Latest / The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show / Episode 19, Season 1: Nervous System Regulation with Expert Guest Dana Doswell

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Episode 19, Season 1: Nervous System Regulation with Expert Guest Dana Doswell · The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show

0:08
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Love Dot Podcast. I'm your co host
0:11
Speaker 1: Rana Butcher here with our host Doctor Hensley.
0:14
Speaker 2: Hello.
0:15
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1:50
Speaker 1: All right, So we are super super excited today because
1:53
Speaker 1: we have our.
1:54
Speaker 3: First guests, our very very first guest, and this is
1:57
Speaker 3: someone that I have been following on tip talk for
2:00
Speaker 3: a while and slightly obsessed with. We would like to
2:03
Speaker 3: introduce Dana Daswell. Dana, you know you are an expert
2:08
Speaker 3: in nervous system regulation and I have learned so much
2:11
Speaker 3: from you that it's not even funny because I thought
2:14
Speaker 3: I was an expert in nervous system regulation until I
2:17
Speaker 3: started working or actually watching your content, and then I realized,
2:21
Speaker 3: you know, I am a lifelong learner and I have
2:23
Speaker 3: a lot to continue to learn. And so tell us
2:27
Speaker 3: a little bit about how you got involved in this work,
2:30
Speaker 3: and you know how you got into studying just this
2:34
Speaker 3: really niche aspect, which is regulation of the nervous system.
2:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm so excited to be here, and I completely
2:43
Speaker 4: reciprocate the feeling of learning so much from you as well.
2:47
Speaker 4: And I guess we'll kind of take us back seven
2:50
Speaker 4: ish years in my life where I think, like a
2:52
Speaker 4: lot of people, I didn't even realize that I was
2:55
Speaker 4: experiencing symptoms of trauma, you know, I kind of it
2:58
Speaker 4: was this really normalized experience of what I'm now terming
3:01
Speaker 4: LLCD or low level chronic dysregulation, which was this experience
3:06
Speaker 4: of you know, waking up in the morning and either
3:08
Speaker 4: just being on immediately, you know, reaching for a cop,
3:11
Speaker 4: not having an appetite, and feeling like almost like I
3:14
Speaker 4: was high, Like there was some kind of activation that
3:17
Speaker 4: was present. And at this time in my life, I
3:20
Speaker 4: was an entrepreneur, I'd moved to Mexico, I was for
3:23
Speaker 4: you know, all intents and purposes, living this really amazing,
3:26
Speaker 4: incredible lifestyle and looking super successful, and then started to
3:30
Speaker 4: have all these symptoms of realizing that whenever work would
3:33
Speaker 4: be over, I would shut down that you know, when
3:35
Speaker 4: it was during the day and I knew I had
3:37
Speaker 4: more calls, I could do things like cook myself a meal,
3:40
Speaker 4: but it was always kind of coming from this really
3:42
Speaker 4: frantic sort of energy. And then on top of that,
3:45
Speaker 4: I had a lot of these other chronic health issues,
3:48
Speaker 4: like I had cystic acne my whole life. I had
3:51
Speaker 4: all these skin issues. I would get sick a lot.
3:53
Speaker 4: I really couldn't handle like any kind of process food,
3:57
Speaker 4: which I mean, ideally we don't want to be eating that,
3:59
Speaker 4: but when you're healthy, you can have some and your
4:01
Speaker 4: body is not going to completely freak out. So this
4:04
Speaker 4: started to really really disrupt my day to day, and
4:08
Speaker 4: essentially I got to a point where what I now know,
4:11
Speaker 4: I was living in a state of complete collapse. Like
4:13
Speaker 4: I went from you know, being super wired in the
4:16
Speaker 4: mornings to waking up feeling so lethargic, and essentially I
4:20
Speaker 4: was in you know, what we term as depression, which
4:23
Speaker 4: is actually a state of extreme physiological depletion and nervous
4:27
Speaker 4: system collapse, and I was living in the state of freeze.
4:30
Speaker 4: So at that time, you know, I tried reaching out
4:33
Speaker 4: to therapists. I tried, you know, all these different online ones,
4:37
Speaker 4: and it was mostly talk therapy. And I usually left
4:40
Speaker 4: these sessions feeling better for about two minutes because I'd
4:43
Speaker 4: had this huge session, but I wasn't finding that I
4:46
Speaker 4: was feeling any different and my symptoms were still the same,
4:49
Speaker 4: and I'm sitting there going, Okay, something needs to change
4:52
Speaker 4: because I, you know, to be dramatic or not be dramatic.
4:55
Speaker 4: I just couldn't do it any longer. And I was like,
4:58
Speaker 4: this is really scary. So I remember the day coming
5:02
Speaker 4: out of this therapy session and I went on Instagram
5:05
Speaker 4: and I randomly saw this term spiritual psychology, and I
5:08
Speaker 4: had this feeling in my body and I now call
5:10
Speaker 4: these somatic breadcrumbs, where it's not you don't think it,
5:14
Speaker 4: you feel it, and for me, I felt it very
5:16
Speaker 4: much and kind of like my core of my body,
5:19
Speaker 4: and it was like that, like you need to look
5:21
Speaker 4: into that. So that was kind of my initial foray
5:24
Speaker 4: into holistic healing, and through just googling spiritual psychology. I
5:29
Speaker 4: came across this video about the polyvagele theory, and in
5:32
Speaker 4: twenty minutes, I felt like my entire existence had been
5:35
Speaker 4: explained to me. And I realized that this was not normal,
5:38
Speaker 4: that I was actually having symptoms of trauma, that I
5:41
Speaker 4: had a nervous system, that it was essentially completely disorganized
5:44
Speaker 4: and freaking out. And then I mean I just kind
5:48
Speaker 4: of had this obsession that started with like, Okay, the
5:50
Speaker 4: nervous systems, Like what is that? How do I work
5:52
Speaker 4: with it? I booked my first somatic therapy session and
5:55
Speaker 4: it was completely different than anything I'd done before. And
5:58
Speaker 4: after one session, I was like, oh my god, I
6:00
Speaker 4: feel the lower half of my body. And I didn't
6:02
Speaker 4: even realize that I had been completely numb from the
6:05
Speaker 4: neck down for at least fourteen years of my life.
6:08
Speaker 4: And so that's what really got me started. I kind
6:11
Speaker 4: of went into this cool mix of studying evolution psychology,
6:15
Speaker 4: somatic healing, neuroscience to a degree, and then just implementing
6:19
Speaker 4: experiential learning in my own life. I did a couple
6:21
Speaker 4: of certifications and then I've kind of mishmashed that altogether
6:25
Speaker 4: to arrive.
6:26
Speaker 2: To Yeah, that's awesool.
6:29
Speaker 3: I love other people who take their own personal experience
6:33
Speaker 3: and then they just take it on the life's mission, right,
6:36
Speaker 3: And that's what happened with me as well. And I
6:38
Speaker 3: had a very similar experience where I had you know,
6:42
Speaker 3: I took about it a lot on my platform. My
6:45
Speaker 3: father of my children, who I was married to for
6:47
Speaker 3: a very long time, after a huge custody battle and
6:49
Speaker 3: divorce and awful marriage, he suddenly passed away. My mom
6:53
Speaker 3: got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a long term relationship after
6:56
Speaker 3: my divorce ended. At all of those things happened the
6:59
Speaker 3: exact same time, and then I had like a nervous
7:02
Speaker 3: system collapse. I actually ended up with chronic vestibular migraine.
7:06
Speaker 3: I just woke up one day with it. And from
7:09
Speaker 3: a medical model, everybody was just treating migraine as if
7:12
Speaker 3: it was just this genetic disease that we don't know
7:15
Speaker 3: why it happens. And then when I went down the
7:17
Speaker 3: rabbit hole, I was like, no, it is this a
7:18
Speaker 3: disease of an overtaxed nervous system. And there's some really
7:21
Speaker 3: great people out there like Alan Gordon and Nicole Sachs,
7:24
Speaker 3: and they talk about pain and pain conditions and migraines,
7:28
Speaker 3: especially being just a collapse of the nervous system, and
7:32
Speaker 3: so so many different symptoms are from trauma and from
7:37
Speaker 3: a dysregulated nervous system. So I think a lot of
7:40
Speaker 3: people just don't know that they're experiencing what they're experiencing.
7:43
Speaker 3: And so I think it's really amazing that you made
7:45
Speaker 3: that connection and it's taken you on this journey.
7:48
Speaker 2: It's really really cool.
7:49
Speaker 1: Well, and I think it's even more amazing that we
7:50
Speaker 1: are all getting to sit here and bring more awareness
7:53
Speaker 1: to it. Great for the longest time, I think we
7:56
Speaker 1: can all sit here the three of us are like,
7:58
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody has trauma, right, but a lot of
8:00
Speaker 1: people don't realize that a lot of the physical elements
8:03
Speaker 1: they have are the result of that. And I didn't
8:05
Speaker 1: for a very long time, yes, And so now it
8:08
Speaker 1: just makes me one when when things come up in
8:11
Speaker 1: my body instead of shaming it, which is what I
8:14
Speaker 1: would use to do, or like I would just fall
8:16
Speaker 1: apart right like I'm dying. I have cancer of an
8:18
Speaker 1: autoimmune disease something, you know, because I've struggled with gut issues,
8:22
Speaker 1: skin issues, you know, brain fog, those sorts of things
8:25
Speaker 1: is that I just try to accept it now and
8:29
Speaker 1: tell my body that thank you, because you're trying. You're
8:33
Speaker 1: trying to teach me something here, You're trying to tell
8:35
Speaker 1: me something. And how do I listen to that? And
8:37
Speaker 1: how how do I get more in tune to that?
8:40
Speaker 1: And so I think the more awareness that we can
8:41
Speaker 1: bring to it, the better, because people people don't recognize it.
8:45
Speaker 1: People just think, oh, well, I need appeal to fix this,
8:48
Speaker 1: or I need to do this to fix this, when
8:50
Speaker 1: they're not really getting to that root calls.
8:51
Speaker 3: Right, And a lot of the a lot of the
8:54
Speaker 3: clients that I have, they all have digestive issues, they
8:57
Speaker 3: all have histamine skin issues, you know, they all have
9:02
Speaker 3: you know, those types of more common trauma symptoms in
9:07
Speaker 3: their body, you know, and they have never heard that
9:10
Speaker 3: those things could be from the trauma that they've experienced
9:12
Speaker 3: in their life, particularly the relational trauma that they've experienced.
9:16
Speaker 3: So I'm curious, you know, what's the most impactful thing
9:19
Speaker 3: that you have learned in your journey of learning about
9:22
Speaker 3: the nervous system.
9:25
Speaker 4: I mean, if you watch any of my content, you're
9:27
Speaker 4: not going to be surprised by my answer, which is
9:29
Speaker 4: the role of shame. Yes, And this was like my
9:32
Speaker 4: biggest aha moment. And I actually looked back and I
9:35
Speaker 4: was talking about it in my content without realizing that
9:38
Speaker 4: it was shame for a really long time and the
9:42
Speaker 4: reason why. And I mean, you're also familiar with any
9:45
Speaker 4: of Brene Brown's work. I think she talks about this
9:47
Speaker 4: very much. I would say more from a cognitive perspective,
9:49
Speaker 4: and I've really gotten into, you know, like the body
9:52
Speaker 4: level of it. Is we on one hand, especially I
9:57
Speaker 4: would say, in the Western world, and I get so
10:00
Speaker 4: a lot of people coming into my programs that have
10:02
Speaker 4: a religious background, and there's a whole you know, intersection
10:07
Speaker 4: with aspects of religious shame and even just growing up
10:11
Speaker 4: in a society, even in the healing realm where everything
10:14
Speaker 4: is about ascending out of the human body, it's like
10:17
Speaker 4: up and out and you know, everyone's obsessed with the
10:20
Speaker 4: third eye and like purity and cleansing and this very
10:24
Speaker 4: kind of like implicit experience that our bodies are dirty
10:28
Speaker 4: and messy and dark and we shouldn't be in them.
10:32
Speaker 4: And I would say this is also an added level
10:33
Speaker 4: for women, where like our womb in our pelvic area
10:36
Speaker 4: and you know, our periods and all of this stuff.
10:39
Speaker 4: There's so much shame surrounding it, and it's very in
10:42
Speaker 4: shadow and it's always vague, and so what ends up happening,
10:46
Speaker 4: you know, like the most basic level of nervous system
10:48
Speaker 4: regulation is that you're able to recognize that you need
10:50
Speaker 4: to go to the washroom and you go. You're able
10:52
Speaker 4: to recognize that you're thirsty and you drink water. You're
10:55
Speaker 4: able to recognize that someone is making you to move
10:58
Speaker 4: away from them, and you physically move away from them.
11:01
Speaker 4: But most people are taught to do the heart coherence meditation,
11:05
Speaker 4: the you know, somatic breath work as their starting point
11:09
Speaker 4: when they're already just in a state of complete repression
11:13
Speaker 4: of their nervous sys most basic cues because they feel
11:16
Speaker 4: deep shame around even having basic body nights and having
11:20
Speaker 4: a messy animal body because we've kind of forgotten that
11:23
Speaker 4: we have this primal animal physiology within us. And the
11:27
Speaker 4: same is so different than other emotional experiences because it
11:31
Speaker 4: hits us at the level of our identity, and so
11:34
Speaker 4: guilt right is like I did something bad. But that's
11:36
Speaker 4: where you know, you can reach out to a friend
11:38
Speaker 4: and you're like, oh, like I really don't like that
11:40
Speaker 4: I did this, but can I talk to you about it?
11:42
Speaker 4: Versus shame is so debilitating because it says I am
11:46
Speaker 4: bad and I am inherently deficient in something, and so
11:50
Speaker 4: our entire existence becomes about proving to ourselves and to
11:53
Speaker 4: others that that deficiency doesn't exist, and you really kind
11:57
Speaker 4: of contort yourself to try and make it seem like
12:00
Speaker 4: not deficient, and then your entire life essentially becomes trying
12:03
Speaker 4: to avoid experiencing shame, which just causes more shame and
12:08
Speaker 4: more and more shut down body, which shame and nervous
12:12
Speaker 4: system collapse and depression are all very into together.
12:16
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I would agree with that a million percent. And
12:19
Speaker 3: what is interesting is like, that's what Abraham Maslow like
12:24
Speaker 3: in his hierarchy of needs. The reason I think he
12:27
Speaker 3: put that at the bottom is because we have to
12:29
Speaker 3: meet our physiological needs first so that we can survive.
12:33
Speaker 3: We can't even get past basic survival instincts, right, and
12:37
Speaker 3: to reach these other levels of safety. So you know
12:41
Speaker 3: that when you taught me that, I was like, oh wow,
12:44
Speaker 3: because I am someone who will hold you know, hold
12:48
Speaker 3: my pee because I'm in the flow of work, right,
12:51
Speaker 3: or someone who is like, well, I'm hungry, but I
12:53
Speaker 3: got to get here, right, And so I didn't realize
12:58
Speaker 3: the impact of ignoring my own ziological needs and how
13:02
Speaker 3: that was affecting me. And that is something that you
13:04
Speaker 3: taught me, and it's something that I now pass on
13:06
Speaker 3: to my clients, is like, no, we got to start
13:08
Speaker 3: actually one stage lower than I would normally start with clients,
13:11
Speaker 3: and that is are you meeting your basic physiological needs?
13:14
Speaker 3: And what I've found is in a lot of really busy,
13:17
Speaker 3: you know, working women especially, they feel like they have
13:23
Speaker 3: to just power through power through power through their lives.
13:28
Speaker 2: Right.
13:28
Speaker 3: They're working, their mothers, they're you know, just trying to
13:32
Speaker 3: meet everybody else's needs, and then their own basic needs
13:35
Speaker 3: fall by the wayside, and then they're they're so dysregulated, right,
13:39
Speaker 3: and their relationships are impacted, and so everything is just
13:42
Speaker 3: so intertwined. And Reina and I have talked so much
13:44
Speaker 3: about shame. Both of us have carried so so much shame,
13:48
Speaker 3: and it still plays a role in our lives to
13:50
Speaker 3: some degree. We are still working through it.
13:52
Speaker 1: I get triggered even when, like I mean, just you know,
13:54
Speaker 1: when you start talking about it, I can feel all
13:56
Speaker 1: the sensations in my body, you know, like I can
13:59
Speaker 1: almost feel the tears wanting to flow, kind of like
14:02
Speaker 1: the shakiness in my chest sort of is how describe it,
14:07
Speaker 1: And like just the overall shakiness like throughout my body
14:10
Speaker 1: when shame comes up. It's just one of those things
14:12
Speaker 1: that I'm still working through.
14:14
Speaker 3: And for me, sometimes what ends up happening is and
14:17
Speaker 3: I share this with my husband a lot. There's just
14:19
Speaker 3: these random times and it does not seem to correlate
14:22
Speaker 3: with anything that's going on in my life, but I
14:25
Speaker 3: will just have this overwhelming sense that I'm a failure.
14:29
Speaker 3: And my husband will look at me and he will
14:30
Speaker 3: be like, you are the furthest thing from a failure
14:33
Speaker 3: that I could possibly ever imagine. Where is this coming from?
14:36
Speaker 3: And I literally have no answer. I don't know if
14:39
Speaker 3: you have any insight. No, that wasn't one of the
14:41
Speaker 3: questions that I was going to ask you, but if
14:42
Speaker 3: you have any insight about that, it's just weird.
14:44
Speaker 2: It comes at random times.
14:46
Speaker 4: It's actually funny that you're saying this, because I was
14:49
Speaker 4: just doing some writing about this exact topic.
14:52
Speaker 2: Like so interesting. I started, that's so cool.
14:56
Speaker 4: So something that I have really been tuning into even
14:59
Speaker 4: from a bitiness perspective of me of really looking at
15:01
Speaker 4: who am I really equipped to support, because obviously there's
15:05
Speaker 4: a spectrum of dysregulation. And what I really took a
15:09
Speaker 4: step back and looked at was that, you know, even
15:12
Speaker 4: when I was very in this functional free state, I
15:15
Speaker 4: was very high functioning. Like you know, I was the
15:17
Speaker 4: VP of sales, I learned a second language. I was,
15:20
Speaker 4: you know, living across Central South America. I was traveling
15:23
Speaker 4: by myself, and I was doing all of that while
15:25
Speaker 4: I was very functionally frozen. And I think for me,
15:28
Speaker 4: what stands out to me from what you're saying. There
15:31
Speaker 4: are so many people, and I would say maybe even
15:34
Speaker 4: specifically women, where your intelligence and your ambition is what
15:39
Speaker 4: was reflected back to you as your main sources of
15:41
Speaker 4: value as a human throughout your entire life. And because
15:46
Speaker 4: your nervous system houses the expression of your identity, this
15:49
Speaker 4: is where you start to create this shadow self and
15:51
Speaker 4: your authentic self. And your shadow self is like the
15:55
Speaker 4: repressed part of you that says I would actually be
15:57
Speaker 4: able to be useless and still have access to safety,
16:01
Speaker 4: love and connection and to be seen as being worthy.
16:04
Speaker 4: But in your experience and what your nervous system internalized
16:07
Speaker 4: is I am only worthy when I am being seen
16:10
Speaker 4: as being competent, a leader, being intelligent, and being ambitious,
16:15
Speaker 4: And so there ends up being this internal surveillance or
16:18
Speaker 4: hypervigilance that can be very unconscious, that is always pushing you,
16:23
Speaker 4: even when there's nobody around you, to be that version
16:26
Speaker 4: of yourself. So you end up masking even when you're
16:29
Speaker 4: alone and trying to show your own self this hyper
16:32
Speaker 4: successful version of you. And what I think is really
16:35
Speaker 4: difficult and what I see in you and maybe myself
16:38
Speaker 4: as well, I actually believe that we are also inherently ambitious,
16:42
Speaker 4: We are intelligent, We do want to do things in
16:44
Speaker 4: the world. So it becomes kind of defusing or detaching
16:50
Speaker 4: what is that inherent version of you that is real
16:53
Speaker 4: and authentic and raw, that wants to be an entrepreneur
16:56
Speaker 4: that wants to create things, and which part of you
16:59
Speaker 4: is coming from trauma and it's really hard to differentiate that.
17:03
Speaker 4: And so I would say that when you're in those
17:05
Speaker 4: places and you're like, where the hell did this come from,
17:08
Speaker 4: trying to kind of tune into okay, does this feel
17:12
Speaker 4: urgent and does this feel shamy? And does this feel
17:15
Speaker 4: like the energy of Okay. Unless I can prove to
17:17
Speaker 4: myself in this moment that I'm successful, I'm not allowed
17:20
Speaker 4: to exist.
17:24
Speaker 3: That's how I would describe it. That's how I would
17:26
Speaker 3: describe the experience. It's like I have to prove somehow
17:29
Speaker 3: to someone I don't know who that someone is. I
17:32
Speaker 3: guess myself that I am, in fact a success. And
17:37
Speaker 3: I think part of it is that I was in
17:41
Speaker 3: you know, a very very very abusive relationship for a
17:44
Speaker 3: very long time. And so not only did I have,
17:47
Speaker 3: you know, childhood attachment trauma, I grew up with a
17:49
Speaker 3: fatherhood bipolar disorders, very dysregulated individual. He was very black
17:56
Speaker 3: and white, like you know, you only got two sides
18:00
Speaker 3: of him. You got somebody who was very detached or
18:02
Speaker 3: somebody was very angry, right, And so I learned, I think,
18:08
Speaker 3: as a very young child that if I got good
18:10
Speaker 3: grades and if I didn't like cause a lot of
18:13
Speaker 3: trouble at home, then I got my needs met, right.
18:17
Speaker 3: And there's a part of me that I think that
18:22
Speaker 3: my shadow self, I think is like very rebellious and
18:24
Speaker 3: very like rule breaking, and like I wanted to be
18:26
Speaker 3: those people, like those kind of people that could break rules,
18:29
Speaker 3: and like, I don't know, but the side of me
18:33
Speaker 3: that really shows up on a day to day basis
18:35
Speaker 3: is this rule follower, right, this person that's very high achieving,
18:39
Speaker 3: very rule following, always trying to do everything right, hates
18:41
Speaker 3: when I make a mistake right, very perfectionistic, and then
18:46
Speaker 3: it just feels like sometimes I can't hold that up.
18:49
Speaker 1: It's interesting that you say that too, because if your
18:52
Speaker 1: shadow person is the rule breaker, I think sometimes we're
18:56
Speaker 1: attracted to our shadow and other people.
18:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, And there's evolutionary reasons for that too.
19:01
Speaker 3: And I'm sure Dana would talk to you about like
19:03
Speaker 3: trait variety, because I am.
19:07
Speaker 1: I know, I'm rebellious, I'm almost you know, like I
19:10
Speaker 1: like to be. Like there's this very edgy kind of
19:14
Speaker 1: bad side to me, is what I would say, Like
19:16
Speaker 1: where I like to break the roles and I find
19:18
Speaker 1: it almost fun to break the roles. But then again,
19:22
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting too and the reason why we're
19:25
Speaker 1: drawn to each other. And so Sarah and I've been
19:27
Speaker 1: best friends for about six years. We have a lot
19:31
Speaker 1: of the same trauma. Traumas are timelines just so ironically
19:38
Speaker 1: match up in terms of the trauma. And then so
19:41
Speaker 1: many of our.
19:42
Speaker 3: Ailments are the exact same, exactly, our trauma symptoms are
19:46
Speaker 3: like identical, identical, right, And so I actually, when I
19:50
Speaker 3: did all of my trauma healing work, my for the
19:53
Speaker 3: first time in my life, like my my digestion was normal,
19:57
Speaker 3: Like my skin didn't have issue use I had lost
20:02
Speaker 3: when my ex husband died, I had lost like forty
20:04
Speaker 3: percent of my hair. It just like fell out. It
20:07
Speaker 3: finally kind of started growing back. And then I talk
20:10
Speaker 3: about this and I don't reveal details, but I was
20:13
Speaker 3: recently re traumatized in a very similar way about three
20:16
Speaker 3: months ago, and all my trauma symptoms came back like
20:19
Speaker 3: immediately and so and then I had shame around that
20:22
Speaker 3: because I am supposed to be this expert that teaches
20:25
Speaker 3: people how to heal and the fact that during the
20:28
Speaker 3: retraumatization I had a setback that just brought on so
20:32
Speaker 3: much more shame. And I think that the shame is
20:34
Speaker 3: what kept things in place, right, the fear and the shame,
20:38
Speaker 3: because fear and shame wire things in right. And it
20:42
Speaker 3: wasn't until I could accept the fact that, hey, a
20:45
Speaker 3: retraumatization is what it is and it affected me. And
20:49
Speaker 3: the fact that I had a regression, doesn't make me
20:51
Speaker 3: a failure, right, And I was able to come out
20:55
Speaker 3: of it a lot faster, right Whereas it took years
20:58
Speaker 3: the first time, it took me a couple of months
21:01
Speaker 3: to feel normal again this time. And so, you know,
21:04
Speaker 3: one of the things I want to talk about is
21:07
Speaker 3: rumination because one of the trauma experiences that I have
21:12
Speaker 3: is very very severe.
21:14
Speaker 1: Reasons I want to still struggle with it.
21:16
Speaker 3: So my mind like, no, you know, during the re traumatization,
21:20
Speaker 3: no matter how much I wanted to stop thinking about it,
21:23
Speaker 3: it was all I could think about and I could
21:26
Speaker 3: not distract myself from it.
21:27
Speaker 2: My brain would just loop right back to it.
21:29
Speaker 3: And I have a lot of and so I knew, yeah, okay,
21:32
Speaker 3: this is coming from disregulation, right, this is coming from
21:34
Speaker 3: a nervous system level, and where I feel like I
21:37
Speaker 3: am a highly intelligent person. I was trying to think
21:40
Speaker 3: my way out of it, right, Like I'm trying to
21:42
Speaker 3: think my way out of it instead of feel what
21:44
Speaker 3: I have to feel and all of that stuff. So
21:46
Speaker 3: I want you to talk about rumination. I wanted to
21:49
Speaker 3: learn from you about rumination because I want to be
21:51
Speaker 3: able to one better help myself and two better help
21:54
Speaker 3: my clients that really struggle with rumination, especially when they're
21:57
Speaker 3: going through a difficult relationship situation.
22:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you, I mean, one of the things that
22:02
Speaker 4: you just said will kind of hook us into the
22:05
Speaker 4: initial part, which is, and maybe you've heard this saying,
22:07
Speaker 4: it's like overthinking is underfeeling. And so there's a couple
22:12
Speaker 4: of a couple of things I'm going to comment on
22:14
Speaker 4: and then give kind of some practical ways of engaging
22:16
Speaker 4: with this. So rumination absolutely is essentially hyper vigilance where
22:22
Speaker 4: your nervous system has latched on to an active threat,
22:25
Speaker 4: and essentially this threat is living inside your body and
22:28
Speaker 4: the way that your body is responding to it is
22:30
Speaker 4: through this expression of rumination or essentially obsession. And you
22:34
Speaker 4: know rumination, even limerens like these things have very similar
22:39
Speaker 4: have a very similar experience in the body where like
22:41
Speaker 4: you can't get it out of your head. And so
22:44
Speaker 4: this brings me to the point of how do you
22:46
Speaker 4: actually work with this somatically and from the nervous system perspective?
22:49
Speaker 4: So number one, as always, I always like to start
22:52
Speaker 4: with that d shaming layer, and because what ends up
22:55
Speaker 4: happening is we already have the stress of rumination and
22:58
Speaker 4: then now we add this judge and this meaning of
23:01
Speaker 4: shame on top of it, which adds to our overall
23:04
Speaker 4: allostatic load or that level of press burden that our
23:06
Speaker 4: body is carrying. So layer number one, which is also
23:10
Speaker 4: i want to say, very vulnerable, and vulnerability is you know,
23:14
Speaker 4: the antidote to shame. We know this, which is to
23:17
Speaker 4: even admit. And there's two types of vulnerability. There's self vulnerability,
23:22
Speaker 4: so admitting to yourself what it is that you're experiencing.
23:25
Speaker 4: And then there's vulnerability through safe coregulation with someone else,
23:28
Speaker 4: so being able to admit what you're experiencing to somebody
23:32
Speaker 4: where you have a high degree of certainty that you
23:34
Speaker 4: will not be shamed or judge and that you will
23:37
Speaker 4: actually be accepted in whatever state you show up in.
23:40
Speaker 4: These are really important phases of admitting to yourself and
23:43
Speaker 4: being able to share this in some type of safe community,
23:46
Speaker 4: whether that's with a friend, a coach, a therapist, whatever
23:49
Speaker 4: it is. So that's kind of layer number one, and
23:52
Speaker 4: that automatically is going to bring you a little bit
23:55
Speaker 4: more into your body because now you are having less
23:58
Speaker 4: resistance and a little bit more acceptance of what is right,
24:01
Speaker 4: so here and now what we want to do is
24:03
Speaker 4: we want to apply trauma informed principles of essentially resensitizing
24:07
Speaker 4: your body. The way that I always have this visual
24:10
Speaker 4: of people that are ruminating is all of the so
24:14
Speaker 4: your body is meant to feel everything in your body.
24:16
Speaker 4: But when we don't feel safe to do that, all
24:19
Speaker 4: of the sensation that is supposed to be dispersed through
24:21
Speaker 4: your body get sucked up into your head. Most people
24:25
Speaker 4: try to release this, so we're like, how do we
24:27
Speaker 4: release the stress of rumination and like discharge the stress
24:30
Speaker 4: so that we can chill out instead. I want you
24:33
Speaker 4: to think about resourcing instead of releasing. So what we're
24:36
Speaker 4: starting to do is almost like you're pulling the energy
24:39
Speaker 4: down back into your body. So it's like, can you
24:42
Speaker 4: feel the stress of ruminating in your big left toe?
24:45
Speaker 4: Like can you even make that kind of connection in
24:47
Speaker 4: your body? And we want to titrate this or this
24:50
Speaker 4: idea of microdosing new sensations or even old sensations in
24:54
Speaker 4: the body, because we cannot go from zero to one hundred.
24:57
Speaker 4: That's another way that we're reinforcing that trauma imprint. So
25:00
Speaker 4: we want to start by saying Okay, if right now,
25:03
Speaker 4: all this tension is up here, even in your chest,
25:06
Speaker 4: can you place a hand on your chest, and can
25:08
Speaker 4: you find the edge of the stressful sensation in your
25:11
Speaker 4: body and allow your awareness to sit right beside the
25:14
Speaker 4: edge of it, Almost kind of like you're approaching a
25:16
Speaker 4: scared horse, and slowly this horse is going to say, Okay,
25:20
Speaker 4: you're okay, you're not scared. You're not coming to attack me,
25:22
Speaker 4: you're not coming to shame me. You're actually just being
25:24
Speaker 4: with me. What happens when we feel seen and supported
25:28
Speaker 4: and we are empathizing with ourselves, this increases the amount
25:32
Speaker 4: of nervous system capacity that we have to experience and
25:36
Speaker 4: process sensation in our body. Now, we do this over
25:39
Speaker 4: and over again, and your body will naturally begin to
25:41
Speaker 4: process the stress that is causing the rumination, and you
25:45
Speaker 4: will essentially be descending lower and lower into your body
25:48
Speaker 4: until your body is actually fully resourced and able to
25:51
Speaker 4: have the quote unquote proper somatic experience of the stress
25:56
Speaker 4: for trauma that you had and naturally digest it. Right,
26:00
Speaker 4: So that's how I approach that.
26:03
Speaker 2: Okay, that is so insightful.
26:05
Speaker 3: I was, I know, I was like, I'm hanging on
26:09
Speaker 3: every word here because and I'm starting to tear up
26:12
Speaker 3: just a little bit because the pivotal moment of when
26:15
Speaker 3: I was really able to transition out of the re
26:18
Speaker 3: traumatization to feel going from feeling traumatized to feeling normal,
26:23
Speaker 3: there was really a light switch moment. And that light
26:26
Speaker 3: switch moment was when I admitted to my husband how
26:29
Speaker 3: obsessed I was in my head with what was going on.
26:33
Speaker 3: And it was a scary moment because I was worried
26:36
Speaker 3: he was going to think I was crazy, right, and
26:39
Speaker 3: that he was going to become so worried about me.
26:42
Speaker 3: And there was just this night and day shift when
26:46
Speaker 3: I admitted, like, this is how awful it is for
26:49
Speaker 3: me inside of my head right now, and he was
26:52
Speaker 3: like wow, like how can I support you?
26:54
Speaker 2: Like I love you?
26:55
Speaker 3: And he didn't respond with wow, that's crazy, or you
26:58
Speaker 3: need help or you know. I was so afraid he
27:01
Speaker 3: was just gonna judge me, and he didn't. And when
27:04
Speaker 3: I didn't have that judgment and he was just there
27:07
Speaker 3: and loving me and like accepting me, there was a
27:11
Speaker 3: game changer.
27:14
Speaker 2: Because I was ashamed.
27:15
Speaker 3: I was ashamed that I was so obsessed with what
27:19
Speaker 3: was going on in that literally I felt like I
27:21
Speaker 3: couldn't have any moments of refuge from it, right, And
27:26
Speaker 3: so I was using my tools and I was progressively
27:29
Speaker 3: getting better, but I couldn't fully cross over to feeling
27:33
Speaker 3: normal again. You know. I was having more normal days,
27:36
Speaker 3: but then I was having setbacks again. Right, And because
27:40
Speaker 3: this is what happened to me is very much ongoing.
27:43
Speaker 3: There's a legal consequence to what this person did to me,
27:46
Speaker 3: and so it's not just over, right, like, I have
27:49
Speaker 3: to keep going through these processes where it keeps getting
27:51
Speaker 3: brought up and there's more phases of dealing with it
27:55
Speaker 3: and so, but that acceptance of admission and being loved.
28:00
Speaker 2: Through the admission, thank you, Donald, thank you.
28:05
Speaker 3: Was so enlightening and so beautiful, and so something that
28:08
Speaker 3: I teach in my coaching practice is the neuro feedback
28:11
Speaker 3: where we allow it to start coming up into our
28:14
Speaker 3: body and then we can experience it and we can
28:17
Speaker 3: sit with it non judgmentally, and we can you know, breathe,
28:21
Speaker 3: and we can accept that those emotions are there and
28:24
Speaker 3: where they are in the body, right.
28:25
Speaker 2: And we can start to tune in.
28:27
Speaker 3: But I think you just added another layer to it, right,
28:30
Speaker 3: It's not just recognizing where it is in the body,
28:32
Speaker 3: and so I'm going to have probably a little more
28:34
Speaker 3: to add to.
28:36
Speaker 1: The breakdown was so beautiful pulling it.
28:38
Speaker 3: Down from the mind into the body and realize was yeah,
28:46
Speaker 3: And finding where the edges are, right of, like where
28:50
Speaker 3: is the edge of this? And can I bring it
28:52
Speaker 3: drop it down lower? And can I bring it down low? Well?
28:54
Speaker 1: And the importance of coregulation, which is another thing that
28:57
Speaker 1: you really talk about.
28:57
Speaker 2: I talk about a lot about corelation.
28:59
Speaker 1: Which I don't know if if people really emphasize the
29:01
Speaker 1: importance of that, because a lot of times we well,
29:04
Speaker 1: we just don't have the best relationships, right, And so
29:07
Speaker 1: when you don't have strong, good foundational relationships and that
29:12
Speaker 1: coregulation isn't part of your life, one, you just don't
29:15
Speaker 1: know what you don't know. And I didn't know that
29:18
Speaker 1: for a long time until I had a decent, wonderful partner,
29:21
Speaker 1: you know, where I was able to, like you said,
29:23
Speaker 1: just fully immerse myself into all the things, like he'll
29:27
Speaker 1: even say sometimes like rain to watch the diarrhea of
29:30
Speaker 1: the mouth. Because he's truly my confidant, right, he's this
29:34
Speaker 1: person for the only person outside of my parents, my siblings,
29:39
Speaker 1: my best friends that I've actually been able to go
29:41
Speaker 1: to and be like, this is what happened to me,
29:45
Speaker 1: and these are the choices I made, and I don't
29:49
Speaker 1: feel good about these choices, and are you still going
29:53
Speaker 1: to love me? And he did, and it's it's life change.
29:56
Speaker 1: It is very life changing, life changing.
29:58
Speaker 3: And that's why you know, I I think so much
30:00
Speaker 3: of my mission is to have people experience healthy love
30:04
Speaker 3: because it's I think there's this just bi directional relationship
30:08
Speaker 3: where the hallmark of being securely attached is having a
30:11
Speaker 3: well regulated nervous system because you know, I teach from
30:14
Speaker 3: the lens of polyvagel theory too. When you're in the
30:16
Speaker 3: green space, when you're in the you know, ventral Vagel space,
30:20
Speaker 3: you can you know your prefrontal cortex is operating the
30:24
Speaker 3: way that it should be. You are open, you're compassionate,
30:27
Speaker 3: you're curious, you're you have tolerance you know for difficulty,
30:31
Speaker 3: you know tolerance for discomfort. You are able to be
30:35
Speaker 3: connected to the present moment. You feel grounded. And when
30:37
Speaker 3: we are in a difficult spot in our relationships, we
30:40
Speaker 3: have to be able to show up that way to
30:42
Speaker 3: resolve conflict. But what's happening to all these individuals that
30:46
Speaker 3: are insecurely attached, is they get into the trigger cycle,
30:49
Speaker 3: and they launch straight into that trauma response, right, which
30:51
Speaker 3: is self directed survival, self defensive responding, And so they
30:56
Speaker 3: can't be open and compassionate and empathetic because their nervous
30:59
Speaker 3: system is under threat, right, And so they launch into
31:02
Speaker 3: that trauma responding and it happens so quickly, and I
31:07
Speaker 3: get so frustrated when people are like, well, just take
31:09
Speaker 3: a step back and take a deep breath. I'm like,
31:11
Speaker 3: if they could do that, they would do that, but
31:13
Speaker 3: they can't. Right. It's a capacity issue at that point. So,
31:17
Speaker 3: you know, talk a little bit about, you know, in
31:20
Speaker 3: terms of romantic relationships, but also in everyday life how
31:26
Speaker 3: impactful learning to regulate your nervous system can be. Because
31:29
Speaker 3: I talk about how great it is in romantic relationships,
31:33
Speaker 3: but what about in everyday life?
31:35
Speaker 2: What does it do for you in everyday life?
31:38
Speaker 4: Yeah? I think, and I mean we were talking about
31:40
Speaker 4: this a little bit before, is I think a really
31:44
Speaker 4: incredible way to understand the function of your nervous system
31:47
Speaker 4: is that your nervous system essentially works through relationship. You
31:52
Speaker 4: have a relationship with everything you can have a relationship
31:55
Speaker 4: with inanimate objects, right, Like you can see something that
31:59
Speaker 4: has a certain still wet to it and it can
32:01
Speaker 4: trigger or like you can you know, literally feel something
32:04
Speaker 4: so deep in your body. And what I would add
32:06
Speaker 4: to this is the flavor of the relationship that your
32:10
Speaker 4: nervous system has with something is what dictates your response
32:13
Speaker 4: to it. So I want to give like a really
32:15
Speaker 4: clear example of how this can play out in day
32:17
Speaker 4: to day life. So you know, as someone like I
32:19
Speaker 4: really like to be healthy. I like to go and
32:21
Speaker 4: work out, and I like to move my body. So
32:23
Speaker 4: why is it that I could say I'm going to
32:26
Speaker 4: commit to three days a week for the next month,
32:28
Speaker 4: and I can do it and feel good about it,
32:31
Speaker 4: and even on a hormonal level, I will actually have
32:33
Speaker 4: an adaptive stress response to going to the gym. Versus
32:36
Speaker 4: my friend next to me is doing the exact same thing,
32:39
Speaker 4: and actually it is deteriorating her and depleting her. The
32:43
Speaker 4: flavor of her relationship with going to the gym could
32:46
Speaker 4: be fear and shame driven. So what's happening inside her
32:49
Speaker 4: body is unless I do this, I am not worthy
32:53
Speaker 4: of having access to love, safety, and connection, and I'm
32:56
Speaker 4: deficient and there's something wrong with me and everyone's going
32:58
Speaker 4: to see it and no one's going to want me.
32:59
Speaker 4: And I'm over here. You're like, I'm going because I
33:01
Speaker 4: want to feel better. It's like a very different flavor
33:05
Speaker 4: of we both have a relationship with going to the gym,
33:08
Speaker 4: but my nervous system is perceiving this as an expansion
33:12
Speaker 4: of health or joy in my system. So now we
33:16
Speaker 4: start to apply this to literally anything you do, including
33:19
Speaker 4: actual relationships you have with people at work or romantic relationships,
33:24
Speaker 4: and the level that I want to bring this to
33:26
Speaker 4: and where I see most people missing the point of
33:30
Speaker 4: building a window of tolerance to deal with having so
33:33
Speaker 4: many relationships that you have to manage. We try to
33:36
Speaker 4: avoid the messiness of being human, and we try to
33:39
Speaker 4: get to a point where we're healed enough that we
33:41
Speaker 4: feel we're like pure and clean and we bring a
33:44
Speaker 4: clean energy to everything and we're just going to get
33:46
Speaker 4: up and go to the gym no matter what, or
33:48
Speaker 4: we're going to be having this perfect relationship where our
33:50
Speaker 4: partner's and mind reader and we can just never have
33:53
Speaker 4: to have difficult conversations. And so this goes back to
33:56
Speaker 4: what you were sharing about what was actually impactful for
33:58
Speaker 4: you is to in a relationship where vulnerability is rewarded
34:03
Speaker 4: and not punished is incredibly important, and only people who
34:08
Speaker 4: are regulated will be able to identify who people are
34:12
Speaker 4: that can provide that for them, and that they can
34:14
Speaker 4: provide that for them. So you could look like something,
34:17
Speaker 4: you know, I'm recently started seeing somebody new and of course,
34:21
Speaker 4: you know, like there's stuff coming up, and I'm like,
34:23
Speaker 4: we like, you know, haven't known each other for that long,
34:25
Speaker 4: and I like wanted his favorite sweater and he was like, okay,
34:29
Speaker 4: we just met, like this is literally my prize possession.
34:32
Speaker 4: And in that moment it was like I knew. I'm like,
34:34
Speaker 4: that's literally totally logical, that's so okay, And internally I
34:38
Speaker 4: was like, oh my god, you know, what the hell
34:42
Speaker 4: like he doesn't think I'm attractive and I was liked,
34:44
Speaker 4: and so in that moment, I can choose to just
34:47
Speaker 4: say there's something wrong with me and so I'm gonna
34:49
Speaker 4: just present this like perfectly regulated that didn't impact me
34:53
Speaker 4: at all, or I can say something like, you know,
34:56
Speaker 4: on one hand, what you're saying makes total sense. And I
34:59
Speaker 4: just really felt in my body like that didn't feel
35:02
Speaker 4: good for some reason, and I just wanted to share
35:04
Speaker 4: that with you, and I think I kind of interpreted
35:05
Speaker 4: it in a bit of this like negative shamy way,
35:10
Speaker 4: having those conversations and expressing that messy, weird part of
35:14
Speaker 4: you that is what builds real resilience and to go
35:19
Speaker 4: out into work and your boss is like saying this,
35:22
Speaker 4: like I'm also the weirdo or people think I'm weird,
35:24
Speaker 4: Like I'll talk about my cycle to anyone, like you're
35:27
Speaker 4: asking me, but to be on my period tomorrow. So
35:29
Speaker 4: I'm like kind of tired today. I like, yeah, exactly,
35:34
Speaker 4: And I'm just like I think that the more we
35:35
Speaker 4: normalize that, then that what we consider messy, which is
35:39
Speaker 4: actually just human, becomes normalized. That creates a felt level
35:45
Speaker 4: of safety that our nervous system just naturally picks up on.
35:48
Speaker 4: And when that is embedded in our life and kind
35:51
Speaker 4: of at the core of the way that we're relating
35:54
Speaker 4: to other people or to even something like going to
35:56
Speaker 4: the gym, where I can acknowledge I love feeling healthy
35:59
Speaker 4: and some I really don't want to go and that's
36:01
Speaker 4: totally normal and I don't shame myself for that. That
36:04
Speaker 4: is when regulation really starts to give you this feeling
36:09
Speaker 4: of like this like fuck yeah energy, you know, yeah, yeah,
36:12
Speaker 4: well I am I can do stuff like I'm not
36:14
Speaker 4: going to do it really and that's okay, And like
36:16
Speaker 4: my center of gravity is inside my body and I
36:19
Speaker 4: feel good about who I am and I trust myself.
36:22
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, that's really really insightful. So what about when
36:28
Speaker 3: you are undergoing like a continual trauma like what I'm
36:31
Speaker 3: going through, or just my folks that I have one
36:34
Speaker 3: couple in mind in my head right now. Their relationship
36:38
Speaker 3: is so dysfunctional, it's so continuously traumatic. Neither of them
36:42
Speaker 3: will listen to me that this relationship needs to end.
36:45
Speaker 2: They still want to continue to try to make it.
36:47
Speaker 3: Work, even though it has deteriorated so far from something
36:53
Speaker 3: that is normal and healthy. What do you say to
36:55
Speaker 3: those people that are like, I have to start regulating
36:58
Speaker 3: my nervous system. I have to start to be more
37:01
Speaker 3: functional and feel better every day even though I'm in
37:04
Speaker 3: this continual sort of traumatic experience. And you know, I
37:10
Speaker 3: think about relationships from my first marriage that are still
37:15
Speaker 3: ongoing that are very uncomfortable for me because I'm connected
37:18
Speaker 3: through my children with these people and they're related to
37:21
Speaker 3: my children and they want to have relationships with my children,
37:24
Speaker 3: but they're not healthy people. And I try to have
37:28
Speaker 3: really strong boundaries, but I still have to have these
37:30
Speaker 3: interactions that sometimes feel traumatic and feel draining and feel uncomfortable.
37:35
Speaker 2: So what happens? How can you start.
37:38
Speaker 3: Making improvements if you are in relationship with people or
37:42
Speaker 3: undergoing a trauma that is ongoing?
37:46
Speaker 2: What can people do?
37:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, so there's three things that I want to touch on.
37:50
Speaker 4: So one, and i'll kind of go through them in
37:52
Speaker 4: more detail, is respecting your capacity to building your window
37:56
Speaker 4: of tolerance for being in deeply uncomfortable situations and read
38:00
Speaker 4: what I call like the glimmer sandwich. So i'll kind
38:03
Speaker 4: of break them down. Okay, So number one is respecting
38:06
Speaker 4: your capacity. And this is something that I see a
38:08
Speaker 4: lot of. Is we approach regulating with the same energy
38:13
Speaker 4: that we essentially have been traumatized with. It's like an
38:16
Speaker 4: all or nothing. So like, okay, waking up tomorrow, it
38:19
Speaker 4: doesn't matter if I'm like, you know, seeing these people
38:21
Speaker 4: all the time. I'm just gonna be regular. I'm gonna
38:23
Speaker 4: do whatever it takes. And that is like on top
38:26
Speaker 4: of an already justsregulated nervous system is not going to work,
38:29
Speaker 4: and so something I have said to so many people
38:32
Speaker 4: when we start working together, I'm like, what what can
38:34
Speaker 4: you take off your plate? Like if it literally is
38:37
Speaker 4: like I've had people that are like, I'm working full time,
38:39
Speaker 4: I'm doing like an online MBA and I'm like now
38:42
Speaker 4: starting my trauma healing journey and I'm like, okay, Like
38:45
Speaker 4: that's a lot. And you're also trying to go to
38:47
Speaker 4: the gym and you have to cook meals a day
38:49
Speaker 4: and you know you're keeping your house clean, Like there's
38:50
Speaker 4: already a lot going on. So I said, and this
38:53
Speaker 4: is really hard for someone, but I'm like, can you
38:55
Speaker 4: defer your MBA? And she had such a hard time
38:58
Speaker 4: with it, but when she did it, oh my actually
39:00
Speaker 4: started sleeping better. She was actually able to have time
39:03
Speaker 4: for herself, like she could cook a meal and just
39:05
Speaker 4: enjoy it instead of having to eat it in front
39:07
Speaker 4: of the computer. Well, you know, like on her course,
39:10
Speaker 4: and translating this to the situation that you're in is
39:13
Speaker 4: recognizing that you will be impacted, and it is actually
39:16
Speaker 4: much more helpful for you to allow yourself to acknowledge
39:20
Speaker 4: that you will be impacted by this and to respect
39:23
Speaker 4: that that is reducing your window of capacity to deal
39:27
Speaker 4: with other stressors in your life and actually taking this
39:31
Speaker 4: very pragmatic, practical self loving action to be like, Okay,
39:35
Speaker 4: where are there are other responsibilities in my life right
39:39
Speaker 4: now that because this is stressing me out, I don't
39:41
Speaker 4: have the capacity to do unless I'm essentially now going
39:45
Speaker 4: to be so dysregulated to try and deal with everything.
39:48
Speaker 4: So you have to recognize when you need to decrease
39:51
Speaker 4: your overall burden in your life. When you are in
39:54
Speaker 4: an ongoing exposure to some type of traumatic situation, which
39:58
Speaker 4: of course has its own set of emotions with it,
40:00
Speaker 4: like this is unfair, Why can't I just handle it all?
40:03
Speaker 4: And like that's important to really process that as well.
40:06
Speaker 4: The second thing, like kind of what we're talking about,
40:08
Speaker 4: is building your window of tolerance to deal with this.
40:11
Speaker 4: So if you know that this is something that is
40:13
Speaker 4: going to be ongoing, what support or resources can you
40:17
Speaker 4: put in place, or even doing your own somatic work
40:19
Speaker 4: when you're outside of these situations and you know there's
40:23
Speaker 4: nuance to this of safer micro exposure to the stressor
40:27
Speaker 4: while you are in a coregulated safer state with someone else.
40:31
Speaker 4: So I almost kind of view it like you have
40:33
Speaker 4: this somatic nervous system armor when you go up these
40:37
Speaker 4: people and your your nervous system is able to kind
40:40
Speaker 4: of protect you a little bit more and you don't
40:42
Speaker 4: get so ameshed with their stress chemistry. That's number two.
40:46
Speaker 4: And then lastly the glimmer sandwich, which is really great
40:48
Speaker 4: if you know, like you know you're going to go
40:51
Speaker 4: and see these people, it's going to be in this
40:53
Speaker 4: you know environment, you know you're going to be there
40:55
Speaker 4: for a few hours. So what are things that you
40:58
Speaker 4: know bring you safety plus joy? Like for me, I
41:02
Speaker 4: love chocolate. I love chocolate chip cookies, and I love baths.
41:05
Speaker 4: So I'm like, literally, if i know I'm going to
41:07
Speaker 4: be around someone stressful, I eat a cookie before I
41:10
Speaker 4: go get stressed out. I come home and I eat
41:12
Speaker 4: chocolate in the bathtub. Sometimes I also want Netflix and
41:15
Speaker 4: scroll on my phone and I want myself to see
41:17
Speaker 4: it because I actually know that you can consciously use
41:20
Speaker 4: coping mechanisms when it's safer to be a little bit
41:24
Speaker 4: suppressing than it is to just be overwhelmed and re traumatized. Yeah,
41:28
Speaker 4: So this Glimmer sandwich of consciously creating little almost like
41:33
Speaker 4: associative rewards for yourself, like you did a hard thing
41:35
Speaker 4: and I know that was so hard. So like here's
41:37
Speaker 4: your chocolate and bath and your like fun little coal binge. Yeah.
41:40
Speaker 4: So those are kind of ree strategies that I would
41:43
Speaker 4: put in place.
41:44
Speaker 2: Okay, that is so so helpful because.
41:47
Speaker 1: I think you were doing you know, you were doing
41:49
Speaker 1: some of that.
41:49
Speaker 3: Yeah. I deferred a lot when this was like them
41:52
Speaker 3: at the most intense, this recent situation. God bless you
41:57
Speaker 3: being my best friend and being somebody who works so
41:59
Speaker 3: hard for my business. You know, I deferred a lot
42:02
Speaker 3: to her. I said I can't, I can't do it.
42:05
Speaker 3: I cannot do it and she should yeah, and she
42:09
Speaker 3: was like that's okay, I got you, you know, and
42:11
Speaker 3: it was was amazing. And then of course my husband
42:14
Speaker 3: has very supportive and in terms of like the physical
42:17
Speaker 3: aspects of our family, like running the kids to different
42:20
Speaker 3: places that they need to be and stuff like that.
42:22
Speaker 3: And so a lot of people stepped in and took
42:24
Speaker 3: things off my plate, which was wonderful. But I also
42:27
Speaker 3: noticed that I've developed this habit of like in the mornings,
42:31
Speaker 3: like I've just my mornings. I'm just cherishing them. I
42:34
Speaker 3: used to just like get up and like go full
42:36
Speaker 3: blast and like get the kids to school and then
42:37
Speaker 3: go to the gym and like lift really heavy and
42:40
Speaker 3: do all these things. And I really cut back on
42:42
Speaker 3: my exercise, which is not, you know, something I normally
42:45
Speaker 3: have ever done in my life, but I had to
42:48
Speaker 3: replace it with sipping coffee and scrolling on my phone
42:52
Speaker 3: because that was the only way I was making it.
42:55
Speaker 3: And then, of course, the shaming part of me wanted
42:57
Speaker 3: to be like, you should be at the gym. You're
42:58
Speaker 3: gonna get saggy, You're gonna you know, you're gonna lose
43:00
Speaker 3: what you worked hard for in terms of your body.
43:03
Speaker 2: And then I was just like, no, no.
43:05
Speaker 3: This is what I need to do right now, your reward.
43:07
Speaker 3: This is what I'm gonna do right now. I'm enjoy
43:09
Speaker 3: my mornings because I generally don't take clients like until eleven.
43:13
Speaker 1: Well, and the ongoing joke was she was like, I
43:15
Speaker 1: just need to curl up on the bed with a blanket.
43:17
Speaker 2: And my gummy bears.
43:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, like a blanket and my gummy bears.
43:21
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes, And I did it.
43:23
Speaker 3: And but I think I think the hallmark theme here
43:27
Speaker 3: is like the acceptance of it right and not shaming
43:30
Speaker 3: yourself for doing what you need to do to stay
43:36
Speaker 3: at the capacity that's going to help you continue to
43:38
Speaker 3: be functional, right because being because I did it the
43:42
Speaker 3: wrong way. The reason I ended up with vestibular migraine
43:46
Speaker 3: is because I was so traumatized so badly from so
43:51
Speaker 3: many things at once. And then I was trying to
43:54
Speaker 3: go ninety miles an hour to cope, right, Like I
43:59
Speaker 3: was over exercising.
44:01
Speaker 2: I was not. I wasn't and then one day I
44:03
Speaker 2: just woke up and I couldn't see and I was dizzy.
44:05
Speaker 3: And I was that way for eight and a half months,
44:09
Speaker 3: and it was crazy because it was just literally like
44:11
Speaker 3: my nervous system just broken half and and I think
44:14
Speaker 3: that was my nervous system's way of saying, no, you
44:16
Speaker 3: have to rest. We're actually going to give you a
44:18
Speaker 3: physical ailment that forces you to have to lay down
44:20
Speaker 3: in the bed.
44:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's exactly what happened to me.
44:25
Speaker 1: Yeah.
44:26
Speaker 4: And one of the things I love that you said
44:27
Speaker 4: about exercise, I had the exact same experience where part
44:31
Speaker 4: of what led up to my burnout was also you know,
44:34
Speaker 4: lack of education around the female body working with my cycle,
44:37
Speaker 4: and I mean I also grew up when it was
44:40
Speaker 4: like everybody on Instagram was like a fitness model, and
44:43
Speaker 4: I got super into working out and then it was
44:45
Speaker 4: like five am, two hour workouts no matter where I
44:48
Speaker 4: was in my cycle. Eating, you know, like vegan protein shakes,
44:51
Speaker 4: which like my body does not do well with that,
44:53
Speaker 4: and just this like depletion, depletion, depletion, like trying to
44:57
Speaker 4: be like in a male's body, and it just did
44:59
Speaker 4: not work. And then what happened was when I collapsed.
45:02
Speaker 4: And then I started going through the somatic healing process.
45:05
Speaker 4: I did not go to the gym for a year
45:07
Speaker 4: and a half and I literally walked and I did
45:10
Speaker 4: intuitive movement and I did some yoga and I healed
45:14
Speaker 4: so much. My skin healed from that, Like I had
45:16
Speaker 4: really bad acne when I was pushing myself so hard
45:18
Speaker 4: in the gym, because it was it was not adaptive
45:20
Speaker 4: stress at that point, it was just stress, right. And
45:23
Speaker 4: then you know the other thing that happened was like
45:26
Speaker 4: learning how to intuitively move my body. I started to
45:29
Speaker 4: feel the nuances of day one of my period. I
45:31
Speaker 4: should not be deadlifting. Your uterus quite literally grows three
45:36
Speaker 4: sizes when you're when you're on your period, like and
45:39
Speaker 4: then you put all this pressure on it from weightlifting.
45:41
Speaker 4: And so I was finally able to actually get these
45:43
Speaker 4: signals from my body that you know, I'm ovulating. Let
45:46
Speaker 4: me literally go pr in the gym because that feels
45:48
Speaker 4: amazing and I almost want to just like like it's
45:51
Speaker 4: like that energy, yeah, says you know, it's like the
45:54
Speaker 4: inner winter, the okay, like I do need to curl up,
45:57
Speaker 4: I want I want extra heat. And you can only
46:00
Speaker 4: feel those sensations when you slow down, and so that
46:03
Speaker 4: there's a fear of slowing down as well, right, Like
46:05
Speaker 4: the easier to stay up, because to slow down is
46:08
Speaker 4: to feel. So it's like it's all a balance and
46:11
Speaker 4: then the shoe piece of Okay, you can do a
46:15
Speaker 4: coping mechanism and it can actually be supportive for you
46:17
Speaker 4: if you accept it. But if you're coping and you're
46:20
Speaker 4: punishing yourself for resting, right, it's still not resting.
46:24
Speaker 1: Here, right.
46:25
Speaker 3: Yeah. And my husband was so good about that because
46:27
Speaker 3: I'm like, I need to go to the gym.
46:28
Speaker 2: I need to because one of the.
46:29
Speaker 3: Ways my husband dealt with this is like he's always
46:32
Speaker 3: been a weightlifter, but he really poured himself into the
46:35
Speaker 3: gym and it's actually been beneficial for him, Like he
46:37
Speaker 3: feels like he's felt stronger, he's felt like I can
46:40
Speaker 3: do this right, and so like pouring more into weightlifting
46:43
Speaker 3: in the gym has been very beneficial for him.
46:47
Speaker 2: But for me, it was the opposite.
46:49
Speaker 3: I couldn't go to the gym like I felt, and
46:51
Speaker 3: I've instead been doing more walks like instead of like,
46:54
Speaker 3: I've got ready and I was going to go to
46:55
Speaker 3: the gym, and then there was just something in me
46:57
Speaker 3: that says I couldn't do it. I don't want to
46:59
Speaker 3: do this, I do not want to go there, and
47:01
Speaker 3: I do not want to put my body through that
47:03
Speaker 3: right now. And so then I would just take a walk.
47:05
Speaker 3: And I've noticed like that when I accepted that, like, oh,
47:08
Speaker 3: that walk felt really good for my body, thanks, you know,
47:11
Speaker 3: And then I had a really good day after that,
47:14
Speaker 3: you know. But I think that if I would have
47:15
Speaker 3: gone to the gym and be grudgingly been there and
47:18
Speaker 3: been pushing myself beyond what I felt like my capacity was,
47:22
Speaker 3: the rest of the day probably would have been pretty
47:23
Speaker 3: hard on me. But the fact that I just accepted
47:26
Speaker 3: it and didn't shame myself and went on that walk
47:28
Speaker 3: and moved my body in a way that felt good
47:30
Speaker 3: to me at the time, you know it did it
47:33
Speaker 3: transformed my mood for the rest of the day. And
47:35
Speaker 3: so I think you have like a lot to say there.
47:38
Speaker 3: You know, that really makes a lot of sense, and
47:41
Speaker 3: I can really apply that to my own situation. So
47:44
Speaker 3: how can listeners here get in touch with you? How
47:47
Speaker 3: can they find you? How can they find more of
47:49
Speaker 3: your work if what they heard today really resonates with them.
47:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, I mean I'm very active on TikTok. I
47:58
Speaker 4: would also say I have I've recently been a lot
48:01
Speaker 4: more active on Instagram and I've been really getting into
48:04
Speaker 4: kind of like the depths of what we're talking about,
48:06
Speaker 4: specifically on my Instagram stories. So if this is something
48:08
Speaker 4: that you will almost kind of like little microdigestible nervous
48:12
Speaker 4: system application on a day to day basis, come check
48:15
Speaker 4: out my Instagram stories. And I am now in the process.
48:19
Speaker 4: I'm going to be running a two part Nervous System
48:21
Speaker 4: Foundation series specifically for people that really resonate with this
48:25
Speaker 4: kind of high functioning frozen nervous system state low level
48:29
Speaker 4: chronic dysregulation that will lead us into a longer, more
48:32
Speaker 4: intensive program if that's something that you feel interested in.
48:36
Speaker 4: And that's really where I'm going to be intersecting kind
48:38
Speaker 4: of healing from three types of trauma, which is attachment, developmental,
48:42
Speaker 4: and then evolutionary mismatch trauma, which is really cool. In
48:46
Speaker 4: my obsession is how do we bring the physical and
48:49
Speaker 4: emotional and somatic components of nervous system regulation together and
48:53
Speaker 4: understand that morning sunlight actually helps you regulate your emotions
48:56
Speaker 4: and they're not totally separate things. So I check that
48:59
Speaker 4: out for those that we'ld love to have you in
49:02
Speaker 4: that And I think we need to connect on Instagram.
49:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do.
49:07
Speaker 3: I kind of I'm one of those like older millennials
49:10
Speaker 3: that like I kind of missed the Instagram. You know,
49:14
Speaker 3: I just never get on Instagram because I don't know
49:16
Speaker 3: how to use it very well. So she runs my
49:18
Speaker 3: entire Instagram and definitely, but I find it I need
49:22
Speaker 3: to get more in touch with Instagram because there's so
49:24
Speaker 3: much that there is really great content on Instagram.
49:27
Speaker 1: What's your handle? It is very a lot more intimate,
49:31
Speaker 1: for sure.
49:32
Speaker 2: What's your Instagram handle? How can we find you on Instagram?
49:35
Speaker 4: Famous TikTok At, Dana Dozzy.
49:37
Speaker 2: Okay Okay, awesome, beautiful.
49:38
Speaker 3: We will make sure to put that in the podcast
49:40
Speaker 3: notes and a link to be able to find you. So, Dana,
49:44
Speaker 3: I can't thank you enough. I'm obsessed with your work.
49:47
Speaker 3: I bought your course, I'm going through your course continuing
49:51
Speaker 3: to be a lifelong learner because to think that you
49:54
Speaker 3: know everything is the epitome of ignorance, right, So I
49:58
Speaker 3: want to continue to learn so I can better serve
50:00
Speaker 3: my clients. And we just thank you so much for
50:02
Speaker 3: being here today and taking the time to be here.
50:03
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you so much.
50:06
Speaker 2: You, thank you so much for having me all rightesome.
50:09
Speaker 1: And to all our listeners, please, if you are liking
50:11
Speaker 1: and loving this content, I think this was a really
50:13
Speaker 1: really awesome one. Please continue to tune in, like, follow, subscribe,
50:18
Speaker 1: leave a review, and until next time, peace, love, and perspective.