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Episode 102: What If Relaxation Feels Unsafe · Heal Yourself Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Heal Yourself Podcast, where we dive deep into all things healing.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Denise, a speech language pathologist and a self-up coach for adults and teens.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm Kira, a traditional naturopath and functional nutritionist, and we're here to guide you through the transformative process of healing your body, mind, and soul.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: From the latest in functional medicine to nurturing your relationship with yourself, healing trauma, and even transforming your money story.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're here to empower you with the knowledge and tools to create lasting change.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: So whether you're looking to heal physically, emotionally, or spiritually, join us as we explore the money paths to wholeness and wellness.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Heal Yourself Podcast.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Today I am joined by guest Jonathan Schechter, and he is our first male guest.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Just gonna throw that out there.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: He is a somatic integration coach and certified breath work facilitator with extensive experience working in expanded states of consciousness, as well as trauma and nervous system regulation.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: He holds a certificate in somatic experiencing as well as several breathwork certifications, including neurodynamic, holotropic, and oxygen advantage.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna ask him all these things.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then working with his protocol that combines clinical skills and transpersonal awareness, he has facilitated hundreds of breath work sessions and supported clients in integrating their experiences into meaningful change.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Jonathan, I'm really excited to chat with you today and to hear what all of this fun stuff is.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks for having me, Kira.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: So tell us how you got to this place first.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like what led you to breath work?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because I feel like there's usually a journey, right?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like you just woke up as a child and said, I want to be a breathwork facilitator.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's definitely a journey.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And funny story, not that I grew up with it, but my dad was always into breath work, even though I didn't really know about it.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I found out when I was a teenager and taking a lot of acid, and my dad tried to sit me down and say, you know, you could get just as high with this breath work and meditation stuff as you are.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I was basically told him off at the time.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but yeah, we we laugh about it now.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the the main journey began um about seven years ago.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was going through a pretty rough divorce and just you know what you what you would call a dark night of the soul.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And breath work came into my life at a time when I was really struggling and initially was sort of an adjunct to doing cold plunges uh at first, you know, if for those of you in your audience that might be familiar with the Wim Hof method, um, the breath work and the ice baths are kind of going hand in hand.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: So initially it was like, well, I know the ice baths are helping, but I'm kind of skeptical about the breath work.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but then when I first started having those initial experiences and re realizing how powerful it could be, that was when I started to get really more interested in it.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Love it.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and you do several different types of breath work, and that's the thing.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: I when I talk to my clients, I'm like, let's just work on optimal breathing.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want to add in breath work, you can.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: But like my knowledge of breath work is pretty limited.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the four, seven, eight box breathing, like, you know, minor stuff that you don't have to be certified in.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: But there are all these different types of breath work.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to me about, I mean, you had the neurodynamic, holotropic, oxygen advantage.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Tell us what the types of breath work are that you work with.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I like to break break break breath work into three different categories.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so first, breath work that can help with awareness, uh, awareness of your body, of your mind, and even of your spirit.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's a really great place to begin.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's very accessible.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Just about anyone can benefit from you know, starting mindfulness practice or starting to do more somatic-based awareness practices that usually involve the breath.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then the second category is breath work that helps with nervous system regulation.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Usually, when we're talking about that type of breath work, it's things like you just mentioned 478 or box breathing or coherence or cadence breathing, things that like someone is feeling dysregulated in some way, or they need to be able to sleep better or calm down easier or faster.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: And they're doing a specific type of breathing to help downregulate the nervous system.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there's also breath work that you can upregulate the nervous system with, um, things like breath of fire or lion's breath, certain pranayama techniques that are bringing more energy into the body and sort of upregulating the nervous system in into a more um sympathetic state, not all the way into like a full fight or flight response, but you know, just energizing the system.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then the third type of breath work is holotropic breath work or breath work that can induce a uh in an altered state, um, expanded states of consciousness, uh, things that mirror or are similar to say taking a medium dose of you know psilocybin, psychedelic mushrooms.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that type of breathing is maybe not for everybody.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's usually best done with a facilitator uh or somebody that at least knows what they're doing.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but it's it is a very profound method for uh self-discovery, for working through trauma, um, for connecting to purpose, or just you know, being able to access these states without taking hallucinogenics or psychedelics.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: So to me, in my work, like all three of them are interwoven.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: And based on where my clients are, we might start at one place and then move towards uh a deeper modality as we go.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I mean, so many listeners, I guarantee, are dealing with nervous system dysregulation.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Denise and I are always talking about that because we just live in a society that's in fight or flight, right?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: Let's keep doing more and throwing more at it.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I feel like breath work is something that most people need.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: What is the time commitment, right?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like people are always like, oh, I don't have 45 minutes to do breath work.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: What does this entail?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's it's something that I always mention.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I've I've worked with a lot of people that are brand new or, you know, for a few years I worked in uh residential treatment with, you know, people that were really severely dysregulated and had anxiety disorders or, you know, really bad depression, addiction.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that was one of the things I always stressed is you don't have to take a long period of time to start seeing the benefits of breathing.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you were to add uh a breath work practice of, you know, five, maybe even 10 minutes, but five minutes to start every day, it's gonna start to uh acclimate your nervous system to the state in which you're trying to achieve, right?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's part of the benefit of these practices.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's something that your nervous system is gonna get more used to over time and be able to access easier and quicker because you're um practicing in it, right?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Just like just like the in the body, like you're not gonna be as strong or as flexible in the muscles that you're working out when you go to the gym the first day than when you go to the gym, you know, consistently after a few months.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the nervous system is the same way.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, even there's some people that might respond really strongly um positively or negatively the first time that they do even regulating types of breath work.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's allowing the nervous system to get used to the system.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like some people are, like you said, so dysregulated that actually like letting their guard down and coming into a state of more relaxation might not feel safe.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've I've done classes where we're doing all, you know, relax, you know, breath work for relaxation.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And let's say there's 10 people in the class, we've all done the same breath work for like 45 minutes, and nine of the people come out of it and they're like, wow, I feel so relaxed.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've never felt so relaxed.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is amazing.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: And there's one person that's like, I feel like I'm about to panic.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what what's going on?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: But there's they're they were doing the same breath work as everybody else.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that like creates some questions of like, what's wrong with me?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Or how come I didn't have the same response?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: And really it's just working with the nervous system where that person's at.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like maybe 45 minutes isn't the right amount of time for them.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, hey, can we do a few minutes or introduce more uh awareness and resources for them so that as the nervous system comes out of this fight or flight or defense or looking around for the imminent danger, it actually learns how to trust that it's okay to experience that relaxation.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's funny that you say that.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: I've had some clients, like I'm a huge fan of meditation too, and small things, right?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: And like, listen to a five-minute guided meditation, like something.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I've had clients over the years come back and tell me, like, I, oh, I don't do meditation.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh, okay, does it not resonate with you?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: No, like I try to do 10 minutes and I'm like so wired and anxious.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh, that's a really good clue.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like, right, how often do you slow down?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: How often do you take time for yourself?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: How often do you relax?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: And like, no, I don't do that.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: Ding, ding, ding.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like maybe we need to work on that.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a lot of these practices initially we're looking for a state change, right?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking for going from I feel super anxious or stressed out to I feel calmer, I feel more relaxed, um, I feel like I can go to sleep right now.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's a state change.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: But uh in the longer term, we're looking for something that's creating a trait change, like it's actually changing the baseline of the system.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: The system is um more able to re, you know, to move into that state of relaxation, which depending on your own history and what trauma you've experienced and what you've got going on in your life, may be easier or more challenging than the people around you.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: It just means that we have to like work in a titrated way to meet the nervous system where it's at.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And even if it's introducing moments at a time of that what regulation feels like or what it feels like to actually let be able to let your guard down fully and just fully be present with what's happening, then that's where we start.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then we can build on that.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I think like those awareness practices for some people are just as important, if not more important, place to start than like, hey, let's do box breathing for 10 minutes.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you're just definitely gonna feel better from doing that.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what I like to do actually uh is you know, have like one class where we just go through several different regulation type uh breath work.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: And the the whole goal is to say, let's be curious about how each of these types of breathing actually feels in the body.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't have to like all of them.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: The whole goal is if this is your laboratory, you know, your body, your nervous system, your experience, like let's experiment and let's see which one of these techniques actually feels the best for you right now.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's good data for what you can continue to practice on a longer term basis.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that might change over time.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've gone through significant amounts of trauma myself.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And at one point, you know, 478 was like my go-to practice, and even something that's maybe a little bit more accessible, like 448, like not holding for so long.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: But as I started to triage my own nervous system and start to like learn other techniques and and resources as well, that became less interesting for me.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was able to move to something that's more, you know, coherent or you know, more kind of meditative and and actually feel more comfortable in that space.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: So just because something's working for you right now doesn't mean that it has to like be the thing forever.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: But without being able to check it out and really give it a shot, how do you really you know determine that?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's such an important point to bring up.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like Denise and I are always talking about awareness on here.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: But when I'm talking to my clients, I mean I'm a nutritionist by trade.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: So bioindividuality is what I tell people.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're different from someone else.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: Just because someone swears by four, seven, eight breathing, that might not be your jam.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: And seasons of life change.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, okay, it didn't work for you before.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: Are you willing to try it now?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: And if it still doesn't work, great, let's find another thing.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: But I think people sometimes are so dysregulated that they don't they don't want to try new things or they don't want to try things that haven't worked for them before.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so I want to touch on the nervous system piece.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: By now, I hope all of our listeners know what the nervous system is.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: However, we do have a lot of people dysregulated, or they're dysregulated but they have no clue.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: Are there certain clues to you, or even that you talk with your clients about?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, this is how to identify if you're a little bit dysregulated.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a great question.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, the first thing, you know, in especially around so many people being dysregulated, uh, one of the things that I always stress is that we don't have to feel ashamed or like that there's something wrong with us when we start to work with the nervous system and figure out, like, oh, I I feel dysregulated.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and dysregulation doesn't mean that I'm calm all the time.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: It just means that my system is able to adjust and adapt to the circumstances that I'm um experiencing on a day-to-day basis in a reasonable way, right?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if I was to walk outside, I live in Tucson in the desert.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: If I was to walk outside my door right now and see a rattlesnake, it would be it would be a reasonable, you know, response for me to like get surprised to try to move away from that danger quickly.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: It wouldn't just be like, oh, hey, there's a rattlesnake.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm so regulated that I don't care about this dangerous animal that's right near me.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's a natural response.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: But if I'm sitting here with you and that happened an hour ago or two hours ago, or six hours ago, and my heart is still racing, I still am checking under the table to make sure that there's no rattlesnakes, that's not quite as reasonable a response.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I want my nervous system to be able to adapt and to adjust to uh the the life that I'm living.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what regulation really means.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: So just being able to say, hey, if I'm wound up all the time, if I am constantly checking for something that might be wrong, or I'm looking for danger, which is really what anxiety is, is like, you know, sort of hypervigilance about what what danger is out there sort of in the future, or you know, I'm depressed, which from a nervous system perspective means that I'm kind of stuck in this collapsed um, you know, state where my my my nervous system is basically shutting down and preventing me from feeling all of my emotions, all of my sensations, that there are good reasons that this is happening.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a good place to start rather than like, oh my God, like there's something wrong with me, and I have to figure out how to regulate.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, hey, my nervous system is taking really, really good care of me right now.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so many people have like shame around the the state that their nervous system might kind of default to when when we sit down and we can kind of say, you know what?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: You're the primary job of this nervous system is keeping you safe.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And from that perspective, it's doing a really great job because you're here.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: No matter what you experienced, no matter what like horrific thing that you went through, you're here.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that's due in part to the way that your nervous system protected you and you know helped you adapt to whatever crazy, unfortunate, toxic, you know, traumatic experiences that you live through.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then from that place we can say, is am I in in danger right now?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's where that dysregulation comes from is like am I actually in danger right now?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, is there a snake sneaking up on me or or not?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: And if not, like how do I get my nervous system to like actually realize that oh, I'm not in any danger right now.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: So from that, um, that's where I think a lot of the somatic experiencing has really helped me because when we start doing somatic experiencing, a lot of the work is simply recognizing that.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's you know, me asking, Hey, so how are you feeling right now?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then from there, from just that curiosity and that noticing, especially when people respond with like, I feel really stressed out or I feel really anxious or I feel really afraid.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because usually if you've never examined that, if you've never gotten curious about it, it that feels like the whole entire experience, which is okay, right?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: But then we get a little bit more curious and we can say, Okay, I I hear that you're feeling anxious right now, but do you feel that everywhere?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you were to check in with your feet right now and really notice like how your feet feel.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: Do your feet feel as anxious as like that knot in your belly or that tightness in your chest?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: And most of the time, there's some place in the body that we can notice it actually feels good.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: And even if it's not feeling good, it feels more neutral than where that discomfort is.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Or even we can even start with like what feels one percent less terrible than everything else.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And once we can start to establish that, that's when we can start to like open up that awareness and actually start to track these sensations in the body because we're wired to attach a meaning to our sensations and our experiences.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not just here's this emotion that I feel or here's the sensation that I feel.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's the story that my mind is telling me about what that feeling, that experience means, which is usually based on what happened in the past.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: And again, starting to decouple what's happening now from like what happened in the past.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: This is so good because it, I mean, it ties in with so many things we've spoken about on here, but what I do too, working with the physical body of like you have to create that awareness.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's key of like understanding how do I feel in this moment right now?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: And if I am tight, if I am reactive, oh okay, I'm dysregulated and that's okay, but then what do I need?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: And just checking in with your body and where am I holding on to the tension can give clues into the physical ailments that people also deal with because we are so disconnected, I feel like.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I know I was for a long time, but like I didn't check in with my body and understand, like, oh, my stomach's always tight.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder if that's why I have so many digestive issues.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, that's where I'm holding all the tension.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And and those type of practices, the more that you do them, the easier it gets.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's an area that is severely underdeveloped in most people.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing is, is that the nervous system, and because the nervous system and the breath are so connected, the breath also is constantly like actually speaking to us.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's actually a language that's happening in the body all the time.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Most of us just aren't paying attention to that at all.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, like once you start to notice it, once you start to learn how to like actually track it, it becomes easier to like understand that language because just like any language, you don't like walk in and start being conversational the first day that you try to speak it.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: At first, you're just trying to listen and to comprehend, right?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, like if I start to notice that all of a sudden my breath is getting more shallow or it starts to feel panty, or you know, I usually breathe through my nose, but all of a sudden I'm like wanting to breathe through my mouth.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Those are good indications of like something's happening in my body.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the same thing, like people start to notice where they're like just like you said, like where they're holding.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, oh gee, like I notice that my you know shoulders are always up by my ears, or my, you know, this part of me is tight, or this is happening whenever I, you know, have to go to work and talk to this particular person, or um, you know, when I'm driving in traffic, or you know, these these different areas.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of it is just starting to to have awareness of that.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And um, we could even like go through like a Quick exercise that your audience could go through and start to do if you'd like.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: I do.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: I have one question that I want to ask because I've heard a bit about somatic experiencing, but I think there's confusion between somatic movement, somatic experiencing.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like there's another one in there.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: Can you tell us what somatic experiencing is?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: So somatic experiencing is a therapeutic modality that was developed by Dr.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Peter Levine.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: And in essence, it seeks to allow the nervous system to come back into a space of, you know, whatever it wants to do.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's where we come back to that shame and that I spoke of a few minutes ago is like so many people are holding or suppressing, whether that's conscious or unconscious.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea within somatic experiencing is that trauma, both what we would, you know, maybe clinically consider as trauma, like shock trauma, or things that, you know, I know as trauma, like complex trauma, the things that we experience growing up oftentimes, um, that that is simply an overwhelm of the system, right?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like our nervous system is there to keep us safe.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: When we ex when we encounter something that is um unsafe or dangerous, whether that's one big event that you know has a beginning and an end, or something like complex trauma where it may be like an unsafe environment that we lived in for uh, you know, maybe our entire childhood growing up, um, that the system has to find a way to to manage that.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: And if there's an overwhelm to the system, it's gonna basically shut down.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that somatic experiencing brings in is looking at that the the trauma in the nervous system from that lens of like, okay, there's there's overwhelm in the system.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: And trauma is not just what happened to us, it's the way that we responded, it's the way that we experienced it.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be a huge amount of difference, for instance.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like two people could go through the same traumatic type of event, right?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, let's just let's say some, let's take something that's like kind of neutral, like a like a car accident, right?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: Many of us have experienced this.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now there's gonna be a difference between somebody that experiences a car crash and like say they go home and they're like, Oh my God, I just had this horrific thing.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I almost died.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: And like maybe their spouse or their parent goes, Oh, it's not that bad.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, just get over it.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what are you crying about?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, by the way, the trash needs to be taken out and the dishes still need to be done, like chop chop, right?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: And somebody that comes home and is like, I just had this awful, awful experience.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: I feel so terrible.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: And somebody's like, Oh my God, that must have been so awful.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Come in, like, let's like let you lay down, let's put a blanket on you.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe, like, you know, do you need like a cup of tea?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do you need to just sit and like I can just listen to you for a minute, right?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's gonna the the way that we're experiencing that same event can be totally different.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: So in somatic experiencing, we're just allowing the system to go through those changes, um, those things that we're holding on to.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we, you know, for instance, I might notice as somebody's talking about something from their childhood that like their fists start to clench, like they're starting to get angry, and they don't and I'm like, hey, so I'm just curious, do you notice how your fists are clenching up right there?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of the time it's completely unconscious.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, maybe it's a a different experience.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they start to talk about it and I'm like, so what are you noticing right now?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, I won't, I feel like I want to run, right?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's allowing the system to experience uh the the overwhelm that's still stuck in the system in a safe way so that it can actually discharge because all that the energy wants to do is complete.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: You could think of like trauma that's stuck in the body as like a circuit that wants to complete.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: It that's that's the nature of the event, right?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, one of Peter's observations that he started with was like looking at how wild animals experience trauma.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the the gazelle that is yeah, the the gazelle that gets chased by the lion that ends up getting away, like gets up and discharges it, shakes, and then it goes back to just living its life.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't go like, damn, I need a drink, or like, you know, so like you know, what he noticed was that wild animals experience trauma, but they don't get traumatized the way that we do.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the big difference is that human beings are conditioned to not feel and not experience that completion, right?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: So there's an act, there's a the system is like going along, it's regulated, and then there's a dysregulation, but then there's this completion that comes at the end of it that allows the system to go back into regulation.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: And over time, if we're not able to do that, we're gonna get, you know, sort of stuck in dysregulation.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it's allowing the system to like start to express that.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: It might be trembling, like you mentioned, it might be crying, it might be yelling, it might be screaming, it might be just a like slowing down those fists balling up and like really being with the the emotion that comes up, and so that a little bit of it can discharge.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And depending on you know how how severe the experience was, how long someone's been living with it, and how safe they feel actually like being with the experience, that can take you know a longer or shorter amount of time, but it's just allowing the system to come back into a sense of safety.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Which, you know, and for some people, like that's just being able to co-regulate with a facilitator with somebody else is the beginning of that because we learned how to co-regulate before we learned how to self-regulate, you know, as children, right?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: And for some of us, like we might have to relearn that or be able to re-experience that in a healthy way, um, so that we can start to learn how to regulate by ourselves.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, yep, co-regulating with my mother as a child.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, no wonder I was in fight or flight for so long.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: But it's so true because yeah, that's who you're regulating with, is whoever you're living with.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's where that complex stuff really comes in.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and is, you know, and it's important to learn how to work with that in a different way, right?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like the car crash example, there was life before the car crash, and then there was this traumatic incident, and then there's life after the car crash.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: And some of that is like, hey, buddy, like do you think there's like do you think the car is still crashing?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: No, okay.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then we can start to work from that, right?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas the the things that we didn't get, the the traumas of omission that we experienced in childhood, of like not getting our needs met or not having our emotional states be validated or accepted or even safe to express, those are things that we've been living with for longer periods of time.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: And our nervous systems have adapted around that.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: So some of it is just starting to notice like, ooh, like when I get around this person, which may be mom or it might be even be somebody that's behaving in the same way as mom, that the system is regulated or I'm sorry, is recognizing it as the same amount of unsafety that it originally experienced.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that, you know, when we first first were experiencing that, there was a life or death experience, right?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like if we were reliant on a parental figure, which all of us were at some point in time, and that figure wasn't giving us what we actually needed, it becomes very easy to understand how we could interpret that as this is life-threatening.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then we just carry that imprint and that pattern into our adult lives, usually experiencing other things that sort of reinforce it, right?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like we we uh start to unravel that, we start to allow the system to like unkink.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: And some of that is being able to express those emotions that never had a space or a place to be expressed in the first place.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that was a great explanation.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and yeah, I would love to do that little exercise you had then.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure at least.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: So this is something it's it's funny because when I first started doing it, I was like, what are we doing?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: This doesn't feel like anything.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I stuck with it and I started to notice a benefit pretty quickly.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I've had countless clients where I tell them this and I say the same thing.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, it's not even it might not even seem like you're doing anything at first, but come back next week and tell me like how it helped.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: And every single time someone they come back and they're like, so I've been doing the practice and it's I'm actually noticing a difference, right?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: So in somatic experiencing, we call this practice orienting.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's something that you you can do three to five times a day, maybe 30 to 60 seconds.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be a big thing.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the nice thing is you're not going to be closing your eyes.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: So even if you're driving, you probably could do this, but like just don't take your eyes completely off the road.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but certainly it's gonna be easier to do if you're in a place where you're not the operating heavy machinery.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, what I would invite you to do first is just to allow your eyes to start to move around your space.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like imagine that your eyes are going on a an adventure by themselves and just let them move and explore the space that you're in.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: Let them notice the shapes and the colors and what it discovers.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then as you're doing that, you might also notice sound that you're hearing.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: Smells or tastes, and also feeling on the skin.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like, can you sense the air in the room the temperature, how it feels on your body, or maybe your clothes?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're sitting down, like where do you feel that chair or that couch or that surface underneath you?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then just kind of come back into yourself and notice how you feel.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes there's a lot of relaxation.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you might notice like a spontaneous deep breath, like that kind of kind of breath.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, sometimes you might notice, like, oh, I feel a little, you know, wound up or like anxious.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's not the goal is not necessarily to feel better, but oftentimes it does allow you to feel better.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and this is similar to you could think of a deer in a field eating grass.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like the deer will pop up every once in a while and look around and make sure that there's nothing sneaking up on it.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: So our nervous systems are not that different.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, even though we live in this very modern age, there's a lot that our the nervous system hasn't quite caught up to.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so acclimating yourself to um orienting to your external environment helps to start to bring that attention inward.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: If I can determine that I'm safe in my out environment, it's a lot easier to take that awareness inside and start to like feel safe getting vulnerable with that.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I might also start to notice like the little subtleties that change in my experience from day to day or even you know, from a few hours than the last time that you did it.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um but it's something where you know you can start to practice that, and then the next step would be like, where do you notice or how do you notice that you're feeling comfortable?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like a feeling of your feet on the floor, or you know, you're feeling your your back or your butt in the chair, or may it might be something that you like you notice as you're doing that scanning, like oh, like a picture or a knickknack or something that brings up like a positive memory.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we want to start to acclimate ourselves to not only the things that are stressing us out or like that we tend to notice, but also like the little moments of good.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just it brings you back to the present moment too, which I think is so important.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: Now that I'm nice and relaxed, um is there anything else you want to share that we didn't discuss?
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: If not, ask people where they can find you.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think this was great.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's there's so many different directions.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like you can take talking about breath work and and this type of uh stuff in.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: So happy to kind of provide this like beginner's overview and a place that people can jump in, you know, because oftentimes it it might feel super overwhelming of like, well, how do I actually get started with this?
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, to me, like there's a lot of benefit in just knowing, like, oh, okay, like you said, I don't have to practice this for an hour a day.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, even I mean, if you were to slow down right now and just take like three nice deep breaths in and out of your nose, really focusing on like letting your diaphragm be engaged and um that you're breathing deeper, that that's a great way to start.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the orienting is something that you can do.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's little things that you can do to start where you are, rather than feeling like, oh, I have to find another hour in the day to do these practices.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, which is what sometimes I feel like people assume it's gonna be and like, no, baby steps, little things, like absolutely the orienting, do the do the deep breaths, like great, that's a great start.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll be surprised like how much those simple practices can really help and help you build into something else.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because, like, for me, when I started to do these types of things and feel and experience the benefit of it, then I wanted to do more.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if I tell a client, like, oh, hey, like do like 15 minutes of meditation and breathing every day right from the get-go, they might not.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm like, hey, let's do like two minutes and the next week do five minutes.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then they're coming back going, okay, what do I do now?
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm feeling better, right?
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: So just letting it start organically like that is a good place to be.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you so much.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: This was so good.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm sure our listeners are gonna love this.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: Where can people find you if they're looking for you?
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so uh I'm on Instagram.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my handle is Blue Magic Alchemy.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have a school platform, a community on the school um platform called Pathways to Integration.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's free to join.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's uh live breathwork and meditation as well as recorded practices that people can do there and a community of practitioners who are there to support you.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I also have a podcast called The Vital Point Pathways to Integration, um, where I share more things like this.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you again, guys.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: This is all gonna be in the show notes.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think you have I have a link for you too.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll I'll make sure that everything is in the show notes.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: All right, thank you guys.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: See you on the next episode.