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Somatic Therapy: Does the Body Keep the Score? · No Shrinking Violets Podcast for Women

0:00
Angel: To this day, you get triggered, somebody looks at you wrong, your stomach feels like it's been punched, you cave, and you walk out of a room without ever knowing that this was the trauma that was so buried still in there.
0:13
Angel: And you have to do physical things to release this trauma.
0:22
Mary: For centuries, the phrase shrinking violet was used to diminish women, to suggest we were meant to be small and meek.
0:29
Mary: But in nature, violets are anything but weak.
0:32
Mary: They're resilient, beautiful, and essential to the ecosystem.
0:35
Mary: Hi, I'm Mary Rothwell, licensed therapist, and each week I sit down with women who remind us that being compared to a violet isn't an insult.
0:44
Mary: It's a testament to strength, endurance, and the power of taking up space and living by your true nature.
0:50
Mary: If you're ready to stop shrinking and start thriving, you're in the right place.
0:54
Mary: Hey violets, welcome to the show.
0:59
Mary: A lot has changed in the mental health world since I graduated with my counseling degree in 1991.
1:06
Mary: I'll do that math for you 35 years ago.
1:10
Mary: Back then, I learned a lot about how to address trauma specifically simply through doing the work of talk therapy.
1:16
Mary: We didn't learn about somatic approaches in my program, in other words, addressing how our experiences are held and expressed through our bodies.
1:25
Mary: Some of this I learned from my own experience.
1:28
Mary: I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2005, and while I first searched my past for the physical environment and toxins that caused the tumor to grow in my body, my instinct was that it was more my experiences and how I processed them that led to a vulnerability that allowed the mutant cells to take hold and grow.
1:47
Mary: I didn't use my voice at crucial moments.
1:50
Mary: I stayed small to avoid making anyone mad or worse, disappointed.
1:55
Mary: And I believe I paid the price.
1:57
Mary: Cancer grew where my stuckness was.
2:00
Mary: Since then, I have followed training paths that helped me learn more about somatic therapies and how to address them.
2:06
Mary: One of those paths was to get a certification in functional nutrition, which explored every single system in the body and how it impacts our mental and emotional health.
2:15
Mary: We are a full being, not disconnected parts.
2:19
Mary: And the book, The Body Keeps the Score, has now made this idea of trauma in the body nearly mainstream.
2:26
Mary: My guest today starts with a somatic lens when helping her clients address their own issues.
2:31
Mary: In fact, she wrote a book, Issues in Your Tissues.
2:34
Mary: Angel Howard is the founder of Wild Heart Expressive and the host of Upshift Podcast.
2:39
Mary: She holds degrees in psychology and business and finance, plus a certificate in somatic movement therapy.
2:45
Mary: She has leveraged both her education and her experience as a leader to help others navigate their own unique challenges.
2:52
Mary: Welcome to No Shrinking Violets, Angel.
2:54
Mary: Thank you so much.
2:56
Angel: I'm so glad to be here.
2:57
Angel: I can't wait to get into this with you.
3:00
Mary: Yes, this has become one of my favorite topics.
3:02
Mary: So before we get into all the goodies, I usually start with asking my guests to talk about flashbulb moments and what those are is the moments that kind of stand out.
3:11
Mary: And I'm not sure younger generations understand what a flashbulb is, but it's like the flash on your camera, right?
3:17
Mary: It illuminates certain parts of your life where you recognize here was the time I made a decision to go in a direction that kind of landed me where I am.
3:28
Mary: So what are some of those things that got you to the work you're doing now?
3:32
Angel: Well, first of all, the awareness of what movement and dance did for me emotionally.
3:40
Angel: Cause that that stuck.
3:41
Angel: You know, things, these light bulb moments sometimes happen.
3:45
Angel: And it's a feeling that you get that later in life you look back and go, oh, that was the directional thing that that made me actually choose psychology and dance.
3:57
Angel: So that moment was um in my family of intellectuals, and we were all athletes.
4:03
Angel: I competed in seven, sometimes eight, I can't remember, something like nine different sports from the time I was three years old up until probably having babies.
4:13
Angel: And that's when I stopped being that competitive, but still very competitive personality.
4:19
Angel: But my family said to me, you've got to do something in the arts to balance, see, at least that's good, something to balance the head and the creativity with all the other things that are happening, the structural things that are happening.
4:31
Angel: And I picked piano, took six years of piano from first grade to sixth grade, hated, hated every minute of it, could not, just wouldn't do it, couldn't do it.
4:41
Angel: But then I said, I want to dance.
4:43
Angel: So at about, I guess it was seventh grade, um, I took my first dance class, believe it or not, and adored it.
4:52
Angel: And this is why this is the light bulb moment.
4:55
Angel: Because when I would go to dance class, I did modern, I didn't do the ballet, which would probably be very frustrating for me.
5:03
Angel: In modern, you're grounded, you're in your body, you're in every part of your body, and you use different parts of your body to move yourself organically across the floor.
5:13
Angel: A lot of really cool biomechanics, also in modern dance uh choreography.
5:19
Angel: But the reason why I loved it is because I would go to class from high school, junior high school, horrible years, right?
5:26
Angel: For anybody with the 12 to 14, 15.
5:28
Angel: Oh my goodness.
5:29
Angel: Ah, you know, just everything's changing.
5:32
Angel: But I would go to dance class, I would dance, I would learn, I would, you know, look at myself in the mirror.
5:38
Angel: I watched myself grow um, you know, body parts at that time in life in this big, huge mirror.
5:45
Angel: But I it felt so good to move and be creative and to take that creative energy and run it through my body to make my body do different shapes and things.
5:55
Angel: And then afterwards, I always felt so good.
5:59
Angel: The aha moment there is how dance, but also its creative movement in the body, helped my mental and emotional well-being.
6:11
Angel: So that was an aha moment.
6:12
Angel: That's one that can keep on going, but how when you are?
6:17
Mary: Well, let me tease that apart a little bit because I also took piano lessons and I never was a dancer, but I loved to go out to clubs when I was, you know, early 20s.
6:28
Mary: And that the dancing was like my favorite thing.
6:31
Mary: So when I think about that, when I think about you mentioned piano, you also mentioned ballet, which are both very controlled.
6:37
Mary: Like you are you're controlling tempo and how you're positioned.
6:42
Mary: It's very, very tight.
6:44
Mary: And when I think of what you say about modern dance, it's so expressive.
6:48
Mary: They're totally different ways of being in your body.
6:52
Angel: Yes, absolutely.
6:53
Angel: When you think about ballet, you think about a woman in the corner yelling at you with a stick beating on the floor, you know, the beat.
7:02
Angel: And then, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
7:04
Angel: No, that's wrong.
7:05
Angel: And if your hand, if your hand position is literally an inch off, it's it's wrong.
7:11
Angel: Where in modern dance, it is more about the feeling that you exude on stage and how that kind of comes out in your body um is is more supported than in a structured dance class.
7:28
Mary: Yeah.
7:28
Mary: And did you make the connection that when you did, when you danced that way, that whatever was happening for you in the rest of your life, did you see shifts in that?
7:39
Mary: Yes.
7:40
Angel: Yes.
7:41
Angel: You know, on an on a grand level, whatever you're struggling with is usually in your head because that's where you make meaning of things.
7:50
Angel: So the way a girl looks at you, all of a sudden you're in your head and you're making up all these things about what she's thinking, which we all know is false.
7:59
Angel: But you know, you go there, you get stress, all that diminished when I got out of my head and let my body lead, all those head trips diminished, they shrunk, they became not as important.
8:16
Angel: And when I left dance class, a lot of those things were just gone.
8:20
Angel: Yeah, they just weren't even important anymore.
8:23
Mary: Yeah.
8:23
Angel: And that went into my practice later in life, by the way.
8:27
Mary: Yeah.
8:28
Mary: And I think, you know, that idea of when we have a, you know, we're young, we have a body that, you know, as a woman, it can be so fraught, you know, the idea of what do we look like?
8:41
Mary: Who is looking at us?
8:42
Mary: Because I think a lot of times we sort of get messages about how we're supposed to look, how we're supposed to be.
8:50
Mary: And I think anytime we can take the opportunity to step outside of that, I think it can be very empowering.
9:00
Angel: I think what succinctly what you're trying to say is in well, in music, you can hear when you hit a wrong note.
9:08
Angel: And that bothered me.
9:09
Angel: I every time I hit a wrong note, I would stop.
9:11
Angel: You're not supposed to, you're supposed to keep keep on playing.
9:13
Angel: I couldn't do it because, like, ah, it's wrong, start over.
9:16
Angel: And then in in ballet, it's all externally judged, it's externally supported.
9:23
Angel: Did I do it right from the third party?
9:26
Angel: Modern dance is it's internally motivated because it's the depth of a move.
9:35
Angel: Now, in modern dance, it's it's just as choreography structured so that you all are in, you know, you're doing everything kind of together.
9:43
Angel: But the better of the dancers, the best of the modern dancers give you, they have to, they had to connect with inside to give you the move that actually says the story or tells the story.
9:58
Angel: So very, very succinctly, externally motivated or externally driven, internally driven versus internally driven, which is a much happier place to be driven from at any age.
10:14
Angel: But man, if we could teach our young teenage girls to be internally driven, it'd be great.
10:19
Mary: Yeah.
10:20
Mary: Yeah.
10:20
Mary: And I think we as a society have gotten so disconnected from our bodies.
10:26
Mary: And, you know, like I said, when I was trained as a therapist, we didn't even consider what's happening in your body.
10:33
Mary: And I know when I have women, because I work specifically with women, the anxiety feeling that is the thing that a lot of times is feels overwhelming, but they don't know what to do with it because we're so taught to either push through it, figure it out in our brains.
10:53
Mary: So I love that you sort of start with the body, right?
10:58
Mary: When you're working with people, you have that sort of focus.
11:02
Mary: So, how would you start with someone to tune them into that?
11:06
Angel: Well, I was asked this the other day.
11:09
Angel: It's like, what why is the body, why be why is being in the body, you know, important at all?
11:16
Angel: And I say to that person, when you wake up in the morning and you feel awful, and then you notice that it may be in your stomach, and you try to blame it on food that you ate or whatever, acid stomach, but you feel bad, but you go into your day anyway, all right, because you rationalize it, just can't be, I just got to keep going, got too much to do.
11:38
Angel: So you've denied the body, you've denied the notifications, you've swiped to the right and said, you know, remind me later.
11:46
Angel: But tell me, honestly, can you keep yourself super focused?
11:51
Angel: Can you be very productive if you have something in the body that doesn't feel good?
11:57
Angel: Just quick answer, Mary.
11:59
Mary: Nope.
12:00
Angel: Okay.
12:00
Angel: All right, exactly.
12:02
Angel: So why don't we start there?
12:04
Angel: Okay, person, you know, client, why don't we go to first of all, if you're in your head and a lot of fear, a lot of people that have had body trauma, um, stay in their head because to go back down in their body is too painful.
12:19
Angel: And I had a uh neuroscience, not scientist tell me the reason why is the body doesn't like to revisit the brain, I'm sorry, doesn't like to revisit that painful place.
12:29
Angel: So it bypasses the pain, which makes your entire body alignment change because of the pain.
12:37
Angel: And over time, that misalignment will cause even more pain and chronic pain.
12:43
Angel: And then you've got all kinds of stuff going on with the body.
12:46
Angel: So let's go back to the source.
12:48
Angel: The source of where this is starting is some sort of thing.
12:53
Angel: If it happens mentally, emotionally, or physically, it's stored in our body because if something happens to us physically, emotionally, a girl looks at you wrong, or she disses you and you thought you were a best friend, that may have happened emotionally, all right, or physically, or visually, right?
13:16
Angel: But your mind, mind makes mental meaning out of it, but that feeling in that moment may get stored in the chest.
13:25
Angel: You get this cringe, like, oh what?
13:28
Angel: Almost like you got kicked in the stomach, all these metaphors, right?
13:32
Angel: I felt like it's a real sucker punch.
13:34
Angel: That's because these things remain in the body.
13:36
Angel: So again, start in the body.
13:38
Angel: What I would do is get the person alone and a comfortable, safe place where they can get back into their body where they probably have escaped from.
13:50
Angel: You do that by going through, feeling their feet on the floor, doing some movement, shaking the body, shaking the legs, shaking parts that are like numb now because you just haven't been around them for so long, like our rear ends and our hips, right?
14:05
Angel: Shaking awareness into it.
14:07
Angel: Once they get aware, they can shut their eyes.
14:10
Angel: You know, if you see yourself in a mirror, instantly you've gone external.
14:14
Angel: So I try to get them to go internal, following the breath.
14:17
Angel: Now tell me where you feel sensation.
14:21
Angel: That's the beginning.
14:23
Angel: Then we chase that rabbit, that sensation down to its origins.
14:29
Angel: If you can, it doesn't happen all the time, like in the first session.
14:33
Angel: The body layers these issues up, they protect you from having to go through that trauma again of the way the girl looked at you or getting kicked and kickedball, whatever it was, your body, your mind protects you.
14:48
Angel: And so it doesn't go this way.
14:50
Angel: You have to get through the layers.
14:52
Angel: You know, this as a therapist, if it's something pretty bad and people have buried it for so long, you've got to dig it back up safely, but you got to go through those layers, feel those layers.
15:03
Angel: When you get to the source, that's when the healing happens again, not overnight.
15:10
Angel: But you got to keep visiting it because the brain wants to protect, and you're like, it's okay, it's safe now.
15:16
Angel: We can go back to that moment and release it.
15:19
Angel: And talk therapists think that you can talk release it.
15:24
Angel: It's it's tough because you can mentally say, Oh, I'm I'm 40 years older than when that thing happened.
15:33
Angel: What is wrong with me?
15:35
Angel: But to this day, you get triggered, somebody looks at you wrong, your stomach feels like it's been punched, you cave and you walk out of a room without ever knowing that this was the trauma that was so buried still in there.
15:49
Angel: And you have to do physical things to release this trauma.
15:55
Angel: When something is the last thing I'll say, when something goes in, when it's been oppressed and suppressed, whether it's fear, whether it's pain, whether it's sadness, grief, all those negative feelings, when they go in and we suppress them, you have to feel that feeling.
16:16
Angel: So if it's sadness, if it's grief, maybe it's horrific crying, just relieving it, releasing it, feeling the emotions you couldn't feel in the mo in the moment.
16:26
Angel: That's the thing, is we didn't feel them in the moment.
16:30
Angel: And they've been suppressed, we have to release them, and that's the road to healing.
16:36
Mary: Yeah, and that grounding, you know, you're in the present.
16:40
Mary: And I think you sort of alluded to this that there's a lot of fear in going to those places.
16:46
Mary: And you there's been a lot of armor buildup around, you mentioned 40 years.
16:50
Mary: Yeah, there's some women walking around with decades of armor around those things.
16:55
Mary: And so to be able to access that is terrifying.
17:00
Mary: And when you talk about, you know, being in your body, feet on the ground, feel your butt in the chair, in the present, you are safe.
17:08
Mary: You've made it through that.
17:09
Mary: And yes, I think that is the beginning, but you delve into it a lot more than certainly traditional talk therapy does.
17:20
Angel: Yeah, because the body, first of all, I like working with the body because the body doesn't lie.
17:25
Angel: You as a therapist know that you can knock at the door of trauma, knock at the door of trauma, but they will continually say, No, it's it's okay, it's fine.
17:33
Angel: No, no, it's all right.
17:34
Angel: They can talk themselves out of going there.
17:37
Angel: But if the body's saying, I hurt, this hurts, I feel sick to my stomach, I have a lump in my throat, and you bring awareness to it, the body wants to release it because it's not, it doesn't feel good to be uncomfortable.
17:52
Angel: It just doesn't feel good, and it will intensify.
17:55
Angel: See, if you go bring awareness to it, it's like, oh, thank you, thank you.
18:00
Angel: You're you're helping her get to this thing that's been chronic in her, it's kept her from getting the job she wants, getting the relationship she wants.
18:08
Angel: Thank you.
18:09
Angel: Now let's intensify it.
18:11
Angel: Let's go.
18:11
Angel: And sometimes that's screaming, sometimes that's throwing a tantrum and it's moving it out of the body, moving it out of the tissues, but bringing the awareness to it helps release it.
18:23
Angel: But you got if it's intense, man, you got to get it intensely out of the body.
18:27
Angel: And that's where movement can be.
18:29
Angel: And it's not, it's not as oh, the word is um scary.
18:36
Angel: When it's your body and you're moving, it's not normal that it's not something somebody tells you what you have to look like when you're in a very safe therapeutic studio.
18:49
Angel: It's like, oh, maybe I can move this.
18:51
Angel: And it, you know, it has to be a good, a good therapist to make you feel like I just feel like pounding the floor.
18:57
Angel: So let's pound the floor.
18:59
Angel: That kind of the body will tell you what it needs.
19:02
Angel: That's why I love it, and it will help release it.
19:06
Mary: Yeah, and you're giving women permission to do those things because what are we told?
19:11
Mary: Stay small.
19:12
Mary: If you scream, you're hitting, don't be hysterical.
19:15
Mary: And, you know, so much of it is like you said, well, that was 40 years ago.
19:20
Mary: What's wrong with me?
19:22
Mary: But this is just how our bodies and minds work.
19:26
Mary: We do store it, and that doesn't mean you're doing something wrong.
19:29
Mary: It means actually you're really resilient, but now it's hurting you.
19:32
Mary: But I think it can be, again, very powerful to give a woman permission to throw her arms out, be loud, and express something in the way that makes sense because that isn't what we're taught is okay.
19:48
Angel: Right.
19:48
Angel: Our culture, I'll I'll speak for me, for my for my culture.
19:53
Angel: Um, I was told I was too much, too intense, too loud.
19:58
Angel: Quiet down, angel.
20:00
Angel: Calm it down, quiet down, go to your room and and take, you know, get out whatever this is, and then come back when you're composed, right?
20:09
Angel: That's culture.
20:10
Angel: And I get that we can't all go around a conference room and scream, you know.
20:14
Angel: I get it.
20:15
Angel: There's decorum, and I believe in decorum.
20:17
Angel: But in our times when we notice, and this is an if, Mary, because a lot of people, we'll talk women, don't even know what's holding them back.
20:28
Angel: It's so deep.
20:29
Angel: And they didn't realize it when it went in.
20:30
Angel: It was like a silent dart, let's say, that somebody told you that you were uncoordinated as a three-year-old.
20:38
Angel: Somewhere you believe that, and for the rest of your life, you'll never try anything more, or you'll be very embarrassed if somebody says, or some wonderful man pulls you on the dance floor.
20:50
Angel: It's like, no, no, no, no, I can't.
20:52
Angel: You don't really know if you can or can't, but you believe you can't.
20:55
Angel: And and that this awareness in the body is hidden a lot of times.
21:02
Angel: Yeah, fully hidden.
21:04
Angel: And and part of the therapy is there's resistance, is getting down to that story and then it just admitting it.
21:12
Angel: And here's one thing people ask me this at the end of podcasts.
21:15
Angel: What's the one thing you'd like to tell?
21:17
Angel: If there's one thing for everybody to know, but I'm gonna start with yours in the middle.
21:21
Angel: That is you're not alone.
21:23
Angel: Whatever you're feeling, embarrassment, deep uh dis I don't know, dissing of yourself.
21:30
Angel: Just you you look horrible, you're you sound horrible, you'll never make anything of yourself, you're dumb, your hair's this, your eyes, whatever, all those things.
21:40
Angel: You're not alone.
21:41
Angel: Deep grief, you lost somebody, and you're trying to hide the fact that all you want to do is curl up in a ball and cry.
21:49
Angel: That's normal.
21:51
Angel: Our emotions are so normal, and how we express them is part of our uniqueness, and yes, the permission to.
21:59
Angel: Be okay with let's just express it.
22:03
Angel: Yeah, because you have to express what's been oppressed, you have to express what's been depressed, and you will remain depressed if you don't express these things that are in there.
22:15
Mary: And it always is interesting to me, even though I've seen it literally thousands of times, that we believe someone when they judge us.
22:23
Mary: Whatever someone claims about us, like you said, you're not coordinated or you're too much.
22:29
Mary: That is simply someone else's opinion.
22:31
Mary: And we wear it like a huge heavy wool coat that we carry around year after year.
22:38
Angel: That's our culture, Mary.
22:39
Angel: We are taught at a very young age that the person who wields the red pen, I don't know if they still do this, but we're about the same age.
22:47
Angel: You know, we used to get our papers graded by the red pen, X's, crosses, you know, and then you get the big C or whatever.
22:55
Angel: We're taught that the third party, this person, whether it's an adult parent, um, you have religious leaders, you have all kinds of these people that we're supposed to look up to that tell us about ourselves based on the culture that we're brought up in, because that changes when you start going internationally or just from state to state, from the southeast to the northwest, they're brought up completely differently, right?
23:27
Angel: So, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
23:32
Mary: So I want to take that idea of culture a little bit farther.
23:35
Mary: So it's interesting that in our Western culture, we really love to separate ourselves into these parts, our bodies, our emotions, our mind.
23:43
Mary: What you do with your work is ancient, it is not new.
23:48
Mary: And I'm always curious why have we felt like, well, I think it's a safety thing.
23:54
Mary: We feel somehow it's safer to divide these things out, but we've also made sometimes this type of work where you're really in your body, you're really in your emotions, we've made it weird.
24:05
Mary: And so I want to address the idea because you work with chakras, right?
24:09
Mary: You have a chakra mental method.
24:11
Mary: And I think sometimes when people hear a word like that, they're like, that is so weird.
24:17
Mary: What's with this high, these colors and these.
24:20
Mary: I want you to explain to us a little bit what is a chakra and how do you find them to be such a powerful tool to help people?
24:30
Angel: Okay, first of all, the separating of mind, body, and spirit is not safe.
24:36
Angel: You said you think maybe it's safe, it's not safe.
24:39
Angel: If you are not in your body, you are not safe 100%.
24:42
Angel: You can't feel when something's off.
24:45
Angel: You can't sense when the person who walks in the room is not there for your advantage, maybe your disadvantage.
24:52
Angel: You have to be in your body to stay safe.
24:55
Angel: You know, people that walk off of sidewalks and break their ankles, they're not in their body.
25:01
Angel: Because if you're in your body, you can feel yourself losing your balance or stepping off, and you can actually correct.
25:07
Angel: Okay, so mind, body, spirit, emotions together, when they're operated together, you are the at the most powerful, and your presence is powerful.
25:20
Angel: And I I really addressed that in my second book.
25:23
Angel: So, but let's go to the chakra mental uh method.
25:26
Angel: So the chakras is ancient Ayurvedic.
25:30
Angel: Okay, so that's a Indian, India, Indian um methodology or medicine, and what they what the chakras are are seven different sections of the body that are energy centers and where things that coordinate with your mind, what what you're thinking about in these areas, your emotions, what are held in those areas, and what organs and what functions are happening in those areas.
26:00
Angel: So the chakras bring together mind, body, and spirit in seven sections.
26:07
Angel: And I'll quickly go through those.
26:09
Angel: But this is so ancient, and the whole focus on Ayurvedic medicine is to concentrate on the dis-ease, the dis-ease, the ease of the body that's not that there, and to bring balance to that area, whatever it takes, for ultimate health, anti-aging, longevity, correction, healing, neuroplasticity.
26:37
Angel: We can go all out there with that.
26:39
Angel: But anyway, the chakras is a way that they have described where these areas are concentrated.
26:45
Angel: So let's start at the base of the spine where you sit, where if you're sitting on the earth, that is the beginning.
26:53
Angel: So the beginning of you.
26:54
Angel: This is your community, your family.
26:56
Angel: This is your family of origin.
26:58
Angel: Then it also has to do with the family that you create around yourself.
27:03
Angel: Community.
27:04
Angel: So it's how are you finding support in your family?
27:09
Angel: We all go, oh my God, well, that's messed up.
27:12
Angel: Well, then you create your own family, you create your own community, but where is the community supporting you?
27:18
Angel: Where is there an even exchange of people that bolster you, that celebrate with you?
27:25
Angel: All right.
27:26
Angel: So that's chakra number one.
27:28
Angel: And the there's colors that go with that.
27:31
Angel: It's like the base, it's it's red, it's dark.
27:34
Angel: And I use the elements, all right, the earthen elements to bring in tonification or bolstering of support.
27:45
Angel: All right.
27:45
Angel: So tonifying means to bring into harmony or balance.
27:48
Angel: Maybe you have too much of something, maybe you have too little of something.
27:51
Angel: If you have too little, we bolster with more of the element.
27:53
Angel: If you have too much, we tonify with that element or another element.
27:57
Angel: For example, the base is earth that you grounded, mother earth.
28:03
Angel: The community is the rich soil, it's the fertilizer, it's what's going to make you grow.
28:08
Angel: All right.
28:09
Angel: So we move up to the second chakra, which is around the belly button and below area.
28:15
Angel: So it's really where the Dantian, if you're into Chinese medicine, is below the belly button and above the pubic bone.
28:22
Angel: But in this area is our hips.
28:25
Angel: In this area for women, it's our creativity, uterus, it's ovaries.
28:30
Angel: It is the creativity.
28:31
Angel: And for men, it is where the testes, it's where it's up in the in the area there, it's their creative energy.
28:39
Angel: So it's not really male or female in that area, even while we're different.
28:44
Angel: It is the creative energy.
28:46
Angel: It is the connection energy.
28:49
Angel: You think about the belly button, is the place where you were very first connected to somebody, your mother, as you were growing.
28:56
Angel: So this is your connection to others, your connection to love, your connection to your community.
29:05
Angel: But is how are you connecting?
29:08
Angel: And the element I use here is water because water connects us all.
29:13
Angel: If you think about all the water systems in the world, it leads to an ocean somewhere, right?
29:17
Angel: So no matter what, it's water.
29:20
Angel: Water quality is even though there's a rock or a dam, water will find a way around, over, or through.
29:28
Angel: So it's a great quality of adaptability.
29:32
Angel: And when you're in relationship with other, with another person, and even with yourself, most importantly, it takes adaptability, it takes the ability to be flexible, not rigid.
29:47
Angel: Relationships don't work in rigid situations, so we bring in water in the third chakra.
29:55
Angel: This is up in the stomach area.
29:57
Angel: All right.
29:58
Angel: The stomach has to do with digestion.
30:02
Angel: So we can eat junk food, we can eat crap, you know, but it's in the stomach that says, ah, this is, I'll take this as nutrition, but we're just gonna pass this on down as waste.
30:14
Angel: So discernment happens here.
30:16
Angel: The third chakra is where discernment comes in.
30:20
Angel: It's the self-center, the solar plexus, it's the center of you.
30:26
Angel: And what's interesting is because of the stomach, you think of all the little sensations your stomach can get.
30:31
Angel: You feel like I'm gonna throw up, or you know, oh, yummy, you know, that warm caramel feeling.
30:37
Angel: Those kind of sensations tell you about what's going on with you.
30:42
Angel: So when somebody walks in the room and you get this where you're feeling in your stomach, your stomach already knows, your third chakra already knows that that's waste.
30:50
Angel: Okay, that's not nourishing.
30:52
Angel: So this is a good place to pay attention to if you're going through a relationship ups and downs.
30:59
Angel: It's like, well, let's let's ask the stomach area.
31:02
Angel: How do I feel when that person walks in the room and listen to its answer?
31:05
Angel: All right.
31:06
Angel: Fourth chakra, it's up in the heart and the chest, the breasts.
31:12
Angel: So for women, mostly we give, right?
31:16
Angel: Because we can feed a child with our chest, with our breasts.
31:20
Angel: And the heart is about giving, but it's also about receiving.
31:25
Angel: And where people give too much, they will find that they've got issues in this part of their chest, heart issues, lung issues.
31:35
Angel: Lungs have to do with taking in life, prana, which means uh air and breath in in Hindu.
31:43
Angel: Prana is that area in the fourth chakra.
31:47
Angel: Fire is the element that I use here because of the heart, passion.
31:51
Angel: What drives you?
31:53
Angel: So if you're depressed and you just can't get out of bed, then you need more fire in your life.
32:00
Angel: You need to find out what makes your heart pump, right?
32:03
Angel: And we use movements in the movement classes that makes your heart pump.
32:07
Angel: And you can feel your heart in different parts of your body, the passion that moves you forward.
32:12
Angel: Fifth chakra, the throat area.
32:15
Angel: Wow, so much happens in here.
32:18
Angel: This is where you're ultimately flexible or not, right?
32:22
Angel: But this is where you express from.
32:26
Angel: This is our vocal cords, this is where we swallow our words, or we feel lumps of emotions trying to release.
32:36
Angel: Okay.
32:37
Angel: This neck feels a whole lot, but it's also the bridge between what we know and what we feel in the heart.
32:43
Angel: What we know, I'm pointing to my head and heart.
32:45
Angel: It's the bridge.
32:46
Angel: So it's the coming together of knowledge and passion as we express.
32:51
Angel: So now, sixth chakra, the third eye.
32:56
Angel: This is in the forehead area.
32:58
Angel: And this is very important into the Hindu because this is where you open your awareness to more than you're taught.
33:06
Angel: You can you're you're taught and you have experience.
33:09
Angel: You have tons of experience in your life, but then there's bigger things to be aware of.
33:14
Angel: And depending on what you believe in your culture, there's Akashic Records, there's there's lifetimes of you, there's lifetimes of knowledge that you can access.
33:25
Angel: But up here is knowledge, your knowledge or what you've accumulated.
33:31
Angel: So, this I use the element of metal.
33:34
Angel: That's another discernment, but it's the straightforward.
33:38
Angel: This is where, even though you're open, this is where you make decisions.
33:43
Angel: I don't want to say rigid, but you're focused.
33:47
Angel: You're focused, you're determined, you're committed.
33:50
Angel: That's what comes up.
33:51
Angel: You're committed, focused, determined.
33:53
Angel: The movements here are straight across the room.
33:55
Angel: This is so hard for so many people to start on one and go just to the just to the other point in the room without being distracted because we multitask, we distract, and women tend to be all-inclusive.
34:07
Angel: They, you know, you tell a woman to go and get a hammer, and she stops at the grocery store and gets some dog food, and then gets a hammer, and then visits a friend who's sick, you know, and that's just the way we are.
34:19
Angel: It's the way our brains are wired.
34:21
Angel: But this is an element that we all need to have in our life when we need determination and commitment so we don't get distracted.
34:28
Angel: Seventh chakra, the very top of the head.
34:31
Angel: This is like the observatory, you know, opens up, right?
34:35
Angel: This is your connection to everything.
34:38
Angel: This is your connection to all that is God, goddess, to your higher self, to the highest being.
34:48
Angel: And the the element here is ether, because ether is tiny and it's everywhere.
34:55
Angel: It's everywhere, it permeates everywhere.
34:58
Angel: So this upper chakra, the movement, is like you're floating, and it's also about ultimate acceptance.
35:08
Angel: This is radical acceptance because by the time you get up to the seventh chakra after going through all the one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, you've discovered all kinds of interesting things that are going on in your body.
35:20
Angel: But then once you get to here, it's like, yes, and there I am.
35:24
Angel: I'm a beautiful mess.
35:27
Angel: And I love me, and this is the ultimate acceptance of you and all of you.
35:34
Angel: So there is my description of the chakras and the chakra mental method.
35:40
Angel: I love all of that.
35:42
Mary: I think whether somebody sort of raises an eyebrow and is like, wow, that's kind of woo-woo.
35:48
Mary: I think at its most basic, it is a place to start.
35:53
Mary: It is a place to, it's like a framework.
35:55
Mary: So and you're describing all of that.
35:58
Mary: So it totally makes sense what I said in my introduction that I got thyroid cancer, and I believe it's because I kept quiet, like that stuck energy.
36:07
Mary: Is that sort of what you're talking about a little bit?
36:10
Mary: Like if there's something unprocessed, does that typically sort of reside in a chakra?
36:16
Angel: Yes.
36:17
Angel: And wonderful book, What You Feel You Can Heal.
36:22
Angel: And I think it's Louise Hayes.
36:24
Angel: Um, and it's it's got a dictionary of symptoms that have emotional and mental connections to them.
36:33
Angel: So thyroid also is your master electrician.
36:39
Angel: It's your it's your it's your switching house, right?
36:41
Angel: This is this controls all of your endocrine system, and your endocrine system controls everything else.
36:48
Angel: So if you are if you are swallowing, pressing, depressing down feelings that you have, you are thwarting this main switching house.
37:03
Angel: You're damping it, dampering it, dampering it.
37:06
Angel: And it starts to kind of malfunction, of course, but die off.
37:09
Angel: It's like she's not giving me any attention.
37:11
Angel: She won't let me express, she won't let me do what I'm supposed to do.
37:14
Angel: Therefore, I'm going to malfunction to get her attention.
37:18
Angel: See, that's the thing, right?
37:20
Angel: If maybe if I do this, I can get her attention before I actually malfunction.
37:25
Angel: That's the beauty of somatic therapy.
37:28
Angel: If you can get a sensation and follow it to its source before it has nagged you for 30 years or 20 years or 10 years and is now developing into a tumor, then that's the best way to use somatic therapy is to follow the sensations to the source and then go, wow, if I ignore this long enough, no telling what could happen.
37:52
Angel: Yeah.
37:55
Mary: Yeah.
37:55
Mary: So being tuned in early on and not thinking, oh, I ate something bad, or oh, I'm, I need to push through this and just get to work because again, we're supposed to think, well, we have a sick day if we're truly sick in our bodies, but you know, let's start to see everything as we're one being, you know, and and listen to that and respect that.
38:18
Mary: So I think that is the most basic starting point and working from there.
38:23
Angel: Well, I do want to add that when you you you said really taking care of ourselves, I believe that nurturing ourselves to to help stave off that, especially women.
38:36
Angel: We give a lot, you know, it's just a part of our nature.
38:39
Angel: But to try to balance, I didn't, I learned the hard way.
38:44
Angel: Try to balance, take a me day.
38:46
Angel: That women that take like one, even if it's a half a day, this is my time to take a bath, go shopping, do the things without any distraction of any other thing that I gotta do, they will find that their lives really even out and they're not their emotions aren't going wango, you know, up and down the walls.
39:08
Angel: I don't know.
39:08
Angel: I really wanted for some reason I felt needed to say that self-nurturing helps really balance and stave off things before they get chronic.
39:17
Mary: Yes.
39:17
Mary: And to that um topic, I worked in most most of my career was in a college or a school environment.
39:26
Mary: So we worked on semesters.
39:27
Mary: And at the beginning of every semester, I went through my calendar and I marked days I was taking off.
39:32
Mary: I put them in there months ahead of time.
39:34
Mary: And it was always women that would notice that and say, How can you do that?
39:39
Mary: And I'm like, Well, you just do it.
39:41
Mary: And once it's in there, you know, then you already are planning, well, here's what I'm gonna do that day, or I don't know what I'm gonna do that day.
39:48
Mary: And so one of the best things was there were two women on my larger team at one of the places I worked, and they said, Hey, I went out two months and I put a day in my calendar.
39:59
Mary: And I was like, that is a win because the more you do it, the more you do it.
40:04
Angel: Yeah.
40:04
Angel: And also the more you tell yourself, I mean something to me.
40:09
Angel: And the more you say that to yourself, you sort of believe you actually mean more to the people around you.
40:15
Angel: What you do for yourself reflects more than anything you could actually do for somebody else.
40:22
Mary: So there's one more thing I want to touch on, and it's a kind of a side road, but I know you work a lot with executives, work with people in the professional realm.
40:30
Mary: And one of the things that I find very interesting, and again, I'm gonna kind of focus on women, I find women who are very confident, very driven in their career, and they are a whole different person in their personal life.
40:45
Mary: They're giving in both places, but they have much firmer boundaries and they give themselves different permissions in one environment versus the other.
40:54
Mary: So I'm wondering like, what has your experience been when there's this idea of confidence and what maybe it's flipped, not having confidence at work, more confidence in your personal life?
41:07
Mary: I know that's kind of a weird, like I'm taking us on this strange side road, but I just knowing that you work with that, how can we show up in an environment in a different way if we have that sort of disparate way of being?
41:24
Angel: So women executives, especially driven ones, are usually very busy, but purposefully busy.
41:30
Angel: They're not just busy, busy to make their schedules look that way.
41:34
Angel: Purposefully busy people, when they're faced with things in their personal life, okay.
41:42
Angel: A nagging neighbor, a girlfriend who just calls just to tell you about their problems.
41:48
Angel: You give them advice, they don't take it, and then the next day is the same thing.
41:52
Angel: You don't have time for it.
41:53
Angel: And you become the I think what what looks like confidence, like I can't do that right now.
41:59
Angel: I'm doing this.
42:00
Angel: And it looks like, wow, she's really structured, she's she's strong in herself is because we don't have time.
42:06
Angel: We don't have time to spend, you know, over coffee.
42:11
Angel: Uh it sounds so bad, but you know, wasting your time uh just with somebody who wants to use you as a scratching post.
42:19
Angel: Okay, so that's that's one.
42:21
Angel: I think time management makes executive women um a little bit more structured in their personal life.
42:29
Angel: Now, another thing though is we do tend to say yes more often than we should.
42:36
Angel: Even though we have good boundaries, we still say yes.
42:39
Angel: And that puts pressure into our personal lives.
42:43
Angel: You have to stay very vigilant to your own health and your body to know I'm scheduling too much because I'm frantic.
42:53
Angel: I wake up and I start having anxiety.
42:55
Angel: Anxiety is just a notification that you're doing too much and scaling back.
43:04
Angel: Oh, what a, and I say this with passion because I'm still learning that.
43:08
Angel: I get myself spooled up and I'm learning that.
43:11
Angel: But in the executive world, another thing is to keep women in their bodies because it's still very male dominated.
43:18
Angel: Um, you have to work harder to be heard, and then then I train where I help train women who need to be heard, who are in the speaking position a lot, but they have to find the balance between screaming and sounding shrill, like I need you to hear me, and then meek and sounding like a wallflower.
43:40
Angel: There's a balance in there, and that's that's what motivated this second book that I that I just uh released this year, What's Messing with Your Messages, because you have to stay in your body, staying in your body as a as you're speaking or as you are addressing one to one thousand.
43:59
Angel: People is you learn how to read the room.
44:02
Angel: You learn, and we're very intuitive beings, particularly women, only because we're allowed to be more than men, but we can tell if we're we're getting through.
44:13
Angel: And that's very important.
44:15
Angel: So you have to remain in your body for all of these things about learning if you're if you're scheduling too much.
44:22
Angel: The anxiety and stress is a notification.
44:25
Angel: And then to read the room, am I getting through?
44:28
Angel: Am I making a difference?
44:30
Angel: Are you understanding me?
44:32
Angel: And not and not choosing the shrill side or you know, falling back and withdrawing so much because you're not confident, or you're leaning into the the room that's not listening to you.
44:47
Angel: How do you gain it back?
44:48
Angel: So I think that I think I went around a lot of circles there, but I think I answered your question.
44:54
Mary: Yeah.
44:54
Mary: Yeah.
44:54
Mary: Cause I think it's um, you know, when you talk about those two opposites of the shrillness, which I think comes from like they're not gonna listen, they're not gonna listen.
45:03
Mary: And it comes out in this desperate way, or well, I'm just gonna, you know, stay small so I don't create any waves.
45:10
Mary: And I think the middle ground between those two is so inhabitable that we just have to learn.
45:17
Mary: So, anyway, Angel, what a great conversation.
45:21
Mary: I think we need this so much more now because we are inundated with so many things every day that I don't think we realize when we have a heaviness, where it can be coming from.
45:33
Mary: It might be coming from just scrolling through social media.
45:36
Mary: It might be coming from a headline we just saw.
45:38
Mary: Or so I think being aware of the impact of all these worlds on our body and being empowered to know where I can start with that.
45:48
Mary: And it can start with ironically, stillness and observation of the body.
45:54
Mary: So I think this has been such an important conversation.
45:57
Mary: And I would love if you would review what your books are, what you can help people with, where to find you.
46:03
Mary: And I will link it in the show notes.
46:06
Angel: That's wonderful.
46:06
Angel: And thank you for doing that.
46:08
Angel: First book I wrote was Issues in your tissues.
46:10
Angel: And it's really uh, it's a book, all mine are guidebooks.
46:13
Angel: What I want is after over 25 years of teaching somatics in so many different ways, I just wanted to consolidate and make it easy for anybody to grasp and to be their own guide and healer in their own lives.
46:29
Angel: Yes, third party is great.
46:30
Angel: Yes, you need the support of third parties, but you can do it on your own.
46:35
Angel: So Issues in your tissues describes the chakra mental method, which helps you concentrate on which body part and why, and then just start to ask yourself the questions so that you can bring awareness and healing.
46:47
Angel: Second book, what's messing with your messages is how your body is talking to us all the time.
46:53
Angel: So if you're not on the same page with, let's say there's emotions going on in your body and you think you're hiding them, whatever you're feeling, whatever you're experiencing inside, it's broadcasting to us, whether you like it or not.
47:06
Angel: I explain why that is because of our limbic system, but it's broadcasting to us.
47:12
Angel: So it's about what do I do then?
47:14
Angel: If I can't control my emotions, let's say, then what do I say?
47:18
Angel: How do I get back on the same page by just being honest about it?
47:23
Angel: So both of those books you can get on Amazon and follow me as an author, uh, Amazon.com that is.
47:29
Angel: And the best way to find out about me, more about me, hire me to speak.
47:34
Angel: I love to speak.
47:34
Angel: I love to bring motivation and awareness to any group, executive or retreats.
47:40
Angel: Those are my sweet spots.
47:42
Angel: Angelhoard.com.
47:44
Angel: It's super easy.
47:45
Angel: Just my name.
47:45
Angel: If you want to send me an email, angel at angelhoard.com.
47:49
Angel: In my first book, by the way, there's QR codes where you can go and dance with me and other people.
47:56
Angel: There's Spotify playlist that is motivational music for all different seven chakras.
48:03
Angel: So it I make it so you can be self-perpetuated.
48:07
Angel: And also, this is a this is new.
48:10
Angel: I haven't announced this yet, but I'm putting together a Patreon community so that we can grow together and move together in community monthly.
48:21
Angel: So keep a lookout for that.
48:24
Angel: Join the mailing list, angelhoward.com.
48:26
Angel: Join the mailing list.
48:27
Angel: You will find out about books, retreats, a retreat coming near you, or um these movements, these dance movements and where I might be in your state.
48:38
Angel: So much stuff.
48:40
Mary: And also, I'm gonna mention again, you are also a podcast host.
48:44
Mary: And I was on your podcast.
48:46
Mary: And one of the best things about doing this work is meeting women like you with this energy and this passion and this drive.
48:55
Mary: And I think, you know, wanting to take all of these things and having such a desire to pass it on and to make the lives of everyone else better.
49:05
Mary: And so again, thank you so much for sharing everything today.
49:09
Angel: Thank you, Mary.
49:10
Angel: Loved being here.
49:12
Mary: And I want to thank everyone for listening.
49:14
Mary: Please forward this episode to someone who crossed your mind while listening who you think might benefit from it.
49:19
Mary: And until next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are.