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Transcript

Just Relax. · Unlocking The Paradigm Portal

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  Hello everybody. Welcome back to Unlocking the
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  Paradigm Portal. My name is Sarah, so I have a
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  quick question for you. When was the last time you
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  actually relaxed? Did you just go blank?
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  I know I've done that before in the past too.
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  And when I say actually relaxed, I don't mean you watch TV while
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  you're scrolling on your phone. Maybe you're drafting some
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  emails, responding to texts, and kind of pretending that you're
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  relaxing, but you're actually working with like 6 mental tabs
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  open at one time. Because that's not relaxing,
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  that's just being stressed in a semi horizontal position.
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  I mean relaxed. Like your body is soft, your
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  mind is quiet, there's nowhere to be.
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  And here's the seemingly impossible part.
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  You're OK with that? So if you just laughed or winced
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  or thought genuinely, I don't know, then this episode is for
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  you. Because your inability to relax
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  is not a personality flaw and it's not a discipline problem.
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  It's not that you haven't found the right meditation app.
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  It's your nervous system doing exactly what it was trained to
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  do. And today we're going to talk
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  about why and what actually changes it.
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  So let's start by doing something.
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  Maybe it's a little drastic. We're going to throw out the
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  advice you've been given, like all of it, because it's useless.
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  And I think you already know it's useless.
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  What if people said to you like just relax, take a bath?
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  Have you tried meditating? How many times have you heard
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  that one? Yes, yes I've tried meditating.
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  I managed to sit down and close my eyes and spent all 2 1/2
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  minutes mentally doom scrolling my entire list of things I had
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  to do and then the remainder of the time thinking about how
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  unbelievably dumb this is because I don't have the time
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  for this. Does that sound familiar?
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  So here's why that advice all fails.
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  It assumes relaxation is a decision, like there is a switch
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  hanging out on the wall that you either didn't notice or were way
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  too lazy to flip. But relaxation isn't a decision,
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  it's a physiological state, and your body will only enter that
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  state when it receives one specific message.
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  We are safe now and nothing is required of us.
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  But if your nervous system doesn't believe that message,
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  there are no amount of baths in the world that are going to get
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  you there and no amount of attempting to meditate that are
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  going to get you there. You're just going to continue
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  operating on vigilant mode. So the real question was never
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  why won't you relax? It's why doesn't your body
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  believe it's safe to stop? And that questions a good one.
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  And it actually goes somewhere. So we're going to do a little
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  crash course on the nervous system.
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  So your autonomic nervous system has one job, keep you alive, not
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  happy, not fulfilled, doesn't give a crap about either one,
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  just alive. And it runs two basic modes.
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  Mode one is the gas pedal. That is sympathetic activation.
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  Think fight, flight, freeze, fawn.
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  OK, your heart rate goes up, your muscles are primed.
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  Your senses are like super sharp.
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  They're scanning for threats. It truly is a very brilliant
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  system and it saved your life many times I'm sure, and it
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  saved your ancestors from literal Saber toothed tigers.
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  So mode #2 is the break. That's the parasympathetic
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  nervous system. Think rest, digest, repair,
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  connect. This is where healing happens.
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  This is where digestion works, where sleep is actually
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  restorative, and where you can just Zen out for a little bit,
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  maybe looking at a pretty sunset, maybe hanging out with
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  your partner or your kid without mentally planning for tomorrow.
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  Now here's the design flaw for modern life.
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  Your system in modern life can't tell the difference between a
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  Saber toothed tiger and an inbox.
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  So a passive aggressive text is going to light up the same
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  circuitry as a predator in the grass.
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  But unlike that Saber toothed tiger which is most likely going
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  to eat you, the inbox never leaves and the news never leaves
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  and the mental load never leaves.
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  So for a lot of us, the gas pedal got pressed somewhere
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  around adolescence or maybe in childhood, and nobody ever told
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  our bodies that the emergency ended.
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  That's not stress as an event, that's stress as a residence.
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  Like you set up shop there. Subconsciously, you didn't even
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  know it. And your body has been living at
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  DEFCON 2 for so long that DEFCON 2 feels like normal.
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  And here's the kicker. A system that's been on high
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  alert for years doesn't experience rest as pleasant you
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  would think it would, right? Because people tell you you
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  should. But what actually happens is it
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  experiences rest as being exposed, like exposed to danger
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  and the elements. So vigilance feels like safety,
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  because vigilance is what's been keeping watch.
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  Which is why the moment you finally sit down, your brain
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  starts set like sabotaging you and guarding you badly.
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  But it is doing it sincerely. So I want to see if any of these
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  names that I'm going to, that I came up with are going to sound
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  familiar to you. Think of it like a field guide,
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  like the greatest hits of not relaxing.
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  And these are kind of, we'll call them archetypes.
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  So the first one is the productive Ruster.
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  So this is the person who cannot stop.
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  Maybe they sit down, but it lasts like 90 seconds and then
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  they're back up again. Not because something needs
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  doing, but because sitting still makes their skin literally
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  crawl. Like it's a visceral response.
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  Because the body doesn't know what to do without a task
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  attached to it. And stillness doesn't feel
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  peaceful. It feels like falling.
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  And if this is you, your worth got wired to your output
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  somewhere along the way. And stillness feels dangerously
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  close to worthlessness. That's not ambition, that's
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  armor. The next one we're going to call
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  the horizontal scroller. So this is someone who can go
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  physically still, but they're mentally nowhere near it.
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  Like they're laying on the couch.
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  But there has to be something on, whether it's a show, a
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  podcast, a baseball game, their news feed, whatever it is,
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  anything. And it's not because it's
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  interesting, but because silence is unbearable.
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  So the moment that there's no input, something starts rising
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  in the chest that you'd rather not meet.
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  So the phone isn't the problem. It's the buffer between you and
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  whatever's underneath. And then the next one, we're
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  going to call the 3:00 AM board meeting.
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  This is the overactive mind in the middle of the night.
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  This is the person who can fall asleep fine because exhaustion
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  will do that to you. But then they're wide awake at
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  3:00 AM with a heart rate that says Saber toothed tiger and a
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  brain that says, let's review everything.
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  Every job issue, every money issue, the thing you said six
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  years ago, every moment, that field that your brain is saying
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  you need to rescan and go over and go over.
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  That's a nervous system that only feels safe enough to
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  process when the world goes quiet.
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  It's been holding it in all day waiting for its turn, and it
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  pops out at 3:00 in the morning. Then the last one we're going to
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  call the optimizer. So this one looks like they've
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  got it figured out. This is the person who tracks
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  their sleep. They have a recovery protocol.
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  They have the right supplements, the right app, the right
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  routine. They probably are tracking
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  everything on one of those aura rings or a Fitbit or a whoop or
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  whatever. But here's the thing, it's not
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  rest. It's a project about rest, and
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  they've turned relaxation into a performance metric.
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  And here's the other thing. The moment the score dips or the
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  streak breaks, their anxiety spikes because they're not
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  resting. Now they're managing their rest,
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  and managing is not resting. So if you found yourself in one
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  of these or more than one of them, congratulations.
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  You're a completely normal product of this culture.
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  And none of it is a character flaw.
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  It's all the same thing underneath a body that never got
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  the memo that the war is over. So how do you fix it?
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  Because if you have fit into any or all of these categories,
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  you're probably very frustrated about it, and you've been trying
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  more ways than not to change the patterns.
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  But here's the plot twist. You don't relax harder.
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  You can't force a state whose entire nature is the absence of
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  force. That's what rest is.
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  It's releasing the force. So what you can do is teach your
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  body slowly, and I mean slowly in small doses, that safety is
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  survivable. And I mean that literally.
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  Like for a chronically activated system, calm itself can feel
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  threatening at first. You may sit there and talk all
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  you want about I want to be calm, I want to rest, I want
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  relax, I want peace, blah blah blah.
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  But it feels threatening when your nervous system is not used
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  to that. It's like a dream.
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  But when the dream comes, refer to my most recent Hero's Journey
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  episode, The Refusal of the Call.
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  When what you want shows up, you're going to reject it
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  because it feels threatening. So we don't dive into the deep
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  end of stillness. We build capacity.
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  Little tiny baby bite sizes. OK, start like stupidly small.
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  30 seconds, not 30 minutes of feeling your feet on the floor.
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  Just take one long exhale. Longer than your inhale.
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  That's the mechanical lever that taps the brake.
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  If you want, put a hand on your chest at the red light.
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  That's it. That's the workout.
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  You can literally do it in your car.
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  You can do it at your desk, you can do it in the middle of the
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  grocery store if you want. Just put your hand on your
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  chest, breathe in through your nose preferably, and then do a
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  longer exhale. So why do we keep it small?
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  Because every time your body touches calm and nothing bad
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  happens, it logs the evidence. You're not talking your nervous
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  system into safety. You can't.
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  It doesn't speak English. It speaks reptilian brain.
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  You're showing it Rep by tiny Rep.
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  That's how the baseline moves. Not through one epic
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  breakthrough, but through hundreds of unremarkable moments
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  where the system checked and the coast was clear.
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  It's retraining and reprogramming.
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  And notice every doorway in is through the body, the feet, the
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  breath, the hand on the chest. Not one of them is a thought,
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  because the alarm isn't in your thoughts.
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  It's in your tissues, in your breath, your baseline body level
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  problem, body level tools. This is the whole reason somatic
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  work exists. So if you can't relax, stop
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  treating it like a moral failing and start treating it like what
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  it is, a nervous system that adapted brilliantly to
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  conditions that demanded vigilance, and it hasn't yet
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  learned the conditions changed. So would you like some homework?
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  Cool. I'm going to give it to you
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  anyways. If you want to do it, I'm not
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  checking. Take one long exhale right now.
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  Breathe in through your nose and out slowly like you're fogging a
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  mirror. Did the shoulders drop half an
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  inch? That's the break.
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  It works, it just needs repetition.
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  And if you know someone who you know air quotes relaxes by deep
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  cleaning the garage at 9:00 PM. I've done this before.
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  Then send them this episode gently, lovingly, with
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  compassion. But also note if you're sending
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  it to them because you're seeing the traits in them and not
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  acknowledging them and yourself. So until next time, just come
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  home to your body. It's been keeping the lights on.