometimes I do with client clients, it's in my workbooks. If you all haven't checked them out, the untangling trauma and untangling anxiety, you can get them on Amazon. Um, I talk about this attunement exercise, and essentially you're miming each other's hand movements. But there's something to this thing, okay? There's something to this thing. When we attune, it's nervous system to nervous system, or what we like to say right brain to right brain. The right brain is um the side of the brain, excuse me, that's in charge of feelings and empathy. And and so when we're right brain to right brain with someone, that's when we're attuning, that's when we can get into this kind of say same wavelength. Have you ever said that, like, oh, we're totally on the same wavelength? Well, it it's true. We can see it on brain imaging that this actually happens. So this really weird thing, I have this attunement exercise that I'll do with some clients and we're miming each other. And so, like, I'll have them mime me, like following my arm movements, my hand movements, they'll do exactly what I'm doing. And pretty soon, what happens is all of a sudden they start following, and I get this really weird chill sensation that runs up my arms. And I know if I tune into that somatically, so feeling this, physically feeling this, I'm like, ah, we're on the same wavelength. So it's just really weird thing because I'll say to them, they're like, oh my gosh, I'm not getting it. I'm like, just stay with it, stay with it, stay with it. And pretty soon I'm like, oop, there we are. They might not feel it necessarily like I do, but I get this really weird chill that runs through my arms. That's where I feel it first. Um, and then I know, okay, we we're we're good. Let's step into this. Now, sometimes it's not that easy, but I do get this really weird sensation. And again, this is not woo-woo. This is neurophysiology. If we can be aware of what is happening in our internal environment somatically, we can more quickly attune to the environments and the people that were around. And so, part of this reasoning, we I talked about right brain to right brain, is something called mirror neurons. So, mirror neurons were um found back in the 90s. And essentially what we found is that by watching someone um do something, we can almost like absorb the information in. Does that make sense? So it really is like when we go into an environment and people are hostile, we're gonna feel more hostile or upset. Or if we go into an environment where people are having a great time, we feel this elation that goes along with them. It's because this right brain, right brain neuron, this mirror neuron development that's happening. And I tell my clients. About this. Like the best thing about what I do as a therapist is I know that we are actively engaging their brain and growing new pathways and it's called neuroplasticity. It's amazing to me that we have this healing ability just by sitting in each other's presence. And so when I get that weird shiver up my arms, I mean, it is one of the best feelings. I'm like, okay, I'm there. I got it. I'm there. And so it really, the more we attune to what we're noticing somatically, the more that we're going to be able to attune even better in the future. So listen to your attunement. Again, and this is not like the feel-good shiver that I get. Sometimes, sometimes I have had situations where I've attuned to my environment, and every cell in my body is saying, Piper, you need to run. This is unsafe. That is attunement as well. We call it intuition, right? Intuition is found on the right hemisphere of the brain, right brain, right brain. So our attunement to ourselves, our physical state, and those of others and the environment, the energy shift, that it speaks to us, but we have to tap into it. We have to tap into it. But again, the weird, beautiful thing that happens to me is I get this weird chill up my arms. And I'm telling you, when I've told my clients, I'm like, oh, we're there, I feel it. They just kind of look at me and I tell them, I said, Yeah, I see my goosebumps. I I get goosebumps. And they just think it's so weird. But it's real. It's it's something that I've worked on for paying attention to for many years of my life. Now, what I will say, when attunement is off in the therapy room, that's it's really tough. So sometimes I don't feel a connection with someone. So whether it's static or there's like a lack of like resonance, like I can't tap into what's going on. I don't know what it is. And so that's when the analysis comes in. And so that's when I have to be very self-aware and be like, okay, Piper, what's going on? Are you hungry? Did you forget to pee before session and you feel like you're gonna flow it out of here? Because that's happened a couple of times. I've literally had to stop clients and go, I can't hold it anymore. Um, so it could be on me, right? It could also be on me that maybe this individual, uh, I don't particularly like what they're saying or some of their belief systems. Listen, I'm human and I know that we're, you know, we're supposed to be completely unbiased at all times. That's not even real. That's not true. If anybody says that to you, then they're not being authentic and genuine. So there are times when things are off because I'm I'm not in alignment with them. Like not alignment, what's the word? I'm not in attunement with them. There's just something off. So I have to step into myself and go, okay, Piper, what's up? What's going on? So, for example, I had somebody that was supposed to start with me and they didn't show up. And if you've listened to me, I work really hard to intake a client. It's about three to four hours of putting together all the data, putting together their plan, everything's like it's a big deal. And they didn't show up. And I was pissed. I mean, I was just really angry. And that person ended up calling, saying, I'm, you know, I'm sorry I was late. And I could tell I was mad and I had to check myself because I'm not attuning to any of their needs. I'm only attuning to my anger and feeling like I was taken advantage of. So I had to check myself. So that's really important to have awareness when something feels off, like you can't attune to someone. You need to have self-awareness. Now, the other thing is that maybe, maybe there's something else going on with the client. So if I feel like there's something off and there's just something like we're we're banging up against something, like I can't quite get in there, then I have to really analyze and think about, okay, well, is there something going on with them? Maybe I said something last session that really ticked them off. So I need to say to them, hey, you know, I'm wondering if last session when I said XYZ, because I tend to be pretty blunt, my clients will tell you, I'm really sorry if that upset you. Do you want to talk about that? Because I'm wondering if that's what this block I'm feeling. Or a lot of times, a lot of times, when I have individuals that come in with these complex trauma histories, they don't know how to attune. And it's not their fault. It's because their environments that they grew up in were so unpredictable and inconsistent that to attune to me is a scary thing. Because if you think about this, complex trauma really means that we have attachment ruptures. So this happens in our early childhood. So if you're growing up in an environment where you're constantly anxious or you're afraid for your well-being, whether it's sexual abuse, whether it's neglect, whether it's a parent that has some sort of personality disorder, you are not learning accurate attunement because your attachment figure is not teaching you how. And keep in mind, attunement happens right brain to right brain. Our right brain develops first and then our left brain. Left brain is our logical side, it helps us work through things. But when we have a complex trauma history, it almost stops the effective development of the left brain. So if we are only attuned to these high sensitivity things, like because it's this traumatic environment, unpredictable and inconsistent, we are super emotionally laden. So we can't attune ourselves, we can't regulate ourselves, let alone look to someone else to attune uh to attune to us or regulate us because it's scary and we don't have the logical cognitive side to really pull from the left hemisphere because it didn't develop. And this is where really we're seeing this. We're seeing this in complex trauma histories that it absolutely affects the brain. And so oftentimes when I have people come in and there is just like this door that just I cannot get open, more than likely, their nervous system learned at a very young age that connection is unsafe, unpredictable, and completely inconsistent. So why the heck would they open that door to me? And that's again where as a therapist, I have to be very aware of myself and I have to ensure that I am providing the safety in the space through my nervous system because I know my neurons can affect theirs. So I have to be buckled down. And so I have to be able to sit in that space of okay, am I ever gonna get through to them? Do they hate me? Did I do something wrong? I mean, we're human, we worry. I have to be able to sit in that space. I also have to be able to sit in that space and maintain myself and my regulation if they start being able to open up and share these horrible stories. I have to work on something called earned attachment. Earned attachment. So when we talk about complex trauma histories and people that have a really hard time with attunement, essentially these are those insecure attachment patterns. That's what this is. And so as a therapist, I'm really working to heal those attachment ruptures by earning their attachment, by earning the safety. And I have to hold it, I have to hold that space. And sometimes it happens pretty fast, sometimes it doesn't happen at all. And that's really heartbreaking. It means that, you know, my earning their attachment is that they never experienced a secure bond growing up. And so that we can build that together through healthy, consistent relationship. But it takes time. And like I said, when things feel off, sometimes I lose these people. I had somebody come in with a really complex, awful trauma history. Um, and I thought I was getting there. And the more I look back, I think that I was so eager to bring them healing that I pushed too fast and they never came back again. And that's on me. That's that's on me. I wanted so desperately for them to feel attunement with someone that does care and will be consistent with them in their life and help them find healing and and new path, neuropathways, and and just all the things that I find so much hope in counseling, but they weren't ready. And I think I pushed them too fast and I hate it, and I I think about it all the time. But this is what I want to say a complex trauma history is not a life sentence. We can learn attunement and we can learn to attune to others. So we have to practice small steps of attunement and safety and connection. And that way, when we do this, we basically rewire how we experience ourselves, our internal environment, and relationships. So it's really important. Attunement's not just this woo-woo thing. This is about regulating our systems and being able to in a healthy way attach to others. So attunement, super important. It is absolutely part of the therapeutic process. I really want you to think about a time when you felt someone somehow, like you're like, how did that happen? Their ability to soothe you, their ability to bring you down, so to speak. And maybe it wasn't with a someone, maybe it's with a pet. Now, listen, we know that when we pet a favorite animal, that our oxytocin increases our basically our cuddle hormone is when it's a neurotransmitter. But that's part of attunement. So try to think of a person, preferably, where you feel that attunement. And if you can't find that, maybe it's a time with a pet where you felt that that closeness and that regulation. That is what we're hoping for. That's what we want is to step into that space of feeling attunement where we feel seen, heard, safe. We can connect to them. So think about when I shared about my my time with Krista at the campfire. This is something that I oftentimes pull to mind when I feel dysregulated, when all the tools that I teach everybody else aren't doing a dang thing for me. And often I will imagine that scene in my head with her because it was the first time I truly felt attunement. And man, did it feel good. And often that's just the thing I need to kind of bring me back down to earth and and and uh get regulated. So attunement is that deep emotional presence, not surface level attention. It's nervous system to nervous system regulation, so co-regulation, remember it's right hemisphere, right hemisphere, mirror neurons. It's nonverbal listening. So body language, breath work, energy shifts, and it's a willingness to adjust yourself in response to somebody else's emotional needs. Okay. Now, how do we practice attunement? What if you're like Piper, I hear what you're saying, but how do you how do you do that? You can start small. If you have a safe relationship, therapist or spouse or whatever it is, good friend, you can practice attunement. You can say something like you're really focusing on what they're saying, but not what they're saying. Does that make sense? So, say they're talking about somebody at work and you notice their lip kind of twitch up at the corner. Well, pay attention to those micro expressions. They're speaking to you. So you could say, gosh, I think I just saw you feel like really disgusted with Joe at the office. And they'll be like, oh my gosh, yes, totally. Or you can pay attention to are their legs moving a lot a lot? Are they closed off? Are they hugging themselves? All of those things are nonverbal indications of something going on. The more you step into, gosh, is this what I'm seeing? And really thinking about what you're seeing and listening beyond the words, that's how you practice. And then you ask someone. Then you ask someone, someone I am sometimes I am completely off on my attunement. I'm like, I don't know who I'm attuning to. Maybe it's the guy's office next door to mine. I don't know. Because sometimes my clients are like, yeah, no, you totally didn't hit the nail on the head with that one. And that's okay. We're not gonna, we're not gonna, you know, get all of the shots, hit all the shots. But it is something that you can practice. And again, when we practice attunement, what this does, it just enhances our relationships and it enhances our ability to regulate others in our atmosphere. What an awesome superhero thing that we can do. So that's attunement. I really thought it was important for us to step into this. Again, this is something that I practice every day in the therapy room. Sometimes I'm great, sometimes I'm not so great, but attunement really is this ancient, necessary, and transformational tool that we have within ourselves. We are absolutely wired for connection. We're wired for connection. So instead of thinking of attunement as like this performative thing you're doing, just think of it as a connection. We have this tool in our being. We can practice it. Even if you have been growing, you grew up in an environment where it was unsafe. Know that you can build this, know that you can attune to others. And and that healing, it starts there when you feel truly seen and heard and regulated. So I really invite you to um connect with me. Think about what is attunement and how can you honor that in your life? And what's it going to be through? Is it your relationships? Is it at work? Is it with your therapist? There's real healing to be found in attunement, and it's not just symptom management. It really isn't. It it is healing and transformational. Thanks so much for joining me. I'll get to you next time. That's it for today's episode. Thanks for tuning in. I hope you're walking away with tools and insights to untangle your mind and take meaningful steps in your life. If you're ready to work with me on anxiety, trauma, or grief, please visit my website at untangledmind.net to learn more and connect. And if you found this episode helpful, I'd love for you to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platform and share it with those who might benefit. Thanks very much for listening to Untangled Mind Podcast. I'm Piper Harris, and I'll catch you.