School psychologist and "Wonder Pup" series author Angela Murphy discusses the overlooked struggles of the 'class clown', the rise in student mental health concerns post-pandemic, and the benefits of animal therapy and self-care, drawing from her personal experiences and insights from her books.
Angela Murphy is an author, educator, school psychologist and Complex Trauma Resource's Director of School Programs. Angela completed an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Dalhousie University, and later completed a B.Ed. degree from the University of Calgary (U of C). Next, she completed a Master's degree in Child and Applied Psychology from the U of C. Angela brings expansive knowledge from her work over the past 16 years in schools, 13 years in Indigenous communities, and the past 6 years working from a trauma informed lens.
Order the "Wonder Pup" books on Amazon.ca
School psychologist and "Wonder Pup" series author Angela Murphy discusses the overlooked struggles of the 'class clown', the rise in student mental health concerns post-pandemic, and the benefits of animal therapy and self-care, drawing from her personal experiences and insights from her books.
Angela Murphy is an author, educator, school psychologist and Complex Trauma Resource's Director of School Programs. Angela completed an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Dalhousie University, and later completed a B.Ed. degree from the University of Calgary (U of C). Next, she completed a Master's degree in Child and Applied Psychology from the U of C. Angela brings expansive knowledge from her work over the past 16 years in schools, 13 years in Indigenous communities, and the past 6 years working from a trauma informed lens.
Order the "Wonder Pup" books on Amazon.ca
Welcome back to another episode of the bigger than me podcast. Here is your host, aaron. Thank you for tuning into another episode before we start, like, subscribe, comment and show your support. Today We'll be talking about self-care, self-talk, self-regulation. My guest is a school psychologist and Author of the Wonder Pup series all about self-regulation for children. My guest today is Angela Murphy. Angela, I'm so happy to be sitting down with you. I've been looking forward to this for so long. You have so many amazing books and I can't wait to dive into those. But first would you mind introducing yourself?
Angela Murphy:Sure, I'm Angela Murphy and I live in Chilwack, but my roots are in Cape Breton, nova Scotia. That's where I'm from originally, and I moved here in 2010 and I live with my two beautiful Pups, who are the stars of the Wonder Pup books, and I work. I've been working in education for about 17 years now.
Aaron Pete:Everybody seems to have a journey. When we talk about mental health, psychology, people have something that pulled them in initially. Can you take us back to the earliest roots? When did understanding people's minds, understanding people, become something that you were interested in?
Angela Murphy:Sure, yeah, oh, this is an interesting question because I think back to when I lived in Germany. So I'm a military brat. I moved around quite a bit with my family, so it was in Germany. It was grade three, probably 1987 or so at the time and I remember my brother's a year older than me, and he's a big Part of my why and the passion for the work that I do in psychology and in schools and Basically I remember I was in grade three, he was in grade four and he had run away from home for the first time and I remember that's kind of a core memory for me back then. And as time went on, you know, by grade Seven we were living in Quebec and he was kind of skipping school, um, stealing alcohol, drinking in the alley, sniffing gas. By grade nine we were living in Nova Scotia. Two of his friends had died by suicide and they thought he was gonna be the third one to go and just so many things with him. And by high school he was the guy who was, you know, f you and getting expelled and all the things. So Kids who are the desk flippers and the running out of the classroom and the big, big behaviors they like certainly have my heart because of my Family history with my brother. So that's kind of where it all.
Angela Murphy:I Thought it all began because I was looking more at him. Instead of me. He was more of the fight type of response. If you think of our trauma responses at the 4f's fight flight, freeze fun, he was the fighter, my sister. I have an older sister as well. She was more of the Flight, so more avoidant, and for me I'm the fawn. So I'm the people-pleaser trying to hold everything together right and as a fawner I always say I'm a recovering people-pleaser. Takes a lot of work to set those boundaries but he's a big part of my why but also as I get older, kind of looking at my patterns and how that's impacted me.
Aaron Pete:How did that shape you during that period? Because, as you've sort of described, we start to get invested in other people's outcomes and it does make us more responsible, it keeps us somewhat on track, but then we're linked to another person. How did you handle that and what encouraged you to go into the field of psychology?
Angela Murphy:I think that when I was younger it was just Something that came naturally for me, also living in a family where there was, you know, mental health concerns and Substance use, and we never talked about our feelings at all like when things would happen, and so I was the one who was kind of worried and trying to Make sure everybody else was okay. And I'm the youngest in the family, and so we might see this in schools with some of our siblings who've been through complex trauma, right, where there's a student who might be more big behaviors that we can see and then there's one of the siblings who is maybe Perentified. They're the ones who had to kind of raise the others, and so it's impacted me in a way that I I think I have a lot of compassion for others, but as an adult, when you do that without boundaries, it becomes detrimental, right. So there can be burnout, which Definitely I've experienced and I know a lot of educators have as well. So then it's recognizing that and then doing the work right.
Aaron Pete:Do you have compassion for yourself during that period? When you look back on those memories, are you able to see how strong and resilient and understanding you were now?
Angela Murphy:Yes, before I think when you're living it it's more automatic and it just feels normal right.
Aaron Pete:And how did you go into psychology? What was the journey in that made you want to choose that as your major and then follow through and become a psychologist?
Angela Murphy:Right. So it's interesting I went to Dalhousie University in Halifax for my undergrad and in my first year I didn't even take psychology. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I knew, you know, some of my friends were going to Dal, so I thought, oh, I'm gonna go with them. I didn't really have a plan, and then I decided to take psych in the summer that year and I was really interested.
Angela Murphy:So then I graduated with an undergrad in psych and then I moved to Alberta, calgary specifically, and then eventually I took my education. So I was working in elementary school in Calgary and then, while I was in the classroom, I was noticing that kids with complex needs, kids who needed psych at assessments, were on waitlist for two to three years and Still to this day it's like that for some. And so I thought to myself, hmm, I wonder if I could become a school psychologist. And so then I applied to the Masters and at U of C, where I also did my education degree, and I got in. And then I kept working as a teacher and I worked on my Masters at the same time and and I moved here in 2010 and I started working out at Steylis Community School in 2010. They weren't even hiring TOCs, which was interesting. So Steylis hired me and I've been there ever since.
Angela Murphy:So I'm going into my 13th year and I'm part-time now, but it was when I was working there as a school psych that I realized, hmm, I'm missing the mark here, because we're trying to support these kids with complex needs or who are coming from chronically stressful environment and what we were doing were more behavioral approaches which were mostly trained on you know consequences, rewards, punishments, type in education, and I was thinking there's got to be more to this. How do we support these kids long-term Right? And then I was introduced to Dr Chuck Gettis and his complex trauma framework changed everything.
Aaron Pete:I'm wondering about. You have the base understanding, almost innate in you, these traits that are willing to understand and be compassionate and support people. What was it like to build off of that with a formal education? Did it all click together and make sense? So many people might have the basic skills, but the fear of university, the intimidation of getting credentialed, the process of going through school, that they might be able to have the skills but they don't have the willingness to go get the education Did those match and pair nicely together?
Angela Murphy:I think when I I mean going back to my undergrad specifically, I did not know what I wanted to do, and even in my mid-20s I still didn't know that I wanted to to do psych work. I was still trying to figure that out. So I don't know if I was aware back then. But when I decided to do my masters in applied and child psych, I was definitely more aware. And then through the work you become more aware and start looking at yourself and see, like looking. How does this show up for me personally in my day-to-day and in my work?
Aaron Pete:What were the impacts on you throughout the education Did you reflect on? It sounds like you understand who you were as a child and some of your tendencies. Was that hard to face? I find that it's Sometimes the hardest to look at yourself and figure out where you want to go or where the mistakes that you made as a child or things you might have done differently are, and that seems to be. I interviewed another counselor and she talked about how that's one of the key Processes for people is to look back on yourself, who you were as a kid, so that you can go into these things with a clear mind.
Angela Murphy:Yeah. So it's interesting because even when I did my school psych degree I was I was able to look back but I didn't realize the impact because I was still focusing on my brother's story and what my why was really tied to him. And it wasn't until I was working, even in the last maybe. I've been a school psych for 13 years, so probably in the last seven years or so, that I've been really noticing the impact on me and the fond response and the people pleasing and how that's shown up in even friendships and relationships. And okay, how do we have self compassion for that and then try to heal Right?
Aaron Pete:How do you draw your own boundaries with your specific circumstance? What are some of your strategies?
Angela Murphy:Well, that's a daily thing I'm really. I think I always say boundaries will set us free. That's one of the things right. So I think you know if it's not a for sure yes, then it's a no Right, and I always struggled with saying no, and that showed up in my work too. You know, you go to work and you do your job, but then you go above and beyond and then maybe you're the person that people know that will get the job done. So it's hard to say no. And so I think even things like taping my email off my phone so I'm not checking it, or if a phone, personally, if a phone call, is coming in and you, you know, even if it's a good friend, but you don't have the capacity to give in that moment, it's okay to not pick up. Those are the boundaries, right.
Aaron Pete:What is something that people misunderstand about? The loud person in the classroom, the person causing shenanigans, the class clown? What are people missing about that person?
Angela Murphy:Well, okay, can I give you a tree metaphor? This is my favorite way to describe these big behaviors. So you know, I want you to imagine that the tree is the image of the child or the youth. So the idea is that the leaves and the branches and the fruit that you know the outside of the tree represent what we see on the outside of the student. So maybe it's the big behaviors like flipping the desk, or maybe the shutdowns and not responding in the moment, or the child, or the running out of the classroom, the crying, so what we see or what we hear, even like I hate you or I want to die, things like that. So let's see outside of the tree. And so what do we do when a tree isn't thriving? We might prune, we might add supports from the ground up, and we know that might help in the short term, right, but we're looking for long term success. So if I think about you know, if I just focus on the behaviors of the student, I think that's a good idea. So we're looking for a tree that's consistent through behavioral interventions like rewards, punishment, consequences. If the stick is long enough, if the reward is big enough, we might see some success in the moment, but we want long term success. So what do we do? We go back to the unseen roots. We add nutrients to the soil and I think about for a tree, you know, if I'm adding nutrients to the soil, is it going to change in a day? Not really In a month, maybe a little bit. We even see the change right.
Angela Murphy:And for students, for children and youth, we go back to their unseen roots instead of focusing on the big behaviors and we focus on these three things building attachment, so relationship. I always think of social baseline theory. Connection is our baseline. We are neurobiologically wired for connection and I think about the fact that babies die without connection, so this is a biological need. So we build connection.
Angela Murphy:We reduce external stress where we can and I think of you know, as educators in general, because that's mostly who I work with and foster parents too. I work with cases in the ministry Naturally they're reducing external stressors by even creating predictability in the days for our students, because kids who've been through hard things often have had a lot of unpredictability right, and so just by creating predictability can help calm the nervous system right. Or even by giving choices, because often these kids with big behaviors look like they're seeking control, like they're often labeled manipulative, defiant, oppositional I always say that M word. I cringe every single time. Right, how do we reframe that? It's not that they're manipulative, but they're trying to manage their environment in the only way they know how. So how do we support them with that? We help build their locus of control by giving choices and then by pulling from their strengths. You know helper roles.
Angela Murphy:So attachment, reduced stress and one more build identity. Who am I? Where do I fit in this world? Am I lovable? You know, often kids who've had early life traumas feel like they're unworthy, there's something wrong with them. And if they're going into the flood zone like the fight, flight, freeze and that's an automatic response. If they're doing that over and over and over again, it does feel like they're out of control. So it's giving them the tools to be in control, right?
Aaron Pete:The first one you said. It reminds me of the statement men cannot live by bread alone, that we need that connection, and so often those connections can be so complicated, particularly with family, particularly when there's intergenerational trauma. Yes, how do people, when they're so young and vulnerable, work towards building healthy relationships and making sure those connections are positive?
Angela Murphy:Yeah, really good question. So here's the thing kids who've been through complex trauma, especially between age zero to five, their brains are impacted tremendously. The research is clear Trauma changes the brain and we know that by age five, 90% of our brain is developed. And so when we think of complex trauma, it's, you know, multiple events over time. It's usually interpersonal in nature, it's between the child and a primary caregiver. So no wonder relationships are impacted later in life.
Angela Murphy:So I always say trauma changes the brain. But here's the most important thing and the most magical thing about it. So does healing. And so to support our children with this, it's really through co-regulation from a safe adult, and co-regulation is when one's nervous system soothes nervous system of another. These kids don't know how to do it alone yet, right, the hope is that by the time they're adults they'll have the skills to do it. And here was a game changer for me, like for these kids with big behaviors. You know, in the moment it's so difficult, you know, because it can be stressful for the child and for the adult. And I always reframe it and I think, okay, it's actually their job to dysregulate over and over and over again in the presence of a safe adult, because I think about I don't know if you know the handbrain model.
Angela Murphy:No, dan Siegel, no, okay let's go, let's do it, okay, okay, put your hand up like this, okay, okay. So this is called the handbrain model. So basically, from your all of your fingertips are the upstairs brain and then under your fingertips are the downstairs brain. So if we go down here at our wrist, this would be the brainstem, and I call that the survival brain. Okay, and then right above our wrist, so the palm of our hand, is called the limbic system, where we process emotional responses, and so this is our emotional and relational brain and within that is our amygdala, which is the thumb. Okay, so the thumb, the amygdala, is what's called the smoke alarm of the brain.
Angela Murphy:Okay, this is Vander Kolk. He's a trauma expert. He wrote the book the Body Keep Score really good book. Yeah, so the smoke alarm of the brain is what he coined. The amygdala, basically, just like a smoke alarm, doesn't know how to know the difference between like a real fire and burnt toast.
Angela Murphy:A highly sensitive amygdala, so a brain that's been through hard things or stressors over and over and over again. It's like it's been doing push-ups its whole life. It doesn't know the difference between a real threat and not a real threat, so it's like it's on hyper alert, hyper vigilant, all the time. So if you pull your thumb over like this, over the palm of your hand and now we're left with the upstairs brain, so this is the downstairs brain. The fingers are the upstairs brain. This is the logical part of the brain, our prefrontal cortex, right here. This is where executive functioning happens, so planning ahead, holding back impulses, using language, even. This is where you know if we're using consequences and rewards. It's an upstairs brain intervention because you need to be thinking logically in order to access that. So if you take your fingers and put it over your thumb like this, it represents the brain right. It's like almost the size of our brain.
Angela Murphy:So kids really like animals and I like to describe it this way. So the upstairs brain is like an intelligent eagle. The downstairs brain is like a growling wolf. So when the wolf growls, so if there's a threat or even a perceived threat, the wolf growls, bears its teeth, the intelligent eagle flies away and then it's like a lid flip. Our brain is offline. And when our brain is offline and the eagle is somewhere far away, it's hard to access that logical brain. We're actually living in that survival brain. So what do we do? How do we support these kids in their survival brain. We don't talk to them because language is an upstairs brain thing. We do things to calm the nervous system repetitive rhythmic stimulation, blowing bubbles, breathing together, modeling, calm down strategies, and then even food and water helps, because a wolf can't growl while eating or drinking. I say right, and so eventually that intelligent eagle comes back and the brain goes back online, right?
Aaron Pete:The second one you mentioned because it seems like it applies to so many people is keeping a regular schedule, For whatever reason. Today we look at schedules as confining us. We look at putting things in our schedule as restricting our time and I could be doing other things because I think we treat schedules like a controlling mechanism, as just the things you have to do. But if you start to put things into your schedule that you want to do and you see this often in younger schools where you're learning about playtime and having fun you can put that into your schedule, you can put things into your life that make you excited.
Aaron Pete:But from my understanding, people with depression often don't have consistent schedules. Certain populations who have depression, they're staying up until four in the morning and then getting up in the middle of the night and not keeping a regular schedule. So even keeping that circadian rhythm is key for a healthy life and so often we miss that. How do we start to develop these schedules and look at them as not confining us but freeing us so we can reach our full potential?
Angela Murphy:Yeah, that's a tricky one Because I think about even sleep in general. Like for people who are stressed, people who have mental health concerns, people who've been through complex trauma, sleep can be seriously impacted and in the work that I do with Dr Chuck Gettys, we talk about seven areas of development that are impacted. The way we remember it is this acronym no One Eats Apples in BC. Totally not true, but that's how we remember the order. But N is neurological and biological maturity, and so it's like how well can we recognize our own internal body signals? And often within that domain, sleep is impacted. And so how do we get back to? I mean, it's individual for every person, but when we're supporting others, we try to keep predictable schedules and support the person with following it and also knowing that when things change within the schedule, that can be really difficult if we're kind of dysregulated you know what I mean If we're rigid and more rigid in our thinking, more black and white thinkers, right. So finding ways to front load if there's a change in the schedule pre-worn, you know things like that. I don't know if I've really answered your question clearly, but we just know that scheduling and circadian rhythms and resetting our sleep cycle. So here's a way, here's a trick to do it. Okay, so when? So in general, kids who've been through trauma early in life, especially in utero. So if we think of mom carrying baby and if she maybe had her own stressors like domestic violence or serious mental health concerns or maybe substance use, so there's cortisol pumping into the baby, right, and mom's heartbeat wouldn't have been consistent while baby is growing. So this is why repetitive rhythmic stimulation, no matter how old we are, can go back to early days to help reset our nervous system. So in general, like for nighttime, one of the strategies I recommend all the time is a sleep generator, not white noise, but it's something that is repetitive and rhythmic. So for some we might go back to a heartbeat setting and then our heartbeat would sink to that and then it's almost like therapy through the night, or maybe it's waves. You'd have to experience what works best. But going back to that and then finding ways for just every single day calming the nervous system. I always say we talk about self-care and it's not a once a month thing, it's a daily thing, multiple times a day. And I love the book Burnout. Do you know that book? No, emily and Amelia Nygotsky. They wrote a book called Burnout, and they talk about completing the stress cycle and they talk about the difference between stressors and stress.
Angela Murphy:And just because we've gotten rid of the stressor doesn't mean that the stress is gone. Stress is the physiological shift within our bodies, right? And I always think about the story like, imagine back in the day, okay, way back in the day, you're out for a walk and you run into a hippo and you're like your stress response is activated, right, the amygdala is going. So what do you do? You run, right, you're running from the hippo. And then, okay, you're running from the threat. The hippo's chasing you, and then it falls off a cliff.
Angela Murphy:The stressor is gone. But is it gone from inside our body? Yeah, it's still there, right? So how do we complete the stress cycle in that moment? And so that's, you know, an example of a hippo. But nowadays the stressors look different. It's going through a global pandemic, it's maybe hard conversations with a loved one, it's maybe having big behaviors from a student and trying to support them, or sitting in really hard stories of other people, right? And so how do we complete the stress cycle? And so there's lots of different ways, but the number one way to curb that burnout is through physical activity, moving our bodies.
Aaron Pete:What I've heard is that stress in your brain. It can be perceived or it can be real, and that's sort of what you're describing, which is you can be in the ocean with sharks, or you can be on the 30th floor of a building thinking about sharks or watching a shark movie or watching a horror movie, and have the exact same physiological response, despite the fact that there's not an actual stressor there. And this is something we're dealing with. When you think of tax season, you can think about it now all the way up until the day your taxes are due and you can just sit with that stress. You can think about inflation, and these are things you cannot fix just by doing one thing and you have to sit with it, and sitting with ambiguity seems like we're struggling with that.
Angela Murphy:The unknown, yeah, oh, totally the unknown is the hardest. Personally, I've been going through some pretty serious changes in my life in the last six months and when I start going down the rabbit hole of thinking of the unknowns of the future, I just keep trying to bring myself back to the here and now, because this is what I have right now and it's like, if you can get into the present moment, it's just so beautiful, right, especially around here.
Aaron Pete:Yeah, yeah, I can't agree with you more. The people that I enjoy hearing from are often people who you can hear peace in their voice, and I was speaking with someone about how do you get there, and one of the standout things is so many people who have true peace can describe a tree to you in detail.
Aaron Pete:They can describe the flow of the wind in a meaningful way, because they're pausing and taking those moments where so often it's the next meeting, it's the next place. I have to go get this, I got to go grab groceries, I'm running late to this and you forget that all of this is a gift. Yeah, that being here today is an opportunity for you to make somebody else's day better, for you to make your own day better, for you to live a meaningful life connected to the people who care about you.
Angela Murphy:I agree, yeah, and that reminds me of one of the ways to complete the stress cycle is positive social interaction, like getting somebody's eyes and saying their name and it's you know when we have that. In general, it tells us that the world is a safe place, especially after being in a world that has felt unsafe for so long. And it reminds me of, like, my drive to work out to Stalis, right, so I do the back roads out to Agassi and there's this man and he walks every single morning. And so it must have been seven or eight years ago. I was driving and there was two golden retrievers in the middle of the road, lost, no owner in sight, but this man was out for his morning walk. So I pulled over for the first time and I introduced myself. His name's Burt he's just so lovely.
Angela Murphy:And so we talked about the dogs, and the dogs are fine, but in the end you know the part of the story the most meaningful part of the story for me was that every single day so right now I'm there every single Wednesday, even this Wednesday, it's Friday today. I was there on Wednesday driving to school, and he's walking. He waves to all the cars to say good morning. I'm sure when I drive by it's like a bigger wave, like I might be imagining things right, but I can see him mouth Good morning Angela, like he remembers my name every single time and it shifts my nervous system, no matter what kind of morning I'm having. Right, and I think about that for us as adults, but for children and youth, if you have somebody that can look at you, light up for you, get your eyes, say your name, it's an immediate shift, comes in nervous system.
Aaron Pete:That's fascinating. We talked a little bit before about the relationship with the pandemic. There's so many discussions right now. I'm understanding there's lots of research coming about on how that impacted young people, on being inside, on having this fear looming over like a cloud for years. From your perspective, working with students, working with young people what have you seen? Should we have hope? Is this generation going to be different than other generations? What should we expect?
Angela Murphy:Well, we should definitely have hope. We should always have hope. What I do see is pre-pandemic. You know, on average one in four students were showing up to school with mental health concerns. So 20 to 25% ish and post-pandemic. It's interesting because I go into different districts and introduce the trauma work and I often ask this question like, personally, what do you see? What do you think the percentage is now post-pandemic of your students coming to school with mental health concerns and across the board it's like over 60%. That's a big shift, like 60 to 70%. And then I always come back to okay. So it makes sense that you as educators are also exhausted because you know you're trying to co-regulate with these students over and over and over again. Right, because we know kids can't learn if they're, you know, living in the downstairs brain. So it's like first of all we need to do the social, emotional work before we get to the logical stuff, and it's exhausting.
Aaron Pete:One of the things I always find admirable about a person is when they're able to take complex topics and remove the jargon.
Aaron Pete:In law school jargon's huge because it's a way of showing people how intelligent you are but a truly intelligent person can take the same concept and apply it to individuals who know nothing about the topic, and it's the mark of great writing is taking issues that people might not understand if you say them in the most complicated terms and breaking it down for them. That's what you've done, and so I'm so excited. Can you tell us about deciding to write a book, just tailoring it to an audience and using animals?
Angela Murphy:Okay.
Angela Murphy:So anybody out there who's listening, if you've ever thought of writing a children's book, do it, because it all starts with an idea, right, and for me it was when I was working in Calgary. It was my first year of teaching, actually, and I was teaching in class like what we call the I message. So three simple steps to stand up for yourself in a common, caring way, and I couldn't find any resources or books to go with it, and in that moment so that was like 2007-ish I just stored it in my head and then I moved out here and I started working. As to Ailis, and then the two main characters in the books are my dogs, draper and Zane. So Draper is an almost 13-year-old golden retriever and Zane is he's five and he was rescued from the reserve at St Ailis at four weeks old. So in the books, basically, draper is Zane's older brother in real life too, but he teaches himself regulation skills, and so I guess the time and with the trauma training, I guess the timing just aligned where, four years ago, I started writing Speak Up, wonder Pup, and that's direct teaching.
Angela Murphy:On the I message, which is three steps, so you say the person's name, you say I don't like it when and you say what you don't like and then you say stop. And of course in the book Zane doesn't get it right the first time or even the second time, so he's showing students or whoever's reading it that, okay, we're not going to get it right every time and it takes practice, and so that's kind of where the first book was born. And then I thought, oh, wouldn't it be incredible to do a series, so the right. Now there's six books out. The idea is to have at least 10, but each book showing a different skill to regulate and I say self-regulation, but I know the reality of it is is like, as adults, we are co-regulating all the time with our children and youth, right. So reading with our children and practicing the strategies and modeling the strategies to so important for these books to be successful.
Aaron Pete:Do you think people forget that, that they need to co-regulate, that they're not like an island, that they need to work with others?
Angela Murphy:Yes, well, because I always come back to an escalated adult cannot deescalate an escalated child, but we're all human and we've all been there. We've all been escalated and so and I think about in schools too, like often, the kids who need support the most are the hardest ones to give it to, because they're the ones pushing away or they're the ones who know every single button of ours. And I always remind myself and remind others like it's not to never, ever, take it personal. It's not about us, even though it feels like it in the moment, never was about us, but we need to find a way to regulate ourselves so we can show up in as a non-reactive way as possible to support these children and youth.
Aaron Pete:It also seems like in the moment when someone's if you're pushing somebody else's button, you want to see if they love you, even if you push their button.
Angela Murphy:Yes.
Aaron Pete:That it's almost like if I push this button, if I go a little bit over the line are you going to give up?
Angela Murphy:Are you still going to love me? And that's the thing for kids in care, like foster care. I work with tons of children in care and it's a common theme where they're pushing others away and it depends on their attachment style. But if they're the push or awayers, it's often because I'm going to push you away before you push me away, because every single person before you has given up on me. So I'm just going to see right. And they're trying to get control, manage their environment, and so we try to be non-reactive and come back, and the most important piece in those circumstances is the repair. We come back and help them repair because, again, kids don't know how to repair without support. So and kids who've been through hard things need thousands of experiences to build new pathways in their brain, compared to kids with like air quotes good enough parenting.
Aaron Pete:Can you give an example of an iMessage Like a circumstance and how to approach that Okay.
Angela Murphy:Aaron, I don't like it when you make fun of me, stop. So it's like a clear boundary and in the book it talks about like eye contact, body language and voice volume those three things as well. So Zane gets it wrong by being too quiet, too shy, and then the next time he gets it wrong by being too loud, too aggressive, and then the third time he gets it just right, but still practicing.
Aaron Pete:Interesting, and how do people apply this in like I think of, like your boss or other circumstances beyond, where you have like a little bit of less authority or influence on whether or not the person listens to you and respects your boundary?
Angela Murphy:Yeah, like as adult to adult. Right, it's so interesting because we teach these skills to children and like it's almost like with kids. Sometimes it's like they can pick it up quicker than adults. Right, because as adults I don't know, I'm just talking from experience, like because I'm a recovering people pleaser it's hard to set those boundaries, right. But I think, in general, if we're using the iMessage with you know, a coworker or a boss, and I've had to, first step is like take a deep breath. Take a deep breath, plan what you're going to say and do it in a way that feels comfortable and safe, I think, because, again, if I'm too aggressive or not assertive enough, like I need to be assertive but not too assertive then they might not take it seriously and they might think, oh well, you're just mad at me or whatever. But no, if we do it in a way that, like the tone that I just practiced with you, it's pretty serious and that's why we say the person's name and look at them in the eyes, that takes practice, right.
Aaron Pete:Yeah, yeah, there's something intimidating about that, but I also want to understand. You mentioned that animals are really helpful for young people to kind of get the message, and in my head I'm thinking of like it's less intimidating, it's less aggressive, it's something that we can relate to. Why did you choose dogs, how did that come about and why do you think they work different for children?
Angela Murphy:Well, I chose dogs because I'm obsessed with my dogs, first of all, and it just felt like it all fit together. But really, as I'm doing the work and going into schools and doing the book readings, draper and Zane come with me and just so many kids connect to the dogs. Naturally, right, and being around dogs helps calm their nervous system in some ways too. But you're right, like I think, sometimes when if it's too direct and if it's about me as a human, it's harder for me to even get started. But if it's about an animal and I can practice with my stuffy right or in the mirror, it's less intimidating.
Aaron Pete:Yeah, I had the opportunity to interview somebody who works with horses and does animal therapy.
Angela Murphy:I love that.
Aaron Pete:And one of the things I didn't know is that, like a lot of people, like dogs and animals like dogs because they're touchy feely, and so for some people who've experienced abuse physical abuse they like horses because they're a prey animal. They're not aggressive, their eyes are on the sides of their heads, so they will not come at you. They will not unless you're obviously attacking them. They will avoid you and they're a prey animal, and so I'm just. I find it fascinating that young people can relate so much more in a different way than looking at people on a screen like most kids. Shows are about animals, not people.
Angela Murphy:Right, right, yeah, that's a good point. And I think about one of the first strategies, if possible, we recommend for kids who've been through trauma is equine therapy. And again, it's like, well, it's like if they're brushing the horse, it's repetitive and rhythmic, right yeah.
Aaron Pete:When did you decide to write the second book and when did you realize it was going to be a series?
Angela Murphy:I think shortly or while I was writing the first book, I decided I wanted to make it a series. And actually it's interesting. The illustrator is local Davis Graham, so a lot of people would know him from Chillowack. For the first book and then he's. He did an incredible job, but he wanted to explore other avenues of his art, so I ended up hiring Ellie Eleanor Loosbee. She's from the UK and it's so interesting. I've never met her in person. I didn't even know how old she was. I found her on Instagram. I was like hey, would you be interested in illustrating my books? And so so she's the one who. Who's been illustrating the rest of the books. And what was the question? When did I think about?
Aaron Pete:starting the second book and creating series out of this.
Angela Murphy:Yeah, right away, pretty much as soon as I started writing the first book I knew that it could be a series. And it's interesting because the books are kind of patterned, because every single book they become. Zane becomes a wonder pup, so it does all the things and then he becomes a wonder pup, which is the kids love that part, yeah, yeah.
Aaron Pete:And it's like a leveling up process that you're growing as an experience. Exactly what is anxiety from your perspective? We talk about anxiety all the time. People say they have anxiety. What is anxiety?
Angela Murphy:Oh, that's a loaded question. I think it's when our nervous system is dysregulated. It can show up in so many different ways, like physiologically, in our behaviors and our thoughts, you know. But I think anxiety is something happening within our nervous system. It's a cue to tell us that we need to start taking care of ourselves.
Aaron Pete:The solution in the story is animal breathing. Oh, animal breathing yes, what is animal breathing and how do people start to regulate their anxiety?
Angela Murphy:Okay yeah. So Breathe Up Wonder Puff is all about. It's an interactive book about learning how to breathe, and for this book it's all breathing alike different animals. So I try to make it more interactive because kids love animals and so basically, again, it's direct teaching in each book where Draper teaches zane. So this book is all about visualization.
Angela Murphy:So we'll close our eyes and we'll make a picture in our minds of an animal, and so zane goes through a few different ones in the book. He does a snake, a horse and a dragon, and so when I do it with kids, we just choose other animals too. And then in the book zane is like well, this is great, but how do I do it in a more quiet way? Because I'm being loud, you know, if I'm in public or in school or whatever, that is right. And so he starts visualizing somebody in his life that is safe, that makes him feel calm, and he makes a picture of them and the idea is like we breathe up while we're picturing that animal, we hold it and then we breathe out like the animal. So it's a lot of fun.
Aaron Pete:That's fantastic. I really like that one, because it does seem like so often we forget the breathing can regulate so much, and there's a book on breathing and it's fascinating to think that we can control so much of ourselves and start to regulate through breathing, which we do all the time, but we don't think about how we breathe, whether it's through the nose, whether it's through our mouths.
Angela Murphy:Totally Well, and it's interesting because, tying back to the book burnout, the second way to complete the stress cycle is breathing, and they talk about different ways to do breathing. But you know, I saw this strategy which I think is super helpful in the, in a stressful moment, where you breathe in and then you think that you're at the end of the breath, but you breathe in more and then you let it all out.
Aaron Pete:That has a name right. It's the something sigh, the physiological sigh, or something. Maybe, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I think Andrew Heberman has talked about the physiological sigh and how that will help with that. It can also help get rid of hiccups for anybody who's interested.
Angela Murphy:Oh, okay, good to know. I also think about, like the breathing stuff. You know a lot of people are doing the cold water therapy. There's so much benefit to that and I've been trying. Like I'm usually scared of cold water, I used to hyperventilate and then in the last couple of years I would go in, breathe in and then dip slowly and breathe out slowly and then regulate my breath and I think there's benefits like physiologically and all of the things with cold water therapy but I always come back to it forces you to slow down your breath and that's so powerful.
Aaron Pete:There's somebody. I actually just listened to Dr Brecca and he breaks down exactly like you cannot do cold water therapy and be in an angry mood, because your body is so focused on trying to address that and I've been trying to do just cold water showers.
Aaron Pete:Yes, and it's so hard to do, like you realize how kind of soft you are in this world when you can't handle cold water for like an extended period of time. And trying to regulate your body and starting to understand how it works and stuff. So I find that so interesting. The next one is listen up Wonderpop and that's probably my favorite, because when I think about the importance of this podcast.
Aaron Pete:it's about listening, like the skill set isn't asking necessarily the next question. It's about really hearing the person and then asking the next question based on what they just said, rather than just following the list of questions. Can you talk about the vision for that book and the impact?
Angela Murphy:Yeah, so listen up Wonderpop, the kids guide to active listening, and it's so interesting because listening can look different for every single person. So basically direct teaching around different things like look, stop what you're doing, listen you know, kind of. But also it's understanding that you know some kids might be doodling and it might look like they're not listening, but they actually are. So again, like the book directly teaches some skills for active listening, but then it's up to the adult to recognize okay, what are the patterns for this child specifically that they need for their best listening.
Aaron Pete:Yeah, what do you notice the impact of that book is on people? Because I'd like to try and understand what the difference between listening and hearing someone is, because we often differentiate between the two. Hearing someone is completely different than really listening and absorbing it, and I've certainly felt the energy when somebody's hearing what I'm saying versus listening and trying to like, reflect and understand, and when people take those pauses. To me it's usually a good sign that they're actually listening.
Angela Murphy:Well, it's so interesting because I think about as adults. It's Often, especially when we meet new people or if we're in new situations, if we're kind of I talk about the stress staircase like the higher we're up the stress staircase, the less access we have to our logical brain, and so for higher up on the stress staircase it's harder to listen because we might be just thinking about what is coming or what we want to say next, right. And so again it comes back to what we were talking about earlier is trying to be in the present moment as much as possible, and that's a skill that takes so much practice to be in the here and now, and if we can get there, then we can be truly actively listening, right.
Aaron Pete:Talk yourself up, Wonderpop.
Angela Murphy:Oh, my favorite. That's your favorite. It's my favorite so far. Why is it your favorite? Well, because talk yourself up. Wonderpop is a kid's guide to positive self-talk and it's all about shifting our red thoughts to green thoughts. So red thoughts are kind of that negative self-talk and so we recognize that we try to like. The first step is awareness, if we're having that thought. So there's an acronym in the book ACT. Ask yourself, is this a red or a green thought? C means choose, choose to change your red thought to a green thought. Talk is T Tell yourself your new thought. So it's like directly teaching the skill and practicing. And I just think you know often like we talk to ourselves, mostly in our brains, right, and for a lot of, even adults, but lots of children and youth, they have a lot of negative self-talk. So again, how are they going to learn to shift that? It has to be done through direct teaching and modeling too right.
Aaron Pete:I think the cool thing about these books is that they're applicable to everybody. We can say that they're for children, but so many people need this in their own lives, and when I was thinking about this specific book, I was thinking about how young people might say I'm a loser. But for an adult it might look like I'm not even going to bother applying for that job because I'm not going to get it. And so it still applies. The words are different and maybe the issues are larger, but the same root problem applies in the same solution. It seems like it applies, do you agree?
Angela Murphy:I agree, and I hear that all the time from parents especially. They read the books to their children and they say, oh, I wish I had this book. I'm going to start using these strategies now. Right, and it's so interesting because, you know, for the adults again, we're co-regulating all the time. So my hope is, with these books, that they're not just read and then put away. It's like, ok. So you know, often telling is typical, but showing is necessary. So for the parent or for the teacher or the adult with the child, they're actually showing the skill over and over and over again. So instead of saying, ok, go use the iMessage. They might model it by using the iMessage in earshot, in front of the child, with somebody else. Right, right.
Aaron Pete:Step up wonder pop. Yes, the latest one released a few weeks ago. When did this one come out? Oh wait.
Angela Murphy:That's not the latest one, that's the fifth one. You're getting there, ok. Step up wonder pop. Step up wonder pop is a kid's guide to recognizing their mood on a scale of one to five. So basically I call it the wonder pop staircase. So it's like steps, and then there's like one, two, three, four, five, and the higher we're up. So one means feeling the worst, five means feeling the best, and there's illustrations in the book that kind of go through what each number means. And so when we can recognize which step we're on, we can look at strategies, and the strategies in that book are actually mostly from the book burnout. Right, we choose a strategy to help step up our mood, right.
Aaron Pete:Do you find that that's applicable to most people as well? Yes, always. So it's start to apply that.
Angela Murphy:Well, it's always about awareness first, like where am I on that staircase? How is my mood today? What is the shift? And even an example from not too long ago we had a student, a former student, pass away up at St Ailis. And it's on a Wednesday and it's tragic. Like you're sitting in, you're grieving, you're trying to support your colleagues and students and when there's a lot of loss in the community, you can feel heavy, right, as you know.
Angela Murphy:And so the next morning, thursday morning, I woke up and my body felt so heavy, like super heavy, and I was like what is going on? I wasn't sick or anything, but it was just like the heaviness of the last day, right. So, recognizing that, right away, instead of doing my usual, having a coffee and sitting on the couch for a couple of minutes, I got up, I grabbed my coffee, I got in my car, went straight to the river. I did the walk with the dogs along the river, had some positive social interaction along the way, said hi to five people, good morning, probably hello to like 100 dogs. I stopped. I had some breaths at the river. I had a good cry that's another way to complete the stress cycle a big old cry, right, and then by the time I got home, I was definitely a step up on that staircase. So it's recognizing it and then doing the strategies every day, multiple times a day, not just once a day or once a month.
Aaron Pete:That's the art of self care, right. It's just continually being aware and addressing the issues where they arise and not treating it like it's my vacation in six months that I'll get away, and a week away. Exactly. You need to do it every day and make sure that you're doing things that aren't always fun, that aren't always enjoyable. It's not necessarily just relaxing, it can be doing cold water therapy, exercising, pushing yourself in certain ways.
Angela Murphy:And that leads us into the next book Love Yourself Up, wonderpop, tell us about it. So it was just published a couple of weeks ago. So this is interesting. There's a twist in the book because usually Draper, the older brother, teaches Zane, the younger brother. So for this book it's the opposite Zane teaches Draper. So Draper has been taking care of everybody else his whole life, teaching Zane all the skills he forgot to love himself up. And so Zane starts to notice that Draper doesn't want to play his favorite games, doesn't want to eat his favorite foods, his sleep is off, so he's noticing kind of those signs and symptoms of burnout. And then he comes in with his cape, his Wonderpop cape, and then he teaches him to come back to the basics, and these are the four. So sleep we talked about that earlier Eat, love Love is all about connection, connection to self, connection to nature, connection to others. And then move, moving your body. So he goes back to those four and then Draper starts putting those strategies in place and loving himself up.
Aaron Pete:That one seems really important. Did that one have an impact on you, as somebody who's used to giving so much to write a book about changing your perspective?
Angela Murphy:Right, it's definitely for those recovering people pleasers out there, or those educators who feel so much guilt that educator guilt because they're doing for others. But yeah, it comes back to putting ourselves first and, as I mentioned, life is wild. There's so many changes throughout our lifetimes and I think about that. Wouldn't it be amazing to live in a perpetual state of bliss all the time? That's not reality. I wish it's life that some hard things come our way, like stressors. So the idea is to be able to go from calm and regulated to the stressor stressor, cope with it and come back to calm, be ready for the next one. So it's kind of like this shift back and forth, back and forth, the ebb and flow of that.
Aaron Pete:I love that because for me personally, I believe that we figure out who we are in the darkest moments and I actually interviewed Brent Butt and he made a good point that we also find out who we are in the good moments.
Aaron Pete:That if you're selfish, you just got a huge contract for $50,000 and you just keep that to yourself, that also says a lot about you. And so, going through the dark times that we're seeing in the world right now, with society going to war with other communities, it's a heavy time. But we also get to decide as British Columbians, canadians, people of earth, how we want to respond, and it's not always easy. But we get to decide how we're going to respond and we can come together as a community, as you saw we did with the floods, with COVID in the early days, dinging bells. Then we start to go back to kind of our usual selves where we're arguing over things, looking at the politics of things and not being as connected as we were. But in those moments of darkness we can figure out who we are and act in a better way.
Angela Murphy:Yeah, I always think about the quote. It didn't happen to you, it happened for you. And how are you going to grow in those hard, hard moments? And then I think about what you were just talking about. How do we show up and make clear decisions? Well, we can only do that if we ourselves are regulated, if we are okay, Because if we're not okay, the ones we support don't stand a chance. So, always coming back to ourselves, so that again, the survival brain. If we're living in that survival brain, we're not accessing that logical brain. So if we're okay, then we can access that logical brain.
Aaron Pete:And show up. How can people find your books?
Angela Murphy:They're on Amazon, so Amazon or locally. I have them at the local bookstore in Garrison the Cat and Owl Bookery I think it's so cute in there and I have them at the Town Butcher as well. With Bill and I have a website Basically it's angelamerphyauthorca and you can access. I always put social-emotional games and resources on there, all PDF you can access for free.
Aaron Pete:That's fantastic. Thank you so much for being willing to do this. I've learned so much. You're welcome and this has been such a privilege.
Angela Murphy:Thanks for having me.