getting on your nerves? episode 3: the power of now

Anna: Welcome to getting on your nerves?, a podcast where we explore the science behind stress, sleep and nervous system regulation.

Each episode unpacks why so many of us feel permanently overstimulated and unable to properly switch off through conversations around stress, recovery, wellbeing and the connection between the brain and the body.

Since 2004, This Works has pioneered sleep science through clinical trials, neuroscience research and helping the body to move from fight or flight into rest and digest, supporting better sleep, recovery and nervous system balance.

I’m delighted to be joined by Lauren Baird, an experienced and BACP-accredited psychotherapist.

She is an accredited EMDR therapist and social worker with expertise in PTSD, trauma, anxiety and other mental health problems.

Thank you for joining me today, Lauren.

Today’s podcast is going to focus on our ability, or inability, to be mindful and to be present.

We’ve called it the power of now, and the conversation is going to centre around what goes on in the mind, what goes on in the brain and what goes on in the nervous system.

I’m delighted today to be joined by expert psychotherapist, trauma-informed practitioner and fellow collaborator with This Works, Lauren Baird.

Hi, Lauren. How are you?

Lauren: Hello.

I’m so happy to be here.

Thank you for having me and for my lovely intro.

I am slightly roasting today.

Anna: Lauren’s not with me in the studio.

She’s in Scotland and we’ve made her turn her fan off, so she’s looking a little bit glowing.

Lauren: How dare you do that to me!

Anna: Lauren has been with us for a couple of years as an expert contributor to This Works content.

She works professionally with her own clients and within the NHS.

Lauren has also recently had a baby.

We were saying earlier that this is a very young baby, so Lauren is back working with us on this show today.

Thank you, Lauren, for stepping out of your baby bubble to be with us.

We know that has probably put your brain under a little bit of stress and perhaps a little fight or flight, which is a good place to start.

With your trauma expertise, let’s talk about why we struggle in general to be present in the moment.

Then perhaps we can take that into why people who have experienced trauma find it particularly difficult.

the pressure to do everything

Lauren: Even if we just use the example you gave about me being a second-time new mum, it’s about the pressures that we can feel under.

Obviously, everyone’s situation is different.

But I’m under an immense amount of pressure just now to do all the different things.

On a societal level, I think there has never been more pressure on women to do all the different things.

When I say that, I mean we’re working.

Here I am today working.

I want my career.

I’m ambitious.

I want to be here with This Works today.

But I also want to be an amazing mother to my children.

Some of the cultural shifts in how women are showing up in the world today can create an immense amount of stress.

Anna: Mm.

Lauren: If we think about that through a more patriarchal lens as well, as women we can be expected to do everything perfectly.

I’m supposed to be parenting my children perfectly, which as a psychotherapist I can tell you is impossible.

Perfection is impossible.

But I’m also supposed to do my job perfectly.

All these different things.

I keep coming back to the word pressure.

As humans, we’re not really supposed to be living under pressure or in sustained places of fight or flight for extended periods of time.

That can wreak havoc on our nervous system, our bodies, our mental health and our ability to be present and here in the moment.

the tricky brain and negativity bias

Anna: Let’s talk about this idea of being present and being mindful.

This has been permeating through our culture for decades.

Being able to be mindful is one of those goals we put on our list of things we have to try to achieve for wellbeing.

Mindfulness leads to a better version of yourself.

And yet we still can’t switch off.

We still can’t stop our brains from fast-forwarding into the future, trying to resolve the unresolvable, or taking ourselves back into the past and unpicking what we did.

Was it right?

Was it wrong?

What’s the biology?

What I love about talking with you is that you understand this from a scientific perspective too.

Talk us through the neurobiology.

Talk about the brain circuits.

What goes wrong?

Why can’t we just be in the moment?

Lauren: Paul Gilbert is a psychologist who does a lot of work around compassion-focused therapy.

He talks about us having these tricky brains.

I really like that definition.

His take is that here we are in the modern world with brains that aren’t really set up very well for modern times.

First of all, we have a negativity bias as humans.

Every single person has a negativity bias.

If we go back to prehistoric times, it would have been very beneficial for us to be able to look for the negative in our environment.

If we see a rustle in the trees, we’re not going to say, “Look how gorgeous that leaf is. Look at the lovely patterns.”

We’re going to say, “What is over there? Is that a tiger? Is it going to eat me?”

That was really adaptive in prehistoric times.

But now we’re in the modern world and there are no tigers coming out to eat us.

Hopefully not in Glasgow anyway.

When we get triggered by day-to-day things happening in our lives, those modern-day stresses can activate the same threat response.

This morning, for example, I didn’t have childcare.

That’s a modern-day stress, but it can still activate that threat response.

It isn’t the tiger, but it brings online the same physiological response where I might move into fight or flight.

I always say this is adaptive.

We are supposed to have that response.

Sometimes the language in the nervous system world makes it sound as though we should be calm all the time.

That is not the goal.

The goal is to be able to experience these modern-day threats, tolerate the anxiety and disturbance, and not become overwhelmed by them.

why negativity bias isn’t the same as being negative

Anna: I want to play that back to you because I think it’s fascinating and it’s also very true of my brain.

Having a negativity bias doesn’t mean you’re a negative person.

It means that as humans, to protect us from threat, the brain will naturally be looking for the possibility of danger.

Taken into a modern context, that could make you appear negative.

But actually, as you’ve said, it is a biological adaptation.

Now our threat response is triggered by things that are not life-threatening in the way the tiger was.

We are threatened by situations that we might simply find stressful.

The brain doesn’t necessarily distinguish between “this is life-threatening” and “this is uncomfortable”.

The threat-response circuits come online and can dominate.

Am I right?

Lauren: Yes.

Anna: And there will be certain skills in life where someone with more of that bias will be particularly good.

Risk assessment, for instance.

Forecasting into the future.

Trend forecasting.

People can make a living out of being wired like this.

But it becomes unhelpful when we want to live with a balanced, adaptive nervous system rather than one that is permanently wired for protection.

understanding fight or flight

Anna: I know you’re an expert in polyvagal theory and the vagus nerve is something you deeply understand.

Explain, if you can, the vagus nerve and what happens with fight or flight.

Lauren: Within polyvagal theory, there has actually been quite a lot of debate.

There are different views around whether it is an entirely accurate methodology.

I still think it can be a very helpful resource for understanding the threat responses that happen inside the body.

There are also authors who don’t specifically use polyvagal theory but talk about things like the window of tolerance.

If we simplify things, we have different branches of the nervous system.

We have the sympathetic nervous system, which activates fight or flight.

Think about that as the accelerator.

You put your foot on the accelerator and the car moves forwards.

If you slam your foot on it, the car really revs.

Then we have the parasympathetic nervous system.

Think about that like placing your foot on the brake.

That helps bring in rest and digest, or rest and relaxation.

What we want is flexibility.

We want to be able to experience the threat response and then put our foot on the brake and bring that parasympathetic rest-and-relax response back online.

That’s where the term regulation comes in.

shutdown and freeze

Lauren: There is also another state that I see a lot in psychotherapy with traumatised clients.

Within polyvagal language, that can be described as a dorsal vagal state.

That is where someone might experience more of a dulling down of their emotions or a shutdown.

It can be very debilitating.

It can also feel like a freeze response.

I describe it like a rabbit in the headlights.

You’re amped up, but you can’t move.

Going back to fight or flight, flight would be doing a runner.

For example, I could say, “I’m nervous to speak to Anna today. I’m not coming.”
I’m just running.

Then you have the fight response, where someone might become angry or aggressive.

Again, all of these responses are adaptive.

But we don’t want them to get into the driver’s seat.

fight, flight, freeze and fawn

Anna: Fight or flight, freeze or fawn.

Lauren: Yes, we didn’t talk about fawn.

Anna: This is something you’ve taught me before.

When the fear centres are triggered, you can fight, you can run away, you can freeze or you can fawn.

What does fawning look like in humans?

Lauren: The fawn response is people-pleasing.

Please and appease.

It might look like that clenched smile.

You can see that the jaw is tight.

The shoulders are tight.

The dentist might even say to you, “There’s quite a lot going on in your jaw.”

The freeze response might involve big dilated eyes.

There can be a lot of tension in the body, but at the same time there is a dulling down of the experience.

You can’t get the words out.

I actually struggled with this when I used to work in the NHS.

We would have these big, formal meetings discussing serious cases.

Sometimes there could be a lot of disagreement between different professions.

I might go into the meeting really prepared.

I’d have all my notes.

Everything would be sorted.

Then the meeting would happen and I just couldn’t get the words out.

Afterwards, the self-critic would come online.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I know all this stuff.”

“Why didn’t I advocate for myself?”

That’s a good example of how these states can blend.

There might have been some freezing, but also some fawning and pleasing the people around me.

Then afterwards comes the shutdown.

“I’m so useless.”

“Why couldn’t I say anything?”

Then I’m on the sofa, binging Netflix.

stress doesn’t always look like panic

Anna: I think that’s really important because people might think stress always looks like someone running around going, “Aah!”

But actually, no.

Someone whose stress response has been triggered might become disengaged.

They might not want to talk.

They might not want to be sociable.

They might have no energy.

It could even look like depression as a consequence of living in a highly stressed or activated state.

I don’t think people necessarily understand that stress can look like sitting down and not engaging with people at all.

trauma, PTSD and complex trauma

Anna: Let’s talk about trauma because I think there is a special set of conditions that go around that.

How does a diagnosis like PTSD or complex trauma affect our ability to regulate the nervous system?

Lauren: We can absolutely use the word regulation.

It has sometimes been misused to mean “calm”, but therapists and psychologists still use the term.

When someone has a background of trauma, we have to remember that trauma isn’t only a soldier who has been in Afghanistan.

Trauma can be experiencing neglect in childhood.

A parent may have been physically around but didn’t give you emotional safety, care or love.

It could be domestic violence.

It could be a one-off event.

Post-traumatic stress disorder can arise after a one-off event or a series of related events.

Complex trauma is more likely to involve experiences happening over a longer period of time.

I see that more in clinic.

Someone may have experienced neglect across their lifetime.

And it can affect people from all backgrounds.

Sometimes there is an assumption that it only affects people living in poverty.

That isn’t true.

It could include somebody who was sent to boarding school and didn’t receive the care or attachment they needed.

There is a wide range of ways it can show up.

what trauma can look like in everyday life

Lauren: There can be an enormous amount happening inside the body that isn’t visible from the outside.

There has been research looking at children who experienced neglect where physiological indicators were elevated even when the children looked outwardly fine.

When someone comes to me, what they might be noticing is that they struggle with those autonomic nervous system responses.

The fight, flight, freeze, fawn or shutdown states.

They don’t necessarily come to me and say, “I feel frozen.”

They might say:

“I’m depressed.”

“I think I’ve got a lot of trauma in my background.”

“I’m really anxious.”

“I’m having panic attacks all the time.”

Someone experiencing fight or flight, and sometimes freeze, may be more likely to describe generalised anxiety.

Someone who feels more shut down or collapsed may describe feeling depressed.

But of course it is a broad spectrum.

It isn’t always that simple.

Often when we look backwards, there are things in the person’s background that are showing up in the day-to-day.

does trauma live in the body?

Lauren: There has been a lot of discussion around trauma and the body.

Bessel van der Kolk wrote the very famous book The Body Keeps the Score.

As with all research, new work comes out and critiques existing ideas.

There has been more recent discussion around whether it is accurate to say that trauma literally “lives in the tissues”.

A more useful way of thinking about it may be that the experience is encoded within memory and nervous system responses.

That aligns with what I’ve experienced as a therapist in practice.

We have memories of experiences.

Take the example of a people-pleasing child.

The easy child.

The child no one had to worry about.

The child who always said yes and did really well in exams.

Maybe that child received care when they were succeeding.

They grow up having repeated that behaviour a million times.

But they also have specific memories stored in the brain.

Then as an adult, they notice something in the environment through sight, smell, hearing or even somebody’s tone of voice.

That reminds their mind of those past experiences.

Within milliseconds, the threat response activates.

Then we get the physiological body response.

when the past distorts the present

Anna: You’ve written about how the retrieval of a memory from a historical trauma can create a different lens through which we look at a current situation.

It becomes a distortion of what is actually taking place compared with how someone who hadn’t had that past experience might perceive it.

I find that fascinating.

Unresolved memories, a child’s interpretation of an experience, a negative bias, an overestimation of threat.

To the individual going through it, it feels very real and very present.

But their interpretation is being influenced by the past.

Is that a fair way to describe it?

Lauren: Absolutely.

It isn’t even necessarily a conscious process.

It can be very subconscious.

Within milliseconds, the amygdala response activates.

The amygdala sits in the deeper regions of the brain and can fire the alarm that there is threat and danger.

Then, if we simplify the brain, we have the prefrontal cortex sitting higher up.

That is involved in rationalising, decision-making, thinking things through and mindful awareness.

It helps us notice, “I’m getting triggered right now.”

When we get triggered, that thinking part can become much less available to us.

Anna: It goes offline.

I use that expression.

Lauren: Exactly.

It’s offline.

That meeting example I gave earlier?

I’m offline.

I know all this information, but I can’t access it properly in the moment.

Anna: And we know from neuroimaging that activity across regions of the brain can change during threat.

I think it’s important for people to understand that these responses aren’t about stupidity or weakness.

They’re adaptations that once helped the person survive.

Lauren: Yes.

I would still call them adaptive.

Sometimes we criticise ourselves and think, “That was maladaptive. That was silly of me.”

But actually, that response may once have saved you.

The problem is that it is now causing distress in the present moment.

That is where trauma therapy comes in.

We work with those deeper memories that keep showing up in the present and help place them more firmly in the past.

what is EMDR?

Anna: I need you to talk about EMDR.

More people have heard of it, but I don’t think everybody understands how it works.

You use it in trauma processing.

Explain what it is.

Lauren: EMDR stands for eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing therapy.

It was developed in the late twentieth century and has a strong evidence base.

It is now offered within the NHS.

One reason some people think it sounds unusual is because we use something called bilateral stimulation.

For example, the client might follow the therapist’s fingers moving from left to right.

Or you can use a butterfly tap, tapping alternately from left to right.

Humans already use bilateral movement naturally.

Think about walking, swimming or playing the drums.

There is a left-right pattern.

In EMDR, we access traumatic memories, bring aspects of them into awareness, then use bilateral stimulation as part of the processing.

The aim is to help that memory become something that is remembered rather than something that feels as though it is being relived in the present.

People can come into therapy experiencing horrific symptoms and struggling to function.

After effective trauma processing, the memories may still be unpleasant and difficult, but they are not constantly being relived in the same way.

That reliving – the fight-or-flight feeling, the jarring physiological response – is a big part of how trauma can continue to affect someone.

why mindfulness matters

Anna: Let’s move on to the window of tolerance.

That is our ability to regulate the nervous system so that we can tolerate distress and difficult experiences while still staying present.

We’ve talked about the tricky mind that doesn’t like to stay put.

It latches onto threat and finds it difficult to stay in the now.

From the research I’ve read over the years, the ability to stay in the now and remain mindful keeps more of that prefrontal cortical function available.

It gives you a greater ability to override some of those more primitive fear responses.

In people with adaptive nervous systems, being able to stay present brings the prefrontal cortex back online.

By doing that, you can become less dominated by intrusive thoughts and regain some control over those fear centres.

That is why we care about mindfulness.

It is a very powerful wellness tool.

Lauren: Absolutely.

It’s a big part of what we teach in therapy: building mindful awareness.

One caveat is that people often think mindfulness means sitting down cross-legged, being a total yogi for an hour.

It can be that.

Great, if you have the time.

But mindful awareness isn’t only that.

It is also a way of living your life.

mindfulness doesn’t have to mean meditation

Anna: My example is when I’m doing my red light exercises.

I have a red light on.

I have a physiotherapy ball between my legs, so I’m doing my glute squeezes.

At the same time, I clean my teeth.

All I do is focus on the experience of the toothbrush on my teeth, the noise, the red light.

That is my way of being mindful.

I’m not anywhere else.

I’m just in that moment with my teeth being cleaned.

That works for me because I can’t go and do a meditation class.

Lauren: I think that is important.

A lot of people I work with either don’t have time for meditation or it can actually be dysregulating.

If you are constantly in fight or flight, slowing down and noticing what is happening in your body can feel terrifying.

It can even bring on panic for some people.

Then they think, “What is wrong with me?”

Mindfulness is really the practice of coming back into the present moment.

When we’re dysregulated, we can end up in the future or the past.

The window of tolerance is the space where you are present and can cope with the emotions you are experiencing.

You can feel angry.

You can feel sad.

You can feel worried.

But you’re not swamped or overwhelmed by it.

Hyperarousal is that fight-or-flight state.

Hypoarousal is more of that shutdown state.

Mindfulness practices can help us catch ourselves before we move into the places where we don’t want to go.

the dishwasher example

Lauren: Let’s say my husband puts things in the dishwasher the wrong way.

We’ve got a new dishwasher just now and the forks should all stay with the forks.

I see the random cutlery and feel the anger coming up.

I could lose it.

Mindfulness is being able to notice:

“Okay, I’m starting to get hot.”

“My heart is starting to beat.”

“I am about to flip my lid.”

“This thinking part is about to go offline.”

Then I can ask:

“What do I need in this moment?”

It isn’t about doing it perfectly.

I might say to my husband, “I’m noticing I’m getting really edgy and I’m close to blowing, so I need you to help me.”

The alternative might be shouting or screaming at him, which isn’t helpful for the relationship.

Mindfulness is about catching those moments before we blow.

co-regulation and feeling safe with other people

Lauren: For me, one of the most important things is co-regulation.

That is one nervous system coming together with another nervous system and experiencing safety within that relationship.

For example, Anna, if I didn’t trust you or I was scared of you, I would find this conversation very difficult.

I might doubt myself much more.

But because we have a long-term relationship, I know and trust you.

I’m able to flow into the conversation.

This is still stretchy for me.

I’m showing up in a public forum and talking about something as an expert.

But I’m able to do that because there is that sense of safety and regulation with you.

Anna: First of all, I’m very honoured that you feel that safe with me, as I do with you.

We’re talking about mindfulness and staying in the moment.

You’ve made an excellent point that being mindful is also about having more control over nervous system reactions that we may not want to display because they aren’t helpful relationally.

Or they may lead us to make choices we don’t really want to make.

It could be choosing the wrong food.

Having a glass of wine when you don’t want one.

Gambling.

There are behaviours that humans use to cope that are not always good for us.

When we’re trying to change those choices, mindfulness is a form of self-awareness that allows the prefrontal cortex to stay involved and helps us make a more considered choice.

Sometimes mindfulness might simply mean feeling the sensation of cleaning your teeth.

Other times it might mean not reacting to the forks being in the wrong place in the dishwasher.

top-down versus bottom-up regulation

Anna: Let’s talk about the tools.

You’ve mentioned one of the most important ones for me: other nervous systems.

For me, that can sometimes even be my dog’s nervous system.

Because of my background and childhood, having another nervous system alongside mine can be vital for me to feel safe.

I know that and I build my system around that.

What other tools are there?

What about this body-to-mind bit?

Lauren: We didn’t talk about top-down and bottom-up regulation.

Top-down is the prefrontal cortex.

That is the cognitive thinking mind.

A lot of traditional psychotherapies were very cognitive.

More recently, we’ve seen more bottom-up approaches, using the body to help create regulation.

What we know now is that we can think and think and think until we’re blue in the face, but if the prefrontal cortex is offline, that thinking isn’t necessarily going to help us.

We can end up looping.

And the more we loop, the more we strengthen those neural circuits.

So what we want to do is return to the body.

grounding through the feet and senses

Lauren: One of the first tools I might use with clients in therapy sounds incredibly simple.

Notice your feet on the ground.

Push your feet into the ground.

Notice the temperature.

Are they cold?

Are they warm?

What does the ground feel like below you?

Is it hard?

Is there carpet?

Is your dog sitting next to you making a little noise?

The mind will wander.

It will always wander.

We bring it back to the present moment by noticing sensations in the body.

using the breath carefully

Lauren: Another thing we can use is the breath.

Breathing can be really powerful.

But I would actually call it a more advanced technique than people realise.

Some people try breathwork and become very dysregulated by it.

Other people try it and it is life-changing.

When we can use the breath effectively, particularly the exhalation, we can support the parasympathetic nervous system.

Going back to my dishwasher example, I might notice:

“I’m angry.”

“Where do I feel that?”

“I’m hot.”

“My shoulders are clenched.”

“My fists are tight.”

“I’m about to shout.”

That noticing is mindfulness.

Then I might do something simple because I don’t have a lot of time.

Take a breath in and then make the exhalation longer.

Anna: Six to eight counts on the exhale.

Lauren: Exactly.

A longer exhale.

You can even imagine that you have a straw and slowly breathe out through it.

When I’m hyped up, my breathing might otherwise become very fast.

That isn’t necessarily going to calm me down.

The inhalation has more of an activating effect, whereas a long slow exhalation can support the parasympathetic response.

Anna: That’s important.

People often think they need the huge breath in.

Actually, sometimes what they really need is the long breath out.

why you can’t always think your way out of stress

Anna: I’ve learned over the last five years the power of the body to influence the mind.

I’m someone who lived in my head.

Overthinking.

Over-intellectualising.

Trying to find all the answers in my brain.

But as you said, those pathways are already well built.

I would find myself thinking the same things because those pathways have been built since childhood.

As much as I wanted to change how I felt, I couldn’t always do it through thinking.

Therapy helped me change some of my thinking, and that then helped change my physiology and my experience.

But if you’re alone, that isn’t always easy.

What I now understand about the nervous system, the gut-brain connection and afferent pathways is how much the body can influence our day-to-day experience of the world.

Choosing the right foods and having a healthy gut microbiome can influence the brain.

Exercise can influence the brain too.

I used to use exercise by hammering away with lots of high-intensity activity.

Very adrenaline-driven.

I had to learn how to use gentler exercise that sent cues of relaxation and safety to my brain.

Then there are the senses.

At This Works, our whole approach is around the senses.

Sound.

Sight.

Breath.

Smell.

Touch.

All of these can influence the brain.

using the eyes to signal safety

Anna: You taught me something that I’ve also seen in the literature around the visual system.

Using the eyes can be a very quick way to calm the nervous system.

Our friend Andrew Huberman talks about this.

Explain it better than me.

Lauren: This is something I’ve referenced from his work.

In the modern world we’re constantly on our phones.

Our gaze is very narrow.

Scroll, scroll, scroll.

When we’re gazing into a phone like this, we’re asking the visual system to focus very tightly.

Anna: The eyes are narrowing.
They’re having to focus on a small screen.

Lauren: Exactly.

Go back to prehistoric times.

It wouldn’t necessarily have been safe for our ancestors to be staring at one small point for long periods.

There can be a greater sense of safety when we are able to take in a broad, panoramic view of what is around us.

If I’m in Scotland at the top of a mountain and I can see all the mountain ranges, that is a very different visual experience.

When we widen the visual field, it can help shift us away from that narrow, threat-focused attention.

You touched on it there: a cue of safety.

Your body is receiving the message, “I’m safe here.”

That can help reduce the threat response.

how phones can keep us activated

Anna: I love that work.

If we join the dots, we can see why modern technology has left us wired into fight or flight more than we might want.

We’re constantly focusing on a small screen with images that move and continually tell the brain:

“Pay attention.”

“Pay attention.”

“Pay attention.”

Moving content itself keeps demanding focus.

That’s part of how the algorithms work.

We get stuck with this narrowing of the eyes.

Then there is also the breathing piece.

People aren’t necessarily breathing properly.

They may hold their breath while they look at the phone.

So we have the combination of breath-holding, eye narrowing for long periods and the muscles tensing.

All of these are sending signals that say:

“Pay attention.”

“It’s not safe to switch off.”

Even though we might simply be scrolling on TikTok.

That is something I’m really passionate about.

The whole reason for talking to experts like you is to give people education around how they can learn to manage their nervous system.

The things they can do.

The things they might want to do less of.

And also to normalise the fact that the nervous system is fundamental to our survival and existence.

We shouldn’t be frightened by the fact that sometimes we find ourselves distressed.

We shouldn’t avoid those experiences entirely either.

Regulation doesn’t mean:

“I have to be calm and zen the whole time.”

No.

We need to get things done.

We have goals to achieve.

We have battles to fight.

That requires activation of the nervous system.

But we don’t want to become stuck in that state.

We need to be able to return towards parasympathetic relaxation so we can do the things that make life feel good.

Connecting with other humans.

Intimacy.

Digesting food.

Resting.

Sleeping.

Everything you’ve said about regulation, the eyes, the breath and the body are really powerful science-backed ways that we can help ourselves regulate and stay in the moment.

Lauren: Absolutely.

the takeaway: coming back to now

Anna: I think we’ve covered so much today, Lauren.

You’ve been brilliant.

I want to say again thank you so much for coming out of maternity leave for us.

It’s very brave to go from mothering a very young baby to putting yourself on the hot seat.

I know you’re an expert and you’ve got a huge amount of experience.

Even so, your brain has been focused on taking care of your children.

I think you’ve been brilliant today.

Thank you so much.

Lauren: Thank you.

I can’t wait to see you soon.

It’s been a pleasure.

Thank you so much for giving me the space to completely geek out with you.

It has been a lovely little break away from motherhood.

Now I’m thinking, “Oh, I know my stuff.”

Anna: You know your stuff, girl.

See you soon, Lauren.

Thank you.

Lauren: Bye.