Latest / Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute / 86: Unlocking the Power of Embodied Healing in Recovery

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86: Unlocking the Power of Embodied Healing in Recovery · Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute

0:00
Hey everybody. OK, just want to remind you that
0:01
this episode is part of that phase two series 12 episode
0:05
series focusing on development and integration and internal
0:08
capacity. A lot of back with me, I told
0:10
you she would be happy about that.
0:12
And just want to remind you or acknowledge that something that
0:17
we've been talking about through this is the a lot of men that I
0:19
work with are realizing that they need this work but don't
0:23
actually know what it is. So we are using the term and
0:27
phrases like somatic work or embodied healing, but we want to
0:31
clear up what the explanation is because what's happening is this
0:35
clarifying us, clarifying why somatic work means and what it
0:39
is, is really important because some people feel stuck and we
0:42
want to identify what that is. So there's this experience that
0:46
we have where we understand recovery, we understand the
0:49
concepts clearly, but what happens as we go through life,
0:53
it still feels like that. It's automatic how we behave.
0:56
It's fast, like I just respond and it just feels fast and it's
0:59
outside of my control. And we want to tackle what that
1:02
consists of. I want to highlight that this is
1:04
where there's an intention to be present matters, but what's
1:08
happening inside of our bodies matters.
1:10
And I know what this is and what I want to do is totally
1:15
different than actually doing something different because we
1:18
feel hijacked. So anyway, so that's what we're
1:20
going to talk about today. Welcome to Beyond the Facade
1:26
podcast. I'm your host, Luke Gordon, and
1:29
I'm thrilled to have you join me in this space today.
1:31
What we're going to be doing is diving deep into the trials and
1:33
triumphs and truths of seeking authenticity.
1:37
Becoming your true self isn't about a single action or a
1:39
moment. It's a relentless pursuit, a
1:42
commitment to self that reveals a rich connection and meaning
1:45
that our life has to offer. So whether this is your first
1:48
time tuning in or you're a regular listener, know this.
1:51
What you're building here goes beyond a conversation.
1:54
You're here to challenge, to change, and to celebrate the
1:56
incredible journey of becoming your authentic self.
2:00
Because when you dare to show up fully, the rewards are
2:02
immeasurable. So welcome to Beyond the Facade.
2:05
Let's get started. All right, Alana, thank you for
2:09
joining me. Do you have any thoughts before
2:10
we dive into the somatic work talk?
2:13
I will just say so much of my practice has shifted to focus on
2:20
this. In particular, so many of our
2:22
intensives focus on this because healing the nervous system is
2:26
truly where I see all of the other things you're learning
2:30
actually be able to hold and stick.
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So this is important and the big question people will say is OK,
2:37
but what does that mean? So I think us tackling more of
2:41
the logistical what probably can be helpful.
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And I think maybe because it's layered, the level of work and
2:49
the somatic work has to be done at every level, but the
2:52
awareness you have of why it needs to be done, it might hit
2:55
for you differently today. If you anyway, we'll see what
2:57
happens. OK, so why the term feels so
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vague and intimidating? Somatic work is often like
3:03
without a definition, which makes it feel really abstract or
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really mysterious. And I think there's some
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assumptions out there that somatic means body focused.
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So therapy without talking or like maybe it's some intense
3:16
trauma processing or maybe it's, I don't know, specialized work.
3:22
So in reality, semantic work simply means including your body
3:26
in your recovery rather than working exclusively up here in
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your head, the level of thoughts and a just a behavior.
3:34
So Alana, you use the word embodied a lot.
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What does embody healing mean in like, plain terms for you?
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Embodied means bringing in the whole system.
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And I remember one time listening to somebody who was
3:50
presenting and they said you have three brains.
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You're a head brain, your heart brain, and your gut brain.
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And they said so many people run around this world doing
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everything from the neck up in their head.
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Your body is your head's connected to your body, but your
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body is from the neck down, and they completely disconnect from
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their other two brains. So they try to do everything
4:16
with just their thinking brain. So with that thinking brain,
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they're running around. And the thinking brain is
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hardwired to seek pleasure, avoid playing, do things with
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the least amount of effort. That's just like the basic
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biology of the brain. But the brain is meant to keep
4:36
you safe and gather information. So the brain is gathering all
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this information, but your decision making or your nervous
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system isn't actually in your brain and done through your
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brain. It's connected to it.
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But we have your heart brain, and the heart brain is your
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emotions. And the emotions aren't good or
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bad, but they tell us information.
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And if we're not connected to the emotions and the information
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that they're giving us, we miss huge pieces of the puzzle.
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But we want that online too. But then the third one that
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people miss or don't realize is that gut brain.
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That's where your decision making actually happens.
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And in that gut brain, that's where we have this deeper and
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instinctual connecting to self. And so I, I loved their example
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of breaking it down that way because I do think a lot of us
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run through and even when we're starting therapy, you Start
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learning about emotions and needing to tie to them, which is
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starting to bring you into your body.
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But what we're talking about today with embodied healing is I
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want to bring it all together. Your emotions connect to your
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gut, your gut connects to your brain.
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Your brain is sending signals, but your brain sends miss
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signals. Your brain tries to keep you
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safe over sometimes allowing you to honor your values.
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And so really embodied. This was not a short response,
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but Embodied is bringing it all together.
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OK, cool, cool, cool. I love that because I think
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about embodied healing. It focuses on like how our
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experiences are stored and often expressed and like our nervous
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system. I love the just the we're
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talking about the nervous system and it's really painful for me
6:29
and I've noticed other men because what we do is we start
6:31
to become aware of sensations that we experience tension where
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it lies, breath, how we're breathing, the impulses that we
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have instead of running from them, we're noticing what those
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impulses are and we're noticing where we get activated and where
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we shut down. So that semantic work, it helps
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people notice what happens before thoughts and that
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explanation or the behavior itself.
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So it really has to just slow things down.
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And if we're used to living in an addictive type mindset, it's
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about being amped up, it's about being keyed up.
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It's about avoiding things that we're trying to be more present
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for. And that This is why so much of
7:10
recovery works, skips the body. And this is kind of makes me mad
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if I think about it, sensation that my body's feeling right now
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because it's saying, hey, this is important.
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But earlier recovery focuses and some programs stop at this and
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it drives me crazy, is early recovery focuses on like
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stopping the behavior or building up structure, creating
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that accountability and developing some insight.
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And those are necessary. But we never reached the point
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where we are starting to understand our patterns, where
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we know the consequences, not from some consequences other
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people put us on, but from the disconnection side of ourselves.
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And then we don't get a chance to choose differently because
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our body reacts way faster than we because we never have a
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chance to have that insight. A lot of times as you start to
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discover this, your body responds faster than your brain
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catches up. So you will have a body
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response. Like for example, if you've ever
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been in a dangerous situation and the hairs on the back of
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your neck are activating long before you have thought that
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goes, wait, why is my neck doing that?
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What's around me? What am I feeling?
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Your body is so quick to respond.
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So quick to respond and if we can just start to notice that.
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So they got the last episode we did was on the addictive system.
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All right, so the addictive system lives in the body.
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So there's triggers to activate our response.
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The nervous system shifts and it goes into survival mode.
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At that point, we don't really have access to our values.
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And that explains why it happened before I even realized
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it. So why why recognizing the
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thinking can't override our activation.
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So the brain prioritizes survival over logic.
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So This is why there's no amount of insight that can compete with
9:02
a regulated nervous system in that moment and somatic work.
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What it does is it expands that window of tolerance.
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It expands our ability to be able to notice what's happening
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inside of us, to be able to be resilient towards that emotion,
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those that pain or that experience.
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And then it breeze our increase our ability to be able to make
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choice again. And this comes after other work
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that we have to do. I recognize this, that we have
9:28
phase one that's about stabilizing for this phase two
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work begins with the question that shifts from it's not how do
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I stop, but it's why do I keep reacting this way?
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Why do I keep showing up this way?
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And that somatic work becomes really necessary because we need
9:45
that insight in order to present or be able to step into that
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embodiment, because that's not what's happening right now.
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I'll give a quick example. I had some childhood work that I
9:57
was working on and in many years I'm working on this and it was
10:01
all cognitive processing work and journaling and it was good
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work. But I found myself that even
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when I was around my parents still getting activated, even
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though I could work myself through it, I felt frustrated.
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I'm like, why is my heart pounding and why am I getting so
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activated? And in essence, like, why is my
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nervous system still responding? And so even though all the work
10:30
I did was good and helpful, when I started focusing specifically
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on my nervous system, when I started bringing that into my
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work, which was a lot of breath work and a lot of meditation and
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yoga and brain spotting, when I brought that other work in.
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I had an experience one time where I was having a
10:56
conversation and people and things that normally would have
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and should have activated my body.
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Even if I stayed calm on the service, my body freaking out on
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the inside, my body stayed mostly regulated.
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And not only did my body stay mostly regulated, but I found
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myself not needing to defend, not needing to convince, not
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needing to over communicate. And noticing all of that in that
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conversation, I was able to go, oh, this is what it feels like
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when the nervous system catches up, when the nervous system gets
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its work done. So all of the other work that I
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did, that cognitive, the learning what was healthy,
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learning what was not, learning how to break patterns, all of
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that was really good, but it didn't make the way my body
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responded on the inside fixed by itself.
11:48
The rowing in the somatic work allowed that embodiment of
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bringing it all together. Yep, Yep, Yep.
11:57
We're going to take a quick break for a moment.
11:58
I want to let you know of some things that we have coming up
12:00
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12:07
in your relationship and feel like your body is constantly on
12:10
edge, this isn't because you're weak.
12:13
It's because your nervous system is trying to protect you.
12:16
Healing from betrayal isn't about fixing yourself.
12:18
It's about reclaiming safety, agency, and trust in your own
12:22
body. Courage to Thrive is a 3 1/2 day
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12:29
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12:31
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12:35
based boundary work, participants learn how to calm
12:38
their nervous systems, understand what's happening in
12:41
their brain and body, and begin creating real safety from the
12:44
inside out. The Curse to Thrive Intensive
12:47
runs from March 17th through the 20th and space is limited.
12:52
Learn more by clicking the link in the show notes or heading to
12:54
choose Recovery services.com. Back slash Intensives.
13:02
Let's get back to our episode. I wrote down a few things on
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what somatic work is not. So I'm just going to I'm going
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to mention them real quick on a lot of you.
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Tell me if there's any one you think we should highlight on.
13:13
OK, what somatic work is not? It's not about reliving trauma.
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So it's not about just being in that intense trauma experience
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and staying there. And it's not about forcing
13:22
emotional release. It's not about forcing something
13:25
and making you feel something. It's not about bypassing
13:29
responsibility. So it's not about doing some of
13:31
the work that you did. There is a responsibility in
13:33
doing or having a responsibility for what's going on.
13:37
It's not it's not a replacement for the cognitive, the
13:41
relational or the behavioral work.
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So it's and probably one of my favorite ones, it is the layer
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that allows those forms of work to actually function under
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stress. So that's just exactly what you
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said, Alana. It's the layer of work that
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allows those forms of work to actually function under stress.
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So any ones you want to talk about inside there, Alana, the
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ones who want what's? Just really that last one.
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My brain was searching for an analogy around what it is like
14:11
that supportive. And I, the analogy that comes to
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my mind is like a tightrope Walker that when you're walking
14:20
or a balance beam, but when you're walking above and you're
14:23
like, OK, I'm able to manage this, but there's that net
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underneath that's supportive. It's there.
14:28
You don't need it every second of the day, but when it becomes
14:33
too much or when stress increases, that safety net is
14:37
right there to hold you and catch you.
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When you do, when you've done this type of work, when you
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haven't done this type of work, and then you fall off the
14:47
balance beam, it becomes too much.
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And then all of a sudden you're out of control and spinning.
14:53
You're flailing, right? And and I'm sure you have all
14:55
been there where you go and say you're sitting in therapy and
14:59
you're learning these things and you're like, yes, that's great.
15:01
OK, I get it. I feel it.
15:04
And then you go get in the stressful situation again.
15:07
And then all of a sudden your nervous system goes offline,
15:12
whether in hypo, hypo drop down arousal or hyper arousal, it
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goes offline, you go offline. Your nervous system is very
15:22
online activated. But with that, that you, you no
15:28
longer can retain or hold the things that were so valuable.
15:32
So this where we're healing the nervous system again, it's just
15:35
bringing it all together. So that allows to function under
15:38
stress. So spot on.
15:41
Thank you, thank you. They're too for a little bit of
15:44
a relational translation here. They we think about our betrayed
15:47
partners, what they experience when they watch their partner,
15:51
the person they love, when their nurses nervous systems
15:54
dysregulated is it's like unpredictable.
15:56
It's there's a lot of distance, there's a lot of emotional
15:59
absence and just recognizing when we do the somatic work, a
16:03
regulated body communicate safety without explaining
16:06
anything. So when you're when you're doing
16:09
this somatic work and able to notice what's going to happen
16:13
inside of you, that's going to create, that's going to create
16:16
that sense your partner's going to be able to notice that.
16:19
Don't point that out if you think you were regulated,
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because sometimes that's that hypo experience.
16:25
But embodied presence allows repair to land differently
16:29
without explanation, and that's somatic work.
16:32
The science behind this is really fascinating, but the way
16:36
that our nervous systems talk to each other, that has nothing to
16:40
do with your thinking brain, but our nervous systems are sending
16:43
pings out to the nervous systems around us and can feel where
16:47
other people's nervous systems are AT and can feel that level
16:50
of safety. So a regulated nervous system
16:54
can be a huge benefit and value for the relational.
16:58
Repair. Yeah.
17:00
And if you've ever experienced it, if you ever had that gift of
17:03
you're the betraying partner and your partner has been betrayed
17:07
has they're having a strong response to all of your
17:10
decisions, the consequences of your choices.
17:13
But you've been working your recovery and you reach that
17:15
really embodied experience and you're aware of what you're
17:18
experiencing on the inside. It's amazing.
17:20
Like it's beautiful because you're able to sit with yourself
17:23
and go like, this is hard, this is uncomfortable.
17:26
And I'm not running. I'm not leaving.
17:28
I can see pain. I'm not going to run from the
17:30
pain. I'm going to be here with it and
17:32
it hurts and it's hard, but there's like a tenacious edit.
17:36
There's like a strong feeling that goes with that of I can be
17:39
here in this and I know what I'm experiencing.
17:41
I can see my partner. It's doesn't happen
17:44
accidentally. So just let me leave you with a
17:47
few notes here. Semantic work often is going to
17:51
feel unfamiliar and it's going to be uncomfortable at first.
17:53
So many times I've worked with men where they've been like
17:55
embodied healing. They're like, this is Foo Foo.
17:58
This is woo woo. Is that the word?
18:00
A lot of woo woo and like I don't I'd like this makes no
18:04
logical sense why I should be investing time and energy in
18:06
this. And I watched the men that
18:09
actually a teen recovery and they focus on this and it
18:11
becomes it's very uncomfortable. It's very unfamiliar at first,
18:15
but that increased awareness initially feels worse before it
18:19
feels better. So if you avoid that body
18:22
experience, you're going to reinforce the addictive system.
18:25
OK, If you're going to avoid your body experience, if you not
18:28
knows what's going on and that work can't be rushed, it can't
18:32
be performed, OK, It's not a checklist.
18:35
Your body will choose how quickly it responds to it.
18:38
So integration is going to require a lot of patience, a lot
18:41
of repetition, a lot of campaign containment.
18:44
That's why phase two was invented.
18:46
It was invented intentionally for you to integrate your body
18:50
to work at a pace in a relational way.
18:53
We're going to guide you to notice those body cues.
18:56
We're going to help you regulate your act, your activation and
18:59
stay present. And it's going to provide that
19:01
safe container for you to be able to do that.
19:03
This is where that insight becomes a lived in a sustainable
19:07
experience or expire to spend some time with you on that.
19:10
So can I? Just can I just give really
19:13
quick? I was just glancing at our
19:15
lessons and even reading these titles, I was like, oh, I can
19:21
see like for a partner, how they'd be like, yes, I really
19:24
want my significant other to have this.
19:26
So what is trauma and how it shapes behavior?
19:30
The body keeps the score in recovery.
19:32
Why somatic work is essential when your body feels unsafe.
19:37
Somatic practices for regulation and healing like that.
19:41
I want that for all of my clients.
19:43
And side note, we're working on a women's B trial trauma
19:48
curriculum that matches this through the B trade lens because
19:51
I want this for my B trade partners and I want it for my
19:54
individuals who are seeking recovery.
19:56
Absolutely. A lot is working on the
19:58
curriculum to be able to have for the men that go through the
20:01
program and be able to a resource to be able to have
20:03
talking points, to come together relationally to talk about the
20:06
concept. So it's a shared experience.
20:08
Not not as shared as in making the other person responsible for
20:12
it, but it is shared of something to rally around and
20:14
to. Build with if as appropriate.
20:18
OK, so next time what we're going to be talking about in
20:20
episode 6 is relationship with self.
20:23
We're going to be talking about shame, resilience and that inner
20:27
worth, which is going to naturally integrate some of the
20:30
body work that we've already been talking about.
20:32
And it's really about an identity and a self trust thing.
20:34
Like this relationship is broken with trust with self, right?
20:39
Like I don't trust myself. Like I don't like me.
20:42
I don't trust me. So that relationship with self,
20:45
that shame, resilience, that inner worth is going to be a
20:48
part of this experience. So that's what we're going to be
20:50
going through. All right.
20:51
We'll talk to you guys next time.
20:55
If you're a man who's trying to show up differently for your
20:57
partner after betrayal, then listen closely.
21:00
The Helper Heal Intensive is a four day immersive experience
21:03
built for men who are ready to take responsibility, build
21:07
emotional skill and become safer partners.
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This isn't talk therapy, it's a hands on training and how to
21:12
regulate, listen, and respond without getting defensive when
21:16
things get hard at home. You'll work alongside other men
21:19
who are also serious about change in a focused,
21:22
confidential setting so you're not trying to figure this out
21:24
alone. My name is Holly Roderick and
21:27
I'm both a professional and someone who's lived through
21:29
Betrayal Recovery. Our team is here to give you the
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structure, the tools, and the feedback you need to show up
21:35
with consistency and integrity in a way that supports real
21:38
safety for your wife. You'll leave with a clear plan
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for how to act differently, communicate better, and continue
21:45
rebuilding trust when you go home.
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Check out the show notes For more information or how to
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register. If you're serious about helping
21:52
her heal, this is where you start.
21:59
Hey, thanks for joining us today.
22:00
If this is something that you connected with, I'd love to meet
22:03
with you more and talk about it. So what you can do is go to
22:06
chooserecoveryservices.com or check the show notes and there
22:10
what we can do is set up a quick conversation we need.
22:12
Thanks so much for listening to Beyond the Facade where we
22:15
unmask the update itself.