January 1, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode of Stuck Not Broken, therapist and coach Justin Sunseri explores how understanding and embracing the different states of your nervous system can dramatically enhance your productivity, creativity, and overall well-being. Justin delves into the Polyvagal Theory, explaining the primary and mixed states of safety, mobility, and shutdown, and offers practical tips for accessing and utilizing these states to achieve greater focus and efficiency in your daily life. Learn how to create a more mindful and balanced approach to work, creativity, and personal growth.
00:00 Introduction: Unlocking Your Productivity
00:17 Understanding the Nervous System
01:08 Polyvagal Theory and the Three States of the Nervous System
03:27 The Safety State: Connection and Creativity
05:23 Activating Your Safety State
10:45 Sympathetic Activation: Harnessing Mobility
20:30 Shutdown State: Embracing Rest and Recovery
28:24 Practical Tips for Daily Life
33:44 Conclusion and Resources
35:00 Disclaimer
Resources:
🔸 SSIEC sheet free download - https://assets.circle.so/4kqd4hwqn8q2g5s1uiggtx8iqyt2
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
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.)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You're trying to get more done.
(00:01):
Maybe you're an artist, uh, startinga new hobby, or just want to improve
your work productivity, but it'shard to focus, you lack energy, or
sometimes you just don't feel like it.
The answer might be embracing your nervoussystem's potential in the present moment.
Let me explain.
Your nervous system serves as yourbody's communication and control center.
(00:21):
It regulates automatic functions,things you don't have to think about
like breathing and heartbeat while alsosupporting your thinking and decision
making and your emotional regulation.
Your nervous system can have differentstates or potentials that change
throughout the day, moment to moment.
Understanding the different statesof your nervous system can help
(00:42):
you to better manage your energy,focus, and even be more productive.
I'll explore these three states and howto get the most benefit from each of them.
Hey, my name is Justin Sunseri.
I am a therapist and coach thatwants to help you live with more
calm, confidence, and connectionwithout psychobabble or woo woo.
Welcome to Stuck Not Broken.
(01:02):
This podcast is not therapy, of course,nor is it intended to replace therapy.
I'm going to give you a verybrief understanding of what
the Polyvagal Theory is.
If you've never heard this before,this is not the place to start.
I would actually go toepisode 101 of my podcast.
I'll have a link in the descriptionfor you for that whole playlist.
It's a series of episodes thatdiscusses these ideas or the
(01:26):
autonomic states in a lot more detail.
But basically for now, it's goodenough to know that mammals can be
in one of three different states.
Basically.
It's definitely more complexand we'll touch upon that.
But basically mammals can be in a state ofsafety, of flight, fight, or of shutdown.
(01:46):
In other words, they can be in a stateof connection, mobility, or immobility.
The safety state is all about connectionto self, others, and environment.
The mobility state isabout flight and fight.
And the immobility state shutdownis about, well, immobilizing.
It's about playing dead inthe face of a life threat.
(02:06):
Those are the three basic states.
These states can also combineand create mixed states.
Just like if you were to combine theprimary colors, they create mixed
colors like red and blue equal purple.
Same thing here.
So if you combine safety plus flightfight, that's connection plus mobility,
that results in a mixed state called play.
(02:29):
Safety plus shutdown, so safetyplus immobility equals stillness.
That's the ability to be aloneand immobile and be okay with it.
But you can also combine flightfight mobility with shutdown
immobility, resulting in freeze.
That's where you're charged up,but immobile at the same time.
(02:50):
So it's like having the gas onin the car, the accelerator,
plus the brake at the same time.
The wheels just, just spin.
All of these primary and mixedstates come from biological pathways.
It's not just like feelings that wehave floating around inside of us.
These emotions, these differentthoughts that we have, all come
(03:10):
from the state of our body.
And we can feel thesestates when they're active.
It's not a random guessing game.
We can actually feel them whenthey're there if we're mindful enough.
And so that's what I want to talkabout here is how can we notice
when they're active and get the mostbenefit from them while they're active.
The first one we'll startwith is the safety state.
(03:30):
The safety state is connectedto the ventral vagal
pathways from your brainstem.
The safety state is all about connectionto self, others, and environment.
It's known as the socialengagement system.
When this state is active, we cando things like make eye contact.
We can smile.
We can hug.
We can be close to each other.
Use gentle contacts.
If you don't have the safety stateactive, you can't really do those things.
(03:51):
Or if you do, it won't feel good.
It won't feel safe.
The safety state is active when we havesafe people and safe places or safe
enough people and safe enough places.
The safety state is ideal forcreativity and connection,
optimal performance, productivity.
When we have enough access to oursafety state, that enables us to
(04:12):
accomplish a wider variety of things.
We can think critically, we can weighpros and cons, we can map out like an
agenda on how to accomplish a project, wecan work with others really well, we can
hear what they think and what they feelwith empathy and share what we think and
feel and come to a shared compromise ornegotiation, uh, and to meet our goals.
(04:35):
We could also plan out what's theright kind of colors that we want
to use to create a certain- tomix, to create a certain color in
a painting that we're doing, maybe.
We can think about what's the, what'sthe optimal way to edit the words
in a book to get a point across.
From safety, we have a lot of accessto critical thinking, but also to the
(04:57):
present moment and connecting withourselves, connecting with others.
So we have access to thought,but also to emotion as well.
So ideally when it comes toproductivity, creativity, and getting
stuff done, we want to have asmuch access to safety as possible.
That doesn't mean that we're meditatingand our eyes are closed and we're in that,
you know, cross legged meditation pose.
No, that's not what it means at all.
(05:18):
As long as we have enoughaccess to safety, we can simply
focus and get stuff done.
Okay, so how do you getto your safety state?
That's the next question,and it's a good question.
There's a couple things youcan do that are predictably
going to equal more safety.
What it looks like for youis not a guarantee, is not a,
there's no prescription for this.
I don't know what you should do inparticular to get your safety state,
(05:40):
but generally there are some prettypredictable things that you can do.
Number one is to extend your exhale.
No matter what state you're in,if you can, be mindful of your
inhale, but when you exhale.
Extended a little bit longer.
When you do that, it triggers theparasympathetic nervous system.
And that's where the safety state lives.
So, extend that exhale andthat'll help you to settle into
(06:01):
the present moment a bit more.
While you extend that exhale, I liketo recommend to my clients, that's a
good time to like say something niceto yourself, or that's a good time to
remind yourself what you're working on.
When you extend your exhale, justadd a little something else onto
it, like, like a kind word or two.
The other thing that can generallyhelp and get into more safety and
to connect to the present momentis to be more mindful of your
(06:23):
movements and of your sensory input.
So whatever you're doingright now, be mindful of it.
You can also consciously choose to dosomething like go for a walk, uh, and
then be aware of, uh, the movement of thewalk, but if you're painting something,
you can also be aware of the movementof your arm while you're painting of
your elbow, of your shoulder, if you'resketching something furiously or slowly,
(06:45):
you can be mindful of that movement.
Likewise-
and even while you're doing that, youcan be mindful of the sensory input.
So what's the vibrancy, what's thecolor of the paint that you're using.
What's the sensory input when you'regoing out for a walk or exercising.
What does it feel liketo flex and release?
What do you smell around you?
What do you hear?
What do you see?
(07:06):
All those sensory input things.
Be more mindful of those, and that canhelp settle into the present moment
and settle into your safety state.
Now, I don't expect you to stopwhat you're doing and go for a
walk in a forest or, or, or a hike.
But You can definitely include elementsof nature into your daily routine.
A really easy one is to openyour blinds and look outside.
(07:28):
Open your blinds and letnatural sunlight come in.
If you can, sit by a window andlook at outside while you work.
I personally love to do that.
You can have elementsof nature through sound.
I personally like the sound of rain.
So while I'm working in, especially ifI'm like slower paced or just really
settling into slowness and stillness, Ilike to have rain on in the background.
(07:48):
It just helps ground me.
You could also use smell.
If you have a candle thathas the smell of the forest.
Yeah, it's not the forest, butyou're now you're a step closer to
the sensory inputs of the forest.
The other idea is toconnect with safe others.
You don't have to be best friendswith everyone you work with, but
can you exchange a smile with them?
(08:09):
Yeah, probably.
Can you exchange some chitchat about the weekend?
I hate it personally, butthere's some benefit to that.
There's benefit to seeing smilesand hearing the vocal prosody in
someone's voice when they have a, whenthey're in their safe enough state,
they'll do something with their voice.
It's just, just naturally.
It's the sing song quality that wehave where we can go down, but also up
(08:30):
and we can do everything in between.
That's called vocal prosody.
And when we hear that, itautomatically kicks us into our
safety state a little bit more.
So yeah, I agree- chit chatting about theweekend is painful, but there's a lot of
benefit to interacting with a safe other.
Okay.
So maybe you work by yourself andyou don't interact with other people.
(08:51):
Well, first off, get the heck outof the house as much as you can.
And smile at somebody at Starbucksor wherever you go, or on your
walk around the block, smile atsomeone, say hello, hear their voice.
If you can't do that, well,you probably listen to music.
Can you hear the voice of theperson who you're listening to?
Yeah.
If it's rap, if it's heavy metal,that is less than ideal cause there's
(09:12):
screaming and a lot of monotone voices.
Uh, if you, if you could listento something like the Beach Boys
or Etta James, that has way morevocal prosody, and that might help
kick you into your safety state.
Likewise, on a break, when you listen topodcasts or YouTube videos like this one,
can you connect with the person's voice?
(09:32):
Can you hear the safety in their voice?
Can you see their face and seehow that, or mindfully recognize
how that feels within you?
You don't have to have theperfect natural environment.
You don't have to have theextremely supportive and co
regulative person there with you.
There are elements of these things youcan incorporate into your workday or
into your creative process to help youfeel a little bit safer than before.
(09:55):
So how the heck do you know whenyou're in your safety state?
You'll feel it.
Emotionally, you'll feel it.
It feels, it can feel like calm.
It can feel like relaxation.
It can also feel likeexcitement and productivity.
It can feel like curiosity.
It can feel like interest.
All of these things pretty much involveyou being connected to the present moment.
(10:18):
If you can pause and look outof your blind or outside of your
window and just take in the presentmoment, you're in your safety state.
If you're thinking critically andplanning things out for a project,
you're in your safety state.
So feeling is one way, but as I touchedupon already, thought is another way.
Thinking critically, weighingpros and cons, uh, planning
out step by step processes.
(10:38):
Then I'm all involves some level ofsafety state, and that's a really
good way to recognize it as well.
Okay, that was safety.
Now let's shift over to sympatheticactivation, which you probably
know as flight or fight.
It's not that simple, butyou probably know it as that.
The sympathetic state comes fromthe sympathetic nervous system.
And I want you to associate this notwith flight or fight, but with mobility,
(11:02):
sympathetic nervous system and mobility.
Flight or fight is a possibility whenwe don't have access to literal safety.
When we're in an actually dangerousscenario, then yeah, flight or
fight becomes extremely relevantand your body will utilize that.
In that moment though, the body isnot accessing its own safety state
(11:22):
because of the needs of the environment.
It needs to run away or be aggressive.
But when we have enough safety in thesystem, we can also utilize mobility
from the sympathetic nervous system.
So look at this as when we're in anactual danger, yeah, flight or fight.
When we have safety in our system,plus sympathetic, that combines
(11:46):
to create playfulness, creativity,productivity, motivation.
It's a lot different than flightor fight, which is about getting
away or being aggressive.
We want mobility.
We want motivation,creativity, productivity.
That's different.
The sympathetic state is reallyuseful when it comes to productivity,
motivation and creativity.
(12:06):
It's great for these like short burstsof creativity or productivity, but also
just drawn out longer extended periods.
When you have those short bursts,that's probably a lot of sympathetic
flight fight coming up, or a lot ofsympathetic mobility coming up that
you just use all at once, uh, probablywith powerful movements, like if you're
(12:26):
painting, you're going to be usingstronger, more forceful brushstrokes.
You might be splashingthings on the canvas.
If you're sketching, you're goingto be moving your hand, wrist,
elbow, and shoulder faster.
When you're creating something forwork, you're going to be getting
a ton of work done all at once.
You're going to be type, type,type, typing heck of fast.
And that's, that's great.
(12:47):
But we also want longer drawnout periods of motivation.
And that comes from your safety statebeing active more along with your
sympathetic state that comes from thosetwo things, balancing each other out.
And you'll have this, thislonger period of pro productivity
that's more sustainable.
(13:08):
Otherwise, if you have less safety inyour system, then you're going to be
having these bursts and then perhapscollapsing into a shutdown, which we'll
talk about next, but it might be like aburst of sympathetic and then shutting
down and then burst and shutting down.
A lot of good can come from that, butwe want, we want to have more safety
and just draw that process out anddraw out that motivation and that
(13:29):
productivity and that creativity.
If you don't have safety in yoursystem, it's going to be more scattered.
Your ideas, your inspiration will kindof pop up here and there, but it's not as
predictable and you'll have less control.
I don't like using that word in a sense,but it'll feel less in control and
feel more out of control, be sporadic.
And then when it's there, you'll try andcapture it and make the most out of it.
(13:52):
And there's nothing wrong with that.
But with more safety in your system,it's It won't be as sporadic.
You'll have more intentionality over it.
So how do you intentionally useyour sympathetic nervous system,
your mobility, in order to bemore productive and more creative?
One option, which you're probablydoing already, and look, I've been
there too, is procrastination.
(14:13):
The longer you wait, the moreit builds up, and eventually you
just gotta get the thing done.
You just have to use your mobility.
No shame.
I've gotten through a lot of my life thisway, and it definitely has its usefulness.
And some of us just say, well,that's how I get stuff done.
It is what it is.
Fine.
That's, that's an option.
You just wait around until thatsympathetic energy builds so
(14:34):
much that you complete whateverthe heck you're working on.
The other one that I recommend more isto have more structure with goals and
to funnel your energy toward a specificdirection toward your goal or goals.
So instead of waiting for the deadline andthen, you know, using that procrastination
(14:58):
energy to get the thing done, can you doa little bit each day toward that goal?
Like, yeah, you probably can.
Will you?
Well, that's, that's another discussion.
If you have more safety in your system,I think you're more likely to do that.
If you're more leaning into defensiveactivation, more flight fight, or more,
(15:18):
even more shutdown, you're probablynot going to be doing that as much.
So this really comes down tohow much you're practicing
being in your safety state.
And then how much of thatare you bringing over to your
creative and productive process?
Okay.
So the first option is procrastination.
Second option is get a little bitdone each day toward your bigger goal.
(15:39):
And within that second option, youcan set small to medium achievements.
So there's the big goal.
Like I want to complete thispainting or I want to complete
this, uh, slideshow presentation.
That's the big goal, but.
Day to day, you could have achievementsthat you set toward that bigger goal.
So my bigger goal is aPowerPoint presentation.
(16:01):
Well, I have to figure outwhat's the design that I like.
That's an achievement.
What font, what color am I pulled towards?
If I know that that workstoward the bigger goal.
So instead of sitting down and focusingon how do I achieve my big goal,
it's more about how can I achievemy achievement, the font, the color.
Do I have enough sources?
(16:21):
Do I have the number of slides layout?
Have I planned how longis this going to be?
If you can start making a list ofthings, those achievements and knocking
them off, well, all of a sudden you'remaking progress toward the bigger goal.
If you don't have that and yousit down to work and all you have
is sympathetic activation, that'sgoing to go here and there and
everywhere you're gonna be distracted.
You're going to be pulled in numerousdirections, and that's an option,
(16:46):
but I would encourage you to set yourachievement list and start knocking
those things off toward your bigger goal.
It creates this funnel.
It creates an avenue towardcompleting your goal.
In my mind, it's the image of Lukein the X Wing who is, uh, he's
about to blow up the Death Star,and he goes, he flies down into that
(17:07):
that ravine, what do you call it?
It's a funnel.
It's a tunnel.
I'm not sure what to call it.
If you're a Star Wars geek, tellme what the heck it's called.
I forget what it's called.
But he flies down into the trench.
Oh my god.
He flies down into the trench.
Before the trench, hedidn't know where to go.
He's just flying out in space.
He could literally go anywhere.
But once he knows the goal, which isblowing up the Death Star through that
(17:28):
ventilation shaft, which is connected tothe trench, he flies into the trench, he
flies through the trench and then fireshis missile into the, the, uh, ventilation
shaft and blows up the Death Star, right?
So that trench funnels, ,his energy,his activation toward one specific goal.
You can do that every day and you can dothat every day toward a larger goal, like
(17:51):
a painting or a slideshow presentation.
So while you're working, let's sayyou have the big goal and you have
your achievements list and you'reworking at it, but then you notice
you're pulled this way and that way.
I think music, when you're in asympathetic state, is really helpful.
Again, it just kind of helpsto focus your energies.
(18:12):
In the present momenttoward a specific direction.
You could use music as a way toget up and dance out your energy,
sit down, and then focus better.
Um, but you could alsouse it as like a beat.
It's the rhythm to get stuff done.
I personally love listening tochill hop when I'm trying to focus,
but I'm also kind of amped up.
Chill hop has a beat, there'sno vocals, it's just music.
(18:35):
And there's this really cool, likelittle sounds that are often implemented
into it, like sounds of nature.
Um, but it also has the beat and ithas this lo fi crackly sound, which
I personally find really soothing.
When I have energy and chill hop, Inoticed that I'm way more focused and
get way more done versus not having that.
So listen to the musicthat helps you focus.
(18:56):
Same thing.
If you're working out, you know, whatmusic works for you to help you focus and
to help you stay down that trench, right?
You know, what music helps you do that.
For me?
Rap music does not helpme whatsoever to work out.
Heavy metal music that helps me out.
You'll know that you have access to yoursympathetic state because it'll feel like.
(19:18):
Anxiety, you might feel like anger,but that's without enough safety.
So we want mobility with safety.
So feel mindfully or look out formindfully increased heart rates,
some muscle tension, rapid breathing.
If your thoughts are going all overthe place, these are pretty good
ways of telling that you have moresympathetic activation, more mobility
(19:41):
in your system than you do to safety.
We just want to balance those things out.
So the first thing to do mightbe put music on, set an agenda
for yourself and see how it goes.
If it's still too much, get up andmove, let out some of that energy and
just kind of bring it down a notch.
If you could do that, even mindfully,like if you go out for a walk to get
some energy out, mindfully do it.
(20:03):
Listen, look, smell all the, use yoursenses, smile at people, pet a dog, if
you can not a stray one, ask permission,if it's, if it belongs to somebody else.
But do these things to help yourmobilization come down enough and your
safety state to come up enough to balanceout, then sit down with your achievements
(20:24):
agenda with your bigger goal in mindand start knocking stuff off your list.
So we got safety and we got sympathetic.
Now let's look at the thirdprimary state, which is shutdown.
Shutdown occurs when we can't be safe.
We can't run away.
We can't fight.
So the body goes into shutdown.
It collapses.
It plays dead basically inthe face of a life threat.
(20:44):
This is a necessarycomponent of being alive.
All of us, all organisms have some levelof immobility which has helped them to
survive over generations and generationsand generations, passing their genetic
material along to the next generation,which then uses it to survive and so on.
(21:04):
So just normalize that it's a part of you.
It's a part of me.
It's a part of all of us.
It's normal and it's okay.
And we can actually use this to ouradvantage in our day to day life.
I want you to view shutdown notas defeat and not as a defect.
It's a necessary component.
It is there because we need tocollapse in our day to day life.
We need to collapseand we need to restore.
(21:27):
We need to get ready for thenext day or the next project.
It's an opportunity to rest and toreconnect with ourselves and with our
environment and maybe with others.
It's an opportunity.
It's not defeat.
So you've had a wonderful dayof productivity, hopefully,
or maybe a bad one, but.
You've had a day of productivity at theend of the day, you need to collapse.
(21:49):
You need to shut down maybe.
When you do that, it preparesyou for the next day.
Think of this as a necessary componentof your productivity or creativity cycle.
We have to have periods of downtime.
We have to have periodsof rest and reconnection.
That's all this is.
You might spend a lot of time inshutdown and it looks like depression.
(22:10):
I would say it is depression.
You might spend a lot of time isolatingyourself and okay, that's fine.
That's fair.
What that tells me is that you orall of us, if we're in the state,
we need to listen to our body'sneeds, also incorporate more elements
of safety into our daily life.
And that might just be reconnecting usingour senses to the external environment.
(22:33):
If you have a lot of shutdownin your system, you probably
need lower stimulation.
You probably need more alone time, andyou probably need to reconnect to the
external environment using your senses.
As you allow for that and give yourselftrue moments of recovery, not phone
binging, not food, binging, notdrugs, not fake it till you make it.
(22:56):
I don't know.
Not none of that stuff.
When you give yourself true momentsof rest and recovery, true moments
of solitude and quiet, that ismore restoring than anything else.
So it's, it's okay to have that, to listento your body's needs, to provide for it,
and then to slowly come out of shutdown.
(23:17):
And eventually you'll work yourway into mobility, into some flight
fight or sympathetic activation.
If you have too much dorsal vagalactivation or too much shutdown
activation, you'll know itbecause you'll feel numb, you'll
feel dissociative, you'll feelcollapsed, you'll feel withdrawn.
All that tells me there's, there's toomuch shutdown and not enough safety.
(23:41):
Again, listen to your body's needs.
Plowing through work and forcingyour way into exercise and
productivity and creativity.
That's, that's fine, butit only lasts for so long.
Eventually you simply burn out oryou do collapse because you're not
listening to what your body needs.
Instead of searching for tons ofmobility and productivity and creativity,
(24:04):
instead of that strive for stillness.
So we want to go fromshutdown to stillness.
Stillness is the combinationof shutdown plus safety.
Try to incorporate more elementsof safety into your life mindfully.
And then mindfully allow yourselfto be in a shutdown state.
When those two things combine,they create stillness.
(24:25):
From stillness, thenmobilization may emerge.
I'm actually working on this rightnow for my, the Stucknaut Collective,
the private community and courses.
I created a course called Shutdownto Stillness, which teaches people
how to go from shutdown, combine itwith safety, and then into stillness.
The next course I'm working on iscalled Stillness to Sympathetic, which
(24:47):
teaches people how to go from stillness.
And then to allow sympatheticmobility back into their system.
I think that's a really goodflow for how things should go.
If you're not incorporating thesafety aspect into your shutdown
and resulting in stillness, uh, I,you might be setting yourself up
(25:08):
for failure over and over again.
The safety aspect aspectis kind of necessary.
If you don't, then you might gofrom shutdown to flight fight.
To shut down to flight fight and justkind of, um, circulate, circulate
cycle back and forth between those two.
So it might feel like deep depression.
And then all of a sudden huge surgesof fight activation probably might
(25:32):
feel like a ton of anxiety as well,but more likely there's going to be
some fight activation, irritability.
anger, maybe rage.
You're likely going to be going fromdepression to anger back and forth.
That's when there's too much shutdown.
There's another immobilityoption, which is freeze.
And again, that's shutdownplus flight fight.
Freeze is that dorsal vagalstate plus flight fight.
(25:56):
Freeze is different.
It's not numbness and dissociation.
It could be, but there's alsoelements of mobility within you.
There's, there's activation.
Freeze can also feel like stress andoverwhelm, like a lot of overwhelm.
It could feel like panic.
It could feel like rage.
So you need to connect with safetyfirst which thaws the frozen
(26:22):
flight fight activation and thenuse that flight fight activation
toward creativity, productivity,exercise, whatever you want to do.
You can reduce your fearthrough small, manageable steps.
If you have a lot of freezeactivation, then saying I'm going
to create this wonderful slideshowall at once is not realistic.
(26:42):
And it's probably going toreinforce your freeze because
that's, that's overwhelming,but that's too much all at once.
That's too much.
That demands too much safety andthat demands too much mobility.
So instead we want to makethose goals really small.
It's great to want to create thatpainting or to want to go to the
gym every day for 30 minutes.
That that's great, but are you going tobe able to do that today and tomorrow
(27:05):
and then also sustain that long term?
Maybe not.
So instead of having that 30 minutegoal, can you do a two minute goal
in your home of lifting a weight?
Can you have a goal of spending 30seconds visualizing, working out?
You got to start somewhere andwe want to reduce the amount
(27:26):
of fear as much as possible.
If you can do that, you know, do thoseteeny tiny goals for a week and then add
onto it, add onto the challenge by saying,well, yeah, I can visualize for 30 seconds
per day for a week going to the gym.
Can I now walk or drive myself tothe gym to get out of my car, get
(27:47):
back in my car and drive home?
Can I do that for a week?
And then a week after that, canI go into the gym and just stand
there for a couple of minutes?
Yeah.
That sounds weird.
I know.
But you get the idea.
We want to have small stepsleading to the bigger goal.
If you can accomplish the small steps,that's probably more likely from
even from freeze than it is to giveyourself that unreachable, huge goal.
(28:09):
For shutdown.
If you have earned that collapse at theend of the day, go ahead and collapse.
Let yourself fall facefirst onto your bed.
In quiet and just breatheand recover from the day.
Hopefully you get the idea of thesedifferent states, how they show
up and how you can utilize them.
Now, how do we take what you knowand implement it into your daily
(28:29):
life in a way that works for you?
I want you to streamline yourefforts as much as possible.
And I want you to make it easy to navigatethrough these various states and to use
them in the most optimal way possible.
So if you know more often than notyou need to collapse and decompress,
do you have a place to do that?
(28:51):
Do you have a place that is ready for you?
If not, then that might be a goodplace to start is to prepare for that.
If you know that you want to be moreproductive and that involves reading
and studying for a test maybe, is yourbook or your document ready to roll?
Or do you have it in a backpackwhich is in your closet?
(29:11):
Would it be more efficient for you to havethat at a specific spot where you will do
the most reading because it is the moststillness inducing spot in your home?
Can you leave that paperor that book there?
waiting for you versus goingthrough the obstacles of backpack,
closet, and across the house.
If you have more mobility in your system,do you have the agenda or the structure?
(29:34):
Do you have the achievement list thatyou can mark off as you achieve them?
And if you do, is thatlist easily accessible?
I personally write stuff onmy, I have this big chalkboard.
I turned a, uh, closet in the officeinto a chalkboard and storage area,
but I use the chalkboard that has mypriorities list listed and grouped to
(29:55):
help me structure my time, to help meknock things off of my list and then
to get my priorities done before I moveon to the next things that I, I want to
accomplish, which is like way too much.
Uh, but this, this is helpingme to focus my efforts.
All I have to do is look up to my leftand I will see my list of things to do.
(30:16):
So if you have a list of thingsto do, is it easily accessible or
is there an obstacle in the way?
And an obstacle could even be like pickingup your phone to look at your notes.
That's great.
But now you got to pick up yourphone and I got to open that certain
app to look at your, your notes.
Is there an easier way to do it?
Can you put it on post it notesand stick them on your screen?
The basic idea here is if you know thatyou lean more into a certain state, do you
(30:41):
have things set up so that you can easilymake use of the potentials for that state?
The other recommendation on how tooptimize yourself is to practice
feeling safe every single day.
I would highly recommend you do it everyday, and I don't think it has to be much.
In the Stucknaut Collectiveprivate community, I do these
things called a daily growth hub.
And every day I give achallenge out to people.
(31:03):
In the past couple weeks, I've beenfocusing on giving out really small
challenges that require no morethan two minutes of mindfulness.
One of those things was pick thesame spot at the same time every
day, set an alarm or timer for twominutes and do a two minutes, up
to two minutes, it could be less.
(31:23):
Up to two minutes mindfulnessexercise where you just listen
and feel and look inward andconnect with the external world.
Just some mindfulness meditativepractice for two minutes.
And that was for one week.
The next week we did one where itwas, you set an alarm for every day
for five days and you set that alarmfor a different time every day.
(31:44):
When the alarm goes off, same thing.
Spend two up to two minutes.
noticing or beingmindful of being mindful.
One of my alarms wentoff when I was in CVS.
And so I used two minutes to walkup and down the aisles and to
touch things and to smell candlesand just connect the environment.
The, another alarm went offwhen I was at my friend's house.
(32:04):
We were doing a Dungeons and Dragonscampaign with our kids, and it was
unbelievably difficult to be mindfulbecause we were having so much fun.
So it didn't work out that way.
at that moment, but later on thatnight when he and I were hanging
out, uh, chatting under the starsat his beautiful ranch in the, at
nighttime and just, you know, talking.
(32:25):
I use that as a time to be mindful ofthe absolute serenity of that moment.
I would encourage you todo something like that.
Every day.
No, it does not solve all your problems.
I know that, but it starts tocreate that predictability.
It starts to create areference point for safety.
And if you can do 30 seconds,you can do two minutes.
If you could do two minutes, allof a sudden, well, now what else
(32:46):
can you accomplish after that?
The last recommendation I have for you inyour daily life to focus on productivity
and creativity and motivation is to lookinward and notice what state you're in.
Do you have more mobility or less?
Do you have more collapse or less?
Do you have more potentialto connect or less?
(33:07):
Look inward and just, just notice fornow, just notice what you have more or
less of throughout the day if you can.
And if you can do that, then you can askyourself, what can I accomplish from this
level of activation or lack of activation?
What can I accomplish?
What's the best I can do in this moment?
(33:27):
Is this a time for me to collapseand be okay with it for five minutes?
Or is this a time for me to lookat my, my list of achievements and
start knocking things off one by one?
Or is this a chance for me to take abreak and go hug my kids and say, I
love you and then get back to work?
Thank you so much for joiningme here on Stuck Not Broken.
(33:47):
I hope this episode has helped you to lookat what your potentials are throughout
the day, and then how to apply thosepotentials to what you want to get
done, to what your bigger goals are dayto day or even bigger goals in life.
I gave you a bunch of stuffyou can work on day to day.
Um, but I also have a resource for you.
It's a free resource and to make itas simple as possible, I got to do is
(34:08):
click on the link in the descriptionand you'll get that download right away.
You don't have to go anywhere else for it.
You click the link andyou'll get the download.
It's my SSIEC sheet.
That stands for state sensation,impulse, emotion, and cognition.
This lays out what your polyvagal statesare and what the experiences are from
(34:30):
those states or the potential experiences.
This can help you to get more language orto better identify what state you're in.
And then if you could do that,then you can ask yourself,
well, what can I accomplish?
What does my body need at this moment?
What can I accomplish from this state?
So click on that link and you'llget the download right away.
I have a ton of other resources.
If you want that, click on the linkin the description and that'll take
(34:53):
you to the free member center whereI've collected all that stuff for you.
Okay.
That's it again.
Thank you so much for listening and bye.
This podcast is not therapy,not intended to be therapy or
be a replacement for therapy.
Nothing in this creates or indicatesa therapeutic relationship.
Please consult with your therapist orseek for one in your area if you are
(35:14):
experiencing mental health symptoms.
Nothing in this podcast should beconstrued to be specific life advice.
It is for educational andentertainment purposes only.
More resources are available inthe description of this episode
and in the footer of justinlmft.
com.
You're trying to get more done.
(00:01):
Maybe you're an artist, uh, startinga new hobby, or just want to improve
your work productivity, but it'shard to focus, you lack energy, or
sometimes you just don't feel like it.
The answer might be embracing your nervoussystem's potential in the present moment.
Let me explain.
Your nervous system serves as yourbody's communication and control center.
(00:21):
It regulates automatic functions,things you don't have to think about
like breathing and heartbeat while alsosupporting your thinking and decision
making and your emotional regulation.
Your nervous system can have differentstates or potentials that change
throughout the day, moment to moment.
Understanding the different statesof your nervous system can help
(00:42):
you to better manage your energy,focus, and even be more productive.
I'll explore these three states and howto get the most benefit from each of them.
Hey, my name is Justin Sunseri.
I am a therapist and coach thatwants to help you live with more
calm, confidence, and connectionwithout psychobabble or woo woo.
Welcome to Stuck Not Broken.
(01:02):
This podcast is not therapy, of course,nor is it intended to replace therapy.
I'm going to give you a verybrief understanding of what
the Polyvagal Theory is.
If you've never heard this before,this is not the place to start.
I would actually go toepisode 101 of my podcast.
I'll have a link in the descriptionfor you for that whole playlist.
It's a series of episodes thatdiscusses these ideas or the
(01:26):
autonomic states in a lot more detail.
But basically for now, it's goodenough to know that mammals can be
in one of three different states.
Basically.
It's definitely more complexand we'll touch upon that.
But basically mammals can be in a state ofsafety, of flight, fight, or of shutdown.
(01:46):
In other words, they can be in a stateof connection, mobility, or immobility.
The safety state is all about connectionto self, others, and environment.
The mobility state isabout flight and fight.
And the immobility state shutdownis about, well, immobilizing.
It's about playing dead inthe face of a life threat.
(02:06):
Those are the three basic states.
These states can also combineand create mixed states.
Just like if you were to combine theprimary colors, they create mixed
colors like red and blue equal purple.
Same thing here.
So if you combine safety plus flightfight, that's connection plus mobility,
that results in a mixed state called play.
(02:29):
Safety plus shutdown, so safetyplus immobility equals stillness.
That's the ability to be aloneand immobile and be okay with it.
But you can also combine flightfight mobility with shutdown
immobility, resulting in freeze.
That's where you're charged up,but immobile at the same time.
(02:50):
So it's like having the gas onin the car, the accelerator,
plus the brake at the same time.
The wheels just, just spin.
All of these primary and mixedstates come from biological pathways.
It's not just like feelings that wehave floating around inside of us.
These emotions, these differentthoughts that we have, all come
(03:10):
from the state of our body.
And we can feel thesestates when they're active.
It's not a random guessing game.
We can actually feel them whenthey're there if we're mindful enough.
And so that's what I want to talkabout here is how can we notice
when they're active and get the mostbenefit from them while they're active.
The first one we'll startwith is the safety state.
(03:30):
The safety state is connectedto the ventral vagal
pathways from your brainstem.
The safety state is all about connectionto self, others, and environment.
It's known as the socialengagement system.
When this state is active, we cando things like make eye contact.
We can smile.
We can hug.
We can be close to each other.
Use gentle contacts.
If you don't have the safety stateactive, you can't really do those things.
(03:51):
Or if you do, it won't feel good.
It won't feel safe.
The safety state is active when we havesafe people and safe places or safe
enough people and safe enough places.
The safety state is ideal forcreativity and connection,
optimal performance, productivity.
When we have enough access to oursafety state, that enables us to
(04:12):
accomplish a wider variety of things.
We can think critically, we can weighpros and cons, we can map out like an
agenda on how to accomplish a project, wecan work with others really well, we can
hear what they think and what they feelwith empathy and share what we think and
feel and come to a shared compromise ornegotiation, uh, and to meet our goals.
(04:35):
We could also plan out what's theright kind of colors that we want
to use to create a certain- tomix, to create a certain color in
a painting that we're doing, maybe.
We can think about what's the, what'sthe optimal way to edit the words
in a book to get a point across.
From safety, we have a lot of accessto critical thinking, but also to the
(04:57):
present moment and connecting withourselves, connecting with others.
So we have access to thought,but also to emotion as well.
So ideally when it comes toproductivity, creativity, and getting
stuff done, we want to have asmuch access to safety as possible.
That doesn't mean that we're meditatingand our eyes are closed and we're in that,
you know, cross legged meditation pose.
No, that's not what it means at all.
(05:18):
As long as we have enoughaccess to safety, we can simply
focus and get stuff done.
Okay, so how do you getto your safety state?
That's the next question,and it's a good question.
There's a couple things youcan do that are predictably
going to equal more safety.
What it looks like for youis not a guarantee, is not a,
there's no prescription for this.
I don't know what you should do inparticular to get your safety state,
(05:40):
but generally there are some prettypredictable things that you can do.
Number one is to extend your exhale.
No matter what state you're in,if you can, be mindful of your
inhale, but when you exhale.
Extended a little bit longer.
When you do that, it triggers theparasympathetic nervous system.
And that's where the safety state lives.
So, extend that exhale andthat'll help you to settle into
(06:01):
the present moment a bit more.
While you extend that exhale, I liketo recommend to my clients, that's a
good time to like say something niceto yourself, or that's a good time to
remind yourself what you're working on.
When you extend your exhale, justadd a little something else onto
it, like, like a kind word or two.
The other thing that can generallyhelp and get into more safety and
to connect to the present momentis to be more mindful of your
(06:23):
movements and of your sensory input.
So whatever you're doingright now, be mindful of it.
You can also consciously choose to dosomething like go for a walk, uh, and
then be aware of, uh, the movement of thewalk, but if you're painting something,
you can also be aware of the movementof your arm while you're painting of
your elbow, of your shoulder, if you'resketching something furiously or slowly,
(06:45):
you can be mindful of that movement.
Likewise-
and even while you're doing that, youcan be mindful of the sensory input.
So what's the vibrancy, what's thecolor of the paint that you're using.
What's the sensory input when you'regoing out for a walk or exercising.
What does it feel liketo flex and release?
What do you smell around you?
What do you hear?
What do you see?
(07:06):
All those sensory input things.
Be more mindful of those, and that canhelp settle into the present moment
and settle into your safety state.
Now, I don't expect you to stopwhat you're doing and go for a
walk in a forest or, or, or a hike.
But You can definitely include elementsof nature into your daily routine.
A really easy one is to openyour blinds and look outside.
(07:28):
Open your blinds and letnatural sunlight come in.
If you can, sit by a window andlook at outside while you work.
I personally love to do that.
You can have elementsof nature through sound.
I personally like the sound of rain.
So while I'm working in, especially ifI'm like slower paced or just really
settling into slowness and stillness, Ilike to have rain on in the background.
(07:48):
It just helps ground me.
You could also use smell.
If you have a candle thathas the smell of the forest.
Yeah, it's not the forest, butyou're now you're a step closer to
the sensory inputs of the forest.
The other idea is toconnect with safe others.
You don't have to be best friendswith everyone you work with, but
can you exchange a smile with them?
(08:09):
Yeah, probably.
Can you exchange some chitchat about the weekend?
I hate it personally, butthere's some benefit to that.
There's benefit to seeing smilesand hearing the vocal prosody in
someone's voice when they have a, whenthey're in their safe enough state,
they'll do something with their voice.
It's just, just naturally.
It's the sing song quality that wehave where we can go down, but also up
(08:30):
and we can do everything in between.
That's called vocal prosody.
And when we hear that, itautomatically kicks us into our
safety state a little bit more.
So yeah, I agree- chit chatting about theweekend is painful, but there's a lot of
benefit to interacting with a safe other.
Okay.
So maybe you work by yourself andyou don't interact with other people.
(08:51):
Well, first off, get the heck outof the house as much as you can.
And smile at somebody at Starbucksor wherever you go, or on your
walk around the block, smile atsomeone, say hello, hear their voice.
If you can't do that, well,you probably listen to music.
Can you hear the voice of theperson who you're listening to?
Yeah.
If it's rap, if it's heavy metal,that is less than ideal cause there's
(09:12):
screaming and a lot of monotone voices.
Uh, if you, if you could listento something like the Beach Boys
or Etta James, that has way morevocal prosody, and that might help
kick you into your safety state.
Likewise, on a break, when you listen topodcasts or YouTube videos like this one,
can you connect with the person's voice?
(09:32):
Can you hear the safety in their voice?
Can you see their face and seehow that, or mindfully recognize
how that feels within you?
You don't have to have theperfect natural environment.
You don't have to have theextremely supportive and co
regulative person there with you.
There are elements of these things youcan incorporate into your workday or
into your creative process to help youfeel a little bit safer than before.
(09:55):
So how the heck do you know whenyou're in your safety state?
You'll feel it.
Emotionally, you'll feel it.
It feels, it can feel like calm.
It can feel like relaxation.
It can also feel likeexcitement and productivity.
It can feel like curiosity.
It can feel like interest.
All of these things pretty much involveyou being connected to the present moment.
(10:18):
If you can pause and look outof your blind or outside of your
window and just take in the presentmoment, you're in your safety state.
If you're thinking critically andplanning things out for a project,
you're in your safety state.
So feeling is one way, but as I touchedupon already, thought is another way.
Thinking critically, weighingpros and cons, uh, planning
out step by step processes.
(10:38):
Then I'm all involves some level ofsafety state, and that's a really
good way to recognize it as well.
Okay, that was safety.
Now let's shift over to sympatheticactivation, which you probably
know as flight or fight.
It's not that simple, butyou probably know it as that.
The sympathetic state comes fromthe sympathetic nervous system.
And I want you to associate this notwith flight or fight, but with mobility,
(11:02):
sympathetic nervous system and mobility.
Flight or fight is a possibility whenwe don't have access to literal safety.
When we're in an actually dangerousscenario, then yeah, flight or
fight becomes extremely relevantand your body will utilize that.
In that moment though, the body isnot accessing its own safety state
(11:22):
because of the needs of the environment.
It needs to run away or be aggressive.
But when we have enough safety in thesystem, we can also utilize mobility
from the sympathetic nervous system.
So look at this as when we're in anactual danger, yeah, flight or fight.
When we have safety in our system,plus sympathetic, that combines
(11:46):
to create playfulness, creativity,productivity, motivation.
It's a lot different than flightor fight, which is about getting
away or being aggressive.
We want mobility.
We want motivation,creativity, productivity.
That's different.
The sympathetic state is reallyuseful when it comes to productivity,
motivation and creativity.
(12:06):
It's great for these like short burstsof creativity or productivity, but also
just drawn out longer extended periods.
When you have those short bursts,that's probably a lot of sympathetic
flight fight coming up, or a lot ofsympathetic mobility coming up that
you just use all at once, uh, probablywith powerful movements, like if you're
(12:26):
painting, you're going to be usingstronger, more forceful brushstrokes.
You might be splashingthings on the canvas.
If you're sketching, you're goingto be moving your hand, wrist,
elbow, and shoulder faster.
When you're creating something forwork, you're going to be getting
a ton of work done all at once.
You're going to be type, type,type, typing heck of fast.
And that's, that's great.
(12:47):
But we also want longer drawnout periods of motivation.
And that comes from your safety statebeing active more along with your
sympathetic state that comes from thosetwo things, balancing each other out.
And you'll have this, thislonger period of pro productivity
that's more sustainable.
(13:08):
Otherwise, if you have less safety inyour system, then you're going to be
having these bursts and then perhapscollapsing into a shutdown, which we'll
talk about next, but it might be like aburst of sympathetic and then shutting
down and then burst and shutting down.
A lot of good can come from that, butwe want, we want to have more safety
and just draw that process out anddraw out that motivation and that
(13:29):
productivity and that creativity.
If you don't have safety in yoursystem, it's going to be more scattered.
Your ideas, your inspiration will kindof pop up here and there, but it's not as
predictable and you'll have less control.
I don't like using that word in a sense,but it'll feel less in control and
feel more out of control, be sporadic.
And then when it's there, you'll try andcapture it and make the most out of it.
(13:52):
And there's nothing wrong with that.
But with more safety in your system,it's It won't be as sporadic.
You'll have more intentionality over it.
So how do you intentionally useyour sympathetic nervous system,
your mobility, in order to bemore productive and more creative?
One option, which you're probablydoing already, and look, I've been
there too, is procrastination.
(14:13):
The longer you wait, the moreit builds up, and eventually you
just gotta get the thing done.
You just have to use your mobility.
No shame.
I've gotten through a lot of my life thisway, and it definitely has its usefulness.
And some of us just say, well,that's how I get stuff done.
It is what it is.
Fine.
That's, that's an option.
You just wait around until thatsympathetic energy builds so
(14:34):
much that you complete whateverthe heck you're working on.
The other one that I recommend more isto have more structure with goals and
to funnel your energy toward a specificdirection toward your goal or goals.
So instead of waiting for the deadline andthen, you know, using that procrastination
(14:58):
energy to get the thing done, can you doa little bit each day toward that goal?
Like, yeah, you probably can.
Will you?
Well, that's, that's another discussion.
If you have more safety in your system,I think you're more likely to do that.
If you're more leaning into defensiveactivation, more flight fight, or more,
(15:18):
even more shutdown, you're probablynot going to be doing that as much.
So this really comes down tohow much you're practicing
being in your safety state.
And then how much of thatare you bringing over to your
creative and productive process?
Okay.
So the first option is procrastination.
Second option is get a little bitdone each day toward your bigger goal.
(15:39):
And within that second option, youcan set small to medium achievements.
So there's the big goal.
Like I want to complete thispainting or I want to complete
this, uh, slideshow presentation.
That's the big goal, but.
Day to day, you could have achievementsthat you set toward that bigger goal.
So my bigger goal is aPowerPoint presentation.
(16:01):
Well, I have to figure outwhat's the design that I like.
That's an achievement.
What font, what color am I pulled towards?
If I know that that workstoward the bigger goal.
So instead of sitting down and focusingon how do I achieve my big goal,
it's more about how can I achievemy achievement, the font, the color.
Do I have enough sources?
(16:21):
Do I have the number of slides layout?
Have I planned how longis this going to be?
If you can start making a list ofthings, those achievements and knocking
them off, well, all of a sudden you'remaking progress toward the bigger goal.
If you don't have that and yousit down to work and all you have
is sympathetic activation, that'sgoing to go here and there and
everywhere you're gonna be distracted.
You're going to be pulled in numerousdirections, and that's an option,
(16:46):
but I would encourage you to set yourachievement list and start knocking
those things off toward your bigger goal.
It creates this funnel.
It creates an avenue towardcompleting your goal.
In my mind, it's the image of Lukein the X Wing who is, uh, he's
about to blow up the Death Star,and he goes, he flies down into that
(17:07):
that ravine, what do you call it?
It's a funnel.
It's a tunnel.
I'm not sure what to call it.
If you're a Star Wars geek, tellme what the heck it's called.
I forget what it's called.
But he flies down into the trench.
Oh my god.
He flies down into the trench.
Before the trench, hedidn't know where to go.
He's just flying out in space.
He could literally go anywhere.
But once he knows the goal, which isblowing up the Death Star through that
(17:28):
ventilation shaft, which is connected tothe trench, he flies into the trench, he
flies through the trench and then fireshis missile into the, the, uh, ventilation
shaft and blows up the Death Star, right?
So that trench funnels, ,his energy,his activation toward one specific goal.
You can do that every day and you can dothat every day toward a larger goal, like
(17:51):
a painting or a slideshow presentation.
So while you're working, let's sayyou have the big goal and you have
your achievements list and you'reworking at it, but then you notice
you're pulled this way and that way.
I think music, when you're in asympathetic state, is really helpful.
Again, it just kind of helpsto focus your energies.
(18:12):
In the present momenttoward a specific direction.
You could use music as a way toget up and dance out your energy,
sit down, and then focus better.
Um, but you could alsouse it as like a beat.
It's the rhythm to get stuff done.
I personally love listening tochill hop when I'm trying to focus,
but I'm also kind of amped up.
Chill hop has a beat, there'sno vocals, it's just music.
(18:35):
And there's this really cool, likelittle sounds that are often implemented
into it, like sounds of nature.
Um, but it also has the beat and ithas this lo fi crackly sound, which
I personally find really soothing.
When I have energy and chill hop, Inoticed that I'm way more focused and
get way more done versus not having that.
So listen to the musicthat helps you focus.
(18:56):
Same thing.
If you're working out, you know, whatmusic works for you to help you focus and
to help you stay down that trench, right?
You know, what music helps you do that.
For me?
Rap music does not helpme whatsoever to work out.
Heavy metal music that helps me out.
You'll know that you have access to yoursympathetic state because it'll feel like.
(19:18):
Anxiety, you might feel like anger,but that's without enough safety.
So we want mobility with safety.
So feel mindfully or look out formindfully increased heart rates,
some muscle tension, rapid breathing.
If your thoughts are going all overthe place, these are pretty good
ways of telling that you have moresympathetic activation, more mobility
(19:41):
in your system than you do to safety.
We just want to balance those things out.
So the first thing to do mightbe put music on, set an agenda
for yourself and see how it goes.
If it's still too much, get up andmove, let out some of that energy and
just kind of bring it down a notch.
If you could do that, even mindfully,like if you go out for a walk to get
some energy out, mindfully do it.
(20:03):
Listen, look, smell all the, use yoursenses, smile at people, pet a dog, if
you can not a stray one, ask permission,if it's, if it belongs to somebody else.
But do these things to help yourmobilization come down enough and your
safety state to come up enough to balanceout, then sit down with your achievements
(20:24):
agenda with your bigger goal in mindand start knocking stuff off your list.
So we got safety and we got sympathetic.
Now let's look at the thirdprimary state, which is shutdown.
Shutdown occurs when we can't be safe.
We can't run away.
We can't fight.
So the body goes into shutdown.
It collapses.
It plays dead basically inthe face of a life threat.
(20:44):
This is a necessarycomponent of being alive.
All of us, all organisms have some levelof immobility which has helped them to
survive over generations and generationsand generations, passing their genetic
material along to the next generation,which then uses it to survive and so on.
(21:04):
So just normalize that it's a part of you.
It's a part of me.
It's a part of all of us.
It's normal and it's okay.
And we can actually use this to ouradvantage in our day to day life.
I want you to view shutdown notas defeat and not as a defect.
It's a necessary component.
It is there because we need tocollapse in our day to day life.
We need to collapseand we need to restore.
(21:27):
We need to get ready for thenext day or the next project.
It's an opportunity to rest and toreconnect with ourselves and with our
environment and maybe with others.
It's an opportunity.
It's not defeat.
So you've had a wonderful dayof productivity, hopefully,
or maybe a bad one, but.
You've had a day of productivity at theend of the day, you need to collapse.
(21:49):
You need to shut down maybe.
When you do that, it preparesyou for the next day.
Think of this as a necessary componentof your productivity or creativity cycle.
We have to have periods of downtime.
We have to have periodsof rest and reconnection.
That's all this is.
You might spend a lot of time inshutdown and it looks like depression.
(22:10):
I would say it is depression.
You might spend a lot of time isolatingyourself and okay, that's fine.
That's fair.
What that tells me is that you orall of us, if we're in the state,
we need to listen to our body'sneeds, also incorporate more elements
of safety into our daily life.
And that might just be reconnecting usingour senses to the external environment.
(22:33):
If you have a lot of shutdownin your system, you probably
need lower stimulation.
You probably need more alone time, andyou probably need to reconnect to the
external environment using your senses.
As you allow for that and give yourselftrue moments of recovery, not phone
binging, not food, binging, notdrugs, not fake it till you make it.
(22:56):
I don't know.
Not none of that stuff.
When you give yourself true momentsof rest and recovery, true moments
of solitude and quiet, that ismore restoring than anything else.
So it's, it's okay to have that, to listento your body's needs, to provide for it,
and then to slowly come out of shutdown.
(23:17):
And eventually you'll work yourway into mobility, into some flight
fight or sympathetic activation.
If you have too much dorsal vagalactivation or too much shutdown
activation, you'll know itbecause you'll feel numb, you'll
feel dissociative, you'll feelcollapsed, you'll feel withdrawn.
All that tells me there's, there's toomuch shutdown and not enough safety.
(23:41):
Again, listen to your body's needs.
Plowing through work and forcingyour way into exercise and
productivity and creativity.
That's, that's fine, butit only lasts for so long.
Eventually you simply burn out oryou do collapse because you're not
listening to what your body needs.
Instead of searching for tons ofmobility and productivity and creativity,
(24:04):
instead of that strive for stillness.
So we want to go fromshutdown to stillness.
Stillness is the combinationof shutdown plus safety.
Try to incorporate more elementsof safety into your life mindfully.
And then mindfully allow yourselfto be in a shutdown state.
When those two things combine,they create stillness.
(24:25):
From stillness, thenmobilization may emerge.
I'm actually working on this rightnow for my, the Stucknaut Collective,
the private community and courses.
I created a course called Shutdownto Stillness, which teaches people
how to go from shutdown, combine itwith safety, and then into stillness.
The next course I'm working on iscalled Stillness to Sympathetic, which
(24:47):
teaches people how to go from stillness.
And then to allow sympatheticmobility back into their system.
I think that's a really goodflow for how things should go.
If you're not incorporating thesafety aspect into your shutdown
and resulting in stillness, uh, I,you might be setting yourself up
(25:08):
for failure over and over again.
The safety aspect aspectis kind of necessary.
If you don't, then you might gofrom shutdown to flight fight.
To shut down to flight fight and justkind of, um, circulate, circulate
cycle back and forth between those two.
So it might feel like deep depression.
And then all of a sudden huge surgesof fight activation probably might
(25:32):
feel like a ton of anxiety as well,but more likely there's going to be
some fight activation, irritability.
anger, maybe rage.
You're likely going to be going fromdepression to anger back and forth.
That's when there's too much shutdown.
There's another immobilityoption, which is freeze.
And again, that's shutdownplus flight fight.
Freeze is that dorsal vagalstate plus flight fight.
(25:56):
Freeze is different.
It's not numbness and dissociation.
It could be, but there's alsoelements of mobility within you.
There's, there's activation.
Freeze can also feel like stress andoverwhelm, like a lot of overwhelm.
It could feel like panic.
It could feel like rage.
So you need to connect with safetyfirst which thaws the frozen
(26:22):
flight fight activation and thenuse that flight fight activation
toward creativity, productivity,exercise, whatever you want to do.
You can reduce your fearthrough small, manageable steps.
If you have a lot of freezeactivation, then saying I'm going
to create this wonderful slideshowall at once is not realistic.
(26:42):
And it's probably going toreinforce your freeze because
that's, that's overwhelming,but that's too much all at once.
That's too much.
That demands too much safety andthat demands too much mobility.
So instead we want to makethose goals really small.
It's great to want to create thatpainting or to want to go to the
gym every day for 30 minutes.
That that's great, but are you going tobe able to do that today and tomorrow
(27:05):
and then also sustain that long term?
Maybe not.
So instead of having that 30 minutegoal, can you do a two minute goal
in your home of lifting a weight?
Can you have a goal of spending 30seconds visualizing, working out?
You got to start somewhere andwe want to reduce the amount
(27:26):
of fear as much as possible.
If you can do that, you know, do thoseteeny tiny goals for a week and then add
onto it, add onto the challenge by saying,well, yeah, I can visualize for 30 seconds
per day for a week going to the gym.
Can I now walk or drive myself tothe gym to get out of my car, get
(27:47):
back in my car and drive home?
Can I do that for a week?
And then a week after that, canI go into the gym and just stand
there for a couple of minutes?
Yeah.
That sounds weird.
I know.
But you get the idea.
We want to have small stepsleading to the bigger goal.
If you can accomplish the small steps,that's probably more likely from
even from freeze than it is to giveyourself that unreachable, huge goal.
(28:09):
For shutdown.
If you have earned that collapse at theend of the day, go ahead and collapse.
Let yourself fall facefirst onto your bed.
In quiet and just breatheand recover from the day.
Hopefully you get the idea of thesedifferent states, how they show
up and how you can utilize them.
Now, how do we take what you knowand implement it into your daily
(28:29):
life in a way that works for you?
I want you to streamline yourefforts as much as possible.
And I want you to make it easy to navigatethrough these various states and to use
them in the most optimal way possible.
So if you know more often than notyou need to collapse and decompress,
do you have a place to do that?
(28:51):
Do you have a place that is ready for you?
If not, then that might be a goodplace to start is to prepare for that.
If you know that you want to be moreproductive and that involves reading
and studying for a test maybe, is yourbook or your document ready to roll?
Or do you have it in a backpackwhich is in your closet?
(29:11):
Would it be more efficient for you to havethat at a specific spot where you will do
the most reading because it is the moststillness inducing spot in your home?
Can you leave that paperor that book there?
waiting for you versus goingthrough the obstacles of backpack,
closet, and across the house.
If you have more mobility in your system,do you have the agenda or the structure?
(29:34):
Do you have the achievement list thatyou can mark off as you achieve them?
And if you do, is thatlist easily accessible?
I personally write stuff onmy, I have this big chalkboard.
I turned a, uh, closet in the officeinto a chalkboard and storage area,
but I use the chalkboard that has mypriorities list listed and grouped to
(29:55):
help me structure my time, to help meknock things off of my list and then
to get my priorities done before I moveon to the next things that I, I want to
accomplish, which is like way too much.
Uh, but this, this is helpingme to focus my efforts.
All I have to do is look up to my leftand I will see my list of things to do.
(30:16):
So if you have a list of thingsto do, is it easily accessible or
is there an obstacle in the way?
And an obstacle could even be like pickingup your phone to look at your notes.
That's great.
But now you got to pick up yourphone and I got to open that certain
app to look at your, your notes.
Is there an easier way to do it?
Can you put it on post it notesand stick them on your screen?
The basic idea here is if you know thatyou lean more into a certain state, do you
(30:41):
have things set up so that you can easilymake use of the potentials for that state?
The other recommendation on how tooptimize yourself is to practice
feeling safe every single day.
I would highly recommend you do it everyday, and I don't think it has to be much.
In the Stucknaut Collectiveprivate community, I do these
things called a daily growth hub.
And every day I give achallenge out to people.
(31:03):
In the past couple weeks, I've beenfocusing on giving out really small
challenges that require no morethan two minutes of mindfulness.
One of those things was pick thesame spot at the same time every
day, set an alarm or timer for twominutes and do a two minutes, up
to two minutes, it could be less.
(31:23):
Up to two minutes mindfulnessexercise where you just listen
and feel and look inward andconnect with the external world.
Just some mindfulness meditativepractice for two minutes.
And that was for one week.
The next week we did one where itwas, you set an alarm for every day
for five days and you set that alarmfor a different time every day.
(31:44):
When the alarm goes off, same thing.
Spend two up to two minutes.
noticing or beingmindful of being mindful.
One of my alarms wentoff when I was in CVS.
And so I used two minutes to walkup and down the aisles and to
touch things and to smell candlesand just connect the environment.
The, another alarm went offwhen I was at my friend's house.
(32:04):
We were doing a Dungeons and Dragonscampaign with our kids, and it was
unbelievably difficult to be mindfulbecause we were having so much fun.
So it didn't work out that way.
at that moment, but later on thatnight when he and I were hanging
out, uh, chatting under the starsat his beautiful ranch in the, at
nighttime and just, you know, talking.
(32:25):
I use that as a time to be mindful ofthe absolute serenity of that moment.
I would encourage you todo something like that.
Every day.
No, it does not solve all your problems.
I know that, but it starts tocreate that predictability.
It starts to create areference point for safety.
And if you can do 30 seconds,you can do two minutes.
If you could do two minutes, allof a sudden, well, now what else
(32:46):
can you accomplish after that?
The last recommendation I have for you inyour daily life to focus on productivity
and creativity and motivation is to lookinward and notice what state you're in.
Do you have more mobility or less?
Do you have more collapse or less?
Do you have more potentialto connect or less?
(33:07):
Look inward and just, just notice fornow, just notice what you have more or
less of throughout the day if you can.
And if you can do that, then you can askyourself, what can I accomplish from this
level of activation or lack of activation?
What can I accomplish?
What's the best I can do in this moment?
(33:27):
Is this a time for me to collapseand be okay with it for five minutes?
Or is this a time for me to lookat my, my list of achievements and
start knocking things off one by one?
Or is this a chance for me to take abreak and go hug my kids and say, I
love you and then get back to work?
Thank you so much for joiningme here on Stuck Not Broken.
(33:47):
I hope this episode has helped you to lookat what your potentials are throughout
the day, and then how to apply thosepotentials to what you want to get
done, to what your bigger goals are dayto day or even bigger goals in life.
I gave you a bunch of stuffyou can work on day to day.
Um, but I also have a resource for you.
It's a free resource and to make itas simple as possible, I got to do is
(34:08):
click on the link in the descriptionand you'll get that download right away.
You don't have to go anywhere else for it.
You click the link andyou'll get the download.
It's my SSIEC sheet.
That stands for state sensation,impulse, emotion, and cognition.
This lays out what your polyvagal statesare and what the experiences are from
(34:30):
those states or the potential experiences.
This can help you to get more language orto better identify what state you're in.
And then if you could do that,then you can ask yourself,
well, what can I accomplish?
What does my body need at this moment?
What can I accomplish from this state?
So click on that link and you'llget the download right away.
I have a ton of other resources.
If you want that, click on the linkin the description and that'll take
(34:53):
you to the free member center whereI've collected all that stuff for you.
Okay.
That's it again.
Thank you so much for listening and bye.
This podcast is not therapy,not intended to be therapy or
be a replacement for therapy.
Nothing in this creates or indicatesa therapeutic relationship.
Please consult with your therapist orseek for one in your area if you are
(35:14):
experiencing mental health symptoms.
Nothing in this podcast should beconstrued to be specific life advice.
It is for educational andentertainment purposes only.
More resources are available inthe description of this episode
and in the footer of justinlmft.
com.
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