Let’s Do Less: Beyond the Hustle | Episode 112 with Rachel Jensen

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lh6XWX-Scc

Transcript:
(00:02) [Music] hello welcome everyone I joined today by Rachel Jensen a little bit about Rachel she's a licensed massage therapist a certified health coach through Duke University certified integral yoga Hatha teacher and is currently pursuing her certification in somatic experiencing a body based approach in dealing with trauma so a lot to talk about here uh but actually I want to start Rachel uh your Instagram handle caught my attention let's let's do less yes so many many years ago I I'm a bit of a social media phobe in some ways
(00:51) although I've come to appreciate a lot of aspects of it but I made a joke many years ago with a friend that if I ever was a presence online that my handle would be something like let's do less and I would just pop up occasionally and be like take a nap thank you see you in two months um but I've really become to like embrace it in my practice um there's so much striving and hustling and so much information um in society and in culture in our lives right now that I just really like to encourage to slow down
(01:27) people to slow down even a little bit you know I think think there's such a beauty when I come to the asham and get to leave everything behind but there's so many practical daily ways that you can do that as well um you can check in um Also let's do less is a little bit about um doing less of things I don't want in my life and bringing in more of the things that bring joy um so yeah have you found that there's been like personal growth for you in this area like you've M you've enhanced your ability to do
(02:04) less or focus more on the things you actually want to be doing and less on the things that you don't I think so I think absolutely that's the case um I think just giving one permission to pursue the things you're interested in and also permission to move at a slower pace which even now in the current you know in daily life out here um there can be just a lot of people who are all all going so having that to tap into like I don't have to do that I can stop I can take rest when I need it um that doing less is really powerful
(02:49) doing less is occasionally doing more for yourself for your nervous system for healing um sometimes we get this idea that healing is like more and more and more work and sometimes the ground of doing less is very fertile for things to come up for things to rest and recover and become whole again and I really believe in that and I really um try to practice that for myself I had a friend once and I said I just feel like I'm not doing enough why do I feel like I'm not doing enough and she said she said it's because the world around
(03:28) you is moving so fast you're you're hitting that all the time and so I like to have that just as a place to return to that it's okay to come here and stop and uh resettle and do the calming Quiet Things That Really um nurture my nervous system and my life in order to do do more of those things I love I won't have the resour you know you classic but you can't pour from an empty cup and um I really try to manifest that in my life where I can I'm like U checking in with myself about this in this moment just wondering
(04:10) like how does how does that feel to do less and I'm realizing that it seems that there's like multiple parts of myself that have differing opinions 100% you know yeah like one part is somewhat scared maybe of this uh this label of of being lazy perhaps or being unaccomplished somehow it seems connected with how others might view me and being scared of of that it's like no I can't do less am I just you know coping out and then there's this other part that's just saying like yes it is this simple
(05:00) and like trust trust in this like what's maybe Difficult about it is you I can't experience the reward now from like letting go into that that that place but can I really can I really trust in the outcome yeah I would say yes I hear all of those voices too and I would say one of the things that is good to ground ground into is to allow yourself to feel the pleasure of things when you are doing less and not just think of it as a thing to check off I did this but what did it feel like when you were doing that what was there
(05:51) pleasure was there Sensations that were pleasurable or did you feel yourself relaxed what did you grow from that experience um um because it doesn't just have to be like a mental exercise it can be a practice I call it I I refer it to as grounding into that positive experience or you might have heard of the term glimmers like when something's positive allowing yourself to really can really trigger a feeling of positivity and I think it can be important when you are in those moments to just really allow yourself to feel it and embrace it
(06:28) um and it's okay if it goes it doesn't have to be all the time but to really allow yourself when it's happening to connect to it I think this is so big my feeling is that it's very widespread that people struggle with this and I know that I do myself for sure but I I wonder if we're having trouble like celebrating and enjoying the experience expences and as and there doesn't seem to be many people who want to kind of like fess up to that or on the individual level because that would be so confusing like you're
(07:13) telling me like I I made all these plans to go on this vacation and do all these fun things and I'm looking forward to it and then when I'm actually there I can't I can't do it actually it's reminding me um there's this little kid this kids show you might not I don't know if have kids or not but um it's called bluee and it's I know I don't have kids but I know the legend of blue you know the legend of blue so there's this episode of Bluey and uh the family is going on vacation and they're just
(07:45) arriving like at their hotel and the mom keeps talking about she can't wait to get on the beach and relax with her book like that that's her thing and they've got to do all the things check in into the to the place and get set up in the hotel and she's just I can't wait to get and just I just want to relax and do nothing and just sit on the beach with my book and they get into the room and then the kids are playing and she can't get everyone to go and the and the dad's like honey like why don't you go like I
(08:16) got it I got the kids now like go to the beach she's like oh okay I'll go and so she goes down there by herself and then she's like she she's got it you know she's the only one on the beach she's there in her comfortable chair she's with her book and she's like what what do I do now like can't do it can't actually the experience she can't do it yeah yeah so it makes me think very profoundly um and why we need to feel these things and practice these things I had a client many many years ago said so
(08:48) what's the point of meditation like why do you do it and I said well I can give you a laundry list of why meditation is good for you all the benefits the health benefits I said the reason you practice meditation is you won't have access to it as a skill when you need it if you don't practice it it's not a thing that you can snap your fingers and command to show up and arrive for you because now you've created space for it it's an embodied feeling and you know a lot of what we kind of so by not practicing
(09:23) allowing spaces to really feel what good feels like and there's a real reason we lose access to those feelings um you won't have access so if you want to relax suddenly well you can't because your nervous system is living here so if you never practice just practice being here you don't have to be there all the time but PR practice all of it and that's kind of what a healthy nervous system is a healthy nervous system should have Rises and Falls to it um but if you only are here or you're only
(09:52) here um you you'll struggle to really access it in kind of a fluid way I wonder about kind of this the feeling of content if it can be practiced like absolutely just feeling content yeah I think contentment I I love when I learn the word santosa like I was like oh contentment that sounds really nice and I've had lots of talks with people I have a lot of people who think contentment isn't enough like it sounds too they're like well I'm content with that and they they see it negatively um to me when I think of contentment I
(10:34) think of such a subtle warmth you know a subtle warmth of a really good spoonful of a really warming stew um and contentment also has boundaries of enough contentment is enough which isn't is I think is nice um and so yeah I think contentment is a beautiful thing to kind of ground into for some reason I link this um to maturity like within myself it's like this this kind of challenge that that contentment feels mature and it's also related to gratitude you know what I have right now I don't need anything else I am you know
(11:25) feeling blessed for what this moment is but then there's this I don't even know to call it a a childlike part of me or um maybe an insecure part of me or less mature that is just again always just wanting more like you know the soup isn't good enough it just needs a little bit of salt or I need to be uh reading a book while I'm eating or whatever it is just more more more and that's never going to end right and what I also say is that a lot of your responses in situations like this were created before present AI present AI can
(12:08) very like rationally look at his life and say I have this I have that I'm so grateful for this but a lot of our responses to things come from that little person who was developed under different circumstances and that person might not have had access to knowing what enough was um or that person might not have experienced that feeling um there is such uh you know an embodied feeling where you really feel it on all levels so that then you can respond from that place and feel that space um it's not you present AI who has to be
(12:49) answered it's possibly that small AI who's saying that's not enough for me and that's the person to talk to and say what do you need why is this not enough for for you now and that can take you very interesting places um I feel yeah I wonder what places those could take me and I wonder why that kind of insatiable thirst was developed like that habit developed to begin with like yeah yeah and everyone's different everyone has such uh a different um it's why it's it's why personally like say in
(13:27) trauma work it can be great to develop a practice um like you're talking about a practice of gratitude a practice of meditation but often if someone's nervous system was informed under trauma a mental exercise can't get them out of that space because their nervous system has been shaped and educated uh under these Circ a different circumstances and you might have to do more or different things to shift or change that feeling yeah so I I think this probably connects perfectly you have an upcoming program uh here at yogaville and it's
(14:08) trauma informed yoga right so you have seen that there's there's there's more there's a connection here that can happen so what is this about and what are you what are you hoping to accomplish for people in the program so I truly think of it as an introduction to trauma-informed yoga um we're interacting with people's trauma all day long whether we call it that or not PE our nervous systems are shaped by our life experiences and we are meeting people with their life experiences every
(14:42) day whether we know it or not um I consider trauma-informed yoga to be just another shade of adaptive yoga we want to make yoga as accessible and friendly for all people if we can and so I really so my personal passion in teaching trauma-informed yoga and I hope also eventually trauma-informed massage therapy one day is there is some basic biology and understanding of how the nervous system works and is shaped that I really love to share with people I think yoga teachers massage therapists people who are in caring professions
(15:23) often already bring so much kindness and warmth and an ability to hold space for people in their life experiences and what I like to give them is this just those those bits of extra information that might all of a sudden open a door or a window for them or their client or their patient they're working with um and for me the things I'm especially passionate about are kind of what I consider like the biology of trauma and then how your personal presence shows up in trauma work and um how you can build that what you need to
(15:54) be aware of because there are certain things that are really helpful in trauma work and there can be things that are very unhelpful in trauma work so it also like anyone taking this program I just like them to walk away feeling like a little more confident a little more informed so that if this shows up in their practice um they feel a little bit more confident about meeting it yeah can we dive in a little bit like maybe one or two key uh key things that you think if people were informed about it would make a really big difference
(16:27) for them yes I think so I'll say them both so I don't forget so if you have to help me Circle back to it you can is good one is some stuff about kind of triggers and the biology of trauma and how that works and then also about um how what we can offer in terms of our presence for people um so in general with um biology of trauma and what I like people to really understand is that um trauma is not necessarily something that someone is um is I don't know if in charge is the right word but trauma happens
(17:12) below um and a trauma response happens below cognitive awareness it is not a thought out process trauma is a biological response to Sensations or situations that often IM immediately causes a reaction and that's unique to every person what that is it's not the same for each person but the process is and the forming of that trigger is an event has occurred or events over time have occurred that have caused your survival response to have an immediate response to things and I find this especially powerful particularly in
(17:50) the yoga context because one of the things I think we're so powerfully offering people in yoga and can offer them is the ability for people to begin to offer like a safe space of containment ability to sit an ability to maybe begin to interact with a their body in a way that maybe a body that may not have felt safe that now maybe you can start to see ways to begin to feel safe in that body and supported so there's that um yeah it's so so interesting um well this this first point around that you know these
(18:35) responses are often happening beyond the cognitive you know and they're so deep and then maybe what I hear you saying is that uh the the potential is to create spaces for people to explore that and maybe get in touch with the actual I don't know if you'd call them feeling or whatever the response is that comes up and then to you know be aware of it in the body and then that that awareness then is the first step towards healing I would say even just at the most basic even before you say deal with content yoga just might provide a
(19:16) safe space particularly if we make some adjustments to yoga um and that's where kind of being a little bit more trauma informed can also help to understand understand that in these populations asking perhaps them to just do this and it will work for them might not be the case well actually I wonder about this of just can there be a potentially trauma associated with just having people tell you what to do with your body 100% binging it's one it's definitely a big thing in trauma-informed yoga that you
(19:56) want to be aware of is how you speak to client um and students how you speak to them about their body um using Invitational language so that people know that it's not a command there's no right way to do it um also um you know making sure maybe you remove words that might have connotations for people like um or even like this is how it should look you know commands that make it only be one way because a lot of people have uh come from backgrounds where they didn't have a choice and they couldn't
(20:36) be agents um in their own life and experience I'm just considering like teaching really is so hard and I think why it's very challenging is because everyone is in a different place and I've been exploring this for a while and asking people about it I mean personally as a teacher because of what we're talking about um I use a lot of initative language language you know um because I think ownership is essential it has been essential for me I mean I probably have some trauma like you know just being a kid in the class room for
(21:15) and just the experience of being a child that so many of us have is you don't have Choice like this is what you have to do and there's no choice um and there's a limit to that and there's a limit that I want to expand out of from that and in order to do that I need space to explore what I actually want to be doing that's at the beginning of every class I teach I always say this is your time this is your class like you do what you want with it however on the flip side of it which I totally
(21:42) understand some people some people really like to be told like don't give me the flowerly language invite me to do it I just want to know put my left foot here you know give me the the the Bare Bones instruction cuz I just want to follow along and I get that too what do you think of this I can absolutely see it because I've been felt the power of a class where I just let myself surrender to the teacher telling me what to do and I get to be very Mindful and present um and I would say I understand that when you're
(22:16) adapting to a whole classroom of students that's always a challenge um so some of what I might be sharing might be more beneficial if you know you're working with a trauma population um but I also don't think that um they have to be mutually exclusive um I've had such wonderful I've got to be so many teachers coming to the ashram and experiencing from people and so it's not just about the words you use you know I think you can be Invitational in how you introduce the class and then teach the class with very
(22:53) clear direct options um and I think it's also about so if someone comes to you after class and says that didn't work for me I I personally would always air on the side of making sure I've added invitation at the start and throughout um but I think you can adjust based on the population you're working with and I also think part of uh dealing with people's responses to things is saying that's good to know and you know maybe letting them have their reactions yeah I've got this uh you remind me of I've got a t-shirt up in my
(23:36) wall in my kitchen and it says um not everyone's G to like you you're not an avocado not Everyone likes avocado either no it's fair I think there's a practice in that you know and just knowing okay like for whatever reason your energy your style is not going to be for everyone and is that okay and you can't be responsible for everyone's reaction but you can bring a little awareness and a little shift in language um how you do things and you can also kind of maybe recognize the population
(24:13) you're working with that might need more more or less adaptation so the second thing you mentioned I think was presence yes presence yeah yeah so something I've learned in my massage therapy work I've been massage therapist for almost 19 years now and that practice is what led me to an interest in trauma work because I started kind of gathering a lot of um clients where that was showing up and I could see where these overlaps were and what I've just learn in my experience over the years is how much
(24:57) your not so much what you do but how you do it and how you show up is the ground for the healing just like you're saying like if I say the wrong word it's the power to me is in being present with someone that's what does the work more than any technique or any advice you might offer um because by being present with someone else and providing them uh someone who sees them who who is tending to them in whatever way you know your circumstances are calling for they get to be present with themsel in a way that they might not be allowed
(25:43) in their life they may have never experienced and they may not know how to do and so that you get to offer that to them um which I think is so powerful I'm wondering is there an overlap between being present and being genuine I think so I think there probably would require a lot of nuance to tell where someone's standing because often people think they're being uh genuine and honest um I would say pres so the term I use which I heard first from Bonnie Bok is non judgmental agenda presence and I try to use that as my
(26:34) ruler for um working with someone and how I am present with them and those work those just work really well for me um because they're just so Broad and they hold so much space just wondering like is there a direct correlation between the work and maybe even work isn't the the best word for it um but where I am personally in terms of my relationship with myself and the amount of service effect I can have on on others right like is there is is it what we're talking about here like is it possible to fake this you
(27:32) know I'm sure it's possible to fake it for sure what I also think is it's probably possible to be trying your best and that's okay too what else can we do what else can you do you know um I I particularly like to diffuse that part of anyone's self Improvement betterment Journey that like there is a best that you should be reaching um I am personally like that does not ring true for me and I also think the best the idea that there is a best or even a perfect comes from not great places this idea that um
(28:20) we are going to get there um It Centers some things that aren't great um so I like I like to just take that out entirely um I think non-judgmental AG genderist presence is a great thing to apply to I mean that's literally when you're deciding that I'm doing my best is trying to say I don't have an agenda but it also gives you a chance to investigate do I what what's the agenda here and just to know a little bit more about yourself it's not bad to have an agenda necessarily but it can be good to start
(28:55) there to kind of look at things I notice that it it flickers sometimes so quickly like no agenda agenda no agenda agenda you know moment to moment yeah I think that's being human I think you know when you do a lot of Trav work you talk a lot about the nervous system and how it flows and a system isn't supposed to be a static line that's not a healthy healthy system that just does this no matter what level it's at a System supposed to go up and down and I think that's again that's being human
(29:32) sometimes I'm here sometimes I'm there one is not better than the other it's just how are you able to navigate those spaces yeah and is the answer there for you acceptance yeah yeah enough again contentment enough and if you're not content well what does that mean and that's the further exploring and that's the you know do you help need help from other professionals to explore those topics or do you just need more time to investigate with yourself but it can be a good place to start um do do you find
(30:13) that there are certain um spaces that are harder for you to accept oh sure um there's so many that come flooding in it's um you know I'd say just from like a personal level like I prefer quiet spaces to loud spaces I'm an introvert I prefer less people to more people so there's just basic stuff like that like me as a human Rachel what does she find enjoyable and not enjoyable and then there are spaces that I find um you know on like a personal basis my partner is uh female so places where I feel like that's not supported can feel
(31:07) intolerant and aggravating and make me very angry and frustrated um so yeah there's large levels and small levels so if you're finding yourself in a state of anger frustration is there an inner dialogue that happens there that can be helpful for you yeah absolutely um I try to judge the situation on I'm in on if I have access so let's start with do I have access to cognitive thought or am I just so mad if I'm just so mad sometimes that's the best response is I have to step away I am not in charge I'm not in
(31:48) charge of charge of me right now whatever I'm feeling is in charge and that's okay you still made the choice to step away that was that's for me that's like the beginning choice is can I show up up and be online and have access to myself in this situation and then I ask questions like what is necessary or helpful in this situation sometimes anger is an appropriate response to things um and then I might decide and then what is the action I want from this feeling um so I think for me when you say necessary
(32:26) or helpful do you mean for yourself for others anger is we try to contain anger a lot um we try to contain negativity a lot mostly because of then the action that comes from that um and although other people don't like feeling that but anger can be a completely rational response to an unjust or unfair situation a lot of times when I work with people who have trauma they went through experiences where there was no time space or recognition they were completely overwhelmed their boundaries were violated and they were in a situation
(33:13) where they it was rightful to feel angry about this situation and either the situation didn't allow it it was so fast that there was no chance to have like feelings and that's lot of how trauma is trauma forms and perpetuates because you have an experience that is so fast it happens before cognitive skills can kind of come in and say allow you to express yourself and sometimes a situation never allowed for that but the feeling is still there so it can be really important to begin to develop that process and
(33:54) being able to because there's not a there's not a moral value to something that you are experiencing in your body as a feeling like a feeling it's it's sensation a feeling is sensation there's all the stuff that we put with the feeling but the feeling is sensation [Music] and you can really and it's it can be work particularly depending on the space you have to to be able to engage in that and to be allowed to have space to work on that kind of thing it can be really important to begin to build space to be able to touch
(34:43) into those feelings and that's what you're interested in maybe yeah so sematic experiencing that I'm training in um was created by Peter Len um if people are interested in learning more about them traumah healing.org is their website um but one of the things we do in sematic experiencing is help to begin to build space for someone around those Sensations and feelings because a lot of time in trauma at that time or over time you could not have access to those those experiences it's part of how our
(35:31) survival system protects us we're creatures who are made to survive and so we have these defense mechanisms in that say this feels dangerous we got to get out of here or we got to fight this off or I'm going to shut down completely so I don't have to feel this and for people who have trauma someone used a great analogy um in one of my last some one of my last colleagues uh shared this she said is it's like you know we all have survival responses but for people who have trauma it's like their smoke detectors right over their
(36:13) toaster they don't have the space to stop and say and so a lot of that is skills building then so a lot of that is is okay well first let's just start with we got to build a safe space to sit in and what are you feeling and that can be really overwhelming and okay let's sit and deal with what comes up with these feelings and then there's so much further work beyond that that you can do but that's just kind of the beginning do you think it's possible not to feel like not to have any sensation
(36:57) at all you can work really hard at that and I would call that dissociation but even in meditation I've heard some people describe it that this is what's happening you know and during that that even we're talking about contentment before sosia right is there feeling is there sensation in that yes I and I think you know that's where there's like a line between Detachment and dissociation and I think what makes them the difference is the ability to put that tool up or down meaning like I am in this space and
(37:42) I am in meditation and I am not feeling anything and I think you absolutely can have that in that moment and does that stay with you outside of that moment and should it stay with you outside of that moment yeah see I don't I don't think it's possible not to feel that's my my my experience yeah I lean more towards that that side of I think we are like feeling machines that's what we're doing I think these are certain types of of feeling you know and it's hard to describe what they are or label them
(38:19) with words but I don't personally ever I don't think that I think you can disconnect or detach for a time period or I also think you can turn your nervous system down to zero and a lot of people think turning their nervous system down to zero is a good thing and not having any access to sensation and that I definitely don't agree with um your nervous system should be in the middle nervous system down to zero what do you mean by that so if you think about say we'll just use arbitrarily 0 to 100 an an hyp a system that's
(39:09) hyperaroused a system that is very upregulated might feel like it's always at 100 uh you know so that's someone whose heart's racing all the time someone who is nervous often might be irritable aggressive because their nervous system is constantly up regulated they're in their sympathetic system someone who is at a zero or experiencing kind of hypoarousal a downregulated system or might not feel anything might be completely dissociated from Sensation from feeling and for in terms of nervous Sy system regulation you'd like to maybe
(39:53) be at a 40 to 60 and none of these are absolutes this is like for the purpose of demonstration because sometimes you also go high and then go low and that's part of nervous system recovery but uh H I like to um I like the word access it's nice to have access to all parts of it and not be say stuck up or stuck down yeah I wonder how the the sticking happens and if this is connected to the stories we tell ourselves like on the cognitive level and that definitely encourages it 100% um also your biological
(40:36) experiences um you know if you've been like cases of say complex PTSD which are often situations that have happened over longer periods of time someone's nervous system can be you know kind of stuck there or stuck down at least that's what we see in types of trauma work and you often have to do some kind of learning to um over time to allow it um and also that again it goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning this idea of like actually feeling what being regulated might feel like if you've never had access to that
(41:25) in your life it it won't just happen so whether you begin a gratitude practice and that begins to inform how you feel or you begin to have positive embodied feeling experiences for me yoga was so powerful in my life because it helped me build a safe container to then handle challenging experiences but for me yoga was many things but was largely a place where where I could tap into something in a felt sense inside myself and that was a thing that then I grew in my yoga practice that was so powerful for me why was yoga that for
(42:16) you so I in my personal life I had some challenges that existed over many years that couldn't be changed it's great if you can leave a challenging situation behind um but that's not always available to you and yoga helped continually allow my body myself my nervous system a safe place to go back to and fill my cup up right but why did why did it do it what about it allowed for that to happen hm it's a good question I think for me and massage did this for me as well allowing me to feel good in my
(43:17) body and that being able to feel good in my body it's you need those reminders you know we have a neg negativity bias in our brain to Again part of our survival mechanism we our brain is like I've got to remember that bad thing because I don't want that bad thing to happen again but the same structure that allows for that can also help you can be a resource if you allow yourself to and you have if you're allowed to have access to that kind of space how is that a resource because if I have only experienced say
(44:12) agitation elevation anguish and I also have it Yoga Yoga is also a continual practice of some days are good some days are bad some days this feel good some but I learned that I what I could do and that I could go towards that space and that that space was [Music] there yeah the negativity bias is so interesting and important I think I wonder like when when trauma is even first experien like what happens there in those moments is a is a decision made to I'm going like the last thing I want is for this to happen
(45:05) again and therefore I'm committing to something like right like closing off my heart because my heart is broken and was open so I'm Comm committed then and then that changes everything that that commitment so I would say the story comes after the survival response um sematic experiencing Peter L based his work in part on on watching how animals experience trauma and that animals seem to be able to experiencing something that called in the survival response you know freeze fight flight and then are able to regulate after that experience
(45:45) experiences and so that's what he looked at as he was informing sematic experiencing but the story comes afterwards and the and we humans are really good at the story that's what we have as humans and the story true untrue it doesn't matter but the story perpetuates our response in our body and that's very cognitive I wonder if animals do that on some level too or what's happening for them right because you have a dog that's maybe been abused and now for maybe the course of a lifetime or for a long if
(46:26) they have a new owner that's not abusive right that's still they're still so afraid anytime they they meet someone or maybe someone that has a profile similar to the person that abused them yes and I think it's clear and Direct in that case and we as humans have a lot of other adaptive mechanisms we've brought online to keep us going through trauma um we're not allowed to bite people if they've been mean to us we're not allowed to you know we're told so many things that would
(46:59) um that we we were not allowed to do don't express that don't talk about that um and all of those things as humans then then can compound to perpetuate that trauma to keep continuing um G Gabor mate who works in the trauma you may have you know heard some of his talks he talks about how trauma is not the event trauma is the wound afterwards that's the trauma is the thing that persists and Trauma can persist because of a thing it's a thing on a physical level that hasn't healed and Trauma can
(47:46) exist because it's not healing in other ways would you generalize and say that maybe more on a collective um level that what's often happening is a movement from the body to the Mind as a way of life like I don't know about you but like for me I I can there's a very different experience that I could have I realize I can be just operating up in my mind and then I can I I kind of see is like a Gateway like the mind can be used a Gateway like my it can say like you know connect with the body or feel the
(48:33) whole body and as soon as I do that like embody your body AI like that's a message I'll say to myself a lot and that is a different experience when I'm doing that I feel like I'm being my like entire self as opposed to just a fraction of myself y yes I do think I mean I I I had this conversation once I'm sure if we move to a paradigm that was 100% giving bodily Supremacy that would also have some negativities but we live in a world that places much more emphasis on the mind so much emphasis on the
(49:08) mind and we and we learn mental skills but we don't spend as much time learning how to check in with the body how to experience the body in a safe and contained way um you know like you have children mm yeah we teach children like very valuable skills but there's something so honest about a toddler's feelings that is honesty on a very true level doesn't they are just feeling it they are just feeling it and then we begin to use our mind to contain that as we move through life to understand and contain and some
(50:02) of that's very valid it lets us do I can't imagine a life where I you know melted down every day over things you know that's that's important learning and it can be important to not lose that skill entirely of I feel a thing in my whole body right now because that hasn't that has such an honesty to it um I call it um in sematic work we were talking once about I brought to the idea of the the unreliable narrator um why why maybe we check in with the body over the mind and you know unreliable narrator is
(50:45) a term used in fiction when your narrator you trust everything they say and that's how they use that to kind of all of a sudden at the end oh look this thing happened because you automatically trust the narrator and there are reasons for sometimes in trauma work to check into the body because if the body is feeling something it is feeling something it doesn't matter the shades of am I right to feel that Am I Wrong to feel that is it in my head you're still experiencing that feeling and it's such just such a really
(51:26) powerful tool to have at your disposal it doesn't mean you don't use both but it's nice to have access to both this this something you feel like personally you've made progress in regards to I think so I think in certain areas for sure and certain areas not at all and that's okay yeah um yeah it's an ongoing practice um you know I get to I have jobs where being calm with another person is something I do regularly so that might help um in order to be Cal just just to that ability to be like we're just going
(52:14) to hold presence together and I'm going to feel like massage is a space where it's good to be aware of you know what's happening in my body as I work so but also have the Mind online um and taking so it's just good to practice in those spaces of having access to multiple things at once right yeah I imagine so what do you do in order to accomplish that like you believe that you you know being in your body will allow you to serve better right so how can you do that I mean for me it's all of the it's
(52:55) it's what I call sometimes all the things time for yoga when I am in my body time for meditation when I am watching thoughts come up and giving myself the space to take them in or not to investigate those thoughts it's allowing myself the time to slow down for the body Minds move very fast I I think in general bodies move slower or there there's a language barrier sometimes between the mind and body that needs to allow for translation yeah I wonder if it's a sort of Mantra even that's happening that
(53:44) that's helpful in order to stay present like do you have a certain Mantra that you would say uh that you use that helps you to stay present maybe just just pre be present I don't know I would say I would say I spend a lot of time in dialogue with my mind of is that true which works well for me as someone who has experienced anxiety for most of her life since she was a child and so it's very powerful for me to is that true and ask both the body and the mind I.
(54:33) E if my heart is racing is that true is it true that the heart is racing or like you notice is but but where is that coming from you know what is is that true is that reli am I getting reliable [Music] data it's powerful stuff yeah I love it I I also like where in this field I think I think people feel heavy when they hear the word trauma and Trauma is really entering I think kind of like the Zeitgeist and po popular treatment and popularity out there of I've had trauma and I know that that can be really like for some people take that on
(55:15) and it becomes kind of negative and limiting but for me trauma is yes a sign that we can be changed but also Al a sign that our bodies can change and there's kind of other sides of the coins for me which is that you know I often um talk with people about yoga as a neuroplastic exercise yoga is a practice through which our our brain and our nervous system actually changes through doing it and I love that side of the coin that there is possibility trauma trauma education has made me feel really proud of what my body could do
(56:04) for me when I didn't have the Mind space and the mind available to digest digest or understand a situation and I just I I hope maybe even some people who if they come and participate in this weekend take that away that sense of um there are things that can be done and things that are helpful and things that are useful yeah one thing I think that's so useful is is being in community around doing this right yeah that's potentially is created maybe originally too is maybe one of the the factors um that you were experiencing
(56:50) you know 100% yeah before I knew what co-regulation was which is part of poly bangle Theory which is just basically the idea in a small nutshell um is that our systems regulate off of other people's systems if someone someone projecting calm often calms your nervous system someone being worked up often works up your nervous system um so yes absolutely those things are happening and I love that overlap so much uh one thing mentioned earlier I really appreciate is maybe just dispelling this idea that there's an end or there's a
(57:35) top of the mountain to get to which I think is you know very common and I also have that doesn't resonate for me in my experience um that to me what's more what's more real is just progression growth healing if we use the word healing you know which never ends and I'm okay with that I don't need it I don't need for there to be an end however I think it is important for the mind to be clear on what the goal is so is the goal to get to an end place to be completely healed or is the goal simply to make progress
(58:16) yeah and the goal is what each person defines it as for me I like I think of for myself I think of is this working for me or not and just no I'm agitated all the time so maybe it's not working for me or yes I feel at peace about this it's working for me um and I think the picture is needs to be shaped by you and what you want your picture to look like I believe you do some coaching too yeah and you know coaching is the effective coaching comes out of figuring out what that person wants it to look like not what you want it to look like
(59:06) or or what a prescribed definition of what it's supposed to look like yes yes but I there seems to be a play here between what I want to look like and what is what is possible yeah right like want to look look like that there's an end and I'm completely healed or I'm enlightened like I've reached the mountain top that's it it's over like I could like that you know but is that doesn't change the reality of whether or not that's actually possible right yes and I'm I personally never to
(59:51) invested in is it possible but that's me personally uh meaning like that's not a that's not a I think some people are really motivated on by like what's next what else can I do and I think that's fantastic um it's just not my personal motivation what's your personal motivation I would say my personal motivation is what do I need to show up for my life in the most present way that I can in the most joyful way that I can and for me my personal guidance is taking care of myself as well as I
(1:00:43) take care of other people so continually going back to um you know my own check-ins there's a this is a topic you've kind of brought up a topic that's of great interest to me because I find that there's uh such a connection here that it's hard to even separate taking care of myself and taking care of other people yep you know because the my ability to take care of other people is a direct byproduct of my ability to take care of myself and also I find that taking care of other people is also a
(1:01:25) way of taking care of myself it's some need that I have right like Swami such Dand just says who will be the happiest person the one who brings happiness to others yep I believe that that's true yeah 100% I think that requires honesty too of am I resourcing myself to do that it's not again it's not a direct line path like I will get there it's a it's a constant check-in it's today I'm not not able to show up for someone else or or the person I will show up as as I am presently might be harmful or
(1:02:08) hurtful um and just being including yourself and the people who get taken care of yeah and also I really believe that I have learned better how to care for other people by taking care of myself but again you know it's an ofed word but I need to know embody and know what being taken cared for feels like yeah it's cool you know I think that it should be number one because if you if you if if I zoom out and see what does a world look like with every human being being seeing it as their primary responsibility to
(1:02:59) care for themselves what does that world look like you know and it's it's very practical because I I don't I don't control anyone else the way that I control me there's this relationship with myself that actually I think leads to great a lot more satisfaction because so much suffering happens trying to control things outside of me yeah and it's it's it's I think much more scary to work on you yourself much more terrifying to work on yourself but perhaps much more fruitful because like you
(1:03:39) said it's also a faster path towards change you will have much more success changing yourself than someone else yeah and why is it scary to me this is also a really interesting question like the answer that comes up for for myself is is like all around identity yeah that's why that's why it's it's scary because I've established this identity this conversation again on a cognitive level of how I Define myself and therefore to do I I can be disturbing that yes and disturbing that could come with a lot of overwhelming
(1:04:19) feelings and Sensations and it will a lot of the identity that we built the habits that we built are to to deal with a feeling we don't want to feel yeah ah it's good stuff Rachel thank you so much and I'm uh looking forward to seeing you and and just thank you yeah this was great I enjoyed myself awesome thanks for all the work that you do thanks Javi thanks for listening if you've enjoyed this content and think others might as well please feel free to share and subscribe