April 23, 2025 • 58 mins
If you’ve ever felt like you’ve done “all the work” and still feel stuck, this episode is for you.
In this powerful and revealing episode of Unapologetically Yours, host Ashley Logan sits down with Bethany Davis, founder of Entheon Somatics, to explore the life-altering power of somatic healing - especially for leaders, creatives, and high-achievers on the verge of burnout.
Bethany shares why top-down mindset work alone often fails to resolve trauma that lives in the body—and how bottom-up, body-based practices like somatic experiencing can unlock the clarity, presence, and capacity needed to lead with purpose.
Ashley opens up about her personal work with Bethany, including how unprocessed trauma was showing up in everyday moments—and how somatic therapy began to change everything.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
- How trauma and stress patterns get stored in the nervous system
- Why somatic experiencing is essential for long-term transformation
- The physiological reasons high-performing women burn out
- How Bethany built Entheon Somatics to support executive and visionary leaders holistically
- What it looks like to lead from an embodied, regulated, and resourced place
If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Why am I reacting like this?” or “Why can’t I get past this block?”—this episode will help you understand what your body has been trying to tell you all along.
Connect with Bethany Davis, Founder of Entheon Somatics:
Email: bethany@entheonsomatics.com
Website: https://www.entheonsomatics.com/
Connect with Ashley:
Instagram @ashleydlogan
Website: https://ashleydlogan.com/
Have a topic or guest you’d love to see featured on the Unapologetically Yours podcast? Send us an email: podcast@unapologeticallyyours.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Everything from listening to a podcast, reading books, getting advice from friends, it'sall top down.
It's sort of this choice.
Let me choose to see something a different way so I can get a different outcome.
And wherever there's trauma in the body, sometimes we can't choose to have a differentexperience than the one we're having.
And so that's where bottom-up approaches are really important.
(00:26):
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Unapologetically Yours podcast.
I'm your host Ashley Logan and I'm so happy to have you here today.
Unapologetically Yours is a podcast where we go deep on everything from spirituality torelationships and connection to business and belief systems because in a world where we've
been taught to play by the rules, it's time to live a little bit unapologetically.
(00:50):
And I want to welcome someone to the show today.
I've had the
privilege of working closely with on a one-on-one basis.
And so today we're joined by Bethany Davis.
She's founder of Entheon Somatics, a practice dedicated to helping leaders overcomeburnout and unlock their full potential through holistic support.
(01:11):
And ultimately with the capacity that Bethany and I started working together with wasthrough somatic therapy.
And to help me to
unlock some of the traumas and beliefs and practices that have been stored in my body.
(01:33):
Anyway, we'll get into all of that.
But first, Bethany, welcome to Unapologetically Yours.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm thrilled to be here.
It's wonderful to be with you again.
And I'm really excited to let people know a little bit more about somatic experiencing andall that it has to offer.
I love it.
Well, I mean, you have
helped me in so many ways, big and small, through our work together.
(01:58):
And so let's just start off with the basics.
How does trauma live in our body and how does somatic therapy help to unlock that?
Yeah, really important questions that I hope more people are asking.
Well, maybe I'll start by painting a little bit of a picture of how I came to have such aregard for this work.
(02:22):
I'm an executive coach.
I've been an executive coach for about a decade now.
And I worked for a group called the Conscious Leadership Group for about five years.
And they're known for really some like deep work, deep work.
We're using psychological models.
We're really looking for our unconscious behaviors and patterns and reallytransformational stuff.
(02:43):
And I changed a lot of my life.
Like I did two years of deep coach training.
There's so many things in my life that I changed using those tools and using those models.
And then there was these things that were not changing.
And it didn't matter how many times I worked the model, how many times I did my practices,how often I asked myself these questions and tried to apply these very valuable tools.
(03:07):
It was like,
The stimulus, whatever stimulus was happening, my response to it was so outsized.
It wasn't in right relationship.
I was just having a really big response based on whatever it was that was occurring inlife.
And at the time I felt really frustrated.
Like, I've done all this work.
Why are these areas of my life not changing?
(03:29):
Why don't I know how to shift these things?
So enter.
somatic experiencing.
And I was fortunate to be introduced to somatic experiencing through a fellow coach who isa therapist and somatic experience practitioner as well as a conscious leadership coach.
And when she started talking about this, I was just like, this, this is what is going on.
(03:53):
I can feel that this is what I need to put some attention on.
And essentially what somatic experiencing does is it takes a body based approach toprocessing things that have occurred in our life.
our big something happen moments.
So there's all kinds of coaches in the world.
Most coaches are what we would call like content coaches or top down coaches, coaches whogive advice, they use different models, they help you map, they help you track, they help
(04:20):
you see things.
Everything from listening to a podcast, reading books, getting advice from friends, it'sall top down.
It's sort of this choice.
Let me choose to see something a different way so I can get a different out.
And wherever there's trauma in the body, sometimes we can't choose to have a differentexperience than the one we're having.
And so that's where bottom-up approaches are really important.
(04:44):
We can't choose to have a different approach than the one that we are having.
Yeah.
Whatever's going on, we're out of our agency a little bit, and our body's just having theexperience it's having.
And it's more about, OK, how can I get with that?
How can I move towards that?
How can I allow that?
And as we do that,
things change inside of our body and then we get a lot more available to use some of theseother top-down approaches.
(05:09):
It's so interesting to me because where my mind is going is the reason why Bethany and Iwere referred to working together was because a friend of mine who is also Conscious
Leadership Coach and someone who I work with regularly, she saw me have a reaction to aman walk into a room and saw my
(05:32):
body just like tense up.
And that's normally something that I hide, but I'm super comfortable with her.
she was like, Holy shit, how many times a day is that?
Are you going into fight or flight when some man you don't know walks into a room?
And I was like, well, funny.
I can think of three today.
(05:53):
When the FedEx guy walked into my office, when someone at church came up to me, approachedme unexpectedly.
And what
she realized all of the work that you've been doing and healing and getting your mind inright relationship and really kind of like shifting my life.
(06:14):
I kind of going through those things that you had talked about, like the consciousleadership, the things and practices, belief systems.
I'm unpacking all of that.
But then I got to this point.
And what I can describe it as it's like there's dinosaur bones under a hovering that needsto be that's off and those bones aren't going anywhere.
And we've to look at them and we've got to figure out like, what is it?
(06:35):
What's causing this reaction?
What's trapping the energy?
And in my case, this was a whole bunch of different experiences I've had in my life fromsexual assault, childbirth, just carrying so much trauma in my womb space.
noting that I got to a certain point of like, okay, this needs to be addressed.
(06:59):
This needs to be
worked with or I'm not going to be able to get any further.
Yeah, we just we've reached the end of ourselves.
I'm so thrilled that the self development world, you know, has just been sort offlourishing and more people than ever are interested and developing themselves and saying,
(07:21):
how can I take more responsibility for my life?
Let me take a look at what's going on here.
How have I created some of these outcomes?
And especially in professional settings, you know, like it's the norm for executives tohave budgets so that they can get really well supported because we understand where the
leader goes.
So too goes the organization.
And we've gotten into these places of real depth where it's really a relational containerand it's sort of therapeutic.
(07:46):
And we're not just talking about what's an ideal meeting schedule for your one-on-ones.
Like we're going deep and there's this.
whole legion of professional coaches, 110,000 certified professional coaches in the US.
And we're using proven psychological models and we're really like almost looking for whereare the triggers and what's really going on here.
(08:08):
And you're gonna bump into people's trauma.
that, if you're going at that level and you're building that much of trust with your coachand you have this safe place to talk, you're gonna bump into things.
And so, you know.
I just became really interested in how can I radically support somebody.
And so not only did I go get my own somatic work and just felt the Delta, felt thesechanges, felt my availability change and my habits and my body change.
(08:35):
I went and did this three year program in somatic experiencing so that I could supportpeople in that way too.
and kind of combine these modalities and, yeah, I'm happy to.
answer any questions you have, including kind of going into theory, the somatic theory oflike, what exactly is this?
Why are things in our body?
What is trauma?
How does that all work?
(08:55):
I'm happy to come into that.
Oh my God.
Well, yes.
So I love that you went down this path and recognize the gaps because the gaps is where wefind the growth.
And so then you took that next step forward.
And so I guess that what I am curious about is people as they're looking at themselves andinvestigating their own growth, their own limitations.
(09:16):
Trauma can look like a lot of different things.
can suit capital T trauma, rape, other kinds of things.
kinds of things.
By your parents or, you know, others.
but how does, I'd love to go into like sort of the science, like how trauma gets stuck inour bodies and why we've got to look at that and how that can impact how we show up
(09:40):
relationally to others, not just as leaders, but also with our sisters and friends and.
all the relational containers that we hold.
Yeah.
So a really good way to understand how we behave as humans, we're served by expanding tosee how do mammals behave.
And a really big difference that we see between human beings and between other mammals isthat mammals don't tend to really get traumatized.
(10:08):
And so I don't know if you've ever seen a video.
I was
exposed to several videos like this in my training, of like a bear that's maybe shot by atranquilizer because researchers are needing to, you know, flag it, talk to it, involve
with somehow.
if you're, if we're out in nature and a, at some large animal, like a bear gets shot witha tranquilizer, so that it goes to sleep so that we can interact with it in some kind of
(10:32):
way for some scientific purpose.
I don't know if you've ever seen a video like that, but when the tranquilizer wears off,what a mammal, a normal healthy mammal will do.
is shake, really, really, really shake a lot because it was a big scare to have to getshot like that with a tranquilizer and a lot of chemicals change in the body.
(10:53):
And so a natural impulse of the body to help us regulate and process big experiences likethat is this experience of shaking.
Now, we as human beings, that's an example of one like intelligent impulse of the bodythat helps us regulate and recover from threat.
We have largely socialized ourselves
(11:14):
of listening to body impulse.
In fact, the more regular and expected socialized experiences, something's happening onthe inside and I need to do everything I can manage to make sure nobody notices what's
happening on the inside.
So we arrest a lot of our natural impulses and the ways that our body is.
trying to support us most often.
(11:35):
You you can see this if you're walking a dog and somebody else has their dog and the twodogs kind of like come to each other and they get in their little fight or flight response
and they bark and they do like, they walk a lot, you know, everybody kind of pulls theleashes and they walk in their separate directions, a dog will do the same thing.
The dog will shake and they're responding to something, something just happened.
And my body needs to move through this experience and you know, feel it through and let itcomplete and shift.
(12:02):
Our body knows how to do this naturally, but we have fallen out of aligning ourselves tothe natural impulses of the body to do it.
And when we don't do that, it just, it sticks around.
We just put it aside for later.
And over time, some of these charges, these survival impulses, this stuff kind of buildsup in the body over time.
You know, in small ways, we'll see that we'll have a bigger reaction to some kind ofstimulus that's happening because it kind of.
(12:28):
of something that happened in the past on some level, our body is always looking to heal.
So when some stimulus that looks like this thing that didn't get enough attention ordidn't have enough support, it'll bring up some of that charge to go, okay, now is the
time for that all to kind of come up and get processed out.
And so that's why we get triggered.
And that's particularly why we would get like triggered to a level where we get a littlebit dysregulated and we just don't have the...
(12:53):
tools and the skillfulness to understand when that's happening inside of ourselves andwhat kind of support we need so that we can kind of complete that stuff and move it out so
that we are just sort of in right relationship.
We can just, this is the stimulus and we have a measured response to this stimulus that'sthe right size and makes sense for what's occurring rather than having a much bigger
(13:13):
response.
So Peter Levine, he's sort of the
You know, the father of all of this work, he designed a lot of the somatic experiencingmethodology and teaches it and trains people.
And he says a really simple definition of trauma is anything that's too much, too fast,not enough support.
So when the right conditions aren't met, when there's a something happened moment and anyone of those three things aren't in place, sometimes it lands in our body as trauma.
(13:42):
And there's just a certain set of tools and support.
that's needed in those cases to be able to kind of transcend those experiences.
my gosh.
Everything that you just shared is like, I mean, too much, too fast, not enough support.
What a beautiful definition.
It does not have to be these big capital T moments and yes.
(14:09):
It's subjective.
Like what might feel like too much or not enough for one person might be totally differentfrom somebody else.
It's less about what is the thing that's occurring and it's more about what is happeningin the body in the absence of the support that's needed in that moment.
Yeah.
And I find too that we have such this tendency to just we're glazing over experiencesbecause we're constantly telling like the socialization part of it.
(14:36):
Like, how should I react?
Was that, did that happen?
Okay.
I'm not going to talk about that today because of fear of speaking truth and all of thosethings.
And there's all sorts of
social aspects that are contributing to this overall, but it's the long-term ramificationsof this and the long-term the things that we're carrying with us into our relationships,
(14:57):
into our parenting, into our leadership.
It builds up over time.
And if you think about how much programming there is, it's like, think about...
how we are with our children if we're not really being aware, you know, because we areuncomfortable with our bodies, experiences and our own emotions.
Sometimes we're uncomfortable with our kids and you know, you'll see so frequently like akid who's crying and they're like, don't cry.
(15:24):
you know, and crying is a regulatory response.
Stress hormones leave our body through our tears.
It's a natural impulse of the body to help us settle and feel more comfortable, but we'reuncomfortable.
So we're like, don't cry, don't cry, stop crying.
Or our kids are angry and they yell and we're like, stop yelling, stop being angry.
(15:45):
Or our kids at night are scared, know, maybe at night they're scared of, and it's like,well, there's nothing to be scared of.
And we're just without realizing it, unconsciously talking our kids out of and sort ofgaslighting their experience a little bit.
so, you know,
It's no wonder between the cultural pressure, some of this programming, between the factthat sometimes it doesn't feel safe to feel our feelings at a moment or follow a natural
(16:11):
impulse.
Sometimes it's not the right moment and it does want to get addressed at a differentmoment.
So there's lots of reasons that this occurs.
It's just more about being able to track what's going on inside of me right now and whatdo I need and am I going to do something about that now or something about that later?
All of these things.
So a couple of months ago, I was walking down the sidewalk and I came across a youngcouple and their child, maybe an 18 month old new walker kind of fell down and they both,
(16:42):
they're like a two headed monster being like, you're okay, you're okay, you're okay,you're okay.
And it's like, God, we've gotten so uncomfortable with other people's feelings that wecan't hold space for them that now they're gaslighting this child effectively into.
being able to experience hers.
(17:02):
And then like, looking at how like my son at one point, he was maybe three at the time andhe's like, mommy, are you sad?
Are you seem sad?
And my impulse was to be like, no, I'm not sad.
And I was like, no, don't do that.
Because that's teaching him to question his perception of my feelings.
(17:25):
Exactly.
So thank you.
doing something right.
I was like, thank you for noticing that I'm feeling sad.
May I please have a hug?
Yes.
And it felt so good.
And then I want to share this because you will love it.
My daughter had this pretty extreme reaction to losing a soccer game.
(17:45):
She was really upset.
I was like, Antonia, there's big reactions to things.
And it's OK to be upset about this.
And let's talk about we can work hard.
And we can channel that into other things.
And then she looked at me, goes, mom, I feel sad right now.
And I wasn't sad because if I don't, it's gonna show up differently in my body.
(18:09):
And I was like, you're- Just even the fact that she's tracking that feels comfortable tosay that to you.
It means you're doing a lot of really good stuff that she can be so clear about her needs.
That's beautiful.
But it starts there.
starts there.
Okay, don't do that.
(18:30):
Well, and my parents were like, you're fine.
You're fine.
You're fine.
Yeah.
Kind of modern parents, I think are more like, it's a different kind of you're fine.
It's a really coddley you're fine.
And, but in any event, like all of these things, like how we show up for each other istaught at a very, very young age and how we're taught not to support one another and how
(18:53):
we're taught to suppress our feelings.
And, but all of that matters.
And it is something that has to
change and how we're supporting each other and recognizing each other and mirroring eachother and recognizing those, as you said earlier, like the things we're going to bump
into.
You're going to bump into other people's trauma.
So how do we, as people who are also walking around with in bubbles of trauma, like we'rebumping into each other, how do we hold space, stop and be like, okay, here's where I am,
(19:22):
here's where you are, and start to navigate the relationship.
It has a lot to with availability.
has a lot to do the same way that we are, you know, it sounds like you've done somecontrasted work like tracking.
Am I above or below the line?
I reactive or not?
Actually tracking our own availability based on the moment to moment.
That is one of the key ways to be able to be successful relationally.
(19:44):
And, you know, a way to think about that is, you know, in some moments you might've hadsome presence to go, wow, you seem really sad.
Like, let me sit here.
I get really sad too sometimes.
I know what that's like.
Let me sit here with you while we are in this, right?
And then other times we make different choices.
And a lot of that unconsciously has to do with our availability in the moment.
(20:04):
And a way to think about availability, to use like a model, you could think aboutavailability.
Everybody has sort of a window of tolerance inside their own nervous system, where there'ssome amount of pressure or tension or arousal or stimulus that can happen.
And we're like,
Cool, we're not dysregulated.
We can handle that.
(20:25):
A car alarm can go off outside my house here, or somebody unexpected can knock on the doorand I might be like, oh, what's that?
I'm not expecting anything.
There's a whole handful of things that can happen that are surprising, but completelycomfortable.
And everyone's window of tolerance is different.
And when there's some kind of stimulus that happens that is outside of our window ofcomfort,
(20:48):
We start to move into survival energy.
We move from being, we call it rest and digest, parasympathetic nervous system state, noreal threats occurring, things feel comfortable.
I can check in with you, I can check in with me, you know, like much more sociallyavailable.
When there's a something happened moment and we move past our window of tolerance, we gointo fight or flight.
(21:11):
That's the first place we go.
And just even being able to tell when that happens, it really informs you like, what doesit feel like in my body when I'm in a fight or flight stress response?
Being able to start to articulate that and notice that and feel the sensations of it andgo, I'm experiencing some threat right now and I'm a little bit out of presence.
(21:31):
So I'm actually less available right now.
And I need to kind of do something over here to get myself to be more available.
Being able to track that is one of my primary goals for clients.
Can they tell?
And then beyond that, if you can't fight and you can't flee, then you freeze.
And a lot of people are living in some sort of functional freeze or fawn response.
(21:53):
So what are all these different stress responses in the body, fear responses in the body?
And can I actually tell what's happening at any given time so that I can make relationalchoices that are the most appropriate and helpful in that moment?
And sometimes the choice is, I notice I'm not really available for this chat right now.
I actually, I'm gonna take a little break and what I'm gonna do is come back to you whenI'm feeling a little more present.
(22:16):
Can you imagine how much harm would be reduced if we were able to accurately track thatand skillfully be able to allow those sensations in the body without unconsciously acting
out of them?
Yeah, oh my gosh.
I mean, I think about how, like I'll keep sharing my personal experience.
Yeah.
That's why it's so relevant, but like.
(22:38):
So I kind of think of fawn or freeze for me, it was just more of a disassociation.
Disassociation.
I was living here, not in my body at all because it didn't feel, I don't know if I want tosay it didn't feel safe, but I just was very disconnected.
It's uncomfortable.
Yeah.
It's uncomfortable to feel all the stuff our body feels when we're really embodied and topay attention to it all.
(23:00):
can be uncomfortable.
Yeah.
And so really I have to say like the last five years has been me pulling myself.
back down from space and into my body so I can work together with all of my things, mysoul, spirit, body, purpose.
But the hard part about it has been figuring out where I start and where other peoplestop.
(23:27):
And what do I believe versus what do you, what does someone else's?
way for me to ask and answer those questions has been I've been connected to my body.
What is my response?
Does this make me feel dread?
Do I feel like or do I feel like my body knows and it's wild.
(23:52):
And like and what a gift to come back to and what a shame that we've been forced kind ofout of our bodies for that.
Yeah and a way to think about it is sort of
Everything our body's doing, it's doing for a really good reason, including dissociation.
That is an adaptive response of the body.
Sometimes it's appropriate and it actually supports us to survive.
(24:16):
Where it can be more challenging is the I don't know why that just made me, you're soempathetic and so gentle, that just made me feel teared up.
yeah, okay, you're right.
You had to do that.
Of course you had to do this.
you had to do some of this.
Of course, that there's an intelligence to that.
(24:37):
That's adapted.
I'll tell a quick story.
forget if I ever made this reflection to you, but it was I was maybe six or eight monthsinto my own like getting somatic experiencing care from Kathy Latner, my therapist who I'm
obsessed with.
But I was in a car accident, like maybe six or eight months into that.
(24:58):
I don't think I had started
the program yet, but I had learned a lot about my nervous system.
And I was just sitting at a red light and I was completely relaxed.
Like I had been at the red light for a minute or so.
Like I was kind of zoning and whatever, just kind of chilling.
It was a beautiful summer day.
I was really relaxed and like a teenager was using their phone, I guess, and just didn'tlook at all.
(25:20):
And so it was this big shock to my system.
Like I wasn't even having the amount of focus I would normally have when I was driving.
Somebody slammed into the back of our
And it didn't just hit us.
They were coming so fast and kind of from an angle that it pushed us, pushed the side ofmy car into oncoming traffic.
And it was this really interesting experience where I felt the stimulus like boom, like mybody started to move.
(25:48):
actually hit my head pretty hard and got a concussion.
And I could feel all the panic and charge.
Like my entire body got
and sharp and I could feel so much moving through my body so fast and then it was like andit kind of was like this matrix moment all that charge and all that discomfort and all
that survival energy in my body all that fear just kind of one way and I went up into myfreeze response and everything slowed way down which was so helpful I put one hand out to
(26:22):
my friend that was in the car with me to try to protect them moving forward in the
in the movement of the crash of the car.
I used my eyes to look at my mirrors.
I put my other hand on the steering wheel.
And this all was happening at like matrix level slow-mo, know, in the matrix when they'removing really slowly with the bullets.
And I put my foot gently on the gas and I turned the wheel.
(26:46):
It probably was about three seconds, maybe four seconds.
It felt like a minute or two.
To me, everything slowed down.
I shut down all that stuff in my body involuntary, and I was able to get us out of theintersection and pull my car over to the side to safety.
Thank you, body.
(27:06):
Thank you, freeze response.
That's exactly what I needed to be safe in that moment.
And it did include completely freezing and icing out of my body and coming pretty muchout.
And then because I knew what had just occurred, I'm going, wow, I'm watching.
I'm watching Polyvagal Theory happen and I'm experiencing it.
This is crazy.
(27:27):
I knew what to do and so I let myself start to feel all that fear and terror.
As soon as I sat down, I had my friend put his hands on the sides of my shoulders for alittle containment and I just sat there and I shook and I cried and I could feel my jaw
chattering and I just knew, let your body shake Bethany.
Feel all these sensations.
They're just sensations on the body.
We got really scared and I was telling my body.
(27:49):
It's okay now, we're safe now.
It's okay now, you can feel all this now.
And I probably, it's called a discharge.
I probably did it for like 15 or 20 minutes and the ambulance came and they were checkingme out and they're like, okay, miss, like I had an egg and they're like, you know, you've
got a pretty serious concussion and you you're gonna have headaches and you know, you'regonna have light sensitivity.
(28:09):
You need to be careful of these things.
And I was like, okay.
And I did a SE session with my therapist that evening.
And would you believe that I actually had no concussion symptoms at all?
Because your body knows how to heal under the right conditions.
I let my body really process.
I kind of relived the experience in the therapy session that I did later that day where Iwas a lot safer and I didn't hit my head and we were able to get out of the way.
(28:38):
And I kind of re-imagined the experience and that's real to the body.
And so I gave my body a new experience and I discharged all the fear and survival energyaround it.
And I had like no negative impacts from that experience.
And at that, think it was right around that point.
I was like, okay, I want to learn this.
(28:59):
I applied to the school to go and say, okay, I want to commit to developing mastery aroundthis.
my God.
That's so incredible.
And you're right though, the body does heal under the right conditions.
I'm so glad you're okay.
Yes, thank you.
was completely fine.
I mean, there's been lots of other challenges.
And that is part of why I had lots of blocks.
(29:21):
Like I've had near-death experiences.
You know, there's been a lot that has happened for me and that stuff was living in mybody.
And the amount of agency and freedom that is possible when we're able to work with thoseexperiences in the body and renegotiate them.
It's really exciting.
And so that's really what I stand for and what I see as my purpose and what I do my bestto bring to clients.
(29:45):
I love this.
you for that.
I guess how can, what does it look like?
Like how can this holistic support transform?
Let's talk about it in terms of leaders, but I kind of want to frame this in terms of likeleaders of business, could be also leaders of households.
taking agency.
(30:06):
I don't want to necessarily make a distinction between.
We're all leaders in a certain sense.
Yeah, it's like we have influence and impact no matter who we're being relational with.
And I do tend to work with executives, but I also work with a lot of individuals as well.
And it's really, it's the same model.
It's the same, you know, it's a lot of the same goals.
How you'll see this show up in organizations is one of a few ways.
(30:31):
You know, for example, if you've ever worked for somebody,
who was pretty intense and really clear and passionate about what they're doing, but maybepeople felt like they were kind of yelling at them all the time, or people felt like there
was a lot of criticism, or they would engage in really intense experiences where peoplefeel kind of unsafe and they'd cower a little bit and not exactly know how to be around
(30:53):
that person.
I have executives who are getting feedback like, I'm scared of you and you're too intenseand you're too...
direct and you're too harsh.
And these people have no clue that that's how they're being.
And they're getting this feedback and they're like, whatever, that's not how, that's notwhat I'm doing.
I don't know what they mean, right?
And a lot of times these people, if you, you know, ask them a little bit about their lifestory and the things that have occurred, their big something happened moments very often,
(31:23):
if you are in some sort of abuse situation, like verbal, emotional, physical, sexualabuse,
If you've had anesthesia experiences or altered consciousness experiences, all that chargelike I was talking about that comes up in the car when it's like, ooh, all that first
place is fight or flight.
And then it kind of gets shut down.
(31:46):
If it doesn't get processed, it just kind of lives in the body.
And it's always, it's just kind of leaking out all the time.
I call it stuck fight.
These people are not intending to be mean and so critical.
They're not intending to see everything as like battles to fight.
They're not intending to scare people, but they have some stuck fight response in theirsystem that just needs to get addressed.
(32:09):
And we see this too, you know, with workaholism.
Those folks are often really stuck in freeze, you know, they're not really in their body.
Maybe there was good reasons why they had to come out of their body and they never reallycame back home all the way.
And so the pace is just a little higher.
They don't get as much information and they tend to create intensity in their life becauseit makes them feel more alive.
(32:33):
And so, I mean, that was the case for me.
I could see 12 clients a day and not pee and not eat and not drink water.
And I thought that was capacity.
I thought that meant I was powerful, but all it meant was I was completely out of rightrelationship with my body and I wasn't accessing all the wisdom that it has.
And so even when I said, okay, I'm a workaholic, I can't stop working this much.
(32:59):
know, I see the pattern.
I know the personas.
I understand what's going on, but I can't.
I used to do like six, seven, eight clients, maybe nine clients sometimes on days where mykids are with their dad.
And I'd like close the laptop and I'd go downstairs and sit on the couch and I couldtolerate like 10 or 15 minutes before I'm like...
I mean, I might as well take care of same emails.
(33:20):
I might as well just get ready for tomorrow.
And it's like the laptop comes back open.
I was either on or off and like asleep or do it like a total crash out lazy weekend.
There was no modulation.
And it wasn't until I started to address some of these big experiences that happened forme that it became safer to come
down into my body.
(33:40):
I wasn't used to all that sympathetic energy.
So when I'd slow down, some sympathetic energy or some feelings would show up orsomething, some things would just start showing up.
And I was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't want that.
Let me go back to the dopamine hit of my email so that I don't have to feel how I feel.
And that impact, like these types of things, you can see how it impacts organizations.
(34:02):
You know, if you're running at that level, you're communicating unconsciously to everyonein your org that everyone has to be working like that and it's not sustainable and you get
burnout and you get really valuable people leaving.
So sometimes it's the nervous system that your nervous system, slogan at my company isyour nervous system will either liberate you or limit you and you get to choose.
(34:26):
So.
Wow.
I'm sitting with that and just thinking about.
There was a time like with my company listeners, I own a content marketing agency calledYak Yak.
We've been in business for over a decade.
And we've gone through periods of highs and lows of different intensity and starting outand like kind of the earlier age, the earlier part of Yak Yak, it was a place where I was
(34:56):
sending emails till midnight and all of these things because...
and have this expectation around like, okay, if you work here, you're committed to theseoutcomes and da da.
And because I was on, other people started to be like, do I need to be checking my emailat midnight and all those things and realize like a couple of things.
Like one, I had learned how to run the business from the patriarchy and that constantlyperforming was an important...
(35:24):
of this and that's something that we validated.
We're like, good job.
going.
my gosh.
100 hours weeks.
You must be making money.
You're doing something.
Well, it's like, no, I'm fucking miserable and everyone around me is miserable.
You know, we're taking step back, taking off.
But, but any event, like coming to terms with some of those things and how that wasshowing up and impacting my team culture with was really important and implementing
(35:50):
practices like.
hey, because we kind of choose our own work schedule to some extent, some people might beemailing at night.
And what we can do around that is schedule our emails so you don't feel like that meansyou have to do the same thing so that the emails might come in in the morning and, you
know, just like little adaptive practice like that to not let that urgency come through.
(36:13):
it was a clear my inability to connect with my own body was
seeping into how my business was operating.
Yeah, the consciousness of the leader of the organization heavily impacts the entireorganization.
And it's same for the nervous system.
The nervous system of the leader of the organization heavily impacts the wholeorganization and those people's families.
(36:39):
And that's why I find it so exciting to work with executives that have a lot of impactbecause I just see how much potential there is for what if
What if people who have a lot of decision rights and a lot of impact, the choices they'remaking about large organizations and what's going to happen, if those people can feel
(37:02):
their feelings, if those people are present enough in their own body that they can bedeeply relational and they can feel the impact of the decisions that they're making, what
if those people can lead from a more heart-centered place because their body is now a safeplace to inhabit?
And they can actually use all the wisdom of the body to lead from a more heart centeredplace so that they even have a sense of what's in integrity and what's out of integrity.
(37:26):
What are my values and what's my purpose and how do I make sure I'm staying aligned tothat rather than just being like in the survival mode where we're seeing everything as a
lot more threatening.
What would be possible?
Like what would be different about the collective?
Those are some of the wonderings, the exciting wonderings that I hold when I think about.
(37:48):
building out my company and serving as many people as we're meant to serve.
I love that.
so for those listening, Bethany just launched a brand new company.
And so exciting.
Entheon, Sematics is newly birthed at the end of 2024.
So tell us what it looks like to work with you and what kind of impact that people canexpect.
(38:12):
Well, I have an amazing team of practitioners who all have slightly different skill sets.
So I really enjoy meeting people and finding like, okay, who's magic, who's exquisitesupport is going to be just the right fit for this individual.
So usually I meet with people up front if they reach out and we have a few differentofferings, sort of our, the Cadillac of offerings that we, that we are currently offering.
(38:37):
It's called nervous system coaching.
So this is sort of a new model that
I developed as a combination of a lot of the self-development, self-awareness, some ofthese relational practices and somatic experiencing.
So we're really moving to say, hey, I realize that I'm really limited by my nervous systemand that some of these outcomes in my life are really challenging and I want to change
(38:58):
them.
And I want to build mastery of my nervous system.
So it's a six month engagement where we help you map your nervous system.
It's a combination of somatic experiencing and some traditional coaching models where
As more capacity opens up in that person's experience, we're adding and layering in more.
We have goals and we sort of map your nervous system.
(39:19):
We'll do persona interviews for your different fear responses so you can get yourawareness way up.
We'll kind of give people like a toolkit that's personalized to their nervous system sothat they get better at self-regulation and understanding themselves.
So that's kind of for people who want to go deep and build a lot of mastery.
We also offer somatic experiencing for executives.
And so that's really like, if you've done a lot of work and there's these couple of placeswhere you know you need a little attention, or if there's something that's acute that's
(39:45):
happening in your life that you know you need some radical support around, you you can doa three month experience with us where you get some straight somatic experiencing that's
really designed to support executives.
And we have a bunch of other kind of offerings on the side, but yeah, I'm here to helpheal people's nervous systems to create the conditions so people can hear the.
(40:06):
heal their own nervous system, I would say, is a more accurate description.
This is where you come if there's these things that you can't change.
If you have an executive coach and they're giving you advice and they're giving youcoaching and you just can't seem to take it, this is the place where you can come where
you can unlock some of that so that there's a little bit more agency and a little bit morechoice and a little bit less kind of automatic trauma responses happening.
(40:28):
My gosh, that in itself is just so incredible.
And so thinking about like this big, beautiful world that we can co-create.
What do you see the outcomes being for more heart centered leadership and people takingagency around this connection?
Because it's hard and scary work, but what's at stake?
Well, I think probably everyone's had this experience where when you're really in somekind of trigger or you're in some really tough situation, the way you see the world and
(40:58):
how right you feel about what you're seeing and experiencing.
Just like, is my story about what's going on and it becomes very black and white, youknow?
It's very us, them, or me, them, or whatever it is.
And then later, maybe you get some perspective or it's a different day or it's a few weekslater or something different happens in the relationship or in the situation and you go,
man, yeah, I see it really differently now.
(41:20):
The amount of time that we spend and the amount of decisions we're making from thatcontracted, dysregulated place.
What I want and what I see is what if we all become amazing at tracking that inside ofourselves and can just go, I'm really triggered right now.
Either I need to go take a breath and kind of shift myself or I need to actually addresssomething inside of myself.
(41:44):
There's some pattern, there's something occurring that is here for me to learn andtransform and I'm gonna take the invitation.
And I experience my reality as helping me wake up to these things, finding these places sothat I can transform and heal.
so that we're really making decisions that are aligned to life.
I don't think anyone's out here consciously being like, I don't care about anybody else, Ionly care about myself.
(42:08):
But unconsciously, a lot of the decisions we make as organizations, as businesses is morein that patriarchy, is more not aligned to life.
It doesn't even believe that it's possible that there are conditions where everybody canthrive, not just survive.
So I'm interested in reducing how much survival mentality
(42:29):
is happening at leadership levels and shifting into more of a thriving, how can we allthrive together?
And that just means we have to become really skillful about the state of our nervoussystems.
It's really beautiful.
I'm thinking about how Lauren and I recently, she was actually, she's gonna be on the showand we just recorded a cult lab last week.
(42:51):
was so fun.
But just like the definition of liberation and how much like, yes, freedom.
to make decisions, but not at the expense of those around you and working in knowing howour energetic boundaries are all influencing one another and operating for a best and
higher good.
And when we get out of fight or flight, when we access our bodies, it's a lot easier forus to have that perspective and know we are safe.
(43:18):
Okay, now how do we address this in a way that benefits all parties involved?
I think that's really beautiful.
So what is a somatic
obsession look like?
Yes.
Are they going to walk into a room full of like...
It's a good question, right?
(43:38):
It's even mysterious, even though we've been talking about it for an hour.
It's actually really simple.
I would say it's simple, but not easy.
so somatic experiencing largely consists of letting things come up in your body.
and creating some space for your body to have the experience it's having.
So I start with people, I do an intake, I learn about their history, I try to understandall the things that have happened for them.
(44:04):
And after that first session where we kind of get the story down, we don't spend a lot oftime in story.
It's basically, you know how we talked about how we just kind of dissociate from ourexperience all the time, we're constantly trying to change the experience we're having or
repress or deny the experience.
We're just going, what if we let ourselves have the experience of being witnessed and heldin a container and just going really slow and gentle allows some of the stuff that needs
(44:28):
some attention to kind of gently come up.
so it's really on the part of the client, it's just showing up with some presence for yourexperience and then noticing what sensations do I feel in my body?
What emotions are here?
What does that remind me of?
I'm having this impulse, I'm noticing this impulse in my body and being able to reportthat to your practitioner.
(44:50):
And it's the practitioner's role to make really skillful invitations to safely andcomfortably let some of the survival energy discharge.
You know, there's, can go more into the complexities of the model and the things that I'mthinking about.
Like we're really looking at.
coupling dynamics, I'm looking for what's over coupled in the nervous system, what's undercoupled and making specific invitations so the body can start to have a different
(45:15):
experience.
But it's as simple as getting, as showing up, chatting a little bit, you know, lot ofcoaches go right into it.
Chatting actually lets the body settle.
Like we just kind of chit chat for a minute or two and slowly settle in.
And then it's like the body knows what wants to get worked on that day.
And so we just trust that and we just
(45:37):
kind of let whatever's there arise.
And we have it on this arc overall.
you know, especially for nervous system coaching, people who really want to get somemastery, there's homework assignments, I have them read things, I have them do some
practices.
So they're really working on getting some of the top down learnings.
And then in session, we really focus on some of the bottom up stuff.
(45:58):
So really, it's being on could be on a zoom call.
Yeah, I largely work on Zoom.
I have a couple local clients who really like to come by the house sometimes and hang outin the studio and do in-person work.
And there are some Somatic Experience practitioners that are more body workers that arejust bringing a trauma-informed approach to some of the body work that they're doing.
(46:19):
Zoom is really great because if you're in your home, you're already well resourced.
You feel comfortable.
know, like what we saw in the Somatic Experiencing world during COVID.
a lot of folks were doing kind of in-person sessions and then went to Zoom is that a lotof people were doing much better because they're in the comfort of their own home.
(46:40):
They have the comfort of their own favorite blanket that they have.
pet might come up and sit next to them while they're in session because our pets can senseall this and they're really wonderful to co-regulate with.
And then, you know, they're in the comfort of their own home.
So even if there's like a big experience happening or we're talking, you we're kind oftalking around or touching into something that's really sensitive or tender or really
(47:00):
activating because you're in your own space, you feel the most safe there.
And so it really works well to do this over Zoom.
When I start with people, tell them to make sure you have privacy and make sure you have alittle bit of time afterwards.
It's a little bit, I will say, it's a little bit like going to the gym.
You know, it's like you're actually
reminding yourself and relearning a new skill set that a lot of us have let go of andhaven't been practicing.
(47:26):
It's kind like if you haven't been to the gym in five years and you go lift some weights,you'll be like sore and you might need a little more sleep.
And it's sort of like, there's this transition where you start to normalize the experienceof letting your body have the experience it's having.
And yeah, sometimes it's just really different.
So there's a transition period.
So we tend to go really slow and gentle upfront.
(47:48):
But ideally, every single time,
that you have a somatic experiencing session, you will feel better afterwards.
You will feel your capacity increase.
You will feel that you have that point where you get to pause and notice yourself beforeyou make a choice of how you're gonna act or respond.
And so, yeah, I would say it's ideal for folks who are really willing to be vulnerableenough to move towards the body and it's well worth it.
(48:18):
Yeah.
I mean, speaking from experience.
it very much is.
so here we are, we are in a stage or an era or however we want to categorize, wheretherapy and self-reflection are becoming part of the norm.
(48:38):
And that's a wonderful thing.
Going inward, spending your time, sharing experiences, all of that.
And my experience with it was that therapy wasn't enough.
I needed to get into my body and I needed to really work hard to uncover some of thethings that were impacting me in ways that I didn't know.
(48:58):
For me, that looked like exploring breathwork, going very deep into writing practices tokind of unlock some of the things that I've been holding as a creative person that really
worked for me.
And then also working with you, Bethany and
getting to understand like even as you were observing me and my reactions and as I talkedabout things, I think I described something one time and I held my hand like this and
(49:23):
we're like, can we just like stop for a sec and talk about like why that was such aforceful thing and like all of it that was we're sharing experiences and just noting like,
okay, stop, how does this feel in our bodies?
How does this?
So to emphasize again for those listening, this is the next layer.
When you get to the point in your work, in your healing, in your self exploration and yourreturn home is accessing the body and noting when we are disassociating, when we are in
(49:58):
fight or flight, what triggers us and starting to address those things and release them.
And it is such a powerful thing to be able to be in our bodies and accept its wisdom.
to note when this doesn't feel good, I'm gonna take a step back and how this can impactthe relationships that we have with our children, the way that we can hold space for
(50:24):
others in our lives and ask to be held by others.
It's so incredibly powerful.
I think we're gonna be hearing a lot more about this in the coming years and Bethany is...
is an incredible resource.
know your business is going to do incredible things.
Working one-on-one with you was so helpful for me.
(50:47):
Thank you.
Things that I've been carrying with me that I've never even been able to talk about that Ican now talk about.
Yeah.
That's your capacity increasing.
That was so well said.
I should just take your exact words and probably put them on my website.
That was really well said.
Thank you.
(51:08):
You can have them.
Please do.
Because it's true though, we're gonna run up against the walls and it is not, we can'tjust live, we can't just treat what's up here in our heads.
We can't just treat our stories.
And I find that, I'm gonna go there, that I think about like what certain people in mylife who have caused me trauma as victim sounding as that is, what they're- There are real
(51:34):
victims.
There are real victims.
What does their therapy session sound like?
And I am guessing that a lot of times it's their story that is then being repeated tosomeone who is invalidating that experience in some way.
But that's not always truth.
(51:56):
And the truth of things lives in our body, that ability to reflect, that ability to holdspace, that ability to, I don't know if I want to say like self heal, like,
It is self-healing because it actually, I'm not doing anything.
I'm helping create conditions so that the client feels safe to let themselves, so the bodyknows how to do it.
(52:19):
Those impulses, all of that is moving you towards healing.
It's just about allowing our bodies to do that and getting some support to make sure it'sas skillful and friendly as possible.
Right.
And so if you're looking for that whole body experience of really addressing
not just validating, but addressing, healing.
This is where that process starts.
(52:41):
Therapy is a great starting point, but this is where you can get into like actuallybecoming whole again.
We say a trauma when renegotiated becomes a resource.
And so when we're able to move through those experiences in the body, like
even my own relationship to my freeze response.
(53:02):
Cause I had a lot of judgments too.
I'm like, I'm dissociating all the time and I'm never in my body.
And I had a lot of these stories and I would shame myself and make it a big problem andget contracted experiencing that, that car accident and going, my God, how brilliant is my
body?
And being able to really appreciate everything it's doing for me.
It's like, okay.
(53:25):
I can accept myself more.
can be with myself more and
Now that's a resource.
Like I talk about a car accident as really impactful, beautiful way for me to respect andunderstand the gifts of my body.
Rather than, you know, that is the, you know, a trauma when we negotiating become aresource.
That's what that means.
And that's also how a lot of our, you know, to just skip ahead if something reallychallenging happens and be like, everything happens for a reason.
(53:51):
You know, there's a way where we can get really bypassy with that.
And
You know, what is true is that a lot of our challenges do become these opportunities inthese windows for big moments of transformation and development.
And, you know, there's a bit of a process to get there.
I love that.
So Bethany, tell me, what are you doing in your life right now to live unapologetically?
(54:15):
So I just started teaching.
I actually two nights ago, I did my first workshop for coaches.
And I think that there's always been an edge inside of me where I really love structureand framework and I've had a lot of amazing teachers over the years and I've always been
really good at helping them with their organizations and helping them do the thing.
(54:38):
You know, like I've, I really believe in these different tools and these different thingsI've experienced.
It's very edgy for me to say, got it.
I've done a lot of work now and now I, I'm ready to teach and I'm ready to step into thisdifferent level of my own power.
I'm so cautious around power dynamics and I so wanna co-create and I so wanna validateeverybody else that sometimes I err so much on this place where I don't necessarily feel
(55:04):
like I'm really in my full power and authority.
And so it feels very edgy to start to say, yeah, no, I created something.
I created a new model for coaching and I'm ready to teach it now.
And I have a command of this material.
That's...
super edgy for me.
And so it is a little bit me stepping into some unapologetic personas to say, yeah, nowthis is I'm here to do this and I'm to and I'm going to do it.
(55:31):
And, know, I'm ready for you all to experience it.
Those things feel edgy for me.
So that's one thing I'm doing lately.
One that's amazing.
Congratulations.
Sign me up.
I want to learn from you.
I've already learned so much from you.
But I had a guest on the show last year and
She's Rabbi Cantor Judy Greenfield.
(55:51):
And she said that humility is taking up the space you deserve.
And so the work that you've done, the capacity that you've created within yourself, thelearning that you've had is gives you a container that allows you to then be in a position
(56:11):
to teach others and own it.
That's the space that you deserve.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like the shadow side of humility.
Actually, we sometimes we don't we don't empower ourselves all the way because we're soconcerned with, you having a beginner's mindset and all of that.
But I really like that thinking about humility as creating the container for you to stepup.
(56:33):
That's beautiful.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Keep going.
You're doing amazing things.
I'm so happy to know you.
You're one of the many people who've come into my life over the last couple of years thathave made a big impact and have shown me a new way of
being and which is the benefit of all of the people in my life.
So I'm sure that they thank you too.
(56:53):
But most importantly, to be able to walk into a room and know when I might be triggeredand to be able to recognize and talk about it and get ahead of it and give feedback to
people instead of just holding in the traumas and not speaking about them and not evenrecognizing them and not honoring them.
Life changing stuff.
(57:15):
changing shit, Well, thank you so much for having me on the cast, Ashley.
I really appreciate it.
So grateful.
So thank you so much for tuning in.
If you haven't already, follow us on Instagram at unapologetically yours podcast.
Follow me on Instagram at Ashley D Logan.
Subscribe, download wherever you listen to podcasts.
(57:36):
And if you've got any feedback, send us an email at podcasts at unapologetically yours.
I'm so grateful to have Bethany here.
We're going to share all of her information about
you can find her and connect with her in the show notes.
And now go out, make some mischief in the world.
And until then, I'm Ashley.
This is Bethany and we are unapologetically yours.
Everything from listening to a podcast, reading books, getting advice from friends, it'sall top down.
It's sort of this choice.
Let me choose to see something a different way so I can get a different outcome.
And wherever there's trauma in the body, sometimes we can't choose to have a differentexperience than the one we're having.
And so that's where bottom-up approaches are really important.
(00:26):
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Unapologetically Yours podcast.
I'm your host Ashley Logan and I'm so happy to have you here today.
Unapologetically Yours is a podcast where we go deep on everything from spirituality torelationships and connection to business and belief systems because in a world where we've
been taught to play by the rules, it's time to live a little bit unapologetically.
(00:50):
And I want to welcome someone to the show today.
I've had the
privilege of working closely with on a one-on-one basis.
And so today we're joined by Bethany Davis.
She's founder of Entheon Somatics, a practice dedicated to helping leaders overcomeburnout and unlock their full potential through holistic support.
(01:11):
And ultimately with the capacity that Bethany and I started working together with wasthrough somatic therapy.
And to help me to
unlock some of the traumas and beliefs and practices that have been stored in my body.
(01:33):
Anyway, we'll get into all of that.
But first, Bethany, welcome to Unapologetically Yours.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm thrilled to be here.
It's wonderful to be with you again.
And I'm really excited to let people know a little bit more about somatic experiencing andall that it has to offer.
I love it.
Well, I mean, you have
helped me in so many ways, big and small, through our work together.
(01:58):
And so let's just start off with the basics.
How does trauma live in our body and how does somatic therapy help to unlock that?
Yeah, really important questions that I hope more people are asking.
Well, maybe I'll start by painting a little bit of a picture of how I came to have such aregard for this work.
(02:22):
I'm an executive coach.
I've been an executive coach for about a decade now.
And I worked for a group called the Conscious Leadership Group for about five years.
And they're known for really some like deep work, deep work.
We're using psychological models.
We're really looking for our unconscious behaviors and patterns and reallytransformational stuff.
(02:43):
And I changed a lot of my life.
Like I did two years of deep coach training.
There's so many things in my life that I changed using those tools and using those models.
And then there was these things that were not changing.
And it didn't matter how many times I worked the model, how many times I did my practices,how often I asked myself these questions and tried to apply these very valuable tools.
(03:07):
It was like,
The stimulus, whatever stimulus was happening, my response to it was so outsized.
It wasn't in right relationship.
I was just having a really big response based on whatever it was that was occurring inlife.
And at the time I felt really frustrated.
Like, I've done all this work.
Why are these areas of my life not changing?
(03:29):
Why don't I know how to shift these things?
So enter.
somatic experiencing.
And I was fortunate to be introduced to somatic experiencing through a fellow coach who isa therapist and somatic experience practitioner as well as a conscious leadership coach.
And when she started talking about this, I was just like, this, this is what is going on.
(03:53):
I can feel that this is what I need to put some attention on.
And essentially what somatic experiencing does is it takes a body based approach toprocessing things that have occurred in our life.
our big something happen moments.
So there's all kinds of coaches in the world.
Most coaches are what we would call like content coaches or top down coaches, coaches whogive advice, they use different models, they help you map, they help you track, they help
(04:20):
you see things.
Everything from listening to a podcast, reading books, getting advice from friends, it'sall top down.
It's sort of this choice.
Let me choose to see something a different way so I can get a different out.
And wherever there's trauma in the body, sometimes we can't choose to have a differentexperience than the one we're having.
And so that's where bottom-up approaches are really important.
(04:44):
We can't choose to have a different approach than the one that we are having.
Yeah.
Whatever's going on, we're out of our agency a little bit, and our body's just having theexperience it's having.
And it's more about, OK, how can I get with that?
How can I move towards that?
How can I allow that?
And as we do that,
things change inside of our body and then we get a lot more available to use some of theseother top-down approaches.
(05:09):
It's so interesting to me because where my mind is going is the reason why Bethany and Iwere referred to working together was because a friend of mine who is also Conscious
Leadership Coach and someone who I work with regularly, she saw me have a reaction to aman walk into a room and saw my
(05:32):
body just like tense up.
And that's normally something that I hide, but I'm super comfortable with her.
she was like, Holy shit, how many times a day is that?
Are you going into fight or flight when some man you don't know walks into a room?
And I was like, well, funny.
I can think of three today.
(05:53):
When the FedEx guy walked into my office, when someone at church came up to me, approachedme unexpectedly.
And what
she realized all of the work that you've been doing and healing and getting your mind inright relationship and really kind of like shifting my life.
(06:14):
I kind of going through those things that you had talked about, like the consciousleadership, the things and practices, belief systems.
I'm unpacking all of that.
But then I got to this point.
And what I can describe it as it's like there's dinosaur bones under a hovering that needsto be that's off and those bones aren't going anywhere.
And we've to look at them and we've got to figure out like, what is it?
(06:35):
What's causing this reaction?
What's trapping the energy?
And in my case, this was a whole bunch of different experiences I've had in my life fromsexual assault, childbirth, just carrying so much trauma in my womb space.
noting that I got to a certain point of like, okay, this needs to be addressed.
(06:59):
This needs to be
worked with or I'm not going to be able to get any further.
Yeah, we just we've reached the end of ourselves.
I'm so thrilled that the self development world, you know, has just been sort offlourishing and more people than ever are interested and developing themselves and saying,
(07:21):
how can I take more responsibility for my life?
Let me take a look at what's going on here.
How have I created some of these outcomes?
And especially in professional settings, you know, like it's the norm for executives tohave budgets so that they can get really well supported because we understand where the
leader goes.
So too goes the organization.
And we've gotten into these places of real depth where it's really a relational containerand it's sort of therapeutic.
(07:46):
And we're not just talking about what's an ideal meeting schedule for your one-on-ones.
Like we're going deep and there's this.
whole legion of professional coaches, 110,000 certified professional coaches in the US.
And we're using proven psychological models and we're really like almost looking for whereare the triggers and what's really going on here.
(08:08):
And you're gonna bump into people's trauma.
that, if you're going at that level and you're building that much of trust with your coachand you have this safe place to talk, you're gonna bump into things.
And so, you know.
I just became really interested in how can I radically support somebody.
And so not only did I go get my own somatic work and just felt the Delta, felt thesechanges, felt my availability change and my habits and my body change.
(08:35):
I went and did this three year program in somatic experiencing so that I could supportpeople in that way too.
and kind of combine these modalities and, yeah, I'm happy to.
answer any questions you have, including kind of going into theory, the somatic theory oflike, what exactly is this?
Why are things in our body?
What is trauma?
How does that all work?
(08:55):
I'm happy to come into that.
Oh my God.
Well, yes.
So I love that you went down this path and recognize the gaps because the gaps is where wefind the growth.
And so then you took that next step forward.
And so I guess that what I am curious about is people as they're looking at themselves andinvestigating their own growth, their own limitations.
(09:16):
Trauma can look like a lot of different things.
can suit capital T trauma, rape, other kinds of things.
kinds of things.
By your parents or, you know, others.
but how does, I'd love to go into like sort of the science, like how trauma gets stuck inour bodies and why we've got to look at that and how that can impact how we show up
(09:40):
relationally to others, not just as leaders, but also with our sisters and friends and.
all the relational containers that we hold.
Yeah.
So a really good way to understand how we behave as humans, we're served by expanding tosee how do mammals behave.
And a really big difference that we see between human beings and between other mammals isthat mammals don't tend to really get traumatized.
(10:08):
And so I don't know if you've ever seen a video.
I was
exposed to several videos like this in my training, of like a bear that's maybe shot by atranquilizer because researchers are needing to, you know, flag it, talk to it, involve
with somehow.
if you're, if we're out in nature and a, at some large animal, like a bear gets shot witha tranquilizer, so that it goes to sleep so that we can interact with it in some kind of
(10:32):
way for some scientific purpose.
I don't know if you've ever seen a video like that, but when the tranquilizer wears off,what a mammal, a normal healthy mammal will do.
is shake, really, really, really shake a lot because it was a big scare to have to getshot like that with a tranquilizer and a lot of chemicals change in the body.
(10:53):
And so a natural impulse of the body to help us regulate and process big experiences likethat is this experience of shaking.
Now, we as human beings, that's an example of one like intelligent impulse of the bodythat helps us regulate and recover from threat.
We have largely socialized ourselves
(11:14):
of listening to body impulse.
In fact, the more regular and expected socialized experiences, something's happening onthe inside and I need to do everything I can manage to make sure nobody notices what's
happening on the inside.
So we arrest a lot of our natural impulses and the ways that our body is.
trying to support us most often.
(11:35):
You you can see this if you're walking a dog and somebody else has their dog and the twodogs kind of like come to each other and they get in their little fight or flight response
and they bark and they do like, they walk a lot, you know, everybody kind of pulls theleashes and they walk in their separate directions, a dog will do the same thing.
The dog will shake and they're responding to something, something just happened.
And my body needs to move through this experience and you know, feel it through and let itcomplete and shift.
(12:02):
Our body knows how to do this naturally, but we have fallen out of aligning ourselves tothe natural impulses of the body to do it.
And when we don't do that, it just, it sticks around.
We just put it aside for later.
And over time, some of these charges, these survival impulses, this stuff kind of buildsup in the body over time.
You know, in small ways, we'll see that we'll have a bigger reaction to some kind ofstimulus that's happening because it kind of.
(12:28):
of something that happened in the past on some level, our body is always looking to heal.
So when some stimulus that looks like this thing that didn't get enough attention ordidn't have enough support, it'll bring up some of that charge to go, okay, now is the
time for that all to kind of come up and get processed out.
And so that's why we get triggered.
And that's particularly why we would get like triggered to a level where we get a littlebit dysregulated and we just don't have the...
(12:53):
tools and the skillfulness to understand when that's happening inside of ourselves andwhat kind of support we need so that we can kind of complete that stuff and move it out so
that we are just sort of in right relationship.
We can just, this is the stimulus and we have a measured response to this stimulus that'sthe right size and makes sense for what's occurring rather than having a much bigger
(13:13):
response.
So Peter Levine, he's sort of the
You know, the father of all of this work, he designed a lot of the somatic experiencingmethodology and teaches it and trains people.
And he says a really simple definition of trauma is anything that's too much, too fast,not enough support.
So when the right conditions aren't met, when there's a something happened moment and anyone of those three things aren't in place, sometimes it lands in our body as trauma.
(13:42):
And there's just a certain set of tools and support.
that's needed in those cases to be able to kind of transcend those experiences.
my gosh.
Everything that you just shared is like, I mean, too much, too fast, not enough support.
What a beautiful definition.
It does not have to be these big capital T moments and yes.
(14:09):
It's subjective.
Like what might feel like too much or not enough for one person might be totally differentfrom somebody else.
It's less about what is the thing that's occurring and it's more about what is happeningin the body in the absence of the support that's needed in that moment.
Yeah.
And I find too that we have such this tendency to just we're glazing over experiencesbecause we're constantly telling like the socialization part of it.
(14:36):
Like, how should I react?
Was that, did that happen?
Okay.
I'm not going to talk about that today because of fear of speaking truth and all of thosethings.
And there's all sorts of
social aspects that are contributing to this overall, but it's the long-term ramificationsof this and the long-term the things that we're carrying with us into our relationships,
(14:57):
into our parenting, into our leadership.
It builds up over time.
And if you think about how much programming there is, it's like, think about...
how we are with our children if we're not really being aware, you know, because we areuncomfortable with our bodies, experiences and our own emotions.
Sometimes we're uncomfortable with our kids and you know, you'll see so frequently like akid who's crying and they're like, don't cry.
(15:24):
you know, and crying is a regulatory response.
Stress hormones leave our body through our tears.
It's a natural impulse of the body to help us settle and feel more comfortable, but we'reuncomfortable.
So we're like, don't cry, don't cry, stop crying.
Or our kids are angry and they yell and we're like, stop yelling, stop being angry.
(15:45):
Or our kids at night are scared, know, maybe at night they're scared of, and it's like,well, there's nothing to be scared of.
And we're just without realizing it, unconsciously talking our kids out of and sort ofgaslighting their experience a little bit.
so, you know,
It's no wonder between the cultural pressure, some of this programming, between the factthat sometimes it doesn't feel safe to feel our feelings at a moment or follow a natural
(16:11):
impulse.
Sometimes it's not the right moment and it does want to get addressed at a differentmoment.
So there's lots of reasons that this occurs.
It's just more about being able to track what's going on inside of me right now and whatdo I need and am I going to do something about that now or something about that later?
All of these things.
So a couple of months ago, I was walking down the sidewalk and I came across a youngcouple and their child, maybe an 18 month old new walker kind of fell down and they both,
(16:42):
they're like a two headed monster being like, you're okay, you're okay, you're okay,you're okay.
And it's like, God, we've gotten so uncomfortable with other people's feelings that wecan't hold space for them that now they're gaslighting this child effectively into.
being able to experience hers.
(17:02):
And then like, looking at how like my son at one point, he was maybe three at the time andhe's like, mommy, are you sad?
Are you seem sad?
And my impulse was to be like, no, I'm not sad.
And I was like, no, don't do that.
Because that's teaching him to question his perception of my feelings.
(17:25):
Exactly.
So thank you.
doing something right.
I was like, thank you for noticing that I'm feeling sad.
May I please have a hug?
Yes.
And it felt so good.
And then I want to share this because you will love it.
My daughter had this pretty extreme reaction to losing a soccer game.
(17:45):
She was really upset.
I was like, Antonia, there's big reactions to things.
And it's OK to be upset about this.
And let's talk about we can work hard.
And we can channel that into other things.
And then she looked at me, goes, mom, I feel sad right now.
And I wasn't sad because if I don't, it's gonna show up differently in my body.
(18:09):
And I was like, you're- Just even the fact that she's tracking that feels comfortable tosay that to you.
It means you're doing a lot of really good stuff that she can be so clear about her needs.
That's beautiful.
But it starts there.
starts there.
Okay, don't do that.
(18:30):
Well, and my parents were like, you're fine.
You're fine.
You're fine.
Yeah.
Kind of modern parents, I think are more like, it's a different kind of you're fine.
It's a really coddley you're fine.
And, but in any event, like all of these things, like how we show up for each other istaught at a very, very young age and how we're taught not to support one another and how
(18:53):
we're taught to suppress our feelings.
And, but all of that matters.
And it is something that has to
change and how we're supporting each other and recognizing each other and mirroring eachother and recognizing those, as you said earlier, like the things we're going to bump
into.
You're going to bump into other people's trauma.
So how do we, as people who are also walking around with in bubbles of trauma, like we'rebumping into each other, how do we hold space, stop and be like, okay, here's where I am,
(19:22):
here's where you are, and start to navigate the relationship.
It has a lot to with availability.
has a lot to do the same way that we are, you know, it sounds like you've done somecontrasted work like tracking.
Am I above or below the line?
I reactive or not?
Actually tracking our own availability based on the moment to moment.
That is one of the key ways to be able to be successful relationally.
(19:44):
And, you know, a way to think about that is, you know, in some moments you might've hadsome presence to go, wow, you seem really sad.
Like, let me sit here.
I get really sad too sometimes.
I know what that's like.
Let me sit here with you while we are in this, right?
And then other times we make different choices.
And a lot of that unconsciously has to do with our availability in the moment.
(20:04):
And a way to think about availability, to use like a model, you could think aboutavailability.
Everybody has sort of a window of tolerance inside their own nervous system, where there'ssome amount of pressure or tension or arousal or stimulus that can happen.
And we're like,
Cool, we're not dysregulated.
We can handle that.
(20:25):
A car alarm can go off outside my house here, or somebody unexpected can knock on the doorand I might be like, oh, what's that?
I'm not expecting anything.
There's a whole handful of things that can happen that are surprising, but completelycomfortable.
And everyone's window of tolerance is different.
And when there's some kind of stimulus that happens that is outside of our window ofcomfort,
(20:48):
We start to move into survival energy.
We move from being, we call it rest and digest, parasympathetic nervous system state, noreal threats occurring, things feel comfortable.
I can check in with you, I can check in with me, you know, like much more sociallyavailable.
When there's a something happened moment and we move past our window of tolerance, we gointo fight or flight.
(21:11):
That's the first place we go.
And just even being able to tell when that happens, it really informs you like, what doesit feel like in my body when I'm in a fight or flight stress response?
Being able to start to articulate that and notice that and feel the sensations of it andgo, I'm experiencing some threat right now and I'm a little bit out of presence.
(21:31):
So I'm actually less available right now.
And I need to kind of do something over here to get myself to be more available.
Being able to track that is one of my primary goals for clients.
Can they tell?
And then beyond that, if you can't fight and you can't flee, then you freeze.
And a lot of people are living in some sort of functional freeze or fawn response.
(21:53):
So what are all these different stress responses in the body, fear responses in the body?
And can I actually tell what's happening at any given time so that I can make relationalchoices that are the most appropriate and helpful in that moment?
And sometimes the choice is, I notice I'm not really available for this chat right now.
I actually, I'm gonna take a little break and what I'm gonna do is come back to you whenI'm feeling a little more present.
(22:16):
Can you imagine how much harm would be reduced if we were able to accurately track thatand skillfully be able to allow those sensations in the body without unconsciously acting
out of them?
Yeah, oh my gosh.
I mean, I think about how, like I'll keep sharing my personal experience.
Yeah.
That's why it's so relevant, but like.
(22:38):
So I kind of think of fawn or freeze for me, it was just more of a disassociation.
Disassociation.
I was living here, not in my body at all because it didn't feel, I don't know if I want tosay it didn't feel safe, but I just was very disconnected.
It's uncomfortable.
Yeah.
It's uncomfortable to feel all the stuff our body feels when we're really embodied and topay attention to it all.
(23:00):
can be uncomfortable.
Yeah.
And so really I have to say like the last five years has been me pulling myself.
back down from space and into my body so I can work together with all of my things, mysoul, spirit, body, purpose.
But the hard part about it has been figuring out where I start and where other peoplestop.
(23:27):
And what do I believe versus what do you, what does someone else's?
way for me to ask and answer those questions has been I've been connected to my body.
What is my response?
Does this make me feel dread?
Do I feel like or do I feel like my body knows and it's wild.
(23:52):
And like and what a gift to come back to and what a shame that we've been forced kind ofout of our bodies for that.
Yeah and a way to think about it is sort of
Everything our body's doing, it's doing for a really good reason, including dissociation.
That is an adaptive response of the body.
Sometimes it's appropriate and it actually supports us to survive.
(24:16):
Where it can be more challenging is the I don't know why that just made me, you're soempathetic and so gentle, that just made me feel teared up.
yeah, okay, you're right.
You had to do that.
Of course you had to do this.
you had to do some of this.
Of course, that there's an intelligence to that.
(24:37):
That's adapted.
I'll tell a quick story.
forget if I ever made this reflection to you, but it was I was maybe six or eight monthsinto my own like getting somatic experiencing care from Kathy Latner, my therapist who I'm
obsessed with.
But I was in a car accident, like maybe six or eight months into that.
(24:58):
I don't think I had started
the program yet, but I had learned a lot about my nervous system.
And I was just sitting at a red light and I was completely relaxed.
Like I had been at the red light for a minute or so.
Like I was kind of zoning and whatever, just kind of chilling.
It was a beautiful summer day.
I was really relaxed and like a teenager was using their phone, I guess, and just didn'tlook at all.
(25:20):
And so it was this big shock to my system.
Like I wasn't even having the amount of focus I would normally have when I was driving.
Somebody slammed into the back of our
And it didn't just hit us.
They were coming so fast and kind of from an angle that it pushed us, pushed the side ofmy car into oncoming traffic.
And it was this really interesting experience where I felt the stimulus like boom, like mybody started to move.
(25:48):
actually hit my head pretty hard and got a concussion.
And I could feel all the panic and charge.
Like my entire body got
and sharp and I could feel so much moving through my body so fast and then it was like andit kind of was like this matrix moment all that charge and all that discomfort and all
that survival energy in my body all that fear just kind of one way and I went up into myfreeze response and everything slowed way down which was so helpful I put one hand out to
(26:22):
my friend that was in the car with me to try to protect them moving forward in the
in the movement of the crash of the car.
I used my eyes to look at my mirrors.
I put my other hand on the steering wheel.
And this all was happening at like matrix level slow-mo, know, in the matrix when they'removing really slowly with the bullets.
And I put my foot gently on the gas and I turned the wheel.
(26:46):
It probably was about three seconds, maybe four seconds.
It felt like a minute or two.
To me, everything slowed down.
I shut down all that stuff in my body involuntary, and I was able to get us out of theintersection and pull my car over to the side to safety.
Thank you, body.
(27:06):
Thank you, freeze response.
That's exactly what I needed to be safe in that moment.
And it did include completely freezing and icing out of my body and coming pretty muchout.
And then because I knew what had just occurred, I'm going, wow, I'm watching.
I'm watching Polyvagal Theory happen and I'm experiencing it.
This is crazy.
(27:27):
I knew what to do and so I let myself start to feel all that fear and terror.
As soon as I sat down, I had my friend put his hands on the sides of my shoulders for alittle containment and I just sat there and I shook and I cried and I could feel my jaw
chattering and I just knew, let your body shake Bethany.
Feel all these sensations.
They're just sensations on the body.
We got really scared and I was telling my body.
(27:49):
It's okay now, we're safe now.
It's okay now, you can feel all this now.
And I probably, it's called a discharge.
I probably did it for like 15 or 20 minutes and the ambulance came and they were checkingme out and they're like, okay, miss, like I had an egg and they're like, you know, you've
got a pretty serious concussion and you you're gonna have headaches and you know, you'regonna have light sensitivity.
(28:09):
You need to be careful of these things.
And I was like, okay.
And I did a SE session with my therapist that evening.
And would you believe that I actually had no concussion symptoms at all?
Because your body knows how to heal under the right conditions.
I let my body really process.
I kind of relived the experience in the therapy session that I did later that day where Iwas a lot safer and I didn't hit my head and we were able to get out of the way.
(28:38):
And I kind of re-imagined the experience and that's real to the body.
And so I gave my body a new experience and I discharged all the fear and survival energyaround it.
And I had like no negative impacts from that experience.
And at that, think it was right around that point.
I was like, okay, I want to learn this.
(28:59):
I applied to the school to go and say, okay, I want to commit to developing mastery aroundthis.
my God.
That's so incredible.
And you're right though, the body does heal under the right conditions.
I'm so glad you're okay.
Yes, thank you.
was completely fine.
I mean, there's been lots of other challenges.
And that is part of why I had lots of blocks.
(29:21):
Like I've had near-death experiences.
You know, there's been a lot that has happened for me and that stuff was living in mybody.
And the amount of agency and freedom that is possible when we're able to work with thoseexperiences in the body and renegotiate them.
It's really exciting.
And so that's really what I stand for and what I see as my purpose and what I do my bestto bring to clients.
(29:45):
I love this.
you for that.
I guess how can, what does it look like?
Like how can this holistic support transform?
Let's talk about it in terms of leaders, but I kind of want to frame this in terms of likeleaders of business, could be also leaders of households.
taking agency.
(30:06):
I don't want to necessarily make a distinction between.
We're all leaders in a certain sense.
Yeah, it's like we have influence and impact no matter who we're being relational with.
And I do tend to work with executives, but I also work with a lot of individuals as well.
And it's really, it's the same model.
It's the same, you know, it's a lot of the same goals.
How you'll see this show up in organizations is one of a few ways.
(30:31):
You know, for example, if you've ever worked for somebody,
who was pretty intense and really clear and passionate about what they're doing, but maybepeople felt like they were kind of yelling at them all the time, or people felt like there
was a lot of criticism, or they would engage in really intense experiences where peoplefeel kind of unsafe and they'd cower a little bit and not exactly know how to be around
(30:53):
that person.
I have executives who are getting feedback like, I'm scared of you and you're too intenseand you're too...
direct and you're too harsh.
And these people have no clue that that's how they're being.
And they're getting this feedback and they're like, whatever, that's not how, that's notwhat I'm doing.
I don't know what they mean, right?
And a lot of times these people, if you, you know, ask them a little bit about their lifestory and the things that have occurred, their big something happened moments very often,
(31:23):
if you are in some sort of abuse situation, like verbal, emotional, physical, sexualabuse,
If you've had anesthesia experiences or altered consciousness experiences, all that chargelike I was talking about that comes up in the car when it's like, ooh, all that first
place is fight or flight.
And then it kind of gets shut down.
(31:46):
If it doesn't get processed, it just kind of lives in the body.
And it's always, it's just kind of leaking out all the time.
I call it stuck fight.
These people are not intending to be mean and so critical.
They're not intending to see everything as like battles to fight.
They're not intending to scare people, but they have some stuck fight response in theirsystem that just needs to get addressed.
(32:09):
And we see this too, you know, with workaholism.
Those folks are often really stuck in freeze, you know, they're not really in their body.
Maybe there was good reasons why they had to come out of their body and they never reallycame back home all the way.
And so the pace is just a little higher.
They don't get as much information and they tend to create intensity in their life becauseit makes them feel more alive.
(32:33):
And so, I mean, that was the case for me.
I could see 12 clients a day and not pee and not eat and not drink water.
And I thought that was capacity.
I thought that meant I was powerful, but all it meant was I was completely out of rightrelationship with my body and I wasn't accessing all the wisdom that it has.
And so even when I said, okay, I'm a workaholic, I can't stop working this much.
(32:59):
know, I see the pattern.
I know the personas.
I understand what's going on, but I can't.
I used to do like six, seven, eight clients, maybe nine clients sometimes on days where mykids are with their dad.
And I'd like close the laptop and I'd go downstairs and sit on the couch and I couldtolerate like 10 or 15 minutes before I'm like...
I mean, I might as well take care of same emails.
(33:20):
I might as well just get ready for tomorrow.
And it's like the laptop comes back open.
I was either on or off and like asleep or do it like a total crash out lazy weekend.
There was no modulation.
And it wasn't until I started to address some of these big experiences that happened forme that it became safer to come
down into my body.
(33:40):
I wasn't used to all that sympathetic energy.
So when I'd slow down, some sympathetic energy or some feelings would show up orsomething, some things would just start showing up.
And I was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't want that.
Let me go back to the dopamine hit of my email so that I don't have to feel how I feel.
And that impact, like these types of things, you can see how it impacts organizations.
(34:02):
You know, if you're running at that level, you're communicating unconsciously to everyonein your org that everyone has to be working like that and it's not sustainable and you get
burnout and you get really valuable people leaving.
So sometimes it's the nervous system that your nervous system, slogan at my company isyour nervous system will either liberate you or limit you and you get to choose.
(34:26):
So.
Wow.
I'm sitting with that and just thinking about.
There was a time like with my company listeners, I own a content marketing agency calledYak Yak.
We've been in business for over a decade.
And we've gone through periods of highs and lows of different intensity and starting outand like kind of the earlier age, the earlier part of Yak Yak, it was a place where I was
(34:56):
sending emails till midnight and all of these things because...
and have this expectation around like, okay, if you work here, you're committed to theseoutcomes and da da.
And because I was on, other people started to be like, do I need to be checking my emailat midnight and all those things and realize like a couple of things.
Like one, I had learned how to run the business from the patriarchy and that constantlyperforming was an important...
(35:24):
of this and that's something that we validated.
We're like, good job.
going.
my gosh.
100 hours weeks.
You must be making money.
You're doing something.
Well, it's like, no, I'm fucking miserable and everyone around me is miserable.
You know, we're taking step back, taking off.
But, but any event, like coming to terms with some of those things and how that wasshowing up and impacting my team culture with was really important and implementing
(35:50):
practices like.
hey, because we kind of choose our own work schedule to some extent, some people might beemailing at night.
And what we can do around that is schedule our emails so you don't feel like that meansyou have to do the same thing so that the emails might come in in the morning and, you
know, just like little adaptive practice like that to not let that urgency come through.
(36:13):
it was a clear my inability to connect with my own body was
seeping into how my business was operating.
Yeah, the consciousness of the leader of the organization heavily impacts the entireorganization.
And it's same for the nervous system.
The nervous system of the leader of the organization heavily impacts the wholeorganization and those people's families.
(36:39):
And that's why I find it so exciting to work with executives that have a lot of impactbecause I just see how much potential there is for what if
What if people who have a lot of decision rights and a lot of impact, the choices they'remaking about large organizations and what's going to happen, if those people can feel
(37:02):
their feelings, if those people are present enough in their own body that they can bedeeply relational and they can feel the impact of the decisions that they're making, what
if those people can lead from a more heart-centered place because their body is now a safeplace to inhabit?
And they can actually use all the wisdom of the body to lead from a more heart centeredplace so that they even have a sense of what's in integrity and what's out of integrity.
(37:26):
What are my values and what's my purpose and how do I make sure I'm staying aligned tothat rather than just being like in the survival mode where we're seeing everything as a
lot more threatening.
What would be possible?
Like what would be different about the collective?
Those are some of the wonderings, the exciting wonderings that I hold when I think about.
(37:48):
building out my company and serving as many people as we're meant to serve.
I love that.
so for those listening, Bethany just launched a brand new company.
And so exciting.
Entheon, Sematics is newly birthed at the end of 2024.
So tell us what it looks like to work with you and what kind of impact that people canexpect.
(38:12):
Well, I have an amazing team of practitioners who all have slightly different skill sets.
So I really enjoy meeting people and finding like, okay, who's magic, who's exquisitesupport is going to be just the right fit for this individual.
So usually I meet with people up front if they reach out and we have a few differentofferings, sort of our, the Cadillac of offerings that we, that we are currently offering.
(38:37):
It's called nervous system coaching.
So this is sort of a new model that
I developed as a combination of a lot of the self-development, self-awareness, some ofthese relational practices and somatic experiencing.
So we're really moving to say, hey, I realize that I'm really limited by my nervous systemand that some of these outcomes in my life are really challenging and I want to change
(38:58):
them.
And I want to build mastery of my nervous system.
So it's a six month engagement where we help you map your nervous system.
It's a combination of somatic experiencing and some traditional coaching models where
As more capacity opens up in that person's experience, we're adding and layering in more.
We have goals and we sort of map your nervous system.
(39:19):
We'll do persona interviews for your different fear responses so you can get yourawareness way up.
We'll kind of give people like a toolkit that's personalized to their nervous system sothat they get better at self-regulation and understanding themselves.
So that's kind of for people who want to go deep and build a lot of mastery.
We also offer somatic experiencing for executives.
And so that's really like, if you've done a lot of work and there's these couple of placeswhere you know you need a little attention, or if there's something that's acute that's
(39:45):
happening in your life that you know you need some radical support around, you you can doa three month experience with us where you get some straight somatic experiencing that's
really designed to support executives.
And we have a bunch of other kind of offerings on the side, but yeah, I'm here to helpheal people's nervous systems to create the conditions so people can hear the.
(40:06):
heal their own nervous system, I would say, is a more accurate description.
This is where you come if there's these things that you can't change.
If you have an executive coach and they're giving you advice and they're giving youcoaching and you just can't seem to take it, this is the place where you can come where
you can unlock some of that so that there's a little bit more agency and a little bit morechoice and a little bit less kind of automatic trauma responses happening.
(40:28):
My gosh, that in itself is just so incredible.
And so thinking about like this big, beautiful world that we can co-create.
What do you see the outcomes being for more heart centered leadership and people takingagency around this connection?
Because it's hard and scary work, but what's at stake?
Well, I think probably everyone's had this experience where when you're really in somekind of trigger or you're in some really tough situation, the way you see the world and
(40:58):
how right you feel about what you're seeing and experiencing.
Just like, is my story about what's going on and it becomes very black and white, youknow?
It's very us, them, or me, them, or whatever it is.
And then later, maybe you get some perspective or it's a different day or it's a few weekslater or something different happens in the relationship or in the situation and you go,
man, yeah, I see it really differently now.
(41:20):
The amount of time that we spend and the amount of decisions we're making from thatcontracted, dysregulated place.
What I want and what I see is what if we all become amazing at tracking that inside ofourselves and can just go, I'm really triggered right now.
Either I need to go take a breath and kind of shift myself or I need to actually addresssomething inside of myself.
(41:44):
There's some pattern, there's something occurring that is here for me to learn andtransform and I'm gonna take the invitation.
And I experience my reality as helping me wake up to these things, finding these places sothat I can transform and heal.
so that we're really making decisions that are aligned to life.
I don't think anyone's out here consciously being like, I don't care about anybody else, Ionly care about myself.
(42:08):
But unconsciously, a lot of the decisions we make as organizations, as businesses is morein that patriarchy, is more not aligned to life.
It doesn't even believe that it's possible that there are conditions where everybody canthrive, not just survive.
So I'm interested in reducing how much survival mentality
(42:29):
is happening at leadership levels and shifting into more of a thriving, how can we allthrive together?
And that just means we have to become really skillful about the state of our nervoussystems.
It's really beautiful.
I'm thinking about how Lauren and I recently, she was actually, she's gonna be on the showand we just recorded a cult lab last week.
(42:51):
was so fun.
But just like the definition of liberation and how much like, yes, freedom.
to make decisions, but not at the expense of those around you and working in knowing howour energetic boundaries are all influencing one another and operating for a best and
higher good.
And when we get out of fight or flight, when we access our bodies, it's a lot easier forus to have that perspective and know we are safe.
(43:18):
Okay, now how do we address this in a way that benefits all parties involved?
I think that's really beautiful.
So what is a somatic
obsession look like?
Yes.
Are they going to walk into a room full of like...
It's a good question, right?
(43:38):
It's even mysterious, even though we've been talking about it for an hour.
It's actually really simple.
I would say it's simple, but not easy.
so somatic experiencing largely consists of letting things come up in your body.
and creating some space for your body to have the experience it's having.
So I start with people, I do an intake, I learn about their history, I try to understandall the things that have happened for them.
(44:04):
And after that first session where we kind of get the story down, we don't spend a lot oftime in story.
It's basically, you know how we talked about how we just kind of dissociate from ourexperience all the time, we're constantly trying to change the experience we're having or
repress or deny the experience.
We're just going, what if we let ourselves have the experience of being witnessed and heldin a container and just going really slow and gentle allows some of the stuff that needs
(44:28):
some attention to kind of gently come up.
so it's really on the part of the client, it's just showing up with some presence for yourexperience and then noticing what sensations do I feel in my body?
What emotions are here?
What does that remind me of?
I'm having this impulse, I'm noticing this impulse in my body and being able to reportthat to your practitioner.
(44:50):
And it's the practitioner's role to make really skillful invitations to safely andcomfortably let some of the survival energy discharge.
You know, there's, can go more into the complexities of the model and the things that I'mthinking about.
Like we're really looking at.
coupling dynamics, I'm looking for what's over coupled in the nervous system, what's undercoupled and making specific invitations so the body can start to have a different
(45:15):
experience.
But it's as simple as getting, as showing up, chatting a little bit, you know, lot ofcoaches go right into it.
Chatting actually lets the body settle.
Like we just kind of chit chat for a minute or two and slowly settle in.
And then it's like the body knows what wants to get worked on that day.
And so we just trust that and we just
(45:37):
kind of let whatever's there arise.
And we have it on this arc overall.
you know, especially for nervous system coaching, people who really want to get somemastery, there's homework assignments, I have them read things, I have them do some
practices.
So they're really working on getting some of the top down learnings.
And then in session, we really focus on some of the bottom up stuff.
(45:58):
So really, it's being on could be on a zoom call.
Yeah, I largely work on Zoom.
I have a couple local clients who really like to come by the house sometimes and hang outin the studio and do in-person work.
And there are some Somatic Experience practitioners that are more body workers that arejust bringing a trauma-informed approach to some of the body work that they're doing.
(46:19):
Zoom is really great because if you're in your home, you're already well resourced.
You feel comfortable.
know, like what we saw in the Somatic Experiencing world during COVID.
a lot of folks were doing kind of in-person sessions and then went to Zoom is that a lotof people were doing much better because they're in the comfort of their own home.
(46:40):
They have the comfort of their own favorite blanket that they have.
pet might come up and sit next to them while they're in session because our pets can senseall this and they're really wonderful to co-regulate with.
And then, you know, they're in the comfort of their own home.
So even if there's like a big experience happening or we're talking, you we're kind oftalking around or touching into something that's really sensitive or tender or really
(47:00):
activating because you're in your own space, you feel the most safe there.
And so it really works well to do this over Zoom.
When I start with people, tell them to make sure you have privacy and make sure you have alittle bit of time afterwards.
It's a little bit, I will say, it's a little bit like going to the gym.
You know, it's like you're actually
reminding yourself and relearning a new skill set that a lot of us have let go of andhaven't been practicing.
(47:26):
It's kind like if you haven't been to the gym in five years and you go lift some weights,you'll be like sore and you might need a little more sleep.
And it's sort of like, there's this transition where you start to normalize the experienceof letting your body have the experience it's having.
And yeah, sometimes it's just really different.
So there's a transition period.
So we tend to go really slow and gentle upfront.
(47:48):
But ideally, every single time,
that you have a somatic experiencing session, you will feel better afterwards.
You will feel your capacity increase.
You will feel that you have that point where you get to pause and notice yourself beforeyou make a choice of how you're gonna act or respond.
And so, yeah, I would say it's ideal for folks who are really willing to be vulnerableenough to move towards the body and it's well worth it.
(48:18):
Yeah.
I mean, speaking from experience.
it very much is.
so here we are, we are in a stage or an era or however we want to categorize, wheretherapy and self-reflection are becoming part of the norm.
(48:38):
And that's a wonderful thing.
Going inward, spending your time, sharing experiences, all of that.
And my experience with it was that therapy wasn't enough.
I needed to get into my body and I needed to really work hard to uncover some of thethings that were impacting me in ways that I didn't know.
(48:58):
For me, that looked like exploring breathwork, going very deep into writing practices tokind of unlock some of the things that I've been holding as a creative person that really
worked for me.
And then also working with you, Bethany and
getting to understand like even as you were observing me and my reactions and as I talkedabout things, I think I described something one time and I held my hand like this and
(49:23):
we're like, can we just like stop for a sec and talk about like why that was such aforceful thing and like all of it that was we're sharing experiences and just noting like,
okay, stop, how does this feel in our bodies?
How does this?
So to emphasize again for those listening, this is the next layer.
When you get to the point in your work, in your healing, in your self exploration and yourreturn home is accessing the body and noting when we are disassociating, when we are in
(49:58):
fight or flight, what triggers us and starting to address those things and release them.
And it is such a powerful thing to be able to be in our bodies and accept its wisdom.
to note when this doesn't feel good, I'm gonna take a step back and how this can impactthe relationships that we have with our children, the way that we can hold space for
(50:24):
others in our lives and ask to be held by others.
It's so incredibly powerful.
I think we're gonna be hearing a lot more about this in the coming years and Bethany is...
is an incredible resource.
know your business is going to do incredible things.
Working one-on-one with you was so helpful for me.
(50:47):
Thank you.
Things that I've been carrying with me that I've never even been able to talk about that Ican now talk about.
Yeah.
That's your capacity increasing.
That was so well said.
I should just take your exact words and probably put them on my website.
That was really well said.
Thank you.
(51:08):
You can have them.
Please do.
Because it's true though, we're gonna run up against the walls and it is not, we can'tjust live, we can't just treat what's up here in our heads.
We can't just treat our stories.
And I find that, I'm gonna go there, that I think about like what certain people in mylife who have caused me trauma as victim sounding as that is, what they're- There are real
(51:34):
victims.
There are real victims.
What does their therapy session sound like?
And I am guessing that a lot of times it's their story that is then being repeated tosomeone who is invalidating that experience in some way.
But that's not always truth.
(51:56):
And the truth of things lives in our body, that ability to reflect, that ability to holdspace, that ability to, I don't know if I want to say like self heal, like,
It is self-healing because it actually, I'm not doing anything.
I'm helping create conditions so that the client feels safe to let themselves, so the bodyknows how to do it.
(52:19):
Those impulses, all of that is moving you towards healing.
It's just about allowing our bodies to do that and getting some support to make sure it'sas skillful and friendly as possible.
Right.
And so if you're looking for that whole body experience of really addressing
not just validating, but addressing, healing.
This is where that process starts.
(52:41):
Therapy is a great starting point, but this is where you can get into like actuallybecoming whole again.
We say a trauma when renegotiated becomes a resource.
And so when we're able to move through those experiences in the body, like
even my own relationship to my freeze response.
(53:02):
Cause I had a lot of judgments too.
I'm like, I'm dissociating all the time and I'm never in my body.
And I had a lot of these stories and I would shame myself and make it a big problem andget contracted experiencing that, that car accident and going, my God, how brilliant is my
body?
And being able to really appreciate everything it's doing for me.
It's like, okay.
(53:25):
I can accept myself more.
can be with myself more and
Now that's a resource.
Like I talk about a car accident as really impactful, beautiful way for me to respect andunderstand the gifts of my body.
Rather than, you know, that is the, you know, a trauma when we negotiating become aresource.
That's what that means.
And that's also how a lot of our, you know, to just skip ahead if something reallychallenging happens and be like, everything happens for a reason.
(53:51):
You know, there's a way where we can get really bypassy with that.
And
You know, what is true is that a lot of our challenges do become these opportunities inthese windows for big moments of transformation and development.
And, you know, there's a bit of a process to get there.
I love that.
So Bethany, tell me, what are you doing in your life right now to live unapologetically?
(54:15):
So I just started teaching.
I actually two nights ago, I did my first workshop for coaches.
And I think that there's always been an edge inside of me where I really love structureand framework and I've had a lot of amazing teachers over the years and I've always been
really good at helping them with their organizations and helping them do the thing.
(54:38):
You know, like I've, I really believe in these different tools and these different thingsI've experienced.
It's very edgy for me to say, got it.
I've done a lot of work now and now I, I'm ready to teach and I'm ready to step into thisdifferent level of my own power.
I'm so cautious around power dynamics and I so wanna co-create and I so wanna validateeverybody else that sometimes I err so much on this place where I don't necessarily feel
(55:04):
like I'm really in my full power and authority.
And so it feels very edgy to start to say, yeah, no, I created something.
I created a new model for coaching and I'm ready to teach it now.
And I have a command of this material.
That's...
super edgy for me.
And so it is a little bit me stepping into some unapologetic personas to say, yeah, nowthis is I'm here to do this and I'm to and I'm going to do it.
(55:31):
And, know, I'm ready for you all to experience it.
Those things feel edgy for me.
So that's one thing I'm doing lately.
One that's amazing.
Congratulations.
Sign me up.
I want to learn from you.
I've already learned so much from you.
But I had a guest on the show last year and
She's Rabbi Cantor Judy Greenfield.
(55:51):
And she said that humility is taking up the space you deserve.
And so the work that you've done, the capacity that you've created within yourself, thelearning that you've had is gives you a container that allows you to then be in a position
(56:11):
to teach others and own it.
That's the space that you deserve.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like the shadow side of humility.
Actually, we sometimes we don't we don't empower ourselves all the way because we're soconcerned with, you having a beginner's mindset and all of that.
But I really like that thinking about humility as creating the container for you to stepup.
(56:33):
That's beautiful.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Keep going.
You're doing amazing things.
I'm so happy to know you.
You're one of the many people who've come into my life over the last couple of years thathave made a big impact and have shown me a new way of
being and which is the benefit of all of the people in my life.
So I'm sure that they thank you too.
(56:53):
But most importantly, to be able to walk into a room and know when I might be triggeredand to be able to recognize and talk about it and get ahead of it and give feedback to
people instead of just holding in the traumas and not speaking about them and not evenrecognizing them and not honoring them.
Life changing stuff.
(57:15):
changing shit, Well, thank you so much for having me on the cast, Ashley.
I really appreciate it.
So grateful.
So thank you so much for tuning in.
If you haven't already, follow us on Instagram at unapologetically yours podcast.
Follow me on Instagram at Ashley D Logan.
Subscribe, download wherever you listen to podcasts.
(57:36):
And if you've got any feedback, send us an email at podcasts at unapologetically yours.
I'm so grateful to have Bethany here.
We're going to share all of her information about
you can find her and connect with her in the show notes.
And now go out, make some mischief in the world.
And until then, I'm Ashley.
This is Bethany and we are unapologetically yours.
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