November 18, 2024 • 16 mins
You're likely trying many things to feel mentally and emotionally better, but are they all effective? Learn to put your efforts into 4 different buckets to understand what is effective and what isn't.
Resources:
🔸 Free resources and course in the Members Center - https://www.justinlmft.com/members
🔸 Join the Unstucking Academy - https://www.stucknotbroken.com/unstuckingacademy
🔸 Polyvagal Intro webpage - https://www.justinlmft.com/polyvagalintro
🔸 Stuck Not Broken book series - https://www.justinlmft.com/books
🔸 Polyvagal 101 audio series - https://player.captivate.fm/collection/cce134e7-1550-4d33-8e56-738d344c63b0
Crisis resources:
- National Suicide Prevention Hotline - 1 (800) 273-8255
- National Domestic Violence Hotline -1 (800) 799-7233
- LGBT Trevor Project Lifeline - 1 (866) 488-7386
- National Sexual Assault Hotline - 1 (800) 656-4673
- Crisis Text Line - Text “HOME” to 741741
- Call 911 for emergency
00:00 Introduction to Trauma Recovery
00:39 Understanding Your Goals
01:19 Pathway 1: Establishing a Baseline
02:56 Pathway 2: Coping Mechanisms
05:55 Pathway 3: Practicing Safety
09:00 Pathway 4: Relieving Stuck Defensive States
12:44 Incorporating Micro Moments of Safety
15:34 Conclusion and Homework
This and other content produced by Justin Sunseri (“JustinLMFT”) (i.e; podcast, YouTube, Instagram, etc.) is not therapy, not intended to be therapy or be a replacement for therapy. Nothing in this creates or indicates a therapeutic relationship. Please consult with your therapist or seek for one in your area if you are experiencing mental health symptoms. Nothing should be construed to be specific life advice; it is for educational and entertainment purposes only.
Justin Sunseri is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist registered in the State of California (#99147).
Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast! When you do, you will immediately get the next episode as soon as it's available. What's better than having the next episode of SNB ready and waiting for you? (Nothing, that's what.)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You're probably doing a tonof trauma recovery and just
(00:03):
general wellness kinds of things.
It can get overwhelming.
So in this episode, what I want todo is share with you four different
buckets or, or pathways that youcan place all of your efforts into.
I want to help you compartmentalizeand think about your efforts
and what they're doing and maybewhere you need to grow as well.
(00:23):
Hey, my name is Justin Sunseri.
I'm a therapist and a coachwho wants to help you live more
calmly, confidently, and connectedwithout psychobabble or woo woo.
Welcome to Stuck Not Broken.
This podcast is not therapy,nor is it intended to be a
replacement for a therapy.
This topic comes up.
consistently and predictably in my clientwork, also very often within the Stucknaut
(00:46):
Collective courses and community.
And that is, what is your goal andhow are you going about doing that?
Your goal is probably to getunstuck, probably to reduce anxiety
or depression or anger or rage oroverwhelm or fill in the blank.
Maybe all of them.
But what avenues are youtaking to reach that goal?
(01:10):
And I want to help you to differentiatethose and compartmentalize them
into four different pathways, okay?
The first one is just baseline stuff.
Uh, the things that youshould have in place.
And if you don't have them in place,all your other efforts are probably
not going to be super helpful.
(01:30):
They could be helpful, butnot as much as possible.
And that's just baseline foundationalthings like eating healthy enough, having
enough water, um, getting enough sleep.
We don't need perfection.
I don't need you to be hyper nutritionaland drinking a certain amount of water
(01:51):
every day and measuring that and, youknow, wearing a backpack full of water
to make sure you get a ton or whatever.
But just - enough.
You know, we need to do good enough, and Ican't tell you what, what number that is.
Um, but good enough.
If you're living off candy,that's probably not good enough.
If you're living off of fatsand sugars, soda, Pizza like
(02:13):
that's probably not good enough.
So make improvementsthat are in that area.
That's that's foundational that isunbelievably important to the other
efforts that I'm gonna lay out hereand when I make that motion It's
because I have three more three morepathways there for you, but but that
has to be in place if you're notgetting enough sleep, that's huge.
(02:35):
I have sleep apnea- if Idon't get good enough sleep,
I feel it the rest of the day.
Uh, everything just becomes somuch more difficult when you
don't have good enough sleep.
So, um, sleep and eat enough or eatwell enough, drink enough water,
be healthy enough, get enoughmovement, that kind of stuff.
(02:56):
. Alright, pathway two as far as healing or recovering or making change in your
life, pathway two is I think wherepeople get stuck a lot and typically
where they start coming into therapy.
And that is coping.
You probably have some level of anxietyor anger or whatever, depression
(03:21):
fill in the blank and you're tryingto figure out how to cope with it.
How do I make it go awayor how do I reduce it?
And I don't blame you.
I don't blame you at all.
I don't blame my clients.
I don't blame the people inthe Stucknaut Collective.
Of course, of course you wantthat to reduce, if not go away.
But, what you're doing is decreasingdefensive activation through, you know,
(03:46):
hacks and whatnot that you're findingonline, like jumping into frozen, freezing
cold water, or taking cold showers,or putting a bag of frozen peas on
your chest to reduce anxiety and thosethings might help you reduce anxiety.
I'm happy, but um, those are temporary.
Those are very temporary.
They do, they do not resolve the problem.
(04:09):
And what they may do actually istrigger your dorsal vagal state, uh,
dorsal vagal state and numb you out.
Well, so in this, in essence, it putsyou into a little bit of shutdown and so
yeah, your anxiety is gone But are youmore connected to the present moment?
Do you love yourself more now?
It just kind of helps to make thefeelings go away after a while.
(04:29):
One of my clients says he grabs his orhe tried from some psychiatrist told him
Yeah, just when you're feeling anxiousgrab your your thumb nail squeeze on
that and your fingers It's just a hackif anything to me it does nothing and
I don't know for you maybe it doessomething but uh, if it does it's like
(04:49):
does it help you love yourself more?
Does it connect you withyour loved ones more?
Do you feel less guilt in your life?
Do you feel less perpetual anxietyprobably not maybe in that moment
because now you're causing yourselfpain or distracting yourself
and that there's value to that.
So, that's that's pathwaynumber two or bucket number two.
What are you doing that fits into that?
(05:11):
And it's, it's those things likecounting backwards when you're anxious,
um, playing with a fidget when you'reanxious or when you're angry or depressed
or whatever, those things are coping.
You're, you're trying to reduce defensiveactivation -totally has a place.
If you need to numb yourself outbecause you're feeling suicidal, go
(05:32):
ahead, watch TV until you feel lesssuicidal and can do something about it.
I don't think there's anythingwrong with that at all.
So coping definitely has aplace, but it is not the answer.
And if you're going into therapy seekingmore coping, that's fine, but hopefully
therapists can do more for you and, um,you know, get you to the next two paths.
(05:55):
so we've got the foundational pathone, we got the coping path two,
path three is practicing safety.
And this is what we're Um, therapists,and I'll honestly miss, and this
is probably what you're missing toyour listener and in your efforts.
How do you feel safe?
(06:15):
What triggers feelings of comfort for you?
What helps bring youto the present moment?
What helps you to breathe easier?
What helps you to feel maybe appreciation?
Maybe gratitude?
Love?
Gratitude?
Maybe, maybe not happiness,but yeah, maybe happiness.
Maybe just contentment?
Awe?
(06:37):
Some of these are might be moreeasier to reach than others.
But yeah, what helps you feel safe andconnected to yourself or connected to
the environment or connected to others?
Connected to yourself would be havingenough self compassion to look inward
and Be open to all of your experiences,even the ones that are uncomfortable.
(06:57):
Connection to the environmentwould be through your senses.
So do you know what senses, um, bringyou to your safety state or what sensory
triggers bring you to your safety state?
Do you know what tastes or what smells,what textures help you to just be just
to be and breathe and that's enough.
I'm not saying it's easy, but.
It's important.
(07:17):
I think it's actually extremely important.
The coping stuff is fine, but if youcan practice feeling safe and build
that up and like literally build up thestrength of your safety pathways, your
biological, ventral, vagal pathways.
If you can do that, the need forcoping is It's gonna be less, like
you just won't need it as much.
It'll probably still pop up, sure.
(07:39):
But the, your level of distress tolerancewill grow up, go up, not grow up, go up.
Distress tolerance goes up,your level, your feelings of
connection to yourself and othersin the environment, that goes up.
Your ability to be mindfulof your experience, positive
and negative, that goes up.
(08:00):
And yeah, the defensive activationthat you're stuck in, flight, fight,
shut down, freeze, that eases up too.
It doesn't solve, exactly, itdoesn't solve the problem, but.
It makes life way more manageablewithout relying on coping
skills or hacks or whatever.
It makes life more manageable, andit really reduces the intensity and
(08:23):
frequency of your defensive activation.
So that is extremely important andsomething we don't pay attention
to in life in general, honestly.
Nobody thinks this way,no one talks this way.
Um, except, well, exceptfor us, I suppose.
But even in therapy, we don't thinkthis way, we don't talk this way.
We focus on what's the problem andhow do we make the problem go away.
(08:46):
Well, part of making the problem goaway is to practice feeling safe.
And as we do that, things kind of getbetter little by little by little.
It's a long process.
It's not a hack.
It is a long process.
Pathway number four is directly feelingand relieving your stuck defensive state.
(09:10):
Whether it's flight,fight, shutdown, or freeze.
Pathway 4 is hugely dependentupon Pathway 1 and Pathway 3.
So just, you know, basic sleep in, youknow, healthy enough, blah, blah, blah.
But also Pathway 3, which is feelingsafe, feeling grounded, staying connected
(09:32):
to yourself in the present moment,even when uncomfortable things come up.
In Pathway 4, where we're directlyfeeling and experiencing our stuck
defensive state or defensive activation.
It might be momentary anxiety.
And so rather than coping it awaythrough some TikTok hack or whatever, we
actually say, okay, I'm feeling anxious.
(09:53):
Not why am I feeling thisway, but let me feel this way.
I can, I can handle this.
I can permit myself to feel anxious orangry or irritated or depressed and numb.
I have enough safety activationbecause I've put that daily work
in to feel or practice being safe.
(10:14):
Now I have such a strong foundationof safety, I can actually.
allow myself to feel defensiveactivation and maybe it's the momentary
anxiety spike, but you could alsouse pathway for, for intentionally
feeling stuck defensive activation.
So not just the momentary anxiety,but the stuck flight activation that
(10:38):
the momentary anxiety comes from.
Pathway four is hugely importantfor truly recovering from a stuck
defensive state for relieving trauma.
You know, you can practice being safety,and I highly encourage you to do that.
You can do that every day and build upthe strength of your safety pathways.
And a lot of good can come from that,
(10:59):
but that next level of getting unstuckand finding more emotional freedom
and deeper connections with yourselfthat, that has to come through pathway
four, and that, that relies entirelyon your ability to stay grounded in
the present moment, in your safetystate, and then to validate your
(11:23):
experiences your even the difficult ones.
To normalize them and even give thempermission to be and to feel them, not
just lightly, although that might bea starting point, but even deeply to
deeply go into your stuck defensiveactivation and feel it and experience
(11:43):
it, the memories and images and senseand all the things that come along with
it, the textures that you recall, youknow, memories might be a part of that.
Yeah, Pathway 4 is really important.
And you can do that in doses.
Actually, it's pretty,pretty on a good idea.
We don't want to go all the way intodefensive activation all at once.
(12:06):
Little bit, you know, little doses hereand there are probably really good idea.
Um, to me, I, I liken it, especiallymaybe with freeze activation.
I liken it to skipping stones.
You know, you throw a stone acrossthe water and it just sort of touches
upon the water before coming back up.
I think, um, it's, that's probably agood metaphor for how to handle defensive
(12:26):
activation if you're starting down pathfour and feeling into it, it's probably
a really good idea to lightly touch uponit and then come back to safety, lightly
touch upon defense, come back to safety.
That's called pendulation.
You can purposely do that.
Pendulate back and forth.
And that's as an intro to it.
It's probably a really,really good idea to do that.
Hopefully that helps you to thinkabout your efforts, where you're
(12:48):
at, maybe where you need to beand where you'd like to get to.
If you're coping day in, day out,good for you, do what you got to do.
But can you find moments to includea tad more safety into your life?
And I think you can.
I had a session today wherethe person said, I have no time
(13:10):
for any of any mindfulness.
I have no time for practicing safety.
I have no time for this,that, or the other thing.
And I asked him, okay, well, let's,let's do a, Let's take inventory of
your life, your daily life, your,let's, let's audit your daily life.
Um, what do you do when you wake up?
And he goes, well, usually Ispend about five hours, um,
on YouTube and social media.
(13:31):
Yeah, there's five hoursright there we can work with.
That's a huge chunk of time.
So this person and you may beand most of- many people will
default to, I just got to cope.
I got to get through thisbecause I don't have time.
I don't have this.
I don't have that.
Uh, there's probably time.
There's probably a moment andreally it's these things can be
(13:53):
practiced in micro moments andthose have a ton of benefit to them.
When you wake up in the morning, doyou need to go for a walk outside?
Would that feel safer thanlaying in bed and scrolling
through TikTok for five hours?
Probably.
In the morning, can you go connectwith a loved one and give them a hug?
That's a moment of safety or your pet.
(14:13):
That's a moment of safety.
Can you mindfully experience howyour cereal makes you feel when you
eat it or the smell of your coffee?
The taste of your tea?
These, like, these are tiny momentswhere you can practice safety.
So if you're stuck in I'm copingday in, day out, I bet you can
find tiny moments of safety.
Micro moments.
(14:33):
And practice those.
If you're coping day in, dayout, Okay, hey, do your thing.
But can you also drinkmore water instead of soda?
Can you eat something that'sfresh and not from fast food?
Probably.
Probably.
If you could do all that and build up,if you can, you know, be healthier,
(14:55):
a little bit healthier, maybe a lothealthier and cope your way when you
need to cope your way through it.
And also feel safety in micro moments.
Eventually, would you be able to say,well, you know, what else do I feel?
What's it really like to be me andto be stuck in whatever state I'm in?
You might not be close to that right now.
(15:16):
And that that's okay.
Down the line, that's aquestion you could ask yourself.
And that's, that's prettynormal in my client work.
We build up so much safety that.
My clients will get to a point wherethey say, you know, I'm ready to feel
just what it's like to be me completely.
What else is within me?
And to be open to that.
Thank you so much for joiningme on Stuck Not Broken.
(15:37):
I really hope this episode hashelped you compartmentalize or think
about your efforts and where theybelong in those four paths and where
you can grow, what you can maybebolster if it needs bolstering.
Your homework assignment is tolook at all the things you're doing
and put them into one of thosefour, um, pathways or buckets.
(15:58):
If you're squeezing your thumb to feelbetter, what bucket does that belong into?
If tonight you're going to cook a freshmeal, what bucket does that belong into?
If you're going to go hug yourmom and tell her you love her,
what bucket does that belong into?
If you're going to meditate and feelwhat it's like to be you completely,
(16:19):
what bucket would that be in?
Actually, I created afree resource for you.
It's just a really simple one sheetvisualization of this four bucket
thing with brief descriptions.
You can download that inthe free member center.
I'll put a link foryou in the description.
The link though is justinlmft.com/membersand I have a free course and other
(16:40):
downloads there for you if you like.
Otherwise, thanks for joining me.
You're probably doing a tonof trauma recovery and just
(00:03):
general wellness kinds of things.
It can get overwhelming.
So in this episode, what I want todo is share with you four different
buckets or, or pathways that youcan place all of your efforts into.
I want to help you compartmentalizeand think about your efforts
and what they're doing and maybewhere you need to grow as well.
(00:23):
Hey, my name is Justin Sunseri.
I'm a therapist and a coachwho wants to help you live more
calmly, confidently, and connectedwithout psychobabble or woo woo.
Welcome to Stuck Not Broken.
This podcast is not therapy,nor is it intended to be a
replacement for a therapy.
This topic comes up.
consistently and predictably in my clientwork, also very often within the Stucknaut
(00:46):
Collective courses and community.
And that is, what is your goal andhow are you going about doing that?
Your goal is probably to getunstuck, probably to reduce anxiety
or depression or anger or rage oroverwhelm or fill in the blank.
Maybe all of them.
But what avenues are youtaking to reach that goal?
(01:10):
And I want to help you to differentiatethose and compartmentalize them
into four different pathways, okay?
The first one is just baseline stuff.
Uh, the things that youshould have in place.
And if you don't have them in place,all your other efforts are probably
not going to be super helpful.
(01:30):
They could be helpful, butnot as much as possible.
And that's just baseline foundationalthings like eating healthy enough, having
enough water, um, getting enough sleep.
We don't need perfection.
I don't need you to be hyper nutritionaland drinking a certain amount of water
(01:51):
every day and measuring that and, youknow, wearing a backpack full of water
to make sure you get a ton or whatever.
But just - enough.
You know, we need to do good enough, and Ican't tell you what, what number that is.
Um, but good enough.
If you're living off candy,that's probably not good enough.
If you're living off of fatsand sugars, soda, Pizza like
(02:13):
that's probably not good enough.
So make improvementsthat are in that area.
That's that's foundational that isunbelievably important to the other
efforts that I'm gonna lay out hereand when I make that motion It's
because I have three more three morepathways there for you, but but that
has to be in place if you're notgetting enough sleep, that's huge.
(02:35):
I have sleep apnea- if Idon't get good enough sleep,
I feel it the rest of the day.
Uh, everything just becomes somuch more difficult when you
don't have good enough sleep.
So, um, sleep and eat enough or eatwell enough, drink enough water,
be healthy enough, get enoughmovement, that kind of stuff.
(02:56):
. Alright, pathway two as far as healing or recovering or making change in your
life, pathway two is I think wherepeople get stuck a lot and typically
where they start coming into therapy.
And that is coping.
You probably have some level of anxietyor anger or whatever, depression
(03:21):
fill in the blank and you're tryingto figure out how to cope with it.
How do I make it go awayor how do I reduce it?
And I don't blame you.
I don't blame you at all.
I don't blame my clients.
I don't blame the people inthe Stucknaut Collective.
Of course, of course you wantthat to reduce, if not go away.
But, what you're doing is decreasingdefensive activation through, you know,
(03:46):
hacks and whatnot that you're findingonline, like jumping into frozen, freezing
cold water, or taking cold showers,or putting a bag of frozen peas on
your chest to reduce anxiety and thosethings might help you reduce anxiety.
I'm happy, but um, those are temporary.
Those are very temporary.
They do, they do not resolve the problem.
(04:09):
And what they may do actually istrigger your dorsal vagal state, uh,
dorsal vagal state and numb you out.
Well, so in this, in essence, it putsyou into a little bit of shutdown and so
yeah, your anxiety is gone But are youmore connected to the present moment?
Do you love yourself more now?
It just kind of helps to make thefeelings go away after a while.
(04:29):
One of my clients says he grabs his orhe tried from some psychiatrist told him
Yeah, just when you're feeling anxiousgrab your your thumb nail squeeze on
that and your fingers It's just a hackif anything to me it does nothing and
I don't know for you maybe it doessomething but uh, if it does it's like
(04:49):
does it help you love yourself more?
Does it connect you withyour loved ones more?
Do you feel less guilt in your life?
Do you feel less perpetual anxietyprobably not maybe in that moment
because now you're causing yourselfpain or distracting yourself
and that there's value to that.
So, that's that's pathwaynumber two or bucket number two.
What are you doing that fits into that?
(05:11):
And it's, it's those things likecounting backwards when you're anxious,
um, playing with a fidget when you'reanxious or when you're angry or depressed
or whatever, those things are coping.
You're, you're trying to reduce defensiveactivation -totally has a place.
If you need to numb yourself outbecause you're feeling suicidal, go
(05:32):
ahead, watch TV until you feel lesssuicidal and can do something about it.
I don't think there's anythingwrong with that at all.
So coping definitely has aplace, but it is not the answer.
And if you're going into therapy seekingmore coping, that's fine, but hopefully
therapists can do more for you and, um,you know, get you to the next two paths.
(05:55):
so we've got the foundational pathone, we got the coping path two,
path three is practicing safety.
And this is what we're Um, therapists,and I'll honestly miss, and this
is probably what you're missing toyour listener and in your efforts.
How do you feel safe?
(06:15):
What triggers feelings of comfort for you?
What helps bring youto the present moment?
What helps you to breathe easier?
What helps you to feel maybe appreciation?
Maybe gratitude?
Love?
Gratitude?
Maybe, maybe not happiness,but yeah, maybe happiness.
Maybe just contentment?
Awe?
(06:37):
Some of these are might be moreeasier to reach than others.
But yeah, what helps you feel safe andconnected to yourself or connected to
the environment or connected to others?
Connected to yourself would be havingenough self compassion to look inward
and Be open to all of your experiences,even the ones that are uncomfortable.
(06:57):
Connection to the environmentwould be through your senses.
So do you know what senses, um, bringyou to your safety state or what sensory
triggers bring you to your safety state?
Do you know what tastes or what smells,what textures help you to just be just
to be and breathe and that's enough.
I'm not saying it's easy, but.
It's important.
(07:17):
I think it's actually extremely important.
The coping stuff is fine, but if youcan practice feeling safe and build
that up and like literally build up thestrength of your safety pathways, your
biological, ventral, vagal pathways.
If you can do that, the need forcoping is It's gonna be less, like
you just won't need it as much.
It'll probably still pop up, sure.
(07:39):
But the, your level of distress tolerancewill grow up, go up, not grow up, go up.
Distress tolerance goes up,your level, your feelings of
connection to yourself and othersin the environment, that goes up.
Your ability to be mindfulof your experience, positive
and negative, that goes up.
(08:00):
And yeah, the defensive activationthat you're stuck in, flight, fight,
shut down, freeze, that eases up too.
It doesn't solve, exactly, itdoesn't solve the problem, but.
It makes life way more manageablewithout relying on coping
skills or hacks or whatever.
It makes life more manageable, andit really reduces the intensity and
(08:23):
frequency of your defensive activation.
So that is extremely important andsomething we don't pay attention
to in life in general, honestly.
Nobody thinks this way,no one talks this way.
Um, except, well, exceptfor us, I suppose.
But even in therapy, we don't thinkthis way, we don't talk this way.
We focus on what's the problem andhow do we make the problem go away.
(08:46):
Well, part of making the problem goaway is to practice feeling safe.
And as we do that, things kind of getbetter little by little by little.
It's a long process.
It's not a hack.
It is a long process.
Pathway number four is directly feelingand relieving your stuck defensive state.
(09:10):
Whether it's flight,fight, shutdown, or freeze.
Pathway 4 is hugely dependentupon Pathway 1 and Pathway 3.
So just, you know, basic sleep in, youknow, healthy enough, blah, blah, blah.
But also Pathway 3, which is feelingsafe, feeling grounded, staying connected
(09:32):
to yourself in the present moment,even when uncomfortable things come up.
In Pathway 4, where we're directlyfeeling and experiencing our stuck
defensive state or defensive activation.
It might be momentary anxiety.
And so rather than coping it awaythrough some TikTok hack or whatever, we
actually say, okay, I'm feeling anxious.
(09:53):
Not why am I feeling thisway, but let me feel this way.
I can, I can handle this.
I can permit myself to feel anxious orangry or irritated or depressed and numb.
I have enough safety activationbecause I've put that daily work
in to feel or practice being safe.
(10:14):
Now I have such a strong foundationof safety, I can actually.
allow myself to feel defensiveactivation and maybe it's the momentary
anxiety spike, but you could alsouse pathway for, for intentionally
feeling stuck defensive activation.
So not just the momentary anxiety,but the stuck flight activation that
(10:38):
the momentary anxiety comes from.
Pathway four is hugely importantfor truly recovering from a stuck
defensive state for relieving trauma.
You know, you can practice being safety,and I highly encourage you to do that.
You can do that every day and build upthe strength of your safety pathways.
And a lot of good can come from that,
(10:59):
but that next level of getting unstuckand finding more emotional freedom
and deeper connections with yourselfthat, that has to come through pathway
four, and that, that relies entirelyon your ability to stay grounded in
the present moment, in your safetystate, and then to validate your
(11:23):
experiences your even the difficult ones.
To normalize them and even give thempermission to be and to feel them, not
just lightly, although that might bea starting point, but even deeply to
deeply go into your stuck defensiveactivation and feel it and experience
(11:43):
it, the memories and images and senseand all the things that come along with
it, the textures that you recall, youknow, memories might be a part of that.
Yeah, Pathway 4 is really important.
And you can do that in doses.
Actually, it's pretty,pretty on a good idea.
We don't want to go all the way intodefensive activation all at once.
(12:06):
Little bit, you know, little doses hereand there are probably really good idea.
Um, to me, I, I liken it, especiallymaybe with freeze activation.
I liken it to skipping stones.
You know, you throw a stone acrossthe water and it just sort of touches
upon the water before coming back up.
I think, um, it's, that's probably agood metaphor for how to handle defensive
(12:26):
activation if you're starting down pathfour and feeling into it, it's probably
a really good idea to lightly touch uponit and then come back to safety, lightly
touch upon defense, come back to safety.
That's called pendulation.
You can purposely do that.
Pendulate back and forth.
And that's as an intro to it.
It's probably a really,really good idea to do that.
Hopefully that helps you to thinkabout your efforts, where you're
(12:48):
at, maybe where you need to beand where you'd like to get to.
If you're coping day in, day out,good for you, do what you got to do.
But can you find moments to includea tad more safety into your life?
And I think you can.
I had a session today wherethe person said, I have no time
(13:10):
for any of any mindfulness.
I have no time for practicing safety.
I have no time for this,that, or the other thing.
And I asked him, okay, well, let's,let's do a, Let's take inventory of
your life, your daily life, your,let's, let's audit your daily life.
Um, what do you do when you wake up?
And he goes, well, usually Ispend about five hours, um,
on YouTube and social media.
(13:31):
Yeah, there's five hoursright there we can work with.
That's a huge chunk of time.
So this person and you may beand most of- many people will
default to, I just got to cope.
I got to get through thisbecause I don't have time.
I don't have this.
I don't have that.
Uh, there's probably time.
There's probably a moment andreally it's these things can be
(13:53):
practiced in micro moments andthose have a ton of benefit to them.
When you wake up in the morning, doyou need to go for a walk outside?
Would that feel safer thanlaying in bed and scrolling
through TikTok for five hours?
Probably.
In the morning, can you go connectwith a loved one and give them a hug?
That's a moment of safety or your pet.
(14:13):
That's a moment of safety.
Can you mindfully experience howyour cereal makes you feel when you
eat it or the smell of your coffee?
The taste of your tea?
These, like, these are tiny momentswhere you can practice safety.
So if you're stuck in I'm copingday in, day out, I bet you can
find tiny moments of safety.
Micro moments.
(14:33):
And practice those.
If you're coping day in, dayout, Okay, hey, do your thing.
But can you also drinkmore water instead of soda?
Can you eat something that'sfresh and not from fast food?
Probably.
Probably.
If you could do all that and build up,if you can, you know, be healthier,
(14:55):
a little bit healthier, maybe a lothealthier and cope your way when you
need to cope your way through it.
And also feel safety in micro moments.
Eventually, would you be able to say,well, you know, what else do I feel?
What's it really like to be me andto be stuck in whatever state I'm in?
You might not be close to that right now.
(15:16):
And that that's okay.
Down the line, that's aquestion you could ask yourself.
And that's, that's prettynormal in my client work.
We build up so much safety that.
My clients will get to a point wherethey say, you know, I'm ready to feel
just what it's like to be me completely.
What else is within me?
And to be open to that.
Thank you so much for joiningme on Stuck Not Broken.
(15:37):
I really hope this episode hashelped you compartmentalize or think
about your efforts and where theybelong in those four paths and where
you can grow, what you can maybebolster if it needs bolstering.
Your homework assignment is tolook at all the things you're doing
and put them into one of thosefour, um, pathways or buckets.
(15:58):
If you're squeezing your thumb to feelbetter, what bucket does that belong into?
If tonight you're going to cook a freshmeal, what bucket does that belong into?
If you're going to go hug yourmom and tell her you love her,
what bucket does that belong into?
If you're going to meditate and feelwhat it's like to be you completely,
(16:19):
what bucket would that be in?
Actually, I created afree resource for you.
It's just a really simple one sheetvisualization of this four bucket
thing with brief descriptions.
You can download that inthe free member center.
I'll put a link foryou in the description.
The link though is justinlmft.com/membersand I have a free course and other
(16:40):
downloads there for you if you like.
Otherwise, thanks for joining me.
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