It’s the start of holiday season. Many of us are with family, which can be lovely, hard and complicated. As a gentle reminder, there is a 72 hour threshold for maintaining new brain patterns when we return to the brain familiarity in family settings. For those who want a little extra support, or some reminders, here is a Beyond Survival, Holiday Guide on my Blog.

Remember: You're not broken. Your patterns aren't character flaws. They're just neural highways that served you once. Now you're building new roads. It takes time. It takes practice. It takes courage.

When Courage Becomes as Contagious as Fear: Dancing with Nervous Systems

Your patterns, Your family patterns, Your organization's patterns—the ones driving you crazy, the ones depleting you, the ones creating burnout, the ones you swear you'll change but somehow never do—they're not accidents. They're defaults - the patterns you organically reinforce without intentional disruption.  These familiar patterns are like highways in your brain, and in the brains around you. And here's the kicker: your brain regresses to these highways or old patterns under conditions that should feel opposite but aren't— stress AND familiarity. This is ideal if you like the patterns and want to keep them, but can feel like torture if you have worked hard to change them and have been seeing results. 

The Physics of It All

From a physics perspective, integrity means all parts working together in unified coherence. When we push out parts—voices, truths, uncomfortable realities—we're not necessarily morally compromised (though maybe that too). We're structurally unsound.

Those pushed-out parts? They become your blindspots. And, blindspots are naughty because they sneak up on you. They're the things you defend before you even know what you're defending. Or the things you react to before you even realize you are reacting. Like when someone suggests changing a holiday tradition or meeting time and everyone gets instantly defensive but can't explain why. (Spoiler: rebellion of “x” is still a reaction, because on its own it is not, yet, creation of something new.)

For the Change Agents I work with…

If you are drawn to work with me you are committed to changing patterns in yourself as well as the lives and world around you for the better...everyone I work with is a change agent. 

Now let's be real about care and social change work. It is undervalued and systematically exploited in a capitalistic society in order to maintain focus on material things and to maintain fear.  Non-profits, for example, by their legal design are literally organized for burnout. Underpaid because "mission." Overworked because "passion." Scrutinized on spending while being asked to save the world on fumes. This is often true for any adjacent social change or caregiving profession. 

So how do we start building new paths for social change, and working together. We need to plant seeds inside what already exists to build something new. We can’t for example, just shift from capitalism to mutual aid, we have to build bridges even beyond what benefits mutual aid offers from our current structures to new structures. This on an individual level means, for example, a lot of change agents need to adjust their relationship to money and the value of their work in the current system to create a new one. This also means we need to practice building community and collaboration in new and sustainable ways to co-create new foundations for these new patterns and new structures!

The Uncomfortable Truth About Collaboration

Here's what nobody wants to hear: You cannot collaborate without participating in conflict.

From a physics perspective, collaboration requires all parts. If we're avoiding conflict, we're excluding parts. Pushing them out. Creating blindspots. Losing structural integrity.

The trouble is we are not taught to do this and don’t even know where to begin, even when we know there is a challenge to address.

Your Practice Ground

You need a space to experiment where:

• You can BE curious and grow “data” on patterns

• New patterns can be tried without perfection

• Conflict can happen and be practiced

• Your nervous system can activate without YOU abandoning ship

• Your not doing it alone. You are sharing and celebrating one another’s little steps

• Someone holds the container so you don't snap back to the default that isn't working

Because here's the thing about disrupting patterns: The familiar will ALWAYS pull you back. Always. It's not a moral failing. It's physics. It's neuroscience. It's being human. So we have to make the new patterns familiar through repetition in every part of our life. 

What Actually Creates Change

You know what doesn't work? Trying to think your way into new patterns while your nervous system is hijacked. Under activation, you WILL regress to patterns you learned before age three. Not because you're weak. Because you're human with a human brain.

What does work?

1. Recognize the activation is coming Both under stress AND in familiar settings. It's not if, it's when.

2. Build your dirt paths with repetition New neural pathways need practice. Again and again and again. Until they're strong enough to compete with the highways.

3. Get external support You cannot see your own blindspots (that's literally what makes them blindspots). You need someone outside your system's activation pattern to hold the container while you try new moves.

4. Make courage contagious When you change your pattern, you create permission for everyone to change theirs. 

The Dancing Lesson

Those "problematic" patterns? They're not enemies to defeat. They're dance partners showing you where your nervous system is stuck.

The question isn't: How do we eliminate our dysfunction?

The question is: How do we develop the agility to dance with whatever comes?

Because if we can learn to dance with activation—to be with it, face it, move with it—we can do anything. Even transform systems that insist on their own sickness with the patterns they depend on. Your nervous system agility becomes everyone’s possibility.

Togethe, we can make courage more contagious than fear.

The Non-Negotiables:

• You cannot do this alone. Your brain won't let you.

• Progress isn't linear. You'll regress. That's not failure—it's data.

• Small disruptions create big changes. Don't try to transform everything all at once.

• When you change your dance, you give everyone permission to change theirs.

Remember: You're not broken. Your patterns aren't character flaws. They're just highways that served you once. Now you're building new roads. It takes time. It takes practice. It takes courage.

Ready to develop your family or organization's nervous system agility? Sometimes the bravest thing is admitting you can't dance alone. Reach out. Connect with me for a free 20 minute consultation for coaching!

Read more of my writing on my blog…

OFFERINGS

Develop Nervous System Agility in the infrastructure of your Org or Business, Includes Developing Peer Community and Peer Mentorship Training Programs: we provide the infrastructure and training to efficiently build the individualized structure your organization needs to prevent burnout, through circles of support. By incorporating how we care for our own nervous systems, the nervous systems of others and the organization nervous system, through incorporating peer mentorship as well as conflict and repair, we build sustainable systems and community, ensuring the outcomes you want in your org or business.

Connect with me for Coaching or Mediation: My intention is to help you build structures that support nervous system agility and exquisite (higher volume) care for yourself, your family, your business and your communities in challenging times of uncertainty, big divisions and fear through finding new options and pathways for outdated patterns and past traumas towards more resilience, joy and even playfulness. I offer Family System Coaching Packages for 7, 14 and 21 sessions. I offer individuals an introductory 5 session package as well as 4 sessions a month for a minimum of 6 months. My business and non-profit consulting is customized to the needs of the organization. For a 20 minute free consultation: Connect

CHANGES in my work…

Moving forward I will be offering more group opportunities with more limited availability for one on one work. If you are curious about group work, have never done it, and feel like you need more information to feel open to it…please reach out for a chat.

I am really excited about some new groups….Reach out if you are interested in learning more…

Fight Better - Conflict Resolution Group: Learn individual strategies to regulate your nervous system and co-regulate. You will also learn interpersonal relational and mediation skills, you can apply to conflict resolutions in all your relationships. Connect 

Co-Parenting Group - This group is for parents, step parents or aunties/uncles/grandparents/fairy god parents who are collaborating in parenting and raising children. You will learn strategies for conflict resolution and how to create effective co-parenting structures that support everyone, especially children. It takes a village, this is how you create one. Connect 

Kids Co-Regulation Groups (in person): Small groups of tweens (9-12) and  teens (13-16) using activities to build social skills, confidence and full range emotional literacy. Reach out if you want to get your kid involved. (Groups are created on an on-going basis, must be at least 3 participants to start a group, times vary based schedule availability of participants.) C

ADDITIONAL GROUPS AND OFFERINGS:

Family Coaching Drop-in Group: Parenting with Support - Wednesdays at 12pm PST. Join any Wednesday, just reach out for zoom link!  

My dream is to disrupt the isolation in parenting and prioritize thriving family nervous systems, transforming generations through support and intentional community.  This group invites parents into a container of support to have the opportunity to parent together. All with the vision that more webs of communities and connections will grow from there.  Please reach out if you are interested in joining the parenting group and please share the opportunity with parent’s who you think might be interested!

Social Entrepreneur Networking Group - Mondays at 8am PT, join any Monday.

Join a growing community of entrepreneurs from underrepresented or underestimated communities who are dedicated to giving back to their communities. We meet monthly to network, collaborate and dream up the world we want to co-create. Connect

Finding Hope in Times of Despair Writing Group : Moving Beyond Survival towards …Together building a new world for ourselves and the next generations Fridays at 8am PT, Join any Friday, just reach out for zoom link!  

Join a writing group that focuses on curiosity with prompts, sharing and community support around how we can all better support our nervous systems through inevitable change to build the world we want for ourselves and the generations to come. The group’s intention is to find hope in despair as well as agency in knowing when to stretch to take risks, and when to slow down and nurture - better caring for ourselves, others and the world. Connect

Add Climbing Coaching and Boxing Coaching

Add indoor or outdoor climbing or boxing to your coaching package to embody your or your child’s shifts in a new way. Reach out if you are interested!

Check out climbing website: www.katwhippleclimbing.com

If you are CURIOUS about my offerings…connect with me for a 20 minute chat.