Latest / Butterfly Days w Tami Jorden / You're Not the Problem: Breaking Free from Survival Patterns with Lori Montry

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You're Not the Problem: Breaking Free from Survival Patterns with Lori Montry · Butterfly Days w Tami Jorden

• 0:00
  Tammy: My guest today, Lori Montrey, is a somatic healing practitioner and the author of You're Not the Problem. She's the creator of the Freedom Formula, which is a nervous system based roadmap for sustainable behavior changes. She helps people who feel stuck in stress, overwhelm or self-sabotage understand the survival patterns driving their choices so they can build safety, capacity, and clarity needed to take aligned action in every area of their lives. She draws on her Harvard Law education to translate complex concepts like trauma, stress physiology, and nervous system science into practical, immediately usable tools. Her work is anchored in the belief that coping behaviors, emotional eating, overthinking, overachieving, people pleasing, are not. personal failures, but intelligent adaptations the body creates for protection. Welcome to my realm. I'm Tammy Jordan, and this is Butterfly Days, the podcast that proves you're not past your prime. You're living in it right now because women don't have expiration dates. Butterfly Days is a celebration of the extraordinary potential of Gen X and Boomer women. Throughout history, women have shared wisdom to uplift and empower one another. And you're about to learn hard-earned wisdom and best-kept secrets from interesting, inspiring women. So if you're ready to embrace your butterfly season with confidence, find joy in the present and create a legacy that matters, you're in the right place. No more holding back. Let's spread our wings now. Here we go.
• 1:56
  Tammy: Welcome to my realm. This is Tammy Jordan and you're listening to Butterfly Days. Today my guest, Lori Montrey, is going to talk to us in such an inspired and encouraging way. I am so excited for you to hear some of her ideas about why we fail when we're trying to accomplish goals. Like why do we keep sliding back down when we're trying to get something done. And Lori is a somatic healing practitioner. She has a book just about to come out called You're Not the Problem. And that's kind of where we're going to start, is I wanted to ask her, why did you write the book?
• 2:43
  Lori: So many reasons. And it was really, it's been a work in progress for probably at least 10 years. And I've started some things and they went off on tangents and got set aside and this and that. And I'm so glad the book waited for me until I was really ready, until I had kind of the right ingredients to put in this, in these pages. You know, I wrote the book to share the kind of what I have discovered, not only in my own life, but after years of practicing, finding those patterns that just kept coming out and realizing, wow, we're all telling the same story. We're telling the story of how we as humans adapted to our environment and to our circumstances. and how when we build a life based on adaptations instead of our authenticity and our truths, we feel that we are out of alignment and we build conditions that don't suit us and that leave us feeling unfulfilled, reaching for something that we hope will fill us, but not finding it.
• 3:57
  Tammy: Yeah, I love that. Do you think, because I have this theory, so I'm wondering if, you know, what you think in regard to it. Do you think that a lot of the adaptations that we have at this point are, and I'm talking women 45, 50 and older. Do you think that a lot of our adaptations came in when we were much younger, maybe even too young to really perhaps make the wisest choice for the adaptation? And that's why By this point in life, it's begun to surface that they're not serving us any longer.
• 4:34
  Lori: Yeah, mean, absolutely. Adapting is something that we'll do regardless of our age. But when we are in those very young formative years, our brain actually works differently. That is its job. You know, before the age of, they say, around eight, we are just 100 % trying to figure out what's going on in this world. You know, how do I make sense of my experiences? And that's the full-time job, more or less, of the brain. And so, most of our adaptations at least begun, right? And then they were built on throughout our entire lives. But certainly, it doesn't have to be limited to that time, but most of them are rooted there. Yeah. Yeah.
• 5:09
  Tammy: Sure.
• 5:20
  Tammy: I mean even your teens and early 20 years I think as you were going through things you thought this is what the world is now so I need to do this. But then by the time you get to your certainly over 50 it begins to dawn on you this is I'm not happy this is not comfortable I'm not getting the things I want to be accomplished you know.
• 5:44
  Lori: Yep. And that was me, you know, a hundred percent. And so many other people. no. And sometimes we start to feel it earlier, but we might be so busy and so engaged, you know, in our lives that we can't even stop to look at it. In fact, it might feel scary to even recognize that, that I might be living a life that is not in alignment with my truth.
• 5:52
  Tammy: Yeah, you're not alone in that.
• 6:13
  Lori: And so sometimes we wait, but you know, it doesn't matter how long we wait, we can still find our way back and it's still worth it. You know, I think a lot of people will say, I'm, you know, I have clients in their seventies thinking to themselves, it's probably too late. What's the point? Say no. One day of freedom is worth whatever you have to put in to get there.
• 6:32
  Tammy: Go girl!
• 6:38
  Tammy: Yeah. I believe that. No, that's so true because you you're alive until you're not. And if you are alive, then why not have a better day? Why not feel, feel better, you know, feel more fulfilled. I love that. So what's interesting is when I think about what we're talking about in adaptations, et cetera, but draw the line for me between I've been trying to not eat chips at 9 p.m. and overeating or people pleasing or any of the other behaviors that, you know what, all of us have things where like, I'm gonna get better at that this year. I'm not gonna set the yearly resolutions. I won't do resolutions, but I'm gonna do this, but I'm gonna start yoga. But then we find that we're not doing it. I think you addressed this in a really brilliant way. Can you draw the line between maladaptive choices and how on earth they would impact that?
• 7:44
  Lori: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And we can go deep here. So let's start just kind of by identifying that whatever your behavior is, you know, and that includes behaviors that you love about yourself, right? But more especially the behaviors that you don't love, the things that you want to change, the habits, the things that you don't want to be doing and the things that you want to be doing but aren't, right? It applies both ways. when you look at that, our inclination is to go after the behavior, to not do the thing or to do the thing, and to look at it from that level, right? But if we look at any of the desired behaviors that we want and we understand why we are doing them or not doing them, like you said, the chips, know, okay, this year I'm gonna steer clear of... hyperprocessed food or I'm going to stop drinking alcohol or stop drinking it regularly or whatever it is. And then you find yourself doing it. And that is not, it is not a matter of willpower. That behavior.
• 8:56
  Tammy: Mic drop. What?
• 8:58
  Lori: Yeah, I know. And probably everyone's like, no, I don't, you know, what are you saying? I can't.
• 9:03
  Tammy: Lori, we've all been taught that, so it must be right. The internet said.
• 9:07
  Lori: Yeah, exactly. It's not a matter of willpower. That behavior is meeting a need. And while it may be meeting a need maladaptively, it is still meeting a need. And if we continue to go after the behavior and don't actually meet the need, we're going to fail every single time. And then those failures become evidence. The brain takes them and says, yep, see, we can't be successful at this. It is really too hard. I just can't get my shit together or whatever the story is that you want to use. And we waste so much time there. my goodness. We waste all of our time and energy. We're putting everything into how can I change myself, fix myself, instead of what might I be needing? What is this all about? And it's an adaptation.
• 9:57
  Tammy: Yeah. So I love this. the, maybe the direct line here is that if you are eating more than you, you know, are thinking that you want to or eating at times when you decided you didn't want to or eating things you didn't want to eat or drinking when you, you know, didn't want to or people pleasing when you kicked yourself 50,000 times. What you're saying is those things. When you do those things, there's some kind of a need. You're getting some kind of hit off of it. Some kind of need is being fulfilled. So if we take a step back and think of, wait, what is this actually making feel better than we could address the need? instead of like the picture I have is like stop mowing over the dandelion to get rid of it, but go to the root and get it out.
• 10:58
  Lori: Precisely. Yes, that is if we could think of it that way, like getting it at the root, Because trying to, you know, mowing over it, especially a dandelion, it's grown back in two or three days, right?
• 11:12
  Tammy: And you're gonna get more.
• 11:15
  Lori: Absolutely. So you're constantly spending your time in that energy and life force, trying to fight against yourself. And that's not a life. And we speak about food particularly because that's something that first of all is very common, but it really applies to everything, as you said. It's the people pleasing. It's the whatever. And we learned how to do this. Everything makes sense, right? All of your behaviors, everything, all of your challenges, the way you think, the way you perceive shortcomings, they all make perfect sense. And we can trace them back and understand where they came from and what purpose they serve. Then we can put our time and energy in the back office here and be able to actually do the things that provide the conditions for us to be.
• 12:17
  Tammy: So if we could meet the need that's driving the desire for chips at 9 p.m., a bag, which we said we were going to eat too and now it's empty. Tragically empty. So if we could meet the need that's causing us to want the chips, we cut it off at the pass.
• 12:42
  Lori: Yes, and there's a whole other layer to it. Yes, we want to be able to meet the need. And that is really important and that will get you really far. But there's actually another level even underneath that. And that is where my concept and my understanding of our adaptations come in. And you know, keep finding myself wanting to bring a little more context, bring a story to this conversation because
• 13:11
  Tammy: Yes, please.
• 13:12
  Lori: kind dancing around these concepts, but you know, my own life is the very things that we're talking about in action, right? So I'm not going to go into a lot of the detail. I do write about it extensively in the introduction to my book because it's very relevant in how I built my life based on my early experiences. But most notably, I was the six out of seven children. So when I got into my home, when I came along, it was already very busy, full, overwhelmed even. And my mother who, was doing her best certainly, but she came from her own traumatic background. And by the time I came along, she was literally exacerbated by life, like just exhausted. And I felt that and I, and I knew that I was another butt to wipe another mouth to feed. And I really very early on developed the belief that I made life. harder instead of better. And that was just something that, you know, we learn these things. We pick up. We are so trained, even as babies, to read faces and tone and, you know, our caregivers because our lives depend on it, right? And then right around age four, I was sexually abused for a period of time. My abuser said, this is your fault. Do not tell anyone you will get in big trouble.
• 14:25
  Tammy: and breathe.
• 14:40
  Lori: So I didn't really feel like I had anyone to tell anyway, but with that, it's like, okay, there's no source of safety for me outside of this. I need to figure this out. And so I did, all of us do, I adapted. I adapted for my experiences and my environment. And I adapted in many ways. And I really want to point out here that we talk about, okay, those were rough circumstances, but this happens. And I want to say this now so that people aren't being like, well, she has a reason for her adaptations. I don't. Adaptations are not something we choose. It's just something we do as humans, right? I live in Denver, Colorado, and I live at 5,280 feet above sea level. So my body adapted by generating more red blood cells so that I'm efficient at moving oxygen around my body because oxygen is
• 15:38
  Tammy: Big deal.
• 15:40
  Lori: So my body adapted, right? It's not something we choose to do. I adapted to that set of circumstances, but all of our listeners adapted as well to their set of circumstances, whether they can relate to some of the things that were at play for me, whether they, know, things as simple as they were praised often for the great things they did, but never told that they were. they were valuable for just for being who they were, right? And that's not something people weren't trying to do anything wrong, but it can set up the belief system. Like I'm only valuable when I do the extraordinary. And then I have to do the extraordinary today and today and today, right? It could be not being invited. Exactly. It can be not being invited to sit at the cool kids table.
• 16:30
  Tammy: and have a
• 16:36
  Lori: Right? of these kind of everyday things create adaptations. So I really want that to be understood. But in my life, these conditions created certain adaptations for me. Adaptations in the world. thought, right, I believed the world's not safe. I believed I was broken and that I was the problem. I thought that the reason why I wasn't loved and people bid did bad things to me was because of my fundamental flaws, right? And that was protective because if it's me, then I have the power, right, to change the situation and thereby create a better environment for myself. I developed all kinds of different belief systems, but I also developed patterns in my nervous system. So I became hyper-vigilant, right? What's going on? Where's the danger coming from next? And a whole host.
• 17:36
  Tammy: Which was a good adaptation at the time.
• 17:40
  Lori: Absolutely, they're all brilliant. They're really, really brilliant. They specifically helped me survive in those moments and thank goodness for them, right? The other adaptation, and there were certainly others, but I needed something to help me through this situation. So I found food. Food became my comforter, my... my resource, it became the thing that helped me quiet what was going on inside. It was something I could ask for and well, actually didn't have to ask for and get my needs met without facing kind of the consequences of burdening someone, right? So food became my best friend, which over a very short period of time caused me to become overweight. triggered my mom's fears around her own body and I started my first diet at taken to the doctor and started my first diet at six. So, put me on an interesting path where I was really a battle with my body for a number of reasons from toddler.
• 18:44
  Tammy: That?
• 18:56
  Tammy: I'm so young,
• 18:58
  Lori: Yeah, so, you know, I developed these adaptations, which made sense at the time, but they created a life, right? We go on to build our lives around these adaptations and they get more solidified. And those voices that came from outside that we use to form these adaptations then become our own. And we are, you know, building lives that are based on, you know, for me, that looked like, how do I fix this mess that I am? How do I become something better than this just terrible mix of things that I am? And that was what I built my life around. How can I fix myself? How can I become better? And I made every decision from that lens. I was an athlete. I graduated college as a 4.0 student. I went to the Harvard Law School. I got married. didn't just have kids. I had six children and I didn't just raise them. I homeschooled them while, you know, practicing part-time and doing all the things and
• 20:07
  Tammy: Girl. Yeah.
• 20:09
  Lori: and all in an effort to fix me. the whole time, Tammy, this is the hardest and saddest part, the whole time writing in my journal, when am I going to get my shit together? Why am I such a loser? I came upon a journal entry that said I would trade places. was after a morning after one of my binges and just the self-hatred. And it said I would trade places with a serial killer on Death Row because I felt like they were better than me. I was so debased and so in need of fixing because that was my adaptation. My adaptation was my way to happiness was fixing myself. And I didn't have any other way of thinking. How could I experience anything different? The only path I had ever known.
• 21:05
  Tammy: was fictional. Yeah. I am not good enough. Baseline.
• 21:06
  Lori: Right? So I built this and not good enough. Exactly. Exactly. So I would try so hard to, you know, a lot of my effort was focused on my relationship with food and to stop doing the thing that I was doing. Right? But it was filling such an important need. And but I wasn't focused on the need or why I was doing this. I already knew why I was doing this was because I'm a loser with no willpower. and I have no discipline, which wasn't true because I had all these other areas in my life, wow, but I couldn't see that, right? The only thing I could see is why do I keep doing the thing that I say I'm not gonna do? And so by understanding where this came from, what purpose it was serving, I could get to the point after, know, through the process that I take the reader through, I could understand why I was doing that. And then the need for it fell away. I wasn't standing in that moment fighting myself. How am going to say no to the chips? Now it doesn't occur to me. Chips don't help me. They don't give me anything because I have what I need. They were a great substitute when I didn't know. But now that I know. So it's beyond just meeting the need in the moment because I don't want for anybody to be in that moment. over and over over again, we can actually get rid of those moments.
• 22:40
  Tammy: Yeah, and that's really beautiful. how, what is the tipping point for Lori to begin to understand how to find the path to her own power and to begin to feel safe and love Lori? Yeah. You're like, really? Do you have an hour and a half? But do you know what I'm saying, what I'm asking?
• 23:11
  Lori: Yeah, and I think, you there wasn't like a moment, there wasn't an aha, but there was a gradual openness and curiosity. And it started with the question, you know, I had achieved so much of the things. And so it came, you know, certainly with a little bit more wisdom and an age, right? In my late thirties, I started to ask that question, like, wait a minute, none of these things that I'm achieving or accomplishing are making me feel any better. My relationship is not authentic. My health is getting worse. I have all these weird things happening, hives and Candido overgrowth and this and that and chronic pain and like all of these things are getting worse. What if the answer to all of my problems is not fixing myself and not becoming more accomplished or disciplined or whatever? What if it's something else? And that was actually a very scary question to ask because there was no answer at that point. So it's like being out there. It's kind of like being untethered in space. know, where do I, at least with my discipline, right? I could make the plan and, it feels so good. Yeah. To make that plan and say, okay, here's how you're going to achieve worthiness today. So to approach that question.
• 24:34
  Tammy: Yeah.
• 24:38
  Lori: was actually scary.
• 24:40
  Tammy: Yeah, terrifying. But you know what? It's so brave of you because until we ask the question, we can't get to relief. We just can't. And you don't have to know the answer. You just have to know, honestly, that you have the question, is there something that could help me? That's it.
• 24:43
  Lori: Aimpoint.
• 25:03
  Lori: Exactly, Or less became a student again, you know, this time not in the law library, but in the world of, you know, neuroscience, behavior change, trauma, so all things somatic. And what I learned there starting to, you know, piece it together from all these different modalities, because the path for me didn't exist. And so I really had
• 25:05
  Tammy: And that's a starting place.
• 25:30
  Lori: pull from a lot of different places to create it because there was so much nervous system, there was so much neurobiology and our thought systems, right? And all of these different pieces that had to come together for me to really allow me to see my adaptations and then learn how to adapt again from that adapted self into what I call the expansive self. The expansive self knows who you really are and is well regulated and capable and resourced. from there, everything, nothing is not possible for you, right? And you start building your life instead of based on who you thought you needed to be, you start building it on who you really are and what feels good to you. And until that point, I hadn't even thought to ask the question.
• 26:13
  Tammy: Thank
• 26:21
  Tammy: Yeah, well, and a lot of us, because we're not yet in an authentic place, you know, what do you want? I have no freaking idea. Yeah. definitely would have said that in my early 50s. I don't know. You know? Yeah. Yeah. You don't even have access to that. Well, so you're talking about a regulated nervous system, and I love hearing that, but I'm wondering, OK. because you felt unsafe because of some of your earlier life experiences and you developed, I'm going to say a mindset, but that might not be the right word, but you developed a framework that the world is not a safe place, et cetera. So clearly from a nervous system point of view, you're operating on at least, what would you say, DEFCON 3 there at all times. How does that... How does that impact you and how do you realize it and get out of it back to Defcon 5, which I guess is the lowest level.
• 27:26
  Lori: Yeah, and it's such a great question because you said, how do you recognize it? And I think that's really important because we become so normalized to the way we feel, the way we see things. That's reality. And we don't even know that there could be something different. And that was certainly my experience because having developed so much of this, even before four, right? Like I said, I knew from day one, like, hmm, this isn't necessarily this. There's not safety here, right? Yeah, so how do we know? And so much of this is really is that education piece first, understanding how nervous systems work. There's a lot of information, especially now, which I'm really excited about, where we're having conversations about nervous systems and about different tools and things like that. really there is no nervous system. We don't hack the nervous system and we don't tell it how to behave. We learn about it and understand it and then we respond to it and communicate with it. And so that is the first step because until we can get curious about it, right, we're not trying to train our nervous system. We're trying to use our nervous system as a great compass.
• 28:48
  Tammy: and wisdom. You don't want to turn it off, you just want it to be authentic, you know, to operate within your authenticity of what's best for you.
• 28:58
  Lori: Yes. And to use it to figure out how do I create a life of safety, not a nervous system. Do, you know, calm down. Well, if the environment in which you live is full of threats, why would that make sense? And you're not going to be effective, not in any long-term sense. So how do we do it? We learn about the nervous system. And there's really three pillars in this.
• 29:08
  Tammy: Yeah.
• 29:24
  Lori: first foundational piece. so I like to think of, and that's what the book is about, it's about our foundation. And I like to think of the foundation just like we would this big beautiful mansion that we're building, which is our life, right? If we're gonna build something beautiful, we need a solid foundation for it. We need a basement, right, to build on. And when we go after our behavior without a solid foundation, it's like we're trying to build a second floor balcony. without the foundation underneath. Again and again and again.
• 30:02
  Tammy: That makes a lot of sense.
• 30:04
  Lori: It does, yeah. And so our foundation is built of three things. It's safety, which is felt in the body, and that's really where the well-regulated nervous system comes in. Safety in your system. Capacity, right? You have to have capacity. If your life cannot hold your life, your mind, your body, can't hold one more thing, why are you gonna tell it to start your new workout regime or your new diet plan on Monday? There's no room for that.
• 30:33
  Tammy: If you're already at capacity, you can't add another should on it. Wow. So if you're overwhelmed already, adding this on sounds like it'll be great, but it's really just one more overwhelmed problem for the nervous system to manage.
• 30:38
  Lori: Exactly.
• 30:53
  Lori: Correct. Exactly, which digs the problem even deeper, right? That's like, you're just piling on. Now you've created essentially an impossible scenario for yourself. You know, it's kind of like, and I tell people all the time, it's like we're these little seeds, right? And we really want to bloom and grow and germinate and do all the things. But what we do is we like toss ourselves into a little clay pot, put on a tablespoon of sand. put ourselves in the closet and then we're like, come on, grow. What's going on? Why are you not this big, beautiful?
• 31:29
  Tammy: What's the matter with me?
• 31:31
  Lori: You don't have conditions, right? And then the third piece of this foundation is energy. And when I talk about energy, I mean literally energy ATP on a cellular level because having lived in years of stress, overwhelm, your cells switched over from thriving and from energy production to protection. And that's a very different. And so if you don't have the energy to do something, you think that it's a willpower or a mindset problem. It's your body saying no. Exactly. Yeah. But you need to drive to the gas station. So there's the paradox, right? We're talking about the energy. So it's kind of the whole body, right? Because this last piece, the energy piece, is how do we take care of and restore energy to the body?
• 32:09
  Tammy: just don't even have gas in the tank for it.
• 32:16
  Tammy: Okay, yeah,
• 32:26
  Tammy: Yeah, how can I calm my, you know,
• 32:29
  Lori: and give it the correct sleep. And we're talking about the nourishment, we're talking about the toxic load, we're talking about the right kind of movement, and it's not intensity. So we're talking about all the things that will help your cells switch over from what's known as cell danger response back into producing energy so that you can use it along with your capacity and your regulated nervous system to now readapt. and do the things that are actually going to allow you to find success, find the authentic goals and be able to follow through. Because there's nothing more disheartening than being constantly falling short.
• 33:17
  Tammy: Yeah, God dang. mean, that just takes your, that just takes a wind out of your sails. You know, because after a few times of that, you're setting a pattern of that's telling you you're not capable or it's impossible. It's the hopelessness begins and you think you're seeing validation of that when that may not be true.
• 33:40
  Lori: Totally, you just haven't had the conditions you needed. You had that tablespoon of sand, you're in the dark closet. Let's get you the rich soil and the water and the sunlight and watch and see what you can do.
• 33:55
  Tammy: Yeah, that's beautiful. nervous system and I keep thinking I I know peripherally about this, so I'm going to mess it up and you can fix it. You can set me straight here. So there's the we know now that a lot of our nervous system is in the gut as well as the brain. And there's that is it the vagal? Yeah, not vagal, but the vagal nervous system. Can you speak a little bit to that? for somebody who may not be familiar.
• 34:26
  Lori: Yeah, absolutely. So we do have so much more knowledge about our nervous system than we ever had before. It's incredible to understand some of the structures and all of that. But basically, what I think is most useful for people to understand is that we have three primary states of our nervous system. And the way I describe it, and I've been working with it for a while, like a graduated cylinder. And I've got one here. know the audience can't see it. But if you remember those cylinders that we used in high school chemistry class, right? They're just these long tubes. And they have the number 0 to 10 running up the side. And our nervous system is what you can think of just like this cylinder. So when we're in the lower ranges of this cylinder, say 1 to 3, we're in what's called the ventral vagal state, or parasympathetic, I call it home base, because that's where we want to be the vast majority of the time, where we were designed to live, where your body's always trying to return to. So that's home base. And that's where you have the greatest access to that expansive self that I was talking about.
• 35:43
  Tammy: that calmer, not amped up place to be. Okay.
• 35:51
  Lori: Yeah, that's the best the place and you might not be from very familiar with that place I didn't even know what that place I you know, I had no idea I hadn't touched into that
• 35:59
  Tammy: Yeah. And a lot of us didn't even realize because it's been so very long since we have, or maybe if we ever felt safe, comfortable. And I'm gonna go one step further and say there's a worthiness component in the way that you feel. It's okay that I'm here and I'm okay that I am the way that I am here.
• 36:30
  Lori: Yeah, I like that you went there. I also like that you said, you know, it may be something that we've never experienced before. Because I think that's true and that was certainly the case for me. Yeah. So as you move up the cylinder in that say four or five range, that's where you're a little bit, touching into the sympathetic energy or sympathetic range. And that's not a bad thing, you know, sometimes we hear, sympathetic and stress and
• 36:37
  Tammy: Yeah.
• 36:59
  Lori: But really that four or five, like that's an awesome place to be for play for right now, you know, when we're engaging and we're wanting to kind of be on for a meeting or for that kind of Creativity, So four or five is a nice place to be. Not that we necessarily want to be there, on all the time, but it's a great place to touch into when it's appropriate and useful. And then we move up six, seven. That's where we start to get in that more frantic,
• 37:12
  Tammy: creativity
• 37:29
  Lori: stressed out, you know, at the higher range where we might be feeling some panic. We might be noticing things in our body because that's where, you know, lot of extra adrenaline and cortisol and the stress hormones are higher, right? We might kind of shut down. We'd be starting to go into survival mode. And then above seven, seven, eight, nine, ten, flowing over, those are the states of overwhelm. and the freeze response. Again, it's a range. So it's not the same for everybody, but that's where we feel like, man, I get up every morning, I gotta put this 500 pound backpack on my back, or I haven't been able to get off the couch, or just barely I'm going through the motions like I'm moving through molasses, disconnect. Yeah, yeah.
• 38:22
  Tammy: Living for the weekend.
• 38:25
  Lori: And in all of those, you know, six and above, our bodies are paying the price. You know, we're noticing some of the chronic illnesses and aches and pains and things, digestion issues, because as you said, our digestive system is very linked to our nervous system. And so when you understand this and have a simple model for relating to your nervous system, You start to see where you are on the spectrum and then understanding what experiences, what influences your nervous system. Then you get to start to look at things. And, and again, so your nervous system is like that wise compass, right? If you're up in the eight, nine, 10 overflowing, you know, levels every day. There's something going on in your life and it's your thoughts, it's your circumstances, it's your relationships, it's everything.
• 39:29
  Tammy: It's everything. It's almost like you're saying that you have so many browser windows open at those real higher ranges that it's eating up your operating system. You know what I mean? Just to keep all this going.
• 39:42
  Lori: Yes, yes. So imagine, right? Imagine being that, and then the love you said operating system, because that's what it is, right? We're going through life based on and using the operating system that we have. And we're not going to be able to, you know, if we're a computer that's only been programmed with numbers, and I come and ask this computer to give me a Shakespearean sonnet, it's not going to happen.
• 40:12
  Tammy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so if life has gotten you to the point that you are trying to accomplish things or there's more that you want to do or be or understand about yourself and you're finding that you're roadblocked, probably a good moment to say, you know what it is, I am, you know, I'm hyper stimulated. I'm at capacity, I'm overwhelmed. And if I'm overwhelmed, what could I begin to look at or do that would reduce, you know, close browser windows slowly so that I've got more RAM ROM? I never did understand the difference between those. You know, how can I get some more energy back into that primary operating system? you know, by reducing that, like how, what sort of things do that? What's the path there?
• 41:15
  Lori: Yeah. So the first thing I'll say, and this is not popular, but the first thing I'll say is that there really isn't, know, oh, I'm just going to do this simple thing. in a week, it's going to be so much better. Right. And, and I, it's okay if that message is not for everybody. Right. That certainly wasn't for me. can't tell you how many times when I would hear something like that, I would say, Nope, I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to. try harder, you know, and do that because that is, you we're in pain and we want the solution. We also live in a world where solutions are marketed to us in a very, you know, instantaneous form, you know, 30 days to XYZ or order and have it on my porch in 45 minutes, you know, that kind of mindset and that kind of mindset is not going to work here.
• 42:02
  Tammy: What?
• 42:06
  Tammy: Yeah.
• 42:12
  Tammy: doesn't serve us here. doesn't serve at all. all right. So and there's no like there's no super simple formula path that we're gonna hear next. But what we are gonna learn is
• 42:24
  Lori: Yeah, yeah. So I just kind of preface that because this is one of those journeys, we'll say, that is more about what you gain from the journey than where you arrive at the end.
• 42:38
  Tammy: Okay, okay, I like it.
• 42:40
  Lori: think about this is the number one goal here is about learning kind of who you are, what you need, right? And then how to meet that. And that is exactly what we do when we learn how to relate to the nervous system and start to use it as our compass, as our guide here, right? So much of the information again is how to control your nervous system. You don't need to control your nervous system. You need to understand what it's telling you and react and respond to it in a way that it's the boss. But we have it kind of like, you know, the nuisance that we need to fix and control.
• 43:34
  Tammy: Yeah, and instead it is telling us really important things even if they're inaccurate because of the things that we've learned earlier, right? Like the world is not safe.
• 43:49
  Lori: That's what we need to know.
• 43:51
  Tammy: You don't believe that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 43:55
  Lori: So, in that vein, if we can just start from that understanding that I need to be able to hear from my nervous system and respond to it, right? And if we can agree that that is our starting point, then we can choose something and start to implement something that gets us a little bit closer to that.
• 44:20
  Tammy: Yeah, because my nervous system is not bad. As a matter of fact, it's likely the path that's going to take me to where I need to be is that healthy relationship with my operating system.
• 44:31
  Lori: 100%. It's going to show you where you need to heal. It's going to show you how you need to, what you need to give yourself, the conditions that you need. It's going to tell you, you know, how much sleep you need. It's going to tell you where your beliefs are, are creating roadblocks for you. It's, it is your wise guide that lives inside you all of the time. Instead of ignoring it or making it wrong. we need to learn how to be in relationship with it. And one of the easiest ways to do that is just to start a little, not insignificant, but little practice where you devote yourself to meeting your nervous system every day. And that may be ideally in the morning when before everything starts to come in and cloud, you know, but to make a little space. Maybe that space is right now 30 seconds or a minute. And that's where many people need to start. And in that time, sitting down with yourself with the intention to maybe check in and see what's, what's going on inside. What are you noticing? Maybe it's, I feel this knot in my belly, or I feel a lot of tension in my shoulders. maybe there's a lightness, right? Maybe there's heat, cool. It can be so many different. messages, right? And just being aware of that and making a space for that without judging, without trying to figure out in them, what does this mean?
• 46:12
  Tammy: without making an extra story about the story on it. So what I hear you saying is if in the morning, it really tends to help in the morning. So we're going to start with that. But if in the morning you can, even if it's teeny teeny bit, we don't care, Lego sized steps put together end up taking you a great distance. So if you can be still, because what I hear you saying is that In the stillness comes the knowing.
• 46:44
  Lori: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:46
  Tammy: It may come slowly, but if you can learn each morning to just be still, you can begin to know more about what your operating system is trying to tell you.
• 46:59
  Lori: Yeah, and what it needs in order to updated, right? To create the life that you want. And that really is, you know, this is the very, very first step. And certainly, you know, I'll also say that when I was first trying to figure all of this out in approaching these questions that I shared with you with curiosity, I didn't yet think that I was worthy of investing in myself, know, finding someone to help walk me through some of this. And so I really devoured people's free resources and everything that I could find them. And I said to myself, that's something that I want to do and want to offer. And so I do have a lot of free resources on the website that kind of give that, you know, the next step or how to take the information that you gather. move it forward. But the nice thing about this is I'm not giving you some, you know, I created the freedom formula, which is, you know, takes you through the, through the entire process. But the formula is based on you and your information so that you become your own body as opposed to, you know, I don't know what you need. there, but you know, so how do we access that?
• 48:09
  Tammy: you
• 48:23
  Lori: And that's one of the beautiful things that really speaks to people because they've tried so many things. Nothing has worked, right?
• 48:33
  Tammy: But trying all the things is a lot about moving around and you know, action, action, action. And that's all great. But what I hear you saying is if you can stop with all the moving around and just come back into a safer, more peaceful space, you're gonna have room. to know some of the wisdom about what would be better for you.
• 49:08
  Lori: Bam, that's exactly it, because that's where your expansive self is, right? And that's the self that knows what you want, knows how to get it, and it has what you need to do the follow through to create.
• 49:25
  Tammy: I feel like that there's a woman right now who's listening to this and she's like, that's great for all of you, but I never know what's right for me. I've tried and tried and tried and I just can't, I can hear her voice and I just can't seem to figure out what's the right thing for me. And I just want someone to tell me how I figure that out. How do you answer that woman?
• 49:48
  Lori: Yeah, yeah, man, that was me, 100%. And now I think about it, and now I rely so much on my intuition and the signals from inside. So it's amazing to me. I don't know how I survived. It's kind of like, if we try for a second to think about the way we used to navigate without GPS, if you had an appointment at some random place clear across town,
• 50:14
  Tammy: How did we get there? I still don't know.
• 50:17
  Lori: I know. Isn't it interesting? But it's like now we're trying to go through life. Our nervous system is our GPS. And we are, you know, putting in the address and then we turn the volume all the way down and cover the GPS unit with a blanket. And we're like, okay. It's, it's.
• 50:33
  Tammy: wonder you feel lost. Exactly. No wonder you feel Because the very system that would help you is being obscured. Yeah. And that's probably what overwhelm does is takes that system off offline.
• 50:48
  Lori: Yeah, yeah, it prevents us from being able to hear it, you know, from uncovering it, turning up the volume and being able to use it. And so I really believe that there is not one person who doesn't have the ability to get tuned back in. And I would tell that woman, like I would tell myself if I could go back and share with her, that's an adaptation. You learned how to stop paying attention. And that makes sense because sometimes, you know, our system is saying run. Our system is saying, this is not okay. Say no, fight back. And that's not possible in a lot of situations. And so we have to turn the volume down because we can't actually follow through. And so what happens is we become, you know, we don't lose the skill, but it becomes very dull. But it is possible, absolutely, to get tuned back. Absolutely.
• 51:43
  Tammy: back into your power.
• 51:46
  Lori: So it's just an adapted way right now, but plastic. So we can always, and we are always adapting. The question is, are we adapting towards more truth, wholeness, authenticity? Or are we anchoring in and solidifying the adaptations that we brought to this moment?
• 51:49
  Tammy: Yeah.
• 52:06
  Tammy: Yep, I love this. You had said, I was gonna share this, you had said that anxiety stress and anxiety stress and all survival patterns take up space. And there is little room left for new behaviors like even positive ones. Overwhelm is not a character flaw. It's a sign that your nervous system has been carrying more than it can hold. Imagine a cup filled to the brim every new demand even those healthy habits feel like one more drop that since everything's spilling over your system responds exactly as it was designed to it protects you it pulls you back towards what feels familiar and requires the least amount of energy even when that familiar place does not reflect what you want and I think that there are a lot of women listening to this going, yeah, that's what's been happening and not realizing that result is because of the overwhelm. And you're not bad and you're not incapable and you're not not worthy, but you're also not in your power. And that's gonna come back and be available for you when. you stop shooting on yourself, right? And begin to amp down the hyper state. Find calm again in your body. Is that, like, do you recommend like yoga for that? are there, you know, I know in Qigong we do these shaking things that calm the body down. Like, how do you, how do you, do you have trip, I'm trying to say tips or tricks and it's coming out trips or ticks. you have suggestions for a woman who realizes that she probably is holding a lot of stress and overwhelm? Is there anything that you can do that can calm the body so you give the mind a little bit of space to drop a level Absolutely.
• 54:19
  Lori: There are so many things and that's one of the things that I do share on the website. I think the important thing to understand there is that it's nice to build a tool belt, right? Just like a handyman doesn't go to every job with just a hammer, right? There's a lot of different things that he's gonna come across and he's gonna need a tool depending on the situation. And our nervous system is the same.
• 54:36
  Tammy: Yeah
• 54:46
  Lori: So every situation is not going to be a yoga situation or a breathing situation and every system is not right. Right. And that's why we start with a relationship because the nervous system will tell you. So for example, a lot of people come and they say, I tried meditation or I tried breathing and it didn't work for me or breathing gets
• 54:54
  Tammy: no panacea.
• 55:09
  Tammy: Turns out
• 55:12
  Lori: And breathing makes me more anxious or whatever it is. And that's not a failure. It doesn't mean that tool is not effective. It doesn't mean it doesn't work. means right now, your system is saying, that's not what I need. And a lot of times this makes sense. It's like if there was a bear chasing us and I run up next to you and I say, Tammy, wow, it's spring and these wildflowers are so pretty. Let's sit down. and do some breathing and really smell these flowers and admire them.
• 55:43
  Tammy: You'd like, what is wrong with you?
• 55:45
  Lori: We're gonna get eaten if we do that and sometimes when we tried to force the nervous system Hey, sit down do this nice calming breathing and and if the nervous system is saying no, that's not There's a bear and is chasing us that's why the tools are failing not because they can't work or that you're failing or anything else So a can only be effective if it's the right tool for your nervous system in the moment
• 55:57
  Tammy: of their own.
• 56:13
  Lori: So this is why, know, so much of, like I said, I'm excited to see more nervous system conversation. But what I don't like is the headlines and things that say 30 second Vegas nerve hack to calm your system. Well, okay, try it. Try the hack. See what you notice. But it's not going to be the end all be all. And if it doesn't work for you, that's just data. that's
• 56:42
  Tammy: we going to build a system of, by slowly paying attention to what is causing overwhelming, all the stacked issues, the layers in that, by paying attention to that, are we going to slowly be figuring out what works right now and then adapting to every level to try to, like, as we ease ourself down, we'll realize, I don't really need to do that anymore.
• 56:44
  Lori: Exactly.
• 57:11
  Tammy: I can now just do simple breathing or like keep developing a constantly modifiable toolkit as to what you need now.
• 57:25
  Lori: Yeah, that's a great way to describe it. might be a fun analogy to think of a baby, you know, and the way babies change. There are certain things that that baby is always going to love. There might be a little song or something that's going to work all the time, right up till, you know, well, this is 25. There are certain things, you know, that still might work for her.
• 57:36
  Tammy: so quickly. Right? Yeah.
• 57:54
  Lori: And it's worse since day one, And there may be some things that, you know, not so much, what we're always doing with babies is we're like, little creature, you who are you today? that's what you need. And now you've grown a little and, you know, so it's ever evolving. But the real trick here is not, and I don't want anyone to hear that and think, my gosh, great, there's no rhyme or reason. But that's actually the goal. And that's why I said this is one of those journeys where the journey itself is where the value is as opposed to where you're going up. Because when you know yourself and you've become, I'll say, you don't have to perfect it, but when you become masterful with your system, that's how you feel so secure in life, rooted. And it's where life comes in.
• 58:26
  Tammy: Yeah.
• 58:43
  Tammy: Yeah.
• 58:48
  Lori: Because we couldn't possibly anticipate what tomorrow is going to bring, let alone a year from now or whatever. What we're reaching for is not how to calm our system, but how to know our system so that we can get that information. What do you need today? What do you need in this moment? And I have a big tool belt, right? So my tool belt, I don't know, maybe I've got 100 tools in my chest here, you know, and I can.
• 58:55
  Tammy: So yeah.
• 59:15
  Lori: pull from the ones that I need and that my system is asking for in the day. But it starts from experimentation and curiosity. ask, the whole system is built on around a five-time-per-day check-in. And these are quick. These are something that we can do within our day, even if it's when we take our bathroom breaks or whatever we need to be paying attention.
• 59:44
  Tammy: Are you just asking yourself, how do I feel right now? Where is there stress somewhere in me? And what does it like? It's in my stomach. It's in my right shoulder. Are you doing those kinds of check-ins?
• 59:58
  Lori: Yeah, so the check-ins build over time. So we don't start with a great big massive check-in. We start with one thing where I ask you, hey, I'm going to teach you a little bit more about the cylinder. And then you're going to gather some data to see if you can put yourself on that cylinder. Where am I? Where's my nervous system right now? it's at a four. It's at a eight. Wow, what's going on? I had that meeting. And the box is always talking about how we're not meeting goals. And even though, you know,