Latest / The MODERN YIN Podcast / When Frustration Becomes A Signal

Transcript

When Frustration Becomes A Signal · The MODERN YIN Podcast

• 0:00
  Well, hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of
• 0:03
  the Modern Yin Podcast. I'm Kimberly Roberts and I am
• 0:08
  the founder of Soulful Yin, and I'm so happy you're here.
• 0:12
  If you've been listening to the podcast recently, you know that
• 0:16
  I've been on a bit of a banter talking about frustration, OK?
• 0:21
  But today I want to talk about frustration in a little bit of a
• 0:26
  different way. When frustration actually
• 0:29
  becomes a signal, OK, not as something that you're trying to
• 0:34
  get like rid of, but it's more like something like, I don't
• 0:38
  understand, like, why is this frustration here?
• 0:41
  Right? Because frustration, especially
• 0:45
  at this time of the year as we head into spring, it's that's
• 0:48
  not the problem. It's the signal.
• 0:53
  So if you've been feeling a little bit more irritable
• 0:55
  lately, maybe just a little bit more impatient, more tense in
• 1:01
  your body, there's a good chance that your system isn't working
• 1:05
  against you. It's actually just trying to
• 1:07
  move something and it's communicating that with you.
• 1:11
  So let's talk about frustration as movement.
• 1:15
  OK? So just bear with me here.
• 1:17
  I'm going to get a little geeky on you in Chinese medicine, or I
• 1:21
  call it TCM. OK, so traditional Chinese
• 1:23
  medicine, but from now on I'm going to call it TCM.
• 1:26
  The liver system is responsible for that smooth flow of energy,
• 1:31
  OK, That vibe, that smooth flow. It's like, you know, the car
• 1:36
  cruising along the highway, right?
• 1:39
  The movement, the direction, the momentum.
• 1:43
  So when things are flowing, we feel like clear, I'm decisive,
• 1:49
  I'm emotionally steady, I'm like, I got my crap together.
• 1:52
  Like I'm the queen of flow. Here's the thing, that movement
• 2:00
  can get stuck. It can get blocked.
• 2:04
  And when we feel the frustration, it's not because
• 2:08
  there's something wrong with us. That's the one thing that I want
• 2:11
  to reiterate, OK, in TCM, your emotions are not bad.
• 2:14
  They're also not good. They're just signals, right?
• 2:17
  And frustration is a signal. And it's something inside of you
• 2:21
  that's trying to move, but it's stuck, right?
• 2:25
  Like frustration often feels like stuck movement.
• 2:29
  Like, does that land? Like, does that make sense for
• 2:31
  you? Because it certainly does for
• 2:33
  me. I know when I'm frustrated, yes,
• 2:36
  I feel it in my mind, but I'm like, I feel it in my body.
• 2:40
  Like my body just feels like, like I'm trucking through mud,
• 2:45
  like it's just, it's, it's heavy and it's just, it's just stuck
• 2:50
  right. So why does spring make
• 2:56
  frustration worse? Why does it bring it up?
• 3:00
  Because you know what? This is a really simple answer.
• 3:03
  Spring is the season of upward and outward movement.
• 3:08
  Think about it. Look at nature.
• 3:10
  Everything starts to grow again. Energy rises, things expand,
• 3:18
  right? But if your system inside of you
• 3:23
  has been holding tension, pressure or emotional weight
• 3:27
  throughout the whole winter, that rising energy that's
• 3:30
  brewing up inside of you, it's got to go somewhere.
• 3:35
  So instead of it, you feeling all inspired and like, whoo, I'm
• 3:40
  like ready to go. You're like, I'm feeling
• 3:42
  irritated instead of feeling like clear, you're like, I'm
• 3:47
  restless instead of momentum. You're like, I'm blocked.
• 3:52
  Like I'm in decision paralysis mode.
• 3:54
  Like I just can't, you know, I can't make a decision to save my
• 3:57
  life here. And then This is why frustration
• 4:02
  often shows up more strongly in spring.
• 4:05
  It's not random. It's actually going with the
• 4:09
  rhythm of the seasons according to CCM.
• 4:14
  And right now, as we head into March 20th, well, at least in
• 4:17
  the Northern Hemisphere here, we're heading into spring.
• 4:20
  I mean, if I look outside my window, it doesn't look anything
• 4:24
  like spring today. Like, in fact, it's been
• 4:26
  snowing. So I'm like, well, spring's
• 4:28
  supposed to be here tomorrow. And it's coming and so is the
• 4:33
  wood element season coming. And I know that spring is
• 4:36
  coming, but there's still sometimes part of me that's
• 4:39
  like, I'm just like, I'm stuck. Like I just, I feel like the pot
• 4:45
  of water on the stove with the lid on it and all of a sudden
• 4:48
  it's like, right. And it's just, it's just ready
• 4:53
  to pop. But I'm like, no, I'm not going
• 4:55
  to let it pop because I'm actually going to contain my
• 4:59
  energy and I'm going to move it in a healthy way with my nervous
• 5:06
  system in tow. So let's actually talk about the
• 5:10
  nervous system. OK?
• 5:12
  So if your nervous system is bracing, your body feels tight,
• 5:19
  your breath is lack, you know, likely shallow, your movement is
• 5:24
  becoming harder because the body is literally restricting flow,
• 5:32
  right? So now you've got this rising
• 5:34
  spring energy inside your body coming from the liver.
• 5:38
  But your nervous system is like bracing.
• 5:40
  It's like it's holding on. And it's like, no, we're not
• 5:44
  going. So there's resistance there,
• 5:46
  right? There's friction.
• 5:50
  And that friction between the spring energy rising in your
• 5:54
  body and your nervous system going no equals frustration.
• 6:01
  And it's not because you're doing something wrong.
• 6:05
  It's because your system, your nervous system doesn't feel safe
• 6:09
  enough to let things move. I'm going to say that again.
• 6:14
  It's because your nervous system doesn't feel safe enough to let
• 6:19
  things move. So it holds on.
• 6:22
  And even though in your mind you might be thinking, OK, I want to
• 6:25
  move, your nervous system is going, yeah, but I don't feel
• 6:29
  good about that yet. So no, we're not moving.
• 6:32
  So then the frustration, it's like the hamster on the wheel.
• 6:35
  And you just keep going round and around on this tailspin.
• 6:40
  So it's like, well, how did we get out of that?
• 6:44
  2 words, two simple words. Yin yoga.
• 6:49
  It's your bridge. And this is where yin becomes so
• 6:54
  incredibly powerful, not as stretching.
• 6:58
  And I will tell you something I have said from the very first
• 7:01
  time I did yin yoga that there was so much more that was
• 7:04
  happening than just a physical stretch.
• 7:10
  Yin yoga is a way to restore movement.
• 7:13
  Movement in your body, OK, energy movement in your body.
• 7:21
  In yin, we're not forcing. We're not pushing, we're not
• 7:25
  trying to quote UN quote, fix the body, OK?
• 7:30
  You're all you're doing is, well, I shouldn't say all you're
• 7:33
  doing, but what you're doing is you're creating space-time and
• 7:39
  stillness, gentle stress in the connective tissues, the fascia
• 7:45
  where our energy is contained. This brings a softening into the
• 7:53
  nervous system. OK.
• 7:55
  And then when the nervous system picks up on that, the body's
• 8:00
  like, oh, we can unwind. Oh, this is safe.
• 8:07
  And guess what happens? Then energy starts to move
• 8:12
  again. It's like you've got all these
• 8:14
  garden hoses. And I use this analogy all the
• 8:17
  time. You got all these garden hoses
• 8:19
  in your body and right now you've got a whole bunch, a
• 8:23
  bunch of kinks in them. So the energy is moving like
• 8:28
  water is moving through a hose, but it's hitting a kink, and
• 8:31
  then it trickles through and it hits another kink and it
• 8:33
  trickles through and it hits another kink.
• 8:35
  That's friction, friction, friction.
• 8:37
  Friction equals frustration, frustration, frustration that
• 8:40
  water is not flowing through. That energy is not moving right.
• 8:44
  But when we soften into the nervous system and the body
• 8:51
  begins to respond to that and the energy starts to move again,
• 8:55
  then that stuck frustration starts to move.
• 8:59
  It begins to release quietly, gradually, without force.
• 9:06
  And that's the thing, like, in the end, a lot of people are
• 9:09
  like, always trying to push that stretch because they think
• 9:12
  they're going to get more out of it.
• 9:14
  But in reality, a lot of the times you actually do the
• 9:17
  opposite. And I will tell you in my own
• 9:20
  personal yin practice, like I don't need to use props.
• 9:23
  I'm quite flexible in terms of my body, but I use the props
• 9:27
  because I'm practicing from a nervous system perspective.
• 9:32
  I am practicing from an emotional perspective.
• 9:35
  And so the props actually help me to release so that I don't
• 9:43
  push. And it's not cheating if you use
• 9:46
  the props. Some people think, oh, if I use
• 9:49
  props, I'm cheating. No, you're not.
• 9:51
  Use the props. They work, especially if you
• 9:55
  want to release emotions, emotions like frustration.
• 10:00
  So often when people are frustrated, the first thing
• 10:04
  they'll say is, well, how do I get rid of this frustration?
• 10:08
  But I want you to take a different spin on that.
• 10:11
  A more powerful question is to ask yourself what is actually
• 10:15
  trying to move? Like, where in my body am I
• 10:19
  actually feeling the frustration?
• 10:22
  What would happen if I stopped bracing and I just started
• 10:26
  breathing instead? What would happen if I gave my
• 10:31
  body and nervous system space instead of resistance?
• 10:35
  That's the shift. So you're going from instead of
• 10:39
  fighting your body, you're going to listening to it.
• 10:43
  And that is such a big difference because here's the
• 10:46
  thing, you cannot change what you are not aware of at all.
• 10:52
  It's like it's like a light bulb.
• 10:55
  I say this all the time. It's like a light bulb on over
• 10:57
  your head and you got it on the off position.
• 10:59
  Well, you're in the dark, right? But the moment that you take
• 11:03
  time to soften is the opportunity where the awareness
• 11:09
  or where the light bulb will turn itself on.
• 11:12
  And then you know what the clarity comes in.
• 11:17
  So it's really honestly, if you think about emotions, emotions
• 11:23
  like frustration, like emotions are meant to move emotion energy
• 11:32
  in motion, emotions in motion, right?
• 11:35
  Nothing is ever meant to stay in the body, but the body is what
• 11:41
  keeps the score. And it says, well, you know
• 11:44
  what, I'm going to, I'm just going to stuff this into this
• 11:47
  compartment, AKA the liver, or I'm going to stuff it into this
• 11:51
  compartment a, the gallbladder or whatever other organ,
• 11:56
  depending on the emotion you're having, right?
• 11:57
  Like every organ has a different emotion associated with it.
• 12:01
  So with yin yoga, my first and foremost approach to it is
• 12:10
  always about the emotional release.
• 12:14
  Even if I don't explicitly mention, oh, we're going to
• 12:17
  release frustration today, sometimes I do.
• 12:20
  But here's the thing, it's your body and you're the one that
• 12:24
  decides when you're ready. And so the approach with yin
• 12:31
  yoga, the way I teach it, I call it like modern yin yoga, it's
• 12:36
  all about allowing the stillness to do the real work.
• 12:40
  And This is why I have my 7 day spring Liver Reset program
• 12:44
  coming up inside the Soulfully and Yoga app.
• 12:47
  Because this program isn't about doing more.
• 12:51
  And it also isn't some kind of like 7 day challenge.
• 12:56
  It's about creating the right conditions for your body to
• 12:59
  release what it's been holding and storing onto all this time.
• 13:04
  So for seven days. Well, first we start off with a
• 13:07
  really incredible traditional Chinese medicine master class.
• 13:12
  It's theory based. So it talks all about the wood
• 13:15
  element, the liver and gallbladder flow, emotions,
• 13:20
  meridians. Like if it's a, it's a
• 13:22
  beautiful, beautiful master master class.
• 13:26
  And then after that, once you get the theory, you get the
• 13:29
  embodiment practices because without the embodiment, nothing
• 13:34
  ever really lands. You might get like inspired by
• 13:38
  the master class, but if you don't have any context to work
• 13:41
  with it, then nothing is going to change.
• 13:45
  So that's why I focus on yin practices, breath work,
• 13:49
  acupressure, even reflexology. You're going to learn how to do
• 13:54
  reflexology if you've never done it before, acupressure if you've
• 13:57
  never done it before. You're going to see the power of
• 14:00
  like simple breath work in helping you to to release and
• 14:05
  yin practices to deepen the context of what you're learning.
• 14:10
  And also all designed to support that natural movement of energy,
• 14:14
  that flow of energy in the body during the spring season.
• 14:22
  So I know if your system is like stuck, tense, frustrated, rigid,
• 14:29
  inflexible as in more your mind and in your body, then this is a
• 14:33
  really supportive program for you to begin.
• 14:36
  We start March 20th, which is the day spring equinox, the TCM
• 14:42
  wood element season. And we're going to dive in deep.
• 14:46
  And you also get lifetime access to it and all the future updates
• 14:50
  because this program runs every year and I always upgrade it
• 14:53
  every year. So frustration, I want you to
• 14:58
  remember, it's not a flaw. Just because it starts with the
• 15:01
  word F doesn't mean it's a bad word.
• 15:05
  It's just information. It's what you do with the
• 15:08
  information that matters. And it's movement that's trying
• 15:14
  to move. And when you stop resisting it
• 15:18
  and you start creating space for it, guess what?
• 15:22
  Something begins to shift in good ways, not in explosive
• 15:28
  ways, in soft ways. This is why I call it modern
• 15:33
  yen, because that soft stillness really does the real work.
• 15:39
  So come and join us in the program.
• 15:42
  And thank you so much for pressing play on today's
• 15:45
  episode. I'll see you next week.
• 15:48
  Have an awesome rest of your day.