#95 - How to Identify Your Own Ladder of Escalation

Last week we heard from Ryan Cartlidge and one of the topics we discussed was Building Community Through Crucial Conversations. This week we’re going to dive further into how to identify your own ladder of escalation and talk about implementation with the animals in your life.

In this implementation episode, Emily and Allie talk about:

• The single biggest problem in communication
• Oso’s ladder of escalation
• The Silly Putty Situation. Trademark pending. 
• Emily seeing deep into Allie's soul to call out Allie's startle response
• Shout out to Emily’s penguin

You can find the full episode show notes here.

It's here! The Pet Harmony Relaxation Protocol Course for Professionals gives you the skills to help pets self-regulate emotions without constant cues, avoid escalation by moving away from stress, cope with fears like thunderstorms and separation anxiety. Ready to teach relaxation as a skill? Sign up for our Relaxation Protocol Course for Professionals and empower pets to manage stress. 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Allie: We need to learn this skill for ourselves for the same reason that we need to learn this for our pets, to make better decisions in the moment. Going back to my Oso example, I know that there are certain things that I can do that will work to help him feel comfortable in the presence of certain triggers. But only if I catch him far enough down his ladder of escalation. He will still accept treats when his head goes up, but he won't when he's all the way to hackles. So when I see that, I know I need to take a different approach. And the same is true for us. What works for me to de stress is going to be different based on how stressed I am in that moment. Is this a fidget ring situation, or is this a silly putty situation? 

Welcome to Enrichment for the Real World, the podcast devoted to improving the quality of life of pets and their people through enrichment. We are your hosts, Allie Bender...

[00:01:01] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:01:02] Allie: ...and we are here to challenge and expand your view of what enrichment is, what enrichment can be and what enrichment can do for you and the animals in your lives. Let's get started.

 Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Enrichment for the Real World, and I want to thank you for rating, reviewing, and subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts

Last week, we heard from Ryan Cartlidge, and one of the topics we discussed was building community through crucial conversations. This week, we're going to dive further into how to identify your own ladder of escalation and talk about implementation with the animals in your life. In this implementation episode, Emily and I talk about the single biggest problem in communication, Oso's ladder of escalation, the silly putty situation, trademark pending, Emily seeing through my very soul to call out my startle response, and a shoutout to Emily's penguin. 

I am so excited that you suggested this topic for this episode, Emily. We talk about ladders of escalation all of the time for the non human learners in our lives, and in PETPro we talk a lot about our own as professionals and how that impacts our work with clients, but we don't talk about it a lot really anywhere else.

[00:02:19] Emily: Yeah, I don't, I don't know why it has never occurred to me to talk about this on the podcast before, because it's not like we're not always talking about taking care of ourselves, meeting our own needs, etc. And this is a pretty dang important piece of that puzzle.

[00:02:38] Allie: Absolutely. So let's first define this term, because I'm pretty sure we just like made it up and ran with it, or Ellen made it up, I'm not sure.

[00:02:49] Emily: Did Ellen make it up or did she learn it from somewhere else and bring it to us? I don't know, either way, I think it's a good idea to start every conversation with defining our terms. Because that William White quote, the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

I feel like that is one of the most common reasons for conflict or arguments is that, like, we didn't define our terms and we're talking past each other because we have different definitions for the same word or phrase or whatever. So I feel like it's always a good idea to make sure that we're all drawing from the same pool of information.

[00:03:26] Allie: Yeah, most of your and my, like, knock down, drag out brawls 40 minutes into it were like, oh, we're defining this term differently, we don't actually have a difference of opinion on this. Okay! 

[00:03:39] Emily: Real talk, and because of that, I have learned how to have that conversation with other people that I'm like disagreeing with. And I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Before we go any further in this conversation, let's make sure that we mean the same thing. Because you and I have learned that lesson. 

[00:03:55] Allie: And we will continue to learn it, probably forevermore.

[00:03:58] Emily: I have no doubt that that is true. I feel like that's just being a human is like constantly going back and forth and being like, wait, what do you mean when you say this thing. 

[00:04:06] Allie: Yes, yeah, language is hard. 

[00:04:09] Emily: Language is hard.

[00:04:11] Allie: When we say ladder of escalation, what we mean is the behaviors and sensations in our bodies that happen as stress increases. When I'm talking about this with clients, I give an example of one of Oso's ladder of escalations. When I'm The first thing that he does in presence of certain triggers is his head goes up and ears go forward at the same time, then his weight goes forward onto his front legs, then his tail goes up really high and stiff, sometimes with a stiff wag, because not all tail wags are good tail wags. Body stiffens, and then his mouth closes tight and the corners of his mouth go forward, and then his hackles go up, and then he goes into his fight flight freeze mode if the trigger is still there and he feels threatened enough. If the trigger goes away or he goes away quickly, he might only get to the head up ears forward position and not go any further.

[00:05:00] Emily: That is a beautiful description of Oso's ladder of escalation. And sometimes I think it's easier to identify the ladder of escalation in our pets because we're looking at them from the outside with a more objective perspective. But it can be harder to recognize our own ladder of escalation in the moment because we're living it in real time. So let's talk about how to build this skill. But first, Allie, why do we need to learn this skill?

[00:05:31] Allie: We need to learn this skill for ourselves for the same reason that we need to learn this for our pets, to make better decisions in the moment. Going back to my Oso example, I know that there are certain things that I can do that will work to help him feel comfortable in the presence of certain triggers. But only if I catch him far enough down his ladder of escalation. He will still accept treats when his head goes up, but he won't when he's all the way to hackles. So when I see that, I know I need to take a different approach. And the same is true for us. What works for me to de stress is going to be different based on how stressed I am in that moment. Is this a fidget ring situation, or is this a silly putty situation?

[00:06:14] Emily: I just started cackling to myself because I had this vision of you being in some kind of thriller movie called The Silly Putty Situation, which is all serious and tense, but also the whole time you're just intensely pulling silly putty.

[00:06:29] Allie: That's the only kind of thriller movie I could be a part of.

[00:06:33] Emily: Yeah, I feel like you need to make that happen. I need to see that movie. So now that I have gotten the silly putty situation thriller out of my system. Let's, let's get back on topic.

I think the first thing that we can do when we're identifying our ladder of escalation is, is identify the first stress response that tells us that we might be having the trubs. That we might be getting into it. And we did this exercise with some folks in PETPro and I was really impressed by the range of responses of what people identified as their like first, like, Oh, signal.

I don't remember everybody's, but I can speak to mine. Mine is I feel a burning sensation in my solar plexus. I don't know what that is, if it's my like adrenal glands pumping or what, but when I feel that burning sensation in my solar plexus, I'm like, "Okay, for some reason this is stressing me out and I have started to climb my ladder of escalation. So I need to take care of that and pay attention to it." Allie, what's yours?

[00:07:43] Allie: My first sign is dependent on what feeling I'm feeling. So, anxiety is usually like a tightness in my chest. Like, an oh feeling that's not anxiety is like a stomach thing for me. So, yeah, it's dependent on what exactly the feeling is, but it's usually somewhere in the torso.

[00:08:06] Emily: So, you have different sensations if it's like an anxious response versus, an angry response, versus I don't know what else versus a fear response or a startle response. Well, 

[00:08:19] Allie: Yes, my startle response is just scream, and I don't feel anything in my body. 

[00:08:25] Emily: No babe, no babe. Your startle response is not just scream. Your startle response is pause, stare at the thing that startles you for a very long time, several seconds. Scream, and then freeze and stare again for several more seconds. I, I know your startle response intimately my dear.

[00:08:47] Allie: Yes, that was a really accurate description of my startle response.

[00:08:52] Emily: I know it was.

[00:08:53] Allie: I do not feel that in my body.

[00:08:55] Emily: Here's why I'm going to petition that we take a startle off the table because to me, a startle response circumnavigates the ladder of escalation. However, I do think it is worthwhile for people to pay attention to what their startle response is, because while most people's isn't as delightful as yours, it is helpful for people to be able to differentiate between a startle response and like a fear response in themselves, right?

So we're going to, we're going to just leave the startle response off the table, and we're gonna say your, your fight and your flight ladder of escalations have a different first rung on the ladder, correct?

[00:09:40] Allie: Yes, I agree with that statement. I'm just literally dying over here.

[00:09:46] Emily: No, I enjoy it. It's delightful. I'm here for it. It, I also think it's hysterical when people see me so, so profoundly and call me out on my behaviors, so.

[00:09:58] Allie: I just, my, I've met so many people through my startle response.

[00:10:02] Emily: It's true. It's true.

[00:10:04] Allie: All right, so startle response off the table. But yes, if it's not a startle response, I feel it somewhere in my torso.

[00:10:12] Emily: Interesting. So, in thinking more about it, the, so the burning in the solar plexus, is both an anger response for me and an anxious response for me. However, my fear response, I actually understand the, the sort of phrase that a lot of authors use of like ice running through your veins. Because that is a very good description of my ladder of escalation.

The first moment that I think that, or no, that I don't, I'm not thinking the first moment that I recognize that I'm starting to feel afraid, it's because I get this full body like ice cold sensation flowing through my veins. Yeah. And so that's my first, the first, rung on my fear ladder of escalation that I am aware of.

I'm sure I have some before that, some precursors, like the hairs standing up, but I don't feel or notice those. The first one that I notice is that like ice cold feeling. But the first one that I noticed for anxiety or anger is the burning sensation of my solar plexus, so that's where we start is identify your oh moment.

What do you feel in your body? That can be a signal to you that you have started to climb your ladder of escalation and you need to take measures to take care of yourself.

[00:11:39] Allie: And this is something where if you're not proficient yet at identifying ladders of escalation in a bunch of different species, it is so helpful to write this down. Especially because you might be somebody like me where it's not always the same signal. It's dependent, the signal is dependent on what the feeling is underlying that. And so for me, I definitely had some notes of like, okay, in this situation I felt this, but in that situation I felt that, so that I could better parse out what emotions I was feeling, and we'll get into why that was important for the work that I was doing on myself in just a moment.

[00:12:20] Emily: I do want to add as like an inclusivity sidebar that this work that we're describing, it's called interoception, which means perceiving things that are happening in your body. And it is not equally accessible to everybody. Some people have a harder time with interoception than others, other people are, are, finely tuned in to what's going on internally.

So, I do want to clarify that it, it may not be easy for everybody to do this exercise. And if that's true, there's nothing wrong with you. You're not a bad person. You're not dumb, nothing like that. Your neurotype is one where interoception is a little more challenging. However, I know several people, who struggle with interoception, people who are near and dear to me, who I love very much, and they are still able to shape their behavior, and practice it, and get better at it.

So don't be discouraged if this exercise seems really hard for you. That's okay. You're okay. You're, you're good. But we do, we do still see that people who struggle with interoception can practice it and get better at it. And I think what is certainly true for me is that when I was younger, I didn't notice my ladder of escalation until I was already much farther up the ladder.

And now I've noticed the, the burning sensation of my solar plexus, and hopefully I will continue to learn and grow and maybe I'll start to notice even more subtle earlier signs that I'm starting to get stressed. As I continue to develop my interoceptive skills. So I just wanted to put that out there because it's not the same for everybody and that's okay.

[00:14:06] Allie: And that's actually a beautiful segue into our next point for this, which is enlist help from the people closest to you. And this is something that I absolutely had to do for myself as somebody who is trying to figure out, is this stress is this chronic illness, like what is happening inside my body right now?

And so, I enlisted help from Emily, from Ellen, from my partner, the people who knew me inside and out and, can see through the depths of my very soul to tell me exactly what my startle response is, just like those kinds of people. And the really nice thing about that is that, they were able to see outer signs that I couldn't necessarily see. 

So for example, one of my stress signals is that my skin will get really flushed if I like itch a if I scratch an itch, I'll have, it looks like, a werewolf just like, tore into me or something, like, for several minutes, I will have these bright red scratch marks. And that happens anytime I am stressed. Good stress, bad stress, it doesn't matter, it's just an overall stress response. And so Emily now knows to ask me when she starts seeing my skin flushing like that, of just like, are you okay? Is everything fine with you right now?

And sometimes when she asks me that, I, I'm a little, like, taken aback where I'm like, Oh! Am I okay? I wouldn't, I didn't even notice. And then when I start like what Emily was saying with that interoception I was like, oh, yeah, my chest does feel tight, doesn't it? And so that's one of the really nice things is when you have people around you who are observing your behavior and telling you what your behavior is.

Sometimes it's, just like an attack, but sometimes it's really, really helpful. Especially when you tell them like, hey, I'm working on figuring out my ladder of escalation. Will you please tell me what signs you see when I'm stressed in the moment so that I can do an internal body scan and see what else is happening inside.

[00:16:19] Emily: Yeah, and I think that's so helpful because we can't see ourselves, because we are inside of ourselves. And so, having somebody say, I can see that you're stressed, can help us go, okay, what am I feeling right now in this moment when they can see my stress and I can pay attention to that feeling and recognize it in the future so that I don't need somebody to see it and tell me I can recognize the feeling inside my body without needing somebody to, to tell me.

So that's how we build fluency in this is we start by getting external help so that we can tie the external commentary to our internal experience, and then recognize the internal experience. And then, the last step is what do we do about it once we've learned how to recognize that we are climbing our ladder of escalation? Where do we go? How do we respond? And Allie mentioned earlier. Is this a, wait, I don't remember what your, for your, the alternative to silly putty was.

[00:17:23] Allie: Fidget ring.

[00:17:24] Emily: So Allie had mentioned earlier, is this a fidget ring situation or is this a silly putty situation? And so clearly if her ladder of escalation is happening, happening more gradually, and she recognizes that she's a little stressed, she can use the fidget ring. But if the acute stressor Kind of skips that rung of her ladder of escalation and goes straight to the silly putty rung. Then, okay, we've got to bust out the silly putty. This is a silly putty situation. Dun, dun, dun.

[00:17:57] Allie: And let's go even a little bit deeper into like what that means, what that does, all of that. And so for me, tactile stimulation is one of the best de stressors for me. Sometimes like taste works if it's a really strong taste, like I have warheads in my crisis kit for example, but tactile stimulation is is one of the best things, and partially because I get some movement in while I am usually sitting at my desk experiencing a stressful thing. But also, just like, it gives me something to do and focus on that is that still allows me to interact with the situation. So tactile is my go to de stressor. And I have a whole lot of tactile things in my crisis kit. And I know which works depending on how far along I am in that ladder of escalation. So as Emily mentioned fidget ring,

that's a really low stressor. It's like things aren't working quite right today, but it's not a big deal. I'll be able to let it go as soon as I turn the computer off and then there's, there's a few things in between, but then there's silly putty, which is like, oh goodness, if I didn't have to be right here, sitting here, experiencing this, I would go for like a walk around the neighborhood, or I would go to the gym, or I would be somewhere that's not here, because this is very stressful and I do not want to experience this.

I know that when I do different things I can feel that stress melt away And so for me because I feel stress in my torso. I can feel like that like release It's it's how like people talk about like, like a weight has been lifted. That's what it feels like for me. Sometimes it really does feel like the tension in my chest has just like melted, and so I have experimented with, and not just I, you, Emily, have done this as well, we've experimented with what do I need to do in this moment to go back down my ladder of escalation, to de stress, and to complete my stress response cycle.

[00:20:05] Emily: Yeah, and so mine are a little bit different from yours. We do have some overlaps. The, the fidget ring isn't particularly helpful for me, but my fidget ring equivalent is these little kind of stress balls that they're very specific type of stress ball. They have these little water gel balls in inside of them.

And so, if I'm just thinking really hard, like the lowest level of stress where I'm just like really concentrating on something I'll just play with and squish that the stress ball. Mine, by the way, is a penguin with rainbow colored water gel balls inside. I just need to specify a shout out to my penguin. So yeah, I'll just squish him. So very low level stress, even eustress. This is, my penguin squishing is I think the equivalent of your fidget ring. Cause I see you do fidget ring even when it is like eustress constructive discontent, you're, you're focusing really hard, right? And that's my penguin is if I'm focusing really hard, or just a little bit, worried about something, a little bit agitated. 

But if I'm talking about something that is really difficult, or, I'm having a really hard conversation, or I'm feeling some feels about something, for some reason, I need to bust out the magna dots, which are these little tiny magnetic balls of all different colors, and I really love the feeling of them and the sound of them, and I play with them. And then also if I'm having a really hard time, I also like looking at them, and making shapes out of them, and just doing something that I can focus on and look at, like arranging the colors of the magnetic dots. That is really helpful. 

And then if I'm real, real stressed, we need to take a break. And I need to take a tour of my office and visit all my plants, and visit my aquascape with my shrampies and my snail. And I have a bunch of, like, Neocaridina shrimp. It's called a Skittles tank, which is the cutest thing of my whole life because it's all different colors of Neocaridina shrimp. And I will just go stare at my aquascape and watch my shrampies, and watch my snail, and they're just living their best life and having so much fun in this serene little space.

And they're completely oblivious to all the things that feel very important to me. And that really helps me to deescalate when I'm big stressed, when I'm big mad, or when I'm big anxious. The, the, the tour of my office, visiting all my plants and visiting my shrampies is the real, real big one. 

If I am all the way, and by the way, Ellen is our hero, because if I am all the way big, big, super mega stressed, Ellen will remind me to go outside and touch grass, take a walk, watch the wildlife. I need to get out of my office altogether and enjoy nature, breathe air. So, so those are my responses based on where I am on my ladder of escalation. So it's very helpful to do some trial and eval and figure out what are the things that help you resolve the stress where you're currently at? What is effective for you?

What isn't? I also have vetiver essential oil for some reason all of the essential oils that are marketed as being calming are not in any way calming to me, but vetiver is like valium to me like I put vetiver on and i'm like, like, I don't know what it is about it, but like vetiver is my calming scent.

So, all of the sensory stuff, figuring out what is actually helpful for you in deescalating and moving back down that ladder of escalation is is really important because you know what? I had no idea that the thing for me was magna dots and vetiver. I had to discover that through trial and eval. That was not something I knew about myself until I experimented.

[00:24:12] Allie: What works for you is that your MagnaDots is my squishy ball, mine is not a penguin, but, it's, it's similar. So, but I think one of the most important things that you were just saying is to make sure you're taking a descriptive approach with this. Like we talk about with all enrichment, this, we're really talking about human enrichment, self care, self enrichment, whatever you want to talk about, whatever you want to think of it as, that's what we're talking about right now, is how to meet your own needs. And just like with any non human, animal enrichment that we're talking about, we say how important it is to take a descriptive approach, and that's true for yours. So, you just heard Emily and I talk about what works for us, and you heard that, like, for her, squishy ball is down at the bottom, for me, squishy ball is in the middle. So you just have to trial and eval to see what works for you and figure out what that feels like in your body. 

And professionals, we have an additional resource for you if you would like to start to experiment with this, figure out what goes into your crisis kit, you can go to PetHarmonyTraining. com forward slash crisis kit, and we have a free download for professionals there. 

Today we talked about how to identify your own ladder of escalation and What to do with that once you identify it, and that includes, find out your first oh moment and what that feels like in your body. You can also enlist help from the people closest to you so that you can experience what the outer part of you looks like with what the inner part of you feels like. And once you have some of that information, start trial and eval with what works for you to de stress, making sure that you take a descriptive approach. 

Next week, we'll be talking with Hennato Zanici with Isa D'Adduato about how to make dog daycares enriching. Thank you for listening. You can find us at petharmonytraining.com and @petharmonytraining on Facebook and Instagram, and also @petharmonypro on Instagram for those of you who are behavioral professionals. As always links to everything we discussed in this episode are in the show notes and a reminder to please rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts a special thank you to Ellen Yoakum for editing this episode, our intro music is from Penguin Music on Pixabay.

Thank you for listening and happy training.