Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / How to "Feel It to Heal It" with Kim Stevens, LMFT

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How to "Feel It to Heal It" with Kim Stevens, LMFT · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Singing the truth of my wound.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Trusting the phases of the moving.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_03: Hello everyone.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to this week's episode on the Healing Her Story podcast.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: My name is Reva Sean Paul.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a trauma-informed somatic practitioner, coach for women, and host for your show.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm really excited and delighted to be joined by the incredible Kim Stevens today.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: Kim is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and she also specializes in trauma recovery and somatics.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: We have a lot of things in common, and I'm always just really grateful to be able to spend time with Kim in any way I can.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: I'll do a little intro and then I'll turn things over to Kim to get us started.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: Kim is a holistic licensed psychotherapist specializing in somatic modalities, mindfulness-based therapies, internal family systems, dance and movement therapy, and trauma healing.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: It is one of her greatest joys to support and guide others toward true empowerment and deep connection with their authenticity, as well as break codependent patterns and heal from narcissistic abuse.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: Additional areas of focus include psychedelic assisted therapy, LGTPQ, and highly sensitive and empathic folks.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: Kim is also a public speaker, workshop leader, sound healing facilitator, and neuroemotional technique certified practitioner.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_03: Everyone, welcome Kim to the podcast.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome, Kim.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so happy to have you with us.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: All right, Kim.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I know you that you were feeling inspired to guide us all in uh just a brief grounding exercise as we are going to be talking a lot about the body today.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_03: So would you like to go ahead and lead us through that?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would love that.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So in the name of trauma-informed somatic modalities, I thought we could first um just wherever you are, you can do this with your eyes open too.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: But just kind of check in with your body.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're like, what the heck does that mean?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can just notice physical sensations in your body, like tension and tightness anywhere.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: You could notice where your body's making contact with your clothing or whatever you're sitting on.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just kind of noticing how that feels like physically right now.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're gonna try this.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's a technique for kind of relaxing the whole nervous system.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll actually see Olympic, I remember seeing Olympic swimmers do this a lot because it's good for athletes too, to like kind of fix your brain before kind of resetting your system before you do something really strenuous.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so basically you can shake your arms out, you can also like give your hips a wiggle and just kind of like let everything loose and like shake, maybe relax your jaw, take a deep breath, and then exhale with the sound.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, ha and then you can relax, stop.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then just either with eyes open or closed, just notice how your body feels now.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: Wonderful.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for that, Kim.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: Very simple, which I think is a great thing for people to see um and maybe even experience if you were following along with that as we're sort of starting this conversation, how how simple it can be to connect with your body.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: Not always easy, but simple.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we want to start with simple and gentle for sure.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, absolutely.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: Wonderful.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: Well, now that we're all feeling a little bit more grounded, perhaps, and hopefully a little bit more connected with ourselves, um, let's go ahead and get into today's discussion.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: Kim, I would love for you to share a little bit about your story and what led you to somatic trauma therapy.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not really sure why I am this way, but when I was about 12, I got really curious about Buddhism and started uh like reading about it.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it made a lot of sense to me and really connected um to me in terms of like why I was suffering so much.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like I remember being in middle school and just kind of looking around.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I had this one memory of just like looking around like the concrete, you know, quad and just seeing like kids being mean to each other and like girls being anorexic and boys making fun of girls, and like everyone just being it just felt like there was so much chaos and panic and suffering.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, this can't be how we're designed to be.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's the feels like there's something very out of alignment here.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I know I'm suffering, you know, I knew I was suffering in that moment.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and a lot of my friends were.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it just didn't make sense to me.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: So um I started kind of studying Buddhism and got into like Louise Hay and just a lot of metaphysical healing stuff.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I actually struggled a lot with like autoimmune problems and health problems when I was a kid and a teenager.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was like on my journey learning about different healing modalities.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: So originally I wanted to be an acupuncturist and an atropathic medical doctor.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: But the more I got into and was healing my physical ailments, I was like, these are all connected to like emotions for me.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was always a big emotional release.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was always like emotional, I didn't, I don't think I knew the word trauma yet, but there was always like a lot of emotional stuckness associated with them.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I found that if I could be more self-expressive or um do this healing around my emotions and my beliefs about myself, then my physical symptoms naturally like would relieve themselves.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I had gone to like Stanford specialists, like I was really not doing good in the health department.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And when I started healing my emotions and getting more into the mind and the power of the mind, um, that's when my physical symptoms started healing.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, this is interesting.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I kind of went more into um learning how to heal trauma and really studying and learning, studying in my own body and also with all the texts that are out.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what does it mean to experience trauma?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: How does that show up in the body?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: How does it get stuck in the body?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: How do we find it and release it so we can be unstuck and not depressed and miserable or, you know, in old patterns and that kind of thing.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's kind of the the long and short of it.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I've just I've just been trying to find what works, you know.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's like being being human can be hard.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: It can also be great, and it can also be very hard and challenging and filled with um, yeah, suffering.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be a part of life too.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just always looking for like what really works?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: What's like the way to make this work?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and how can I thrive in like my most authentic form and help other people do that?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, really beautiful.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for sharing that.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I find it so interesting that you you came to Buddhism and at such a young age as I've been studying somatics too.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_03: I have seen um that connection between Buddhist meditation and and so and somatics.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_03: So it's interesting to see that, like, you know, people were were kind of doing this stuff centuries ago, and kind of what you've named here is just um the effectiveness of it.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: One, and also um, I lost my train of thought there for a moment, the can the connection.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_03: And then also um, oh man, I'll have to, if it comes back, I'll I'll mention it.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, really lovely to hear that you found this path so early in life, too.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think that's great.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_03: I found it much later in life.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: So I love that you were at 12.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: You were already being like, hmm, so it's really off with everything.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, such a um keen sense you have, which doesn't surprise me um knowing who you are and being the projector that you are.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you were tuned in a long time ago.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: Wonderful.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: Well, uh, I know that many people in the healing space have probably heard the phrase, you have to heal it, or you have to feel it to heal it.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: What does that actually mean in the context of trauma healing?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I love this question because a lot of we've heard a lot of these phrases and a lot of people know conceptually, like, I need to feel my feelings.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: But like, how the actual F do we do that?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And like I used to totally not know, and I sincerely wanted to figure it out and just didn't know how.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, how I like to think about this is actually um instead of like feeling the feeling as a goal, it's like holding the feeling as a goal.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, where where the actual where we actually feel a feeling like in our body and help it kind of complete its biological cycle of being felt and then sort of releasing out of the nervous system, what that looks like is we're acknowledging it.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I I always do this because I I do parts work as a therapist.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I'm always I'm always holding it.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like I love it.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like the feeling that I'm experiencing, if you imagine you could hold it in your hand and like get curious about it, that's a big one.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Be curious about it as best you can, come to it with curiosity and kind of releasing the judgments that you might have about it, which I know that's easier said than done, but it's a practice, and acknowledging it as this feeling is a part of me.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's not all of who I am, it's not the core of who I am, but it's valuable information and it's here for a reason.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like feelings are never here for a useless reason, ever.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're a part of our biology and they're communicating useful information to us.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we really don't know what that is until we hold them.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's like a big revelation and we're like, oh, big release.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And other times we kind of don't know.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: We just know that we were able to witness it and hold it, and then it kind of and we feel a little bit more free or a little bit more connected to ourselves.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, I really like thinking about it like you're just imagine holding your feeling and getting curious about it and acknowledging it as a part of you.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that also pulls us into mindfulness when we do that, which is really a huge core aspect of how we actually feel a feeling, ironically, is to kind of separate ourselves from it enough to look at it.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we're not dissociating from it, not that kind of separation, but um, that kind of separation and that observing of it, that holding actually allows more capacity for us to have a lot of compassion and empathy and forgiveness towards it and towards that part of ourselves, which allows that kind of freedom and release.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we're also feeling it physically in the body.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big part of it.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of us, I know I used to be this way, we just kind of live here up and we live in the head and we intellectualize everything and figure everything out and fix our feelings by figuring them out.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's a survival strategy and can serve us to a point.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but when it comes to really moving out of old patterns and old stuff belief systems that don't serve us anymore, like if we're just feeling low grade not good enough all the time, for example, that's kind of a common one.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: We need to like really feel it in the body as a physical sensation.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and going slow is always key.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, really going slow with getting in touch with what it feels like physically in your body.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like I kind of like I like calling it microdosing feelings when we're first starting it.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: So like doing 30 seconds of noticing how you feel it and then like go for a walk and forget about it, kind of a thing.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So modulating back and forth between feeling feeling things, especially if you're new to getting in touch with your body, and then going on a walk like in nature, for example, where you're seeing the beauty and awe and it's kind of taking you into that relaxed nervous system state and um yeah, kind of modulating back and forth like that can be really helpful.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I love that.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: I I really like your analogy of just holding it.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like a little baby or a little cute puppy.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like with my kid clients, I'm like, it's a puppy, you know?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's like, oh, if it's a puppy, I can be kind to it.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I can see that it's just a scared little puppy and it needs some attention and some care.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't need me to like tell it to get over itself.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like that doesn't work, you know.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, really beautiful analogy.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: And and also I think something important to note here too, um, taking things really slow and modulating between feeling things and then, like you said, maybe going on a walk out in nature, doing something that can really ground and and downregulate our nervous system after we've perhaps maybe felt something that was new or uncomfortable.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: Right, exactly.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's wonderful.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: I remember the last um thing I was gonna share that floated away.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: It came back.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_03: I'll I'll pop it in here.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_03: You you mentioned that when you started doing more of that inner explorer exploration, that your physical sensations or your physical symptoms rather started to subside.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm just so grateful that you've named that here because I think that is something that we don't always think of as a way to work with our physical symptoms is actually going inside and seeing what emotions might be contributing to those physical sensations.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm really grateful, grateful that you you mentioned that because I think it's an important piece that people don't always um necessarily understand that like a a chest, a tightness in the chest might not be um connected to a physical cause.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: It might be grief that is manifesting as um discomfort in the chest.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a really common one is that tightness in the chest or like shoulder tightness and also jaw clenching.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because all of that is like the fight response or like tightness in the hips.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you're ready to fight or freeze.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that can be kind of a cue to us that there is some emotional stuckness.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm very familiar with the jaw and the shoulders.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, work at those areas quite a bit.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: Why do you think it's so difficult for many women to feel emotions and sensations?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_03: And how does trauma disconnect us from our bodies?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, I could talk, I could have an entire podcast on this.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we couldn't.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_03: We'll do another one.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: We can talk on this forever.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um so a lot of us have good girl conditioning.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're actually like if we're talking about binary gender, which is kind of how our society functions as of today for the most part, like women and girls are we're rewarded for ignoring our bodily cues.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um like if we um like the the amount of times I've heard women say, and I've done this in the past too, of like a woman who is actively being assaulted and she didn't scream or run or say something because she's been so successfully conditioned to uh tiptoe around the other person's ego and not provoke them, not hurt their feelings, not embarrass them.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of us as women can think of a time when we did that.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's like a knee-jerk reaction.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a, you know, it was like a trauma response that has been passed down for hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands at this point of years in our DNA.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like I really think it's at this point almost like a generational somatic memory and survival strategy.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really recent, um, at least in like our history where women have had more rights.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we haven't had to literally shut down that part of us that's saying, Oh my God, no, gross, get away.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because if if we did that, a lot of the time it wasn't safe and we had to kind of shut down and survive.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: But also in simple ways, like when we're little kids, um, you know, like being like if we just get creepy vibes from someone and you know, like a parent is like, oh, be polite, you know, like be sweet and polite, or like a guy gives us uh a super creepy, gross compliment.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like in our inner sense, it's like but he's like, you know, he and maybe even society at large or other people in our life are saying, Don't be rude, don't be a bitch.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we're getting shown this, yeah, this unconsciously, since I think I mean I mean, at least for me, I can speak for myself, since I was, you know, born pretty much, um, this message that it's more important for me to be perceived as polite and kind and always giving at the detriment of my own body, my own needs, my own intuition.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, I'm rewarded for it.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Which is like to me, just like a sickness.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's such the sickness of patriarchy.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it takes it can it takes often a long time and a lot of just deep, relentless commitment to gentleness with ourselves for like it's a whole process of forgiving ourselves for all the times we in big ways or tiny ways abandon ourselves in order to maintain connection with perceived other or keep ourselves safe.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, sometimes, like if we didn't abide to giving the guy our number, um, it could have been like really unsafe.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we just did it.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um so a lot of that is really real.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think also a lot of women just on top of that get gaslit out of it and told, you know, oh, you're being dramatic, or it's that's not really that bad, or it's not really real, or you're being led.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like on top of that, we were getting that, it just kind of shuts us down on a pretty deep level.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, and also like growing up for me, like it was the 90s, it's like the age of anorexia, you know.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like I look at, oh my God, these the shows include like friends, the L word.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: I just started watching Dexter and his sister.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how is it physically possible for someone to be that thin and not just die?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right as a woman.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we were rewarded for ignoring our hunger, like totally rewarded.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, look at you, you're so good.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was told that all the time by women older than me and people around me.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, I'd be like, Oh, I'm not hungry, or I'm not having dessert.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And they'd be like, Oh, you're so good.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or like, oh, you're size two, good for you, you know.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's can be subtle, it can be loud, but it's like that's getting into our into our consciousness.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, I would also love to hear what you have to say on this topic because I know there's a lot of different angles to talk about.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I'm just gonna double down on everything that you just said.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's like it starts so young and it has been going on for literally centuries.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: I talk a little bit about this in the first episode, how um, you know, from just the way that we care for women, there has been this tendency to ignore women's experiences.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_03: I've heard countless stories of women going to doctors who, you know, we are told that are there to help us.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_03: And women go to doctors and explain to them what their symptoms are and what they're experiencing, and they're dismissed, they're invalidated, they're told that what they're experiencing is is all in their mind.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think that also too can have a really big impact on women's abilities to to not only connect with their bodies, but to trust their bodies when you have someone in power telling you that what you're feeling and what you're experiencing is wrong.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's such a good example.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I also know so many women who have been shamed and just dismissed by their uh doctors.
• 20:12
  unknown: Yeah.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we people women have died from that because they knew that they had tumor or whatever, and the doctor ignored or was like, oh, it stress, or I don't know, whatever they say.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And wow.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, wow.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: It reminds me too of um when I was growing up as a young girl, I was I was bullied a lot for my weight.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that can have an impact to these societal standards of, you know, what a body is supposed to look like.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I would go to my mom and I would, you know, let her know I would be crying that, you know, I was made fun of at school today, and acknowledging that my mom, you know, did the best with the resources and the understanding that she had.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: And she would always tell me to, oh, don't don't worry about it.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: Just just ignore them, Reba.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_03: And so from a very young age, I started internalizing, oh, okay, like it's it's not okay for me to like be sad and be upset.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like I need to um ignore these feelings or or shove them down in some way.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I think for me, that also really perpetuated this tendency to just to just not feel, to not allow my emotions to to be what they are.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_03: And it had a really, really big impact on my um teenage years, all the way into my adult years, really, until I started coming to this work.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's so that's such a great example.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad you shared that because I think that's something that so many of us can relate to, and I certainly can.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to like grab all our little inner teenagers.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's just so heartbreaking.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's like that.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's such a great example of when our feelings start, we start to learn to shut down and invalidate and hide ourselves from our own feelings.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's like, oh, this feeling.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't okay, or I'm getting punished for it, or um, you know, getting rejected for it, or whatever.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then like you said before, it starts to train us to not trust ourselves, trust our feelings, our instincts, our responses, what our body's telling us about what's okay, what's not okay.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:17
  unknown: Yeah.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_03: Oh man, goes so deep.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: It goes so deep, like thousands of years deep.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is another thing I just thought of when you were talking was like I think um I I feel deeply, and I felt this for a few years, maybe.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I I honestly feel like this is why I incarnated on this planet during this time.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: But like sacred female rage is having a comeback.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think about for women in particular, like what's the one of the things we're not allowed to feel and express, right?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Anger.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or even a no.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and anger, I think about as like it's the emotion that's our that's our internal no, it's our internal boundary.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Anger is signaling to us, like, whoa, a boundary's been crossed.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel safe.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Something is like very not okay.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we're totally celebrated for being like, it's fine.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's totally fine that you just, you know, whatever the violation was.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, it's like that process of getting in touch with that inner rage um and that inner no and that wisdom of no, this doesn't feel good.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is not okay.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're violating human rights right now.
• 23:31
  unknown: Yeah.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because women, I mean, generally speaking, you know, gender is like a whatever thing.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: But generally speaking, I have noticed people with uteruses tend to have deep felt sense of what's right and wrong on like a humanitarian level.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it could just, I don't know, maybe it's the people I tend to hang out with too.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: But um like if you can shut down a woman's internal sense of right and wrong and like her rage, you've got complete control.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Reigniting, I think one of the best things female-bodied people and also female identifying people can do is start to gently get in touch with that rage because it's sacred.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's sacred.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's what has you protect other humans, it's what has you protect your babies.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: It can destroy and create worlds.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I feel like, yeah, that's just a huge part of what's gonna help a lot of people in like I don't want to be dramatic, but like save the planet um in a lot of ways is like women getting in touch with their their rage again and really embodying that on a physical level.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot, a lot's trapped in there.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And one of my teachers actually said recently, which I thought this was really interesting, that in her workshops when she starts um asking all the women about like, have you been, you know, one was when was a time you didn't speak, um, you had rage or anger or a no and you didn't speak because you know, you're trying to people please or you're afraid of the consequence, or someone was gaslighting you, whatever.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And um usually the energy everyone's saying, you know, I was molested and this guy did this, and this person did this, and this boss did this.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone starts talking about my mother did this, all of this stuff, and the energy in the room gets really heavy, and everyone starts yawning.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And she talks about it like suppressed the consequence of suppressed rage is like exhaustion and disconnection.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, oh, it's just giving me goosebumps right now.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: But a great cue somatically for you and like women and people who have women in your lives, or and also this applies to all genders, is chronic exhaustion, chronic fatigue, chronic disconnection from self a lot of the time can be like righteous, um, sacred rage that is still in there in you, that is waiting to come out and like give you your boundaries and your empowerment back.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you've been keeping it, you know, for good reason, safely kind of tucked.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, anyway, I'll stop there.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's yeah, noah, that's a whole nother episode too, isn't it?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's a lot of um you're saying a lot of important things here.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I know in my sessions when I'm working with clients, anytime anger comes up, I'm I'm celebrating it.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I'm looking for it because you you're so right.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like anger is it lets us know what is and what isn't okay.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: And we want to celebrate that.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like, oh yes, okay, I'm I'm angry.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_03: This is I know this is a no for me, and it informs us how to respond and lets us know where our limits are and where our boundaries are.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we could really do a whole nother episode about this.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, one thing that I will say about this, there's this woman who I absolutely love.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_03: Her name is Mia Magic.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: She's a witch, um, an intuitive um consultant, and she does online rituals and retreats and all sorts of things.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_03: I watch a lot of her videos on YouTube and really enjoy her work.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: She does these sacred rage rituals at her retreats, and maybe one year we'll make it happen for ourselves.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_03: She does in Southern California, or excuse me, Northern California in the Redwoods.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_03: And she did one on, she's done two on TV actually.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: I forget where the first one was, like what network it was on, but I was watching one of her videos last night, and she had mentioned that she was on like like CBS or something like that, and she led a rage ritual on the news.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I was like, oh, yeah, let's try our our sacred rage and our anger.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's very important.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: Now we don't want to we want to use that anger in a regenerative, regenerative way where it's not only informing us, but we're using that anger to to make change essentially that not only benefits ourselves, but benefits the people around us as well.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_03: I know I've had a lot of fun just channeling my rage into my art, and it's been um really freeing, really freeing.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm glad you said that because yeah, like there's the difference between feeling your anger and being violent, right?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like so that's that and that the being violent is obviously not what we're going for.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um and obviously that's very destructive, but a feeling and embodying your rage and letting the emotion of that that's stuck come out.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love channeling it through art and like dance is a good one.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can kind of channel that energy into a lot of stuff that might surprise you that doesn't even necessarily look like anger.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_03: Totally.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I've I've seen someone online um post about coloring.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_03: She colors when she's angry.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: Which I thought was cool.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_03: And one small thing that I do when it's not necessarily always anger, but like just irritation.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: Whenever I notice it, if the if myself I would notice like if something happens, like it happened yesterday, I forget what it was.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_03: Something small, right?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: But it annoyed me.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I could feel that kind of you know, anger starting to bubble up a little bit.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: I just gur.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: Nice.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: I just kind of do it to myself.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like I don't do it.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just like, you know, sometimes I'll tense my hands up and I'll just let myself have that moment.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_03: It's a short moment of just like actually like allowing my anger and my irritation to be there without being like, oh, get over it.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_03: It's not a big deal.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I might get there next, but I'm first like okay, moving on.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_03: Giving it a moment.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, so many good things.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: Well, let's talk a little bit more about uh just kind of understanding the somatic approach a little bit.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: That was a nice segue.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: How does somatic therapy uh differ from traditional talk therapy?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: So um somatic soma coming from Latin, I don't know actually, the word soma meaning body.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: So somatic therapy really just incorporates the body.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: To me, it's like how therapy should and healing work should always be or should have always been.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, Western therapy started with like white dudes.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: So of course it started with like this part of your correct situation.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: So um but but yeah, I think we can really take the lead too from indigenous people who have been working with the body as a uh it's an integral part of the whole system.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like we cannot separate mind from body, and um, listening to the wisdom of the body is a huge resource in any kind of healing work, in my opinion.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I also think this is really cool, which is um a lot of different psychologists have talked about this.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think Carl Jung was one of them that was really into this concept that the body like is the unconscious mind, or the body is the expression of the unconscious mind.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: The body is the house of the unconscious.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: So what your conscious mind can bypass, your body's gonna show you.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I personally believe this is why a lot of women have autoimmune disorders, this is why we have muscle tension.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is why we have unexplained illnesses a lot of the time.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you ignore it for long enough, your body will show you.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's why it's so helpful to just do little check-ins with your body to give it the attention that it needs because it's constantly communicating to us.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um and with somatic therapy too, like a lot of the time I'll ask my clients, like, where do you feel that in your body?
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: How do you feel towards that sensation in your body?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's a really classic um prompt to ask with parts work in somatic therapy.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and also feelings happen physically in the body.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of us don't realize that.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: We think that emotions are like in our head and who cares about them.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: We can just kind of whatever and move on with our life.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: But when we think about them as uh feelings, as physical sensations in the body that actually need to be released physiologically.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean that like you have to like punch stuff every time you're angry, but what that can often look like is you're just giving it your attention.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: So for example, I can place my attention on my right finger, like my attention is there.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: I can place attention on a really riveting story that someone is telling me.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can also place my attention on um like noticing that my breath is always shallow, and I think it's been that way for almost all my life.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: And placing my attention there, it's kind of like giving it the consciousness that it needs to start to free itself from the stuckness it's in.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, is there anything else I want to say about cinematic therapy?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot, but yeah, our body, our body doesn't lie.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Our mind can hide things from us, but our body's gonna tell us what's up.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's why it can be really helpful to go to where do you feel that in your body?
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where are you feeling tension in your body right now?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um because that again, that's kind of the unconscious mind starts to manifest itself in our body through physical sensations and tension and tightness and stuff, which is I think really cool.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think it's really cool too.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I I wrote down what you said, I and I believe you said it was pro-young.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the body is the unconscious mind.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: And so whatever we're not dealing with in our minds, it's gonna show up in the body.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: And my my teacher, uh Tira Tan, she says the body is is the ultimate truth barometer.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I I've been teaching this to my um students that I work with as well, and my teaching artist residencies, and I'm telling them, you know, your body is always communicating, even if you aren't using words, your body is doing things to communicate both with you and with people around you.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_03: And that's always going to give us the most accurate information because our mind, our mind is a wonderful storyteller and it loves to make things up and think itself out of things, but the body doesn't do that, the body really expresses its truth when we really listen to it.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we can really see this in little kids.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like if a little kid is shy, they can't hide it.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: They might try to, but they're still gonna be like, uh, like I'm totally fine.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like kids can't hide it, and we just get way better at hiding it and kind of um severing ourselves from those internal cues in our body because a lot of the time we're rewarded for for it, or survival, or you know, whatever.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, also artist residency program.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's cool.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's been um a lot of fun.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_03: I've been working part-time for this organization off and on since 2019, and recently in a season where I'm working with them a lot more.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_03: Right now I have um two residencies, um about seven classes a week, working with um kindergarten uh kindergraders, kindergartners all the way up to fifth graders this semester.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I weave a lot of the somatic stuff in my classes.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: I'm there to teach dance, but like to me, in my heart and in my bones, I know that I'm not really there to teach dance.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_03: I'm there to help kids be in their body.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'm there to be a calm and regulated nervous system for them to um regulate with.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: I'm there um to yeah, kind of like usher in all of the things that we're kind of naming here today into our little generation that is gonna grow up to be our future, essentially.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_03: Planting little seeds.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's so amazing.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, they're so lucky to have you.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's like one of the greatest things anyone could do, I feel.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it brings me a lot of joy.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_03: So many wonderful things said in that little mini discussion as well.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_03: And all right, so next question How can someone begin to trust their body again if they've been conditioned to ignore or override their sensations?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: Really, really good point.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the a big part of this is getting really real with yourself about why you started to why you got really good at or why you started the habit of disconnecting from your body.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I think a lot of the time, especially in my work and especially with women, um, well, all genders actually, but um, the the we double down on the self-blame.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like when we start doing this work, a lot of the time we can look at, oh, I'm so disconnected from my body, or like I've been doing this for like 40 years, you know, or whatever it is.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we use that as another reason is to kind of hate on ourselves.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um so the first thing being like your system is so brilliant.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like when you were a little kid, you were picking up on an ins like an absolutely ludicrous amount of information in your environment and the world around you, and all the places you went on like an unconscious level and assimilating all of it and figuring out how do I respond to everything and harmonize with everything around me, no matter how chaotic or scary or boring or whatever it is, in order to best survive and get my needs met.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: And little kids, um, like the amount of information they take in and how fast their brain is growing is like absolutely mind-boggling.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, truly to the best of your ability, you were responding to what was happening in the most brilliant way possible.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when we're responding to things that are happening that are unsafe or feel unsafe or don't feel good, and we're not getting our needs met, we're gonna develop coping mechanisms that probably aren't gonna save us later on in life where when we're an adult with our own rights and ability to like be a separate human and not depend on, you know, these people that are giving us literal sustenance.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the first thing is to just really acknowledge like, whoa, like I did that, I survived that.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like I harmonized with that totally bonkers person or totally bonkers situation or like impossible thing, or I was able to hide memories that big from myself so that I could survive.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's truly like amazing.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, it's also tragic and can be like awful and very sad.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: And also it's quite um, in the literal sense of the word, brilliant.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like for like our systems, like we can hide memories from ourselves in order to stay alive and keep surviving.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's just incredible.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: And those memories tend to bubble up and resurface when our system internally knows we're capable of reprocessing them now.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just wild.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so the first thing is yeah, like just be open to forgiving yourself for how you coped when you were younger, like how you brilliantly coped with an impossible situation or just a challenging situation when you were younger.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um okay, I went on a little tirade and I forget your original question.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_03: That was beautiful.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that was really beautiful.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_03: And that's something that I always try to um instill in people that I'm working with too, is like just how wise our system truly is.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_03: And all that happened at a subconscious level.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_03: We weren't like using our mind to actively think of like, okay, how am I gonna keep myself safe in this situation?
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_03: Our bodies just do what they do, and by a miracle, they were able to keep us safe.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that's really important piece that you named here.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_03: And it can be a nice um segue into like what are some signs that um trauma is stored in the body and how might listeners recognize this within themselves?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, this is a great question.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and whenever I lay these out or like do a video on these, I'm every time people are like, oh my God, like I had I all of these and I had no idea.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but chronic pain tension, kind of what we talked about before, like the when we're stuck in a chronic fight, flight, or fawn response.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: So chronic fawn response can look like people, chronic people pleasing.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: I used to do this.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: I used to blow myself away.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like once like there's a couple situations someone was being overtly like I I was okay, but something was happening that was overtly violent or like abusive or not okay, and how quickly I fawned and how well I did it was like kind of terrifying to me, but also like, whoa, like there's a survival mechanism or a trauma response.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so there's the fawn, which can look like the chronic people-pleasing um fight response.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the jaw tension.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like me and all my friends have night guards.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of us are still working on this stuff, but like the chronic uh jaw tension, this kind of like literally if you think about like you're gonna fight and like tight hits can be a big one.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the other one is like it's they call it a dorsal vagal shutdown, which is basically a part of the nervous system.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in chronic freeze, um, like if your best response for dealing with the thing was to like freeze and get quiet or whatever.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that can look like chronic fatigue, chronic exhaustion, and maybe you've gotten all the blood tests and all the things, and everyone's like, well, you're fine.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that can be kind of a a sign.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um and just yeah, holding chronic pain in the body that maybe doesn't have a medical explanation or um chronic illness that that just does not have a medical explanation.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um also hypersensity to stimuli.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you're just like chilling, having a conversation with someone and a door shuts a little loud and you're you like freak out, you know, like if your nervous system is that like you're kind of it's almost like the wires always live.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think about it like that.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um I yeah, I've seen people do this a lot where it's like just life doing life and a little sound happens, or someone touches them, you know, someone they know, they trust comes up behind them and touches on them on the shoulder before they expect it, and the reaction's really big.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of that hypers sensitivity to stimuli can be one thing.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, and then Gabor Mate talks a lot about this, which uh I just love that he wrote a book that's like this frigging thick on I think it's yeah, that one's called The Myth of Normal.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he talks about how often in his practice he would see um people with stuck emotional trauma who are suppressing their emotions and their feelings and not feeling them, um, which is like a form of shutdown.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: How often they have autoimmune disorders.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, that was a lot of what I struggled with as a teacher.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I was finding by trial and error, oh my God, this is trauma.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh my God, this is patriarchy.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is I'm feeling internalized depression and it's literally shutting down my immune system because I'm coping with it and I'm agreeing with it.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm, I mean, it's it's wild how how our bodies respond to these things.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: But it makes sense because if we're experiencing a kind of trauma and our nervous system is um essentially being chronically dysregulated, that's going to absolutely impact the rest of our body because our nervous system is connected to all of our organs and how they function.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_03: I can think of it's making me think of this chart, this um chart that one of my teachers used in a training.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sure it's a chart that you've you've seen as well.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_03: And it um it's based off of polyvagal theory.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_03: But what I really like about it is that it shows um, or rather, it lists like what's happening biologically when we're in each state.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_03: And when we're in the um, you know, the overwhelm state, it really does impact the way we're able to digest food.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's exactly yes, yeah, it affects our immune system and really inhibits our ability to be able to fight off viruses and diseases.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_03: And there's a bunch of other things that list as well.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_03: But I really found that fascinating.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I try to share that with my clients so that they can understand like what's happening on a biological level.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: When we not that it's our fault that we're in these states, and when we are noticing them and we're not necessarily working with them and moving through them, it can really leave a really significant impact on our overall mental and physical well-being.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's so great.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks for bringing that piece in.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: That really just like completed the circle.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's really, it's really a biological thing that happens.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: And when you understand the biology, you're like, oh my God, this is real.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes so much sense.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because also people with trauma, the correlation of them having digestive problems and or autoimmune is huge.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's a huge, very seeable correlation.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, that's one of the, like you said, one of the first things to get biologically impacted is the digestive system.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_03: And I recognize all of these uh within myself.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm at a point now where I feel like I've gotten um, I don't know, if getting a handle on it is the best expression to use, but I do feel like, okay, I'm at a point now where like my digestion uh system is is flowing and I'm having less stress and um less chronic pain and and tightness that I'm noticing in the body.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_03: And it can take a really long time to get there.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_03: And what I want to mention here is that I didn't even know that I had trauma for for many years.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_03: I had issues with addiction before I started having like the really physical symptoms.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_03: I was just numbed out and just drunk and high on anything really for about a decade.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_03: And once I started learning about the the biological component of it, that's when it kind of like something turned on and switched in my brain.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, oh, like I I have trauma.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I've had it for years, and I've been trying to cope in various ways.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_03: And it was popping out in all of these really interesting um ways that we've already kind of named here today.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm so glad you said that.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's another thing I feel like is so relatable.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: And most, I think I don't know if there's anyone I've worked with, honestly, that at some point doesn't go, oh my God, like that wasn't okay for me to experience.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: Or like I thought that happened to everyone, or everyone did that, or that's not trauma.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like we can even have a little bit of denial of like, no, like my my childhood was great.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: My parents are great.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: That there can be a lot of that kind of internal guilt.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: And like too, I feel like what's important about that is um we all have uh we all have, you know, things we struggle with.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like our parents cannot, no human being can be perfectly attuned to the needs of another 100% of the time.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's impossible.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: And also um, yeah, not even necessary for our survival.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it can to have some of our needs not met a little bit of the time can help us build resilience, but having big gaps can also lead to trauma and have us be more shut down and get into cycles of that.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: But this did this doesn't mean that you didn't have great parents or a great teacher or society was great to you.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like it it just means that you're human, you're an animal, and we all experience not getting our needs met in some capacity or being wounded, or even misinterpreting what some what something meant about us when someone did something.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because kids very personally, and we because our that front part of our brain that can critically think and make decisions is literally not developed until really after the age of seven and twelve and not fully developed till we're 25.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we tend to take things really personally and think that, oh, if dad works really late, that's because I'm not worthy of love or you know, whatever we make it mean.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it could also just be these kind of beliefs and misinterprets we misinterpretations we created too when we were kids.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 100%.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'm really glad that you mentioned that.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's something that I've experienced and um just recently in the past month over this winter break, I visited my family, and my parents are divorced.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_03: And when my dad lives in Southern California and my mom now lives in Colorado.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_03: So I went and saw them both separately.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I've had some challenges with the relationships with both of my parents over the years.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_03: And as I said, I'm kind of at the point where I feel like, okay, like this is okay.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember coming home after visiting my dad, and I think I was just doing a morning yoga practice or something, and I just started bawling because I like had this thought.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, oh, like my parents love me and support me.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I had created this story years ago that my parents didn't love me and didn't support me.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_03: And now here I am, 35 years old, years and years, decades later, something finally clicked where that story changed.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_03: And it was just a misunderstanding.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_03: And sure, I wasn't attuned to, and some of my needs weren't met, and there were things that were very hurtful that I went through, and my parents love me and support me.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm really glad that you mentioned that because that was something that I myself experienced um recently.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's so beautiful.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you for sharing that.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and sometimes it just just it just clicks, right?
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure that that's an accumulation of this amount of work.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like a huge amount of work.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then we don't have control over when one day it's like beep, yeah, you know, and we get that little, oh my God, that revelation or whatever.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it often comes randomly when we're doing yoga on our dad's floor, like whatever, you know.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's so beautiful.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: You speak to the complexity of the truth of that.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's like this yes and it's not, you know, demonizing what happened versus it was perfect.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's like all of it and holding the complexity of the human experience is is a lot.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's also something we can practice building the nervous system capacity for is holding all these different, sometimes seemingly really opposing truths in one giant experience.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_03: The human comp experience is very complex, indeed.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_03: Well, we're slowly coming towards the end of the episode, and I want to start offering some kind of practical things that people can potentially play with and explore if they're feeling moved by this episode and they're like, okay, I understand that I need to uh connect more with my body.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_03: I need to feel my feelings, but how do we do that?
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_03: So, um, how do you think that somatic healing can support those who are feeling stuck in cycles of burnout, people pleasing, and overdoing?
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, such a great question.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the good news is there are so many things we can practice to start um yeah, practically working with this.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um one thing is I think about it like kind of essentially one of the things we're practicing is learning how to be the present connected, attuned adult that we needed when we were younger, or the present connected, attuned um being to our own self.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that's essentially like a huge part, if not I would say the core part of a lot of what we're doing with this healing work is for example, instead of being like totally flooded and shut down by like these feelings I have of I'm not worthy, I'm never gonna be good enough, oh my God, I'm trapped, how am I gonna get out of this?
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I suck.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like being acknowledging that experience and that feeling as again, like it's a part of me.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a part of me that's maybe been there for a long time and feels very, very real, but it's not all of who I am, it's not the core of who I am.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's actually something that I can get curious about and pay attention to and um hear out like why do you believe that?
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um and practicing basically being the present attuned caring force holding that experience and working with it and getting curious about it and integrating it and really investigating is that actually true now?
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or did that belief come from a place of you know, me trying to survive when I was younger or whatever?
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's a big part is yeah, learning learning how to be that present, connected, attuned other attuned to me, the kid says animals are so good for that too.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I like equine therapy is so good because horses are so sensitive and they feel our nervous system and attuned to us, and it's very helpful.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um the other thing I like is with this kind of work, especially if we have been shut down for a very long time or really new to this kind of work, slower is always better, gentler is always better.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: I promise it's more effective.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know that sometimes we're like, oh, but I want to power through the healing and like get better as fast as I can.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome, I agree with you.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm exactly the same way.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: I love efficiency and I'm also impatient.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I promise the best, most efficient way to do this stuff is gentle and with like deep presence and attunement and like really slowing down and getting as attuned and present with yourself as you can, as opposed to like blasting through exercises.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that also includes taking a lot of breaks.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um one thing I like that uh Pat Ogden, the creator of sensory motor psychotherapy, she's brilliant and awesome and one kind of one of kind of the pioneers with with trauma work and somatic therapy.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: She she talks about kind of modulating between pleasant and unpleasant sensations.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we talked a little bit about this earlier.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: But that can be a great way to start, especially if you're kind of in chronic burnout, um, which is like even right now, like kind of everyone listening, just like feel into your body, like find one sensation anywhere that is either neutral or maybe even a little pleasant.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if you literally can't find one, like you could like pet your hand and focus on like what kind of touch feels most pleasant to me.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a kind of a somatic therapy exercise.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's like how do we um it's like training training you to pay attention to how things feel in your body.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like it can, like you said at the beginning of this, it can be really, really simple.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um and building the kind of building blocks that allow us to then later deal with the bigger feelings and hold capacity for those, like we're building capacity to get there.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_00: And what's foundational is building that self-compassion, like practicing being present and attuned towards our own self, um, which I know easier said than done.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: But if if you need help with that, also you can find like an internal family systems therapist.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think they're really excellent for that.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um or a therapist who's trauma informed.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: And also like getting in touch with sensations that feel pleasurable.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, another one I love to do with my clients is like humming, humming, singing, yelling into a pillow, but like using the voice that actually relaxes the whole nervous system, which takes us out of fight, flight, freeze, fawn.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it can also be a way for us to start to get in tune with our nervous system responses and how our body feels.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: So essentially it's like uh doing things that are pleasurable or neutral in the body or finding sensations that are pleasurable and neutral.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's just as much of a great helpful exercise as it is like getting into the the feelings that are challenging or that we want to do healing work around.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thank you for saying that.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_03: And that's something that I have noticed myself get stuck in in the past is like thinking that like healing always needs to be like sad and and hard and and and yeah, getting in there and like really working with like like you said, just kind of getting in there and like just getting into all the stuff that doesn't always feel so great.
• 56:21
  unknown: Yeah.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_03: And we want to supplement that with feelings of neutral or or pleasure because that's just as important too.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_03: We need these moments of kind of like reprieve um to let our bodies do what they need to do to catch up and to process and to digest.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_03: We can't always just be trying to heal all the time.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that can be a really easy trap to get stuck into, especially if you just start um, you know, are on the beginning path of coming to this work.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's a tricky one.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_03: Slippery slope.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally agree.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like it can almost, I don't know if you relate to this, but for a while I feel like I just became addicted to healing.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: Just another it became another trauma response.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I had this huge aha moment once that I was coming at healing from a place of, oh, I'm not good enough.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was coming from it from that energy.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I had this huge moment of like, oh my God, I'm like doing it, but like on in a fractal level.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, but also that was a great realization, and that's what I needed to do to get to where I needed to go.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um totally.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there's also this little piece that kind of came through as you were sharing that of like wanting to um connect with our bodies simply to connect, not necessarily to change.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so I feel like that's where I was for for a long time.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_03: It was like I was coming to all my healing work, wanting to change how I was feeling or wanting to change things about myself.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_03: And it wasn't until I something switched, and this is just through all the support through all the incredible teachers that I've had the honor to be supported and and mentored by.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_03: We're not, we're not trying to change, we're just trying to connect.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God, I love that.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: I need that on a bumper sticker.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: Change or fix trying to connect.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that that trauma response response brain is like, what do I need to fix?
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where's the danger?
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: What's wrong?
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_00: And what we need to fix.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's so, and there's nothing wrong with that either.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's also, we didn't do anything wrong if we fall into that.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to judge ourselves about that either.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I love that you pointed that out.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna, I'm gonna write that down for myself.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_03: A good one.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I forget who I originally heard it from.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, I didn't come up with it.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_03: I heard it from.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna probably say a tira tan is probably where I heard it from.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_03: She's great.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_03: I love her.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_03: Well, we've already kind of named a couple of things, but are there any other like simple everyday practices that people can start to use to reconnect with their body and their emotions?
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, simple, simple inquiry questions, like how am I what am I feeling in my body right now?
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's really simple, but I've honestly I'm still amazed at this.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm having like a busy day or a stressful day, I'm kind of amazed at how much I can sometimes still successfully compartmentalize.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if I just give myself sometimes it's literally it's gotta be 15 seconds.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's all it took for me to like be present with myself, feel my body, take a few deep breaths, realize I'm not breathing, realizing I'm clenching my jaw, and then just you know, giving myself maybe a shake or whatever, or like a ha, like I love to just sing around my house.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_00: That really makes me relaxed.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, just putting you can even do timers in your phone.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'll do that with my clients because it's also good to be woke like waken, woken up, waken up out of your habitual um stock patterns.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it's one thing to be like, oh, I'm I just had the realization that I haven't drank water today and I need to take care of my bodily need and maybe like check in with how I'm feeling.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_00: But it's kind of nice to actually have um random reminders on your phone because it'll wait, it'll catch you in places where you wouldn't normally catch yourself.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, oh, there's my reminder for 15 seconds, check in with my body.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe say like one thing I love um to use with my clients, and this resonates with a lot of people, is like whatever I'm noticing, whatever's here, just for like the next 10 seconds, I'm gonna practice not eating any of it to be any different.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like nothing's wrong with what's what I'm feeling, right?
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing is wrong with what's happening.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm just gonna practice not eating any of what I'm feeling to be any different anymore or any less.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that was something that um like when I gave when I gave my TEDx talk, that was the part in my talk that so many people repeated back to me as the most helpful part.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it was so cool because I was like, whoa, this is like field research.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just like getting to learn like what resonates most with people.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_00: And like one lady came up to me crying, repeating that part to me.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's like this revelation to pause and be like, right now, I don't nothing needs to be different.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like all my feelings, all my thoughts, all the tension, all of it's welcome, all of it's here right now.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_00: And not that we're like con, you know, condoning it or saying it's gonna be this way forever, but just that practice of this is what is right, this is what is is right now.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I can imagine welcoming all parts of me and not needing them to be different.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it could be a nice little little exercise.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_03: I know for myself, I really noticed um just a softening when I started really leaning into this mindset, um, or rather this shift of just like it being okay, like whatever you're feeling is is okay.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_03: And as I'm saying this, I'm thinking of the welcome song as kind of playing in my head.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think you should link that to this episode.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_03: I'll do it.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_03: There's a um, I put a meditation on Insight Timer um with this sort of welcoming practice, and I sing um the verse like three times or something like that.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_03: And there's the invitation for people to sing too if they want.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I always get really sweet reviews of people just feeling so touched by just just this welcoming of all of them.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's really beautiful.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I I think that in my body, I notice a biological response.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_03: If I'm like, okay, like what I'm feeling isn't okay, there's like a tension, there's a constriction.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_03: And if I allow myself to just be okay and welcome all parts of myself as exactly as they are, then I can kind of like can relax a little bit.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_03: And our bodies then feel like they're in a more safe place too, to to authentically express and be how they are without us labeling it as wrong or or not okay.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_00: And also if if you attempt to welcome all parts of you and immediately there's resistance, or there's like a no, I don't want to.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's perfectly okay.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's another part to welcome.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or like if just you're flooded with numbness, that's welcome too.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with that.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's truly whatever shows up you can soften towards, even if it's literally a part of you that's resisting the practice of the exercise.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's that's really where a lot of the beauty of internal family systems therapy is, is it's like literally whatever's here we can work with.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: And not even resistance itself.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_00: And also resistance is usually wisdom and like healthy skepticism that's coming from a place with really good intentions trying to keep you safe.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_03: We might have to do another episode on um IFS one day too.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_03: I would love that.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_03: I love internal family systems.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm not surprised.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like you use it all the time.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_03: I do.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I haven't um one day I would love to do the program and you know, do the in-depth study of it.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_03: I've done little bits and pieces and um reading the book and yeah, weaving in what I can.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_03: Love it.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well, if a listener resonated deeply with today's conversation, what is one small step that they can take today to start this healing journey?
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you've made it this far, I would say check in with your body in this moment.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: Start trusting that everything you felt physically during this entire episode is wisdom communicating to you.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_00: And just see what you remember.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like what parts do you remember?
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: And how did how did it feel in your body?
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like how did it register in your body?
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_00: Were there moments where you where you felt teary or tightness or like expansion?
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_00: And like how would you describe that physically?
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um Yeah, and that's kind of that's how that journey starts.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's just really simply with that noticing and that curiosity and just intention for kindness towards self.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I love that.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_03: That's something I've been doing as we've been talking and something that I've built the habit of doing, is just always tracking and noticing the sensations in my body.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not always naming them.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, sometimes I do, especially if I'm, you know, in a in a session or something, I'll, you know, oh, I'm noticing a lot of emotion come up right now as I'm as you're sharing this, or um even within myself in a you know, in a non-professional setting, if I'm just like at home, like watching a show with my husband, and all of a sudden like something touches me, I will name, like, oh man, like I'm noticing some emotion come up right now.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so yeah, I think it would be a great idea and a gentle invitation for anyone who is really feeling like they want to do this work, maybe re listen to this episode now, knowing that and See what you notice.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_03: Love that.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_03: Well, again, we're kind of reaching the end of our episode, and um, we'll close out with two questions here.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm wondering where people can find you and learn more about your work, Kim.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's see.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've got socials.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've got, I think my website is something that I never delete.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that's always there.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Kim StevensTherapy.com.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, and you can send me an email there.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's also my um work cell in the footer.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can text me and call me that way.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I also have an Instagram and a TikTok where I occasionally do like uh mental health tips and videos and stuff like that.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I kind of have a love-hate relationship with social media.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_00: I hear I'll just forget about it for a long time and then get jazzed about doing videos and do more.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_00: So but there's some stuff on there as well.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, and then I have a TEDx talk uh called The Wisdom and Power of Your Feelings and How to Feel Them.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that goes a little bit more in depth with the kind of one, two, three step process of how to feel a feeling.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're interested more in kind of learning that process, you can, you know, do a YouTube search on that.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, and I do one-on-one sessions with clients.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_00: I also do um like workshops that involve everything from yeah, sound bath to guided meditation to movement therapy to partner connective exercises, all kinds of stuff.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, there's a lot of ways.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, we could work together.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_03: Wonderful.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we'll definitely link the um the TEDx talk in the show notes.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_03: I loved your TEDx talk, by the way.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_03: It was great.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_03: I admittedly had I like had known about it, and you know, we got all those things, right?
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_03: We're like, oh yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get to that.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna watch that, I'm gonna watch that.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_02: So many things to watch.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, leading up to this interview.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_03: I I watched it and I was I was deeply moved and deeply touched by your TEDx talk and was just in all of your wisdom and uh just your pure presence and embodiment in your your talk too was really beautiful.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_03: That's really yeah, you're welcome.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_03: And let's see if there are any final words um of encouragement for someone beginning to feel it, to heal it.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_00: Final words of encouragement.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know how to do this, your system knows how to do this.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's like ancient, it's how we evolved as a species.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know how to restore to balance.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, sometimes we just get a little tangled up and we need some help like untangling so that our system can kind of naturally resolve itself.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that power is like completely within you and uh yeah in your hands, and it's just a matter of re-remembering that and kind of getting back to that place and yeah, getting the support you need to re-remember that wonderful, beautiful closing words.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I always love talking to you, Riva.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I always enjoy our conversations too, Kim, and our time together.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_03: This has been um such a real delight, and it just brings me so much joy to have you as the first guest on this show and really kind of like yeah, start start this on a wonderful trajectory.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you for being here.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my pleasure, an honor.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, well, everyone, we look forward to connecting with you again, and in the meantime, take care of yourselves and take care of each other.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_02: Fighting for the voice of the wooding, clearing the pain from your wounding living, creating new life from your wooding, rebuilding with the faces of the mood, living.