October 2, 2025 • 51 mins
What if we’re all just empathy dehydrated (an over-culture design!)—and the rehydration begins in our nervous systems and our emotional bodies. In this episode, we travel through a wild field of brain 🧠 neurons 💥 to connect with author, neuroscience educator, and my teacher @sarahpeytonauthor to explore accompaniment, the practice of bringing your full self into relationship and being willing to be changed by another.
From the rise of fascism to climate grief and information overload, we trace how overwhelm disconnects us from a healthy, sacred NO—and how tending to our disgust circuit becomes an inoculation to the manipulation, scapegoating, and burnout.
We talk about unconscious contracts and how to spot, revoke, and replace them with life‑honoring vows. Along the way, we surface the baked-in conditioning culture has trained us to direct disgust at people instead of the harms done to them, and we share practical steps to reorient toward collective care and courage, empathy and agency.
♨ show notes from the jacuzzi-verse ♨
- Go to sarahpeyton.com — a true treasure chest of transformative information, classes, trainings, and more! Each year she hosts the Resonance Summit + courses you want to take, so get on her list and join the global community!
- Get Sarah’s books Your Resonant Self & Your Resonant Self Workbook — 100/10 (yes, that’s right) recommend.
- Free grounding meditation with Dana—a practice of calling your energy back/nervous system tending/reclaiming your attention) ~ (http://bit.ly/grounding-now)
- Enter to win a free coaching session ~ when you leave a 5-star rating (only) and a written review, you'll be entered into a monthly drawing for a free 90-min coaching session with dana (value of $388). Send the name of your review (title and/or reviewer name) via IG @danablix or email dana@ danabalicki .com ~ Winner announcements will be made across platforms mid-month.
😭 Sound-editing/design ~ Rose Blakelock 🤖 theme song ~ Kat Ottosen 🪱 cover art ~ Natalee Miller ♨️
Qs, comments, or requests for the jacuzzi-verse? Text us 😭🌀♨️
@danablix on ig 😭 feeling the pull for coaching support? go to danabalicki.com for inner/outer transformation 🖐️⭐️ leave a 5-star rating & review to be entered in a monthly raffle for a free coaching session (details in show notes) 🎁 share this with your favorite boo-hooer 😭
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_05 (00:37):
Dearest cry babies, welcome back to Crying and My
Jackie, the ebbs and flows ofliving an examined life where we
live laugh love in theanthropocine.
I'm Dana Balicki,transformational coach of 13
years, former grassrootsorganizer, reverently irreverent
(00:57):
deep feeler, woo-woo shirp byyour internet big sis that you
always wanted.
And slow down medicine guide inexploring the weird magic of
humaning together.
The jacuzzi verses where we diveinto the messy, beautiful,
ridiculous, and profound journeyof self-exploration and
(01:19):
collective evolution.
Because life is a lot.
And sometimes the only thingleft to do is to sink into the
warm, bubbly depths of it all.
SPEAKER_04 (01:33):
And let it flow.
SPEAKER_05 (01:43):
The death of human empathy is one of the earliest
and most telling signs of aculture about to fall into
barbarism.
That's a quote from politicalphilosopher, activist, writer
Hannah Arendt.
And I suppose I like to think ofit not as a death of human
empathy, but maybe our humanempathy is in a coma or real,
(02:10):
real ill, real dehydrated,undernourished, malnourished,
like many of our souls areinside of a dominant white
supremacist colonial culture.
I mean modernity, this is thisis this dehumanization that we
(02:33):
are all experiencing andwatching the rise of fascism.
It touches all of usindividually.
And you know how I am, you knowthat I believe that individual
work has a place in thecollective that we we must do
(02:54):
our inner work as we are out inthe world, especially as more
and more people are waking up tofascism and the effects of
fascism.
And now it's real, real bad fora whole lot of people.
And like climate collapse, wecan't even see the all the
effects from here.
(03:16):
And while this is happeningcivilizationally, we have
agency.
You know, that's my favorite,but it's because it's it's what
we have.
It's like the only thing we haveis how we use our energy and
attention.
And so our intention andattention towards connection,
(03:39):
towards human empathy, whichalso means towards our warmth
towards ourselves.
This is the work, this is theway.
This love, this focus on loveand loving connection,
relationshipping with eachother, with the world's inside
(04:01):
of us and the world's outside ofus.
This is always the topic.
To hold tenderness for ourselvesand for those around us when the
world absolutely tells us thereis no room for tenderness, and
all tenderness will be punished.
Or at least resisted, then weget to be subversive.
(04:24):
And you know, one of my newestand most delightful teachers
would be such a perfect personto talk to about this.
I think we should go visit SarahPayton.
She's an author, aconstellations facilitator,
certified trainer of nonviolentcommunication, a neuroscience
(04:48):
educator who integratesconstellations, brain science,
and the use of resonant languageto tend to inhale trauma.
I was attracted to her becauseof her effort to create a
compassionate understanding ofthe effects of relational trauma
on the brain and how she teachespeople the potency of words,
(05:12):
language, relationshipping tochange and heal us.
Plus, she goes deep in thepersonal and systemic forces
that lead to traumatization,including racism, patriarchy,
gender oppression, capitalism,colonialism.
So up our alley, crybabies.
Am I right?
(05:34):
She also wrote Your ResonantSelf, Guided Meditations and
Exercises to Engage Your Brain'sCapacity for Healing.
Ugh, highly recommend.
And her second book, YourResonant Self-Workbook from
Self-Sabotage to Self-Care, youhave heard me talk about it
before.
So let's go visit Sarah.
To get to her, we are gonna goon a little magical trip into a
(05:58):
forest of brain neurons.
Let's go, crybabies.
Ooh, it's tingly through here.
Okay.
I've never gone through a forestof brain neurons before.
(06:20):
Also, if you hear any cracklypoppy buzzy throughout the
interview, just know it's aninterview being conducted in a
forest of brain neurons, so whathappens?
(06:49):
Ah, here we are.
The effervescent Sarah Payton.
I just spent all last weekendwith you in the in the in the
constellation intensive.
And so uh it feels very normalfor me to sit here watching you,
but now we're talking.
SPEAKER_02 (07:08):
Well, it's a delight to be here.
Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_05 (07:11):
Yeah, thank you for for your willingness and
interest.
You know, the things that you'retalking about and right now at
this time and in our collectiveexperience, yeah.
I think there's something aboutthe ways that we're showing up
now and being called to show upthat requires us moving together
(07:33):
and requires our tending toourselves and our attunement
with each other and connectionwith each other, and you know,
all you so much of your workaround like accompaniment has
been speaking to me on so manylevels.
SPEAKER_02 (07:48):
It's like the most radical thing we could do in
some ways is to begin.
I mean, uh the in terms of innerwork is to is to and and then it
gets reflected in what happensand what we do in the outer
world, is to begin to actuallyacknowledge our bodies and and
to be with them, but not just toacknowledge and be with our
(08:09):
bodies, but to be with ourselveswith warmth is absolutely goes
counter to every precept uh ofevery major religion and every
activist.
SPEAKER_05 (08:25):
Yeah, I mean social justice movement, like for a
long time in like a veryspecific way, and there wasn't a
lot of warmth, which is why Isort of found my way towards
like interpersonal work in onvarious modalities and
frameworks and teachers becausethere was no it was like there
(08:46):
was no room for that.
There was no room for that kindof work, and if you needed that,
there was something like wrong.
Like there was something likeyou weren't doing, you weren't
showing up for the causecorrectly, right?
You weren't stepping correctlyto like the bigger, the people
who really needed help if youwere turning inward.
And I just knew that that wasn'tthat that didn't make sense.
SPEAKER_02 (09:08):
No, it doesn't make sense, does it?
As we start to work with theneuroscience and and the the the
the the the invitation intodeeper and more authentic
relationship, what we start todiscover is that everybody's
really wrapped up in these kindof spider webs of unconscious
contracts that keep people frombeing able to.
(09:31):
I I kind of uh there's thisscene in The Hobbit that I love
where all the dwarves are starare wound up in the spider web
and suspended from the trees andthey can't touch the ground.
And I'm like, this is us, thisis our world.
Nobody's got their nobody's gottheir feet on the actual ground,
or we would not be behaving theway we're behaving, you know.
(09:52):
There would be like this loveand sacred relationship with the
earth itself, with the planet,that yeah, that we fall away
from as soon as we start to fallaway from our bodies.
SPEAKER_05 (10:06):
And yeah, last weekend being in that intensive
I was pleasantly surprised, orwhatever the word is for the
feeling I was having of how muchwas about tuning into the
sensation.
How much was tuning into thebody and all these little
strands of trust that we wereweaving over and over in the
(10:31):
practices and the demos, and youknow, there's something about
like, okay, it's a training androll up my sleeves and get ready
with my little notes.
And you're like, oh, notes.
And I was like, great.
So much was that tuning in, andand that's such a critical part
of what we're doing of likebecoming more relational, right?
The accompaniment, because it'slike, oh yeah, I'm here to do
(10:54):
something with you.
But wait, I have to do this withme first.
Like that's built into what youare teaching.
And I'm wondering if you couldjust talk a bit about the idea
of accompaniment, especiallysince this is what we're gonna
be doing together, like on theplanet now, is really learning
(11:14):
this and that personal piecetoo.
SPEAKER_02 (11:18):
Well, I've started to think a lot about the
difference between being withhumans and being with AI.
And the um and a lot of peopleright now are talking about like
the quality of of uh of empathythat they get from the AI.
That how the how how amazing itis what AI can do with them.
(11:42):
And um, and it makes it it makesme laugh a little bit.
It's because it is quitebeautiful.
But what this is what we couldall do if we didn't have nervous
systems that were reacting toeach other.
SPEAKER_05 (11:55):
Right, right.
We would all be so great at somany things.
Really tender, tender, tenderbit.
SPEAKER_02 (12:04):
Yeah, and so uh what I'm very interested in is like
what makes it different from AIto be with humans and how how
what happens when we really getinterested in what's happening
over there?
Because we can be as interestedas we want to be about what's
happening for the AI, butthere's just not gonna be a lot
(12:28):
of body-based experience overthere.
No.
So the discovery of um somebodyelse's soul and our own soul, as
you said, you know, turningtowards ourselves and then
another.
So so uh this is where I've beenthinking a lot about this c
(12:49):
concept of accompaniment andabout how to make uh uh humans
more aware of each other'sjuiciness is is one of my my
constant wanderings.
And um and so accompaniment iswhat happens when you get uh you
(13:10):
when you bring your whole bodyand your body sensations into a
relationship with somebody else,and you get really interested in
how you are changed and how theyare changed in this relationship
where we're paying attention toourselves and each other.
And then once somebody begins tosay, once we start to ask, do
(13:34):
you do I understand you?
Did I catch you correctly?
And do am I does it seem to youlike I'm getting you at all?
And the other person says, yes,it does.
Then we're moving out, uh we'vegot resonance established, and
once we've got resonanceestablished, two systems
vibrating with each other, thenwe're moving into a place where
(13:58):
we can take movement together,where we can where we can take
steps together, where we canmove from one place to another.
And that is accompaniment.
It is it is a series of yesesover time that get to be in some
way sustained or continued, atleast for a few moments, perhaps
(14:18):
for hours or weeks or months oryears.
SPEAKER_05 (14:22):
Well, when we were practicing attunement in the
work together, right?
And that question of um like howdoes it feel to be changed by
another?
I had a practice buddy, andwithout divulging anything
personal, just m when my littlepart in it was like I was asked
the question and I told a story,and then she's like, so how does
(14:46):
it feel to be and she had torepeat it a couple times because
I was really trying to take thatin of like, oh wait, how does it
feel to be changed by another?
Not because they told me somegreat story of their life, but
because I just sat with them andbreathed and felt their little
buzzy coil of a nervous systemand my little buzzy coil, and
(15:08):
somehow we found each other.
SPEAKER_02 (15:10):
Yeah.
I'm just in this moment feelingso much delight that you were in
the class because so often I getto be on podcast interviews, and
the folks are just they justhave never had the experience at
all in any way.
And so I'm just um excited anddelighted that we get to be
talking about it.
And on a podcast, I feel like,oh my goodness, what a thing I'm
(15:47):
gonna do.
SPEAKER_01 (16:02):
So Dana doesn't know we're here, but it's important.
SPEAKER_00 (16:05):
Yeah, we slipped in through our robots only
wormhole, to ask you to leave areview for the one and only
podcast broadcasting from thejacuzzi verse.
SPEAKER_04 (16:15):
Did I hear somebody say wormhole?
SPEAKER_01 (16:18):
You sure did, Connie.
SPEAKER_04 (16:19):
Uh okay, I just didn't want to be left out with
the party.
SPEAKER_00 (16:24):
We portaled in here to remind listeners how much it
means to all of us that theyrate and leave a review, even
just a short one.
SPEAKER_04 (16:31):
Oh yes, absolutely.
Go punch some buttons, y'all.
Um takes a second.
Time's a construct, anyways, butyou got all the time in the
world.
SPEAKER_01 (16:42):
So take a precious second of your time.
That is not even real, to leavea five-star review.
SPEAKER_00 (16:49):
And a written review, too.
When you do, you'll be enteredinto a monthly raffle for a free
coaching session with Dana.
SPEAKER_04 (16:56):
Oh my god, oh my god.
SPEAKER_00 (16:57):
Details are in the show notes.
Thank you, Crybabies.
Your support means everything tous.
SPEAKER_01 (17:03):
Sharing is caring.
SPEAKER_05 (17:39):
I was getting all sweaty beforehand because I was
like, okay, Janet, write yournotes so that you stick to your
notes because you have eightmillion things that you would
like to talk about.
So far, we've probably done one,but it's fine.
It's perfect, it's justabsolutely perfect.
But that experience is reallyalive in me, and I feel like
even has changed me over theweek.
(18:00):
And I see myself as someonewho's like, I do this kind of
work in the world, you know.
I'm I listen to people, I dothings, you know.
And it's God, it's justdifferent.
And I think some of it alsofeels like the time, yeah, like
this moment that we're in wherewe're all being changed.
Like my mom, I just talked toher, and she was talking about
(18:23):
how she's crying every daybecause of everything that she's
you know, watching and theonslaught and the overwhelm.
And it made me think ofsomething you had I'd heard you
say probably in differentplaces, but talking about how
like when we're in overwhelm, wesort of lose access to our
healthy know.
Oh, yeah, that's true.
Right.
(18:44):
And that sort of like, I'm surethere's there's many things that
we maybe lose access to andoverwhelm, but but as you know,
thinking about this rebellion orlike how we're being asked to
show up and maybe become morerelational humans, and that's
really the rebellion.
I wonder if you could talk a bitabout like how we tend to that
overwhelm, how we can tend tothe overwhelm, you know, the
(19:06):
effects that it has on us, sothat when we see it and feel it,
we can just like point at it alittle bit, be like, oh, that's
there it is, right?
Just a little moreconsciousness, right?
This is the invitation, it seemslike.
SPEAKER_02 (19:19):
Yeah.
Um well uh one of the thingsthat we're uh routinely asked to
do as children, in at leastNorth America, um, and also in
Western Europe often, uh iswe're routinely as children
asked to give up our sense ofdisgust.
(19:41):
Oh my god, ew, David!
SPEAKER_05 (19:44):
Yeah.
Sorry.
That was the big one with allthe arrows on it that I was
really hoping we'd yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (19:53):
We're we're we're we're supposed to kiss the
relatives that we don't want tokiss, we're supposed to eat the
food that uh tastes bitter,we're supposed to um be uh
polite and not say how we reallyfeel.
And you know, I mean there'ssomething to be said for
learning certain, you know, waysnot to be alarmingly rude to
(20:17):
people.
SPEAKER_03 (20:18):
Sure.
SPEAKER_02 (20:20):
But but all of the kind of um all of the little
no's that a child has, thelittle and big no's, are mostly
overridden.
And our no is a really kind of asacred act that that that is in
(20:42):
big and small ways saying whatwe don't want to take inside of
our bodies.
And that is really importantbecause when we have to s give
up our all of our little no'sabout what we're taking into our
(21:03):
bodies or letting happen to ourbodies, or having people touch
us on our bodies, or kiss ourcheeks, or pat our heads, or uh
ask us to sit certain places andnot move, or all of the other
things that our that our bodieswould naturally say no to.
Um when when this happens, westart to lose access to one of
(21:25):
our one of our systems ofemotion and motivation, which is
a disgust circuit.
We all have healthy disgust thathelps us to know how much is too
much.
And basically, when we'reexperiencing overwhelm, it means
that we have not known how muchis too much, and we may have
(21:48):
stopped knowing long ago howmuch is too much.
And so our capacity to say no umis i is then compromised.
It's not only compromised, itbecomes a handle that's sticking
out of us that the media can useto direct us.
(22:10):
It's it's like a whole it's it'sthe founding principle of
genocide and racism.
It is is the disgust that ismanipulated by the systems that
we live in in order to mm haveus have um repulsed reactive
(22:37):
responses to things like, forexample, immigration all over
the world, to the experience ofof having folks who don't look
like us come into our lives, ourhomes, our countries, our
workplaces, our churches, um andand the the response of of of
(23:00):
our untended bodies is to try torepel the to to vomit out the
the the sense of what we'rebeing told is the invader.
When the invaders are really uhall of the ways that people are
(23:28):
told that they that they don'tget to say no.
And all of the things that weend up taking into us that we'd
have not consented to.
So uh it's such a it is such aninteresting time because we are
being s so taken by the handlesuh on the bat on the backs of
(23:50):
our bodies and steered around umby in particular nationalism.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (24:00):
Yeah, and I mean I think that like white
supremacist Christiannationalism is also going to
sort of lube us toward thetechno, necrostate, like a whole
other thing, right?
Like this is feels almost likethis weird little like middle
ground, and I don't mean to umundermine or demean any of it or
minimize that's what I'm lookingfor.
Like, I'm not trying to do that,but it feels like the early
(24:22):
stages of whatever this steeringis, but that it is stirring up
these deep but sort of top-leveldisgusts, right?
Of just like, oh, that'sdifferent.
Oh, I don't like that.
I don't, you know, it's likethat's all being stimulated
really rapidly, you know, so weare in that overwhelm.
We don't have any sense.
(24:42):
And and most of us don't have,as you said, like a sense of our
healthy disgust.
SPEAKER_02 (24:47):
Yeah.
How much news is too much, howmuch alcohol is too much, how
much sugar is too much, how muchum what portion of food is too
much?
What how much Netflix is toomuch?
SPEAKER_05 (25:04):
Right, right.
SPEAKER_02 (25:05):
How much doom scrolling is too much?
SPEAKER_05 (25:07):
Right, and then we only know it once we've like
maybe hit it, and then we haveto like do all sorts of work to
sort of like find, but I don'tthink there's a very common
conversation of like, oh wait,I've gotta go and find my like
healthy connection to my healthydiscovery.
But I think this is such a ripetime for this.
I heard something this morningon NPR where they were saying it
was like some poll about umfolks who are supportive of the
(25:32):
new administration's immigrationdeportation policies and how
like the numbers were reallyhigh.
But in this poll that they did,once you started drilling down
into like what would actuallyhave to happen, then the sort of
bottom fell out, right?
So it's like that top layer ofdisgust and separation is really
activated.
(25:53):
But once you start to be like,well, but this is what would
happen to people, this is whatwould happen to children.
People find it, then it's like,oh, that's too far.
Yeah, that's too far.
How how I would love to hearyou, and it's funny because for
a second I forgot that we weredoing an interview and I wasn't
just listening to you because Ilove no, I love hearing your
voice.
SPEAKER_02 (26:11):
It's a delight for me.
SPEAKER_05 (26:12):
I'm enjoying that, God is but also I really enjoy
listening to you.
And I I took your disgust classand this like how we find that,
how we come, how we start topractice into, tend into.
And I know warmth is surely partof it, but oh, it's such a good
point.
(26:33):
But I'd love to hear foreveryone who's like, I don't
know what's too much, but it allseems like too much, and I do
have a handle sticking out onme, pulling me around.
How do I come back?
How do we find it?
SPEAKER_02 (26:45):
Well, the very sweetest starting point is
really to see if we have acontract not to have disgust.
I I will not, it's I will notexpress my disgust, I will not
know I'm disgusted, I will notsay no.
These are some of the bigcontracts that we can begin to
work with, and then we get tokind of sink into them.
So we go, okay, of those three,which one really resonated for
(27:09):
me?
I will not say no.
And then you go, I will not sayno.
I promise myself that I will notsay no in order to, you know,
what is it?
What's here in order to?
Be a good girl, gain my daddyand mommy's approval, um, belong
to my family, be polite so thatI don't hurt anyone.
(27:30):
Um I will uh Yeah, I will notsay no in order to prioritize
others' needs over my own.
I will not say no in order notto be selfish.
I will not say no, and I meanthis it's such an interesting
question to begin to look at.
unknown (27:49):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (27:50):
Because then once we've figured out, you know, who
it is that we're pleasing orbelonging to by not saying no,
mom, dad, family, family line.
You tell me who is your daddyand what does he do?
Country, religious group,whatever it is, as soon as we
(28:10):
figure it out, we can go, oh,and then the last part of this,
of course, is no matter the costto myself.
I will not say no in order toplease my mommy and daddy, no
matter the cost to myself.
(28:39):
And then we can go, gosh, um,doesn't sound like a very good
plan.
This is not a good plan.
I release myself from thiscontract.
I see people don't realize thatthey get to release themselves
once they figure their contractout.
I revoke this vow, and instead Igive myself the blessing to uh
(29:00):
gently start to discover what Iwant to say no to and to start
saying no.
And it's so multifaceted, youknow.
I've been working on my ownhealthy disgust for some years
now, and working on my contractsnot to say no, and I just
discovered a whole nother layer.
(29:20):
Just in the last two days, Idiscovered a whole nother layer.
SPEAKER_05 (29:26):
I love that.
I love hearing that, right?
This is just like the foreverfeeling back.
SPEAKER_02 (29:33):
Yeah, and it and it came with such interesting
realizations.
I I I uh the the the layer thatI discovered was a layer where
um my dad my dad um married mymom.
My mom had a mental illness, andmy my grandma, my dad's mom had
(29:53):
the same mental illness.
And my dad was very comfortablewith my mom and loved her very
much and loved his mom verymuch.
Much and simply put up with herinability to be relational.
He just absorbed all the cost ofthat.
And so I discovered that I had acontract to be loyal to my dad
(30:17):
and to trudge along with him andjust be loyal to people and to
just put up with the relationalnon the costs of relational
impact that were not beingacknowledged.
So it's a whole it was a wholenew layer that I'd not worked
with before in terms of sayingno, it was about disclosing
relational impact.
(30:37):
And so I I released that and andall of a sudden I was like
calling up people that uh hadthat I'd been, you know, just
speaking out about things thatare happening to me and calling
up people that had taken actionsthat had had a negative impact
on me and saying, I want to havea conversation with you about
this, and and uh and yeah, I hadthis sense of it as being quite
(31:02):
an extraordinary step to take.
Uh yeah.
And and and then simultaneouslyI was watching an old movie, uh
Graham Greene's book, uh TheThird Man was made into a movie
that old black and white moviewith Joseph Cotton and Orson
Wells.
And I realized that one of thefigures in the movie was an
(31:23):
anti-Semitic portrayal of aJewish person.
And I was like, oh my god, Ijust never I was up and we I was
re-watching them, I've nevernoticed that before.
And then sitting there thinkingabout that, and I realized that
um in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,the children's movie, Chitty
Chitty Bang Bang, there's athere's a portrayal of the
(31:44):
childcatcher.
And I realized, oh my god, thechild catcher is a completely
anti-Semitic precursor tointroducing children to a world
in which Jews are scapegoatedfor scapegoating being, I think,
uh the way that disgust is usedagainst people in order to make
(32:08):
systems work.
Right.
Uh to make family systems work,to make societal systems work,
to be a like a steam valve forthe pressure that everything's
under.
And and I was like, oh my god, Ijust never, it was like, wow, I
just never saw that before.
And so yeah, it's a there's thisfunny experience of working with
(32:30):
contracts where the spider webstarts to un unbind itself and
you go, oh shit, this is notgood.
SPEAKER_05 (32:38):
Yeah.
Here are all the ways in which Ithat that contract was
reinforced, the ways in whichwe're scanning, we take that
like interpersonal orgenerational experience and then
scanning the world around us andnot even necessarily noticing
that programming andconditioning to repel, to
(33:00):
reject, to separate, to judge.
Right, right.
Right.
And and to allow that to getpacked into the the system,
right?
We're all just carrying thesearound.
SPEAKER_02 (33:12):
The ways in which children, you know, children see
the world and they're like, oh,this is not good.
This person is hungry, that'snot good.
But they they are invited toturn that that disgust about
somebody not being hungry into adisgust for the person who's
hungry.
SPEAKER_05 (33:31):
So that feels so of this moment as well, obviously,
because we're not talking,everything's new as old, you
know, new as old.
Yeah, yeah.
Nothing happening right nowisn't necessarily things that we
haven't seen before.
Maybe the volumes turned up alittle louder and we've got like
an tech boost, but for the mostpart, like we've been also
(33:53):
conditioned into so much of thisfor so long.
Yes, right, and likegenerationally, there's
different impacts of it anddifferent waves of it.
And what you're saying about howwhen we lose that connection to
the healthy, disgust circuit,and that because of all of the
(34:15):
ways that we weren't able to sayno or have those small nos or
big nose like honored orreflected or just met in any
way, right?
SPEAKER_02 (34:26):
Well, our parents weren't doing it, you know, they
had contacts themselves, and soit wasn't modeled in any way.
Sometimes it's even that, yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (34:34):
Truly, right?
It's like in the world aroundus.
Yes, we don't have models forit, right?
How how wild when we have tolike do something that we've
never even really seen modeled,like talk about rebellion,
right?
That's really something.
But what you're saying too abouthow we turn that pain or concern
or whatever that emotionalconnection is to someone who's
(34:55):
like, Oh, wait, I'm hungry or Ineed help.
And then we because of thatbreak, it turns into like that
disgust at the person.
unknown (35:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (35:03):
And that, even in just that little poll that I was
mentioning where it's like, oh,the disgust at the people,
right?
But then once you just peel backlike wait, but this is how they
would be impacted, people arelike, oh, wait, that's a that
that actually doesn't sound sogood at all.
It just feels like proof thatlike that that healthy
connection is is available.
SPEAKER_02 (35:23):
Yeah, that's such a lovely point.
SPEAKER_05 (35:25):
Yeah.
That care is is and and that'swhy I think it's like care is
teachable in a way, right?
Like it's not just innate, likeeither you have it or you don't,
or we can look at people and belike, oh, you obviously don't
have it, because I don't feelthat way.
Like, yeah, I believe everyone'sgot this.
Everyone, you know, and we all,but as you said, it's like you
(35:46):
even you teach this work, andhere you are finding new
contracts and finding new pointsof of tenderness with yourself,
right?
Because this is about littleelusion.
SPEAKER_02 (35:58):
Yeah, the points of tenderness and revelation and
action, you know, that were notavailable to me three days ago,
you know.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (36:09):
I mean, that just gives me so much hope, Sarah, in
the like, you know, it's like,ah, something's available to you
now that wasn't three days ago.
SPEAKER_03 (36:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (36:22):
Look how new we are.
I know.
That's such a wonderful thing tosay.
Look how new we are.
I love that.
Oh gosh.
I mean, thank you for trackingthat thought about the like
overwhelm all the way back tothe disgust and and the work
with contracts.
And I'm wondering if you could,and and I've talked about this
(36:44):
and on the show before, and havesurely definitely credited you
and shared your info, but yourwork around self-warm, the
warmth in general, because theself-warmth, like how hard it is
to be in the overwhelm, right?
And to be in that sort of like,you know, broken disgust field,
(37:06):
or what you know what I mean,like that like space from the
healthy disgust and the warmthneeded.
I feel like just kind of allaround, like to me, warmth feels
like be being more relationalhumans, being more human human
beings right now.
Yeah.
That the warmth feels like atruly radical act.
(37:26):
As I think you said that at thetop.
It's like, yeah, yeah, it is.
Can you can you talk a littlemore about that?
SPEAKER_02 (37:33):
Just like how you hold it and practice it and find
it.
Um so one way to begin, one wayjust to as a foundation, the way
that humans uh perceiveemotional warmth is through the
metaphors of physical warmth.
(37:55):
There's all kinds of likemarketing studies where if you
give somebody a coffee andthey're holding a warm cup, they
respond more positively towhatever it is you're trying to
sell them or market to them.
And um and uh and that um youknow that uh that our that as
(38:16):
humans we have these littlereceptors in our skin which are
specifically made to registerwhether or not there's another
human around with the right bodytemperature.
And you can even think about howalarming it can be to touch
(38:36):
somebody who's got a fever andyou know it's the wrong body
temperature, or somebody who'sclammy, and you know it's the
wrong body temperature.
But who knew that we have littlethermal receptors that are not
actually looking for uh forwarmth coming from a fireplace
or warmth coming from a stove orfrom a furnace?
(38:57):
This is warmth that's comingfrom another human.
And when we feel that warmth,especially in combination with
feeling safe, then our bodystarts to relax.
So there's a question about, youknow, about how do we how do we
turn toward ourselves?
How do we just actuallygenuinely really like and enjoy
(39:18):
and take delight in our ownbeings?
It's such an inoculation againstum the the ills of this world.
It is it uh it is such a um aremedy, a preventive remedy
against living in a world wherethings are really difficult and
(39:43):
leads all to all kinds ofstrange and interesting places
as we begin to practice it.
Like just first of all, foranybody who's listening and
interested, you can askyourself, do I like myself?
You know, and then if I don'tlike myself right now, did I
like myself when I was five?
(40:05):
Uh if I uh and if I don't don'tlike myself when I was five, did
I like myself when I was two?
Do I do I like the thought of mytwo-year-old self?
And oftentimes people will go,no, of course I don't like my
five-year-old self.
And then I'll say, Did you doyou like your two-year-old self?
And they'll go, of course I likemy two-year-old self.
I say, Okay, what happenedbetween the ages of two and
five?
(40:25):
And they're like, Well, youknow, my my mom died, and you
know, well, everything went tohell.
My brother was, you know, it wasall kinds of terrible things
have happened.
And went between two and five.
You're like, okay, well, that'strauma talking to us.
That's not, that's, you know,that what once we start to work
with the trauma and clear thetrauma from our bodies, our
bodies start to move towardwarmth and affection.
(40:49):
So we're looking for theaffection f for self.
Where where did it get lost?
It's a it's a natural humanbirthright.
But also it gets to be augmentedas we learn about it and
practice it so that we canactually move into delight,
which may be something that ourparents did not have the
emotional energy and clarity tobe able to even feel in
(41:11):
relationship to us.
But that but every being is adelight.
Every being is a delight.
Every being just an absolutetruth.
It's a delight.
SPEAKER_05 (41:22):
You know, I I felt that in the in the in the class
the other day, just the thelittle moment you had us like
look at everyone, like, oh,these are potential people you
are going to like be in, youknow, be in work with.
And I was like scanning, beinglike, I don't know, that person
has a really bright light.
I do not like that.
(41:43):
I do not like that person.
Like talking about like ourlittle healthy disgust moment
where I was scanning and andthen you're like, okay, and now
look at you know, everyone sortof as a a possibility for you
know connection.
And then it was like, oh my God,look at us.
Look at that person's, look atthat person's horrible lighting,
(42:05):
but look how it reflects offtheir hair in the or their
glasses in the best way.
It really sometimes takes solittle to shift out of that kind
of unconscious, like, oh, allright, I'm just looking kind of
moving through the world,looking for things that I like
and I don't like, right?
The binarism of like, let me putthings into categories, right,
(42:26):
based on something I may noteven be paying attention to and
or have justified about how Imoved through the world.
And now here I am in invitedinto delight, really.
You didn't say that, but that'swhat you invited us into, or
that's what I felt, and it waslike how easy that shift was,
(42:48):
and then how new and cuteeveryone was.
I guess I really did saysomething like how new we are,
because it felt that way.
I was like, oh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (42:58):
And and so, like, even as you as I were talking,
and people are maybe catchinglittle glimpses of it, it'll
fall away, and then people willcatch a glimpse and it'll fall
away.
But um, there's a wonderfulpractice of greeting yourself
with delight when you wake up inthe morning.
Like just put us like here youare, here's Sarah, here's here's
(43:18):
Dana waking up in the morning.
You wake up, put a Dana sittingclock cross-legged beside you,
looking at you as you wake upand say, Oh, welcome to the I'm
so glad you're here.
SPEAKER_05 (43:33):
Yeah, I love that.
I don't do that, but I doanother little version of
cultivating delight in themorning, where it's like I look
out the window and I'm out herein the desert in the in Joshua
Tree.
And even whether I feel likefully saying it or not, it's not
ever usually forced, but somedays I wake up feeling a little
(43:55):
more accessible to this.
But it's like I just say, like,it's another beautiful day in
the desert.
Something miraculous is gonnahappen through me today, and it
always does.
SPEAKER_02 (44:07):
Uh, maybe before we go, I can invite you to say, ah,
another beautiful day in thedesert.
Something amazing will happenwith Dana today.
SPEAKER_05 (44:18):
Something amazing will happen with Dana today.
I mean, Sarah, here we are.
Here's my amazing thing fortoday.
So, I mean, done and done.
Look how that works.
We'll just use it retroactively.
Great.
Oh, wonderful.
SPEAKER_02 (44:35):
Well, it's lovely, lovely to be with you.
SPEAKER_05 (44:37):
Thank you so much.
This was uh such a joy, and I'veI've brought you up so many
times you know, over the overthe episodes, and it just really
thank you for your your warmthand and delight and newness and
just everything that you thatyou brought to the jacuzzi verse
(44:58):
today.
SPEAKER_02 (44:58):
Oh glad to be in the jacuzzi verse.
What a place to be.
SPEAKER_05 (45:14):
I wanted to come back and give a little update
because we ended theconversation, Sarah and I,
talking about delight.
And I don't know about you.
I mean, I kind of know about youbecause we're all in the boat
here, but I could really usesome extra delight these days.
(45:40):
I could use some softness in mysoul, I could use some lightness
in my heart, in my mind.
And so for a while I was takingSarah's suggestion and doing the
morning prayer, that little thatlittle delight affirmation,
(46:01):
putting myself in the thirdperson.
Honestly, I don't know if it wasjust that or all the fiber I'd
been eaten or both, but I wasfeeling real good.
Things were moving real well.
I was feeling warmer towardsmyself, and I even brought back
an old practice ofself-forgiveness and softness
(46:22):
that I hadn't really touchedthoroughly in years, and my
heart was softening, and anxietywas moving through my body in
different ways.
And I'm saying this in the pasttense because like practices,
sometimes we have them, theyfeel so good, and then they can
(46:46):
fall out of rhythm, they canjust slip through through the
fingers.
And with everything going on inthe world right now, Gaza's city
has gone dark.
People, states, corporations arepolicing all forms of
expression, policing expressionsof empathy, ignoring most forms
(47:11):
of political violence except forthe ones that serve them to
highlight and then wield powerwith.
Like I could use some morefucking delight.
How about you?
So I'm gonna bring back thepractice tomorrow morning.
I'm gonna greet the day andgreet the earth with intention,
(47:35):
with that intention ofcuriosity, with that intention
of being met with some softnessand sweetness and delight.
It can be small.
We can't lose it all together.
We can practice this, we canbuild this, we can do this
together.
There is this gorgeous AlexisPauline Gum's quote that I have
(47:58):
pinned on my wall.
It says, I believe in a god ofmiracles.
Her name is every day.
So come on now, we can't getthis wrong.
We can only get it right becausewe're here together, swirling
around in the jacuzzi verse,willing to be new and
experimental, loving andemotional, connective, and
(48:22):
delighted.
And I highly suggest that youhead on over to Sarah Payton.com
because that website is aportal.
It is a wealth of informationand spaces of practice and
workshops and other gorgeousresources for your own learning
(48:49):
and growth and resonance.
It's rich.
Maybe I will bump into you overthere, and we'll be delighted
together.
Love you, cry babies.
Hang in there.
(49:50):
Send it to a friend, and if youhaven't already, make sure to
boop that subscribe button soyou don't miss what's coming
next.
And if you are listening onApple Podcasts, give us a
rating.
SPEAKER_01 (50:00):
Five stars.
SPEAKER_05 (50:01):
In a written review.
Send me the name of your review,and I'll add you to the monthly
raffle for a free coachingsession with me.
Subscribing, rating, andreviewing are amazing, and they
help us out immensely.
And you listening, you sharingwith your community is the very
best thing that we in thejacuzzi verse could hope for.
(50:23):
So thank you, Crybabies.
Thank you for your support.
Earworm theme music by the verytalented Kat Otison.
Sound design and editing magicby the effervescent Rose
Blakelock.
Keep questioning, keep feeling,keep rebelling in all the ways
(50:45):
that matter.
And remember the jacuzzi iseverywhere.
At any moment you could enterinto the version of
non-normative consciousness.
That is jacuzzi consciousness.
Dearest cry babies, welcome back to Crying and My
Jackie, the ebbs and flows ofliving an examined life where we
live laugh love in theanthropocine.
I'm Dana Balicki,transformational coach of 13
years, former grassrootsorganizer, reverently irreverent
(00:57):
deep feeler, woo-woo shirp byyour internet big sis that you
always wanted.
And slow down medicine guide inexploring the weird magic of
humaning together.
The jacuzzi verses where we diveinto the messy, beautiful,
ridiculous, and profound journeyof self-exploration and
(01:19):
collective evolution.
Because life is a lot.
And sometimes the only thingleft to do is to sink into the
warm, bubbly depths of it all.
SPEAKER_04 (01:33):
And let it flow.
SPEAKER_05 (01:43):
The death of human empathy is one of the earliest
and most telling signs of aculture about to fall into
barbarism.
That's a quote from politicalphilosopher, activist, writer
Hannah Arendt.
And I suppose I like to think ofit not as a death of human
empathy, but maybe our humanempathy is in a coma or real,
(02:10):
real ill, real dehydrated,undernourished, malnourished,
like many of our souls areinside of a dominant white
supremacist colonial culture.
I mean modernity, this is thisis this dehumanization that we
(02:33):
are all experiencing andwatching the rise of fascism.
It touches all of usindividually.
And you know how I am, you knowthat I believe that individual
work has a place in thecollective that we we must do
(02:54):
our inner work as we are out inthe world, especially as more
and more people are waking up tofascism and the effects of
fascism.
And now it's real, real bad fora whole lot of people.
And like climate collapse, wecan't even see the all the
effects from here.
(03:16):
And while this is happeningcivilizationally, we have
agency.
You know, that's my favorite,but it's because it's it's what
we have.
It's like the only thing we haveis how we use our energy and
attention.
And so our intention andattention towards connection,
(03:39):
towards human empathy, whichalso means towards our warmth
towards ourselves.
This is the work, this is theway.
This love, this focus on loveand loving connection,
relationshipping with eachother, with the world's inside
(04:01):
of us and the world's outside ofus.
This is always the topic.
To hold tenderness for ourselvesand for those around us when the
world absolutely tells us thereis no room for tenderness, and
all tenderness will be punished.
Or at least resisted, then weget to be subversive.
(04:24):
And you know, one of my newestand most delightful teachers
would be such a perfect personto talk to about this.
I think we should go visit SarahPayton.
She's an author, aconstellations facilitator,
certified trainer of nonviolentcommunication, a neuroscience
(04:48):
educator who integratesconstellations, brain science,
and the use of resonant languageto tend to inhale trauma.
I was attracted to her becauseof her effort to create a
compassionate understanding ofthe effects of relational trauma
on the brain and how she teachespeople the potency of words,
(05:12):
language, relationshipping tochange and heal us.
Plus, she goes deep in thepersonal and systemic forces
that lead to traumatization,including racism, patriarchy,
gender oppression, capitalism,colonialism.
So up our alley, crybabies.
Am I right?
(05:34):
She also wrote Your ResonantSelf, Guided Meditations and
Exercises to Engage Your Brain'sCapacity for Healing.
Ugh, highly recommend.
And her second book, YourResonant Self-Workbook from
Self-Sabotage to Self-Care, youhave heard me talk about it
before.
So let's go visit Sarah.
To get to her, we are gonna goon a little magical trip into a
(05:58):
forest of brain neurons.
Let's go, crybabies.
Ooh, it's tingly through here.
Okay.
I've never gone through a forestof brain neurons before.
(06:20):
Also, if you hear any cracklypoppy buzzy throughout the
interview, just know it's aninterview being conducted in a
forest of brain neurons, so whathappens?
(06:49):
Ah, here we are.
The effervescent Sarah Payton.
I just spent all last weekendwith you in the in the in the
constellation intensive.
And so uh it feels very normalfor me to sit here watching you,
but now we're talking.
SPEAKER_02 (07:08):
Well, it's a delight to be here.
Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_05 (07:11):
Yeah, thank you for for your willingness and
interest.
You know, the things that you'retalking about and right now at
this time and in our collectiveexperience, yeah.
I think there's something aboutthe ways that we're showing up
now and being called to show upthat requires us moving together
(07:33):
and requires our tending toourselves and our attunement
with each other and connectionwith each other, and you know,
all you so much of your workaround like accompaniment has
been speaking to me on so manylevels.
SPEAKER_02 (07:48):
It's like the most radical thing we could do in
some ways is to begin.
I mean, uh the in terms of innerwork is to is to and and then it
gets reflected in what happensand what we do in the outer
world, is to begin to actuallyacknowledge our bodies and and
to be with them, but not just toacknowledge and be with our
(08:09):
bodies, but to be with ourselveswith warmth is absolutely goes
counter to every precept uh ofevery major religion and every
activist.
SPEAKER_05 (08:25):
Yeah, I mean social justice movement, like for a
long time in like a veryspecific way, and there wasn't a
lot of warmth, which is why Isort of found my way towards
like interpersonal work in onvarious modalities and
frameworks and teachers becausethere was no it was like there
(08:46):
was no room for that.
There was no room for that kindof work, and if you needed that,
there was something like wrong.
Like there was something likeyou weren't doing, you weren't
showing up for the causecorrectly, right?
You weren't stepping correctlyto like the bigger, the people
who really needed help if youwere turning inward.
And I just knew that that wasn'tthat that didn't make sense.
SPEAKER_02 (09:08):
No, it doesn't make sense, does it?
As we start to work with theneuroscience and and the the the
the the the invitation intodeeper and more authentic
relationship, what we start todiscover is that everybody's
really wrapped up in these kindof spider webs of unconscious
contracts that keep people frombeing able to.
(09:31):
I I kind of uh there's thisscene in The Hobbit that I love
where all the dwarves are starare wound up in the spider web
and suspended from the trees andthey can't touch the ground.
And I'm like, this is us, thisis our world.
Nobody's got their nobody's gottheir feet on the actual ground,
or we would not be behaving theway we're behaving, you know.
(09:52):
There would be like this loveand sacred relationship with the
earth itself, with the planet,that yeah, that we fall away
from as soon as we start to fallaway from our bodies.
SPEAKER_05 (10:06):
And yeah, last weekend being in that intensive
I was pleasantly surprised, orwhatever the word is for the
feeling I was having of how muchwas about tuning into the
sensation.
How much was tuning into thebody and all these little
strands of trust that we wereweaving over and over in the
(10:31):
practices and the demos, and youknow, there's something about
like, okay, it's a training androll up my sleeves and get ready
with my little notes.
And you're like, oh, notes.
And I was like, great.
So much was that tuning in, andand that's such a critical part
of what we're doing of likebecoming more relational, right?
The accompaniment, because it'slike, oh yeah, I'm here to do
(10:54):
something with you.
But wait, I have to do this withme first.
Like that's built into what youare teaching.
And I'm wondering if you couldjust talk a bit about the idea
of accompaniment, especiallysince this is what we're gonna
be doing together, like on theplanet now, is really learning
(11:14):
this and that personal piecetoo.
SPEAKER_02 (11:18):
Well, I've started to think a lot about the
difference between being withhumans and being with AI.
And the um and a lot of peopleright now are talking about like
the quality of of uh of empathythat they get from the AI.
That how the how how amazing itis what AI can do with them.
(11:42):
And um, and it makes it it makesme laugh a little bit.
It's because it is quitebeautiful.
But what this is what we couldall do if we didn't have nervous
systems that were reacting toeach other.
SPEAKER_05 (11:55):
Right, right.
We would all be so great at somany things.
Really tender, tender, tenderbit.
SPEAKER_02 (12:04):
Yeah, and so uh what I'm very interested in is like
what makes it different from AIto be with humans and how how
what happens when we really getinterested in what's happening
over there?
Because we can be as interestedas we want to be about what's
happening for the AI, butthere's just not gonna be a lot
(12:28):
of body-based experience overthere.
No.
So the discovery of um somebodyelse's soul and our own soul, as
you said, you know, turningtowards ourselves and then
another.
So so uh this is where I've beenthinking a lot about this c
(12:49):
concept of accompaniment andabout how to make uh uh humans
more aware of each other'sjuiciness is is one of my my
constant wanderings.
And um and so accompaniment iswhat happens when you get uh you
(13:10):
when you bring your whole bodyand your body sensations into a
relationship with somebody else,and you get really interested in
how you are changed and how theyare changed in this relationship
where we're paying attention toourselves and each other.
And then once somebody begins tosay, once we start to ask, do
(13:34):
you do I understand you?
Did I catch you correctly?
And do am I does it seem to youlike I'm getting you at all?
And the other person says, yes,it does.
Then we're moving out, uh we'vegot resonance established, and
once we've got resonanceestablished, two systems
vibrating with each other, thenwe're moving into a place where
(13:58):
we can take movement together,where we can where we can take
steps together, where we canmove from one place to another.
And that is accompaniment.
It is it is a series of yesesover time that get to be in some
way sustained or continued, atleast for a few moments, perhaps
(14:18):
for hours or weeks or months oryears.
SPEAKER_05 (14:22):
Well, when we were practicing attunement in the
work together, right?
And that question of um like howdoes it feel to be changed by
another?
I had a practice buddy, andwithout divulging anything
personal, just m when my littlepart in it was like I was asked
the question and I told a story,and then she's like, so how does
(14:46):
it feel to be and she had torepeat it a couple times because
I was really trying to take thatin of like, oh wait, how does it
feel to be changed by another?
Not because they told me somegreat story of their life, but
because I just sat with them andbreathed and felt their little
buzzy coil of a nervous systemand my little buzzy coil, and
(15:08):
somehow we found each other.
SPEAKER_02 (15:10):
Yeah.
I'm just in this moment feelingso much delight that you were in
the class because so often I getto be on podcast interviews, and
the folks are just they justhave never had the experience at
all in any way.
And so I'm just um excited anddelighted that we get to be
talking about it.
And on a podcast, I feel like,oh my goodness, what a thing I'm
(15:47):
gonna do.
SPEAKER_01 (16:02):
So Dana doesn't know we're here, but it's important.
SPEAKER_00 (16:05):
Yeah, we slipped in through our robots only
wormhole, to ask you to leave areview for the one and only
podcast broadcasting from thejacuzzi verse.
SPEAKER_04 (16:15):
Did I hear somebody say wormhole?
SPEAKER_01 (16:18):
You sure did, Connie.
SPEAKER_04 (16:19):
Uh okay, I just didn't want to be left out with
the party.
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We portaled in here to remind listeners how much it
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just a short one.
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Oh yes, absolutely.
Go punch some buttons, y'all.
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Time's a construct, anyways, butyou got all the time in the
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That is not even real, to leavea five-star review.
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Details are in the show notes.
Thank you, Crybabies.
Your support means everything tous.
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Sharing is caring.
SPEAKER_05 (17:39):
I was getting all sweaty beforehand because I was
like, okay, Janet, write yournotes so that you stick to your
notes because you have eightmillion things that you would
like to talk about.
So far, we've probably done one,but it's fine.
It's perfect, it's justabsolutely perfect.
But that experience is reallyalive in me, and I feel like
even has changed me over theweek.
(18:00):
And I see myself as someonewho's like, I do this kind of
work in the world, you know.
I'm I listen to people, I dothings, you know.
And it's God, it's justdifferent.
And I think some of it alsofeels like the time, yeah, like
this moment that we're in wherewe're all being changed.
Like my mom, I just talked toher, and she was talking about
(18:23):
how she's crying every daybecause of everything that she's
you know, watching and theonslaught and the overwhelm.
And it made me think ofsomething you had I'd heard you
say probably in differentplaces, but talking about how
like when we're in overwhelm, wesort of lose access to our
healthy know.
Oh, yeah, that's true.
Right.
(18:44):
And that sort of like, I'm surethere's there's many things that
we maybe lose access to andoverwhelm, but but as you know,
thinking about this rebellion orlike how we're being asked to
show up and maybe become morerelational humans, and that's
really the rebellion.
I wonder if you could talk a bitabout like how we tend to that
overwhelm, how we can tend tothe overwhelm, you know, the
(19:06):
effects that it has on us, sothat when we see it and feel it,
we can just like point at it alittle bit, be like, oh, that's
there it is, right?
Just a little moreconsciousness, right?
This is the invitation, it seemslike.
SPEAKER_02 (19:19):
Yeah.
Um well uh one of the thingsthat we're uh routinely asked to
do as children, in at leastNorth America, um, and also in
Western Europe often, uh iswe're routinely as children
asked to give up our sense ofdisgust.
(19:41):
Oh my god, ew, David!
SPEAKER_05 (19:44):
Yeah.
Sorry.
That was the big one with allthe arrows on it that I was
really hoping we'd yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (19:53):
We're we're we're we're supposed to kiss the
relatives that we don't want tokiss, we're supposed to eat the
food that uh tastes bitter,we're supposed to um be uh
polite and not say how we reallyfeel.
And you know, I mean there'ssomething to be said for
learning certain, you know, waysnot to be alarmingly rude to
(20:17):
people.
SPEAKER_03 (20:18):
Sure.
SPEAKER_02 (20:20):
But but all of the kind of um all of the little
no's that a child has, thelittle and big no's, are mostly
overridden.
And our no is a really kind of asacred act that that that is in
(20:42):
big and small ways saying whatwe don't want to take inside of
our bodies.
And that is really importantbecause when we have to s give
up our all of our little no'sabout what we're taking into our
(21:03):
bodies or letting happen to ourbodies, or having people touch
us on our bodies, or kiss ourcheeks, or pat our heads, or uh
ask us to sit certain places andnot move, or all of the other
things that our that our bodieswould naturally say no to.
Um when when this happens, westart to lose access to one of
(21:25):
our one of our systems ofemotion and motivation, which is
a disgust circuit.
We all have healthy disgust thathelps us to know how much is too
much.
And basically, when we'reexperiencing overwhelm, it means
that we have not known how muchis too much, and we may have
(21:48):
stopped knowing long ago howmuch is too much.
And so our capacity to say no umis i is then compromised.
It's not only compromised, itbecomes a handle that's sticking
out of us that the media can useto direct us.
(22:10):
It's it's like a whole it's it'sthe founding principle of
genocide and racism.
It is is the disgust that ismanipulated by the systems that
we live in in order to mm haveus have um repulsed reactive
(22:37):
responses to things like, forexample, immigration all over
the world, to the experience ofof having folks who don't look
like us come into our lives, ourhomes, our countries, our
workplaces, our churches, um andand the the response of of of
(23:00):
our untended bodies is to try torepel the to to vomit out the
the the sense of what we'rebeing told is the invader.
When the invaders are really uhall of the ways that people are
(23:28):
told that they that they don'tget to say no.
And all of the things that weend up taking into us that we'd
have not consented to.
So uh it's such a it is such aninteresting time because we are
being s so taken by the handlesuh on the bat on the backs of
(23:50):
our bodies and steered around umby in particular nationalism.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (24:00):
Yeah, and I mean I think that like white
supremacist Christiannationalism is also going to
sort of lube us toward thetechno, necrostate, like a whole
other thing, right?
Like this is feels almost likethis weird little like middle
ground, and I don't mean to umundermine or demean any of it or
minimize that's what I'm lookingfor.
Like, I'm not trying to do that,but it feels like the early
(24:22):
stages of whatever this steeringis, but that it is stirring up
these deep but sort of top-leveldisgusts, right?
Of just like, oh, that'sdifferent.
Oh, I don't like that.
I don't, you know, it's likethat's all being stimulated
really rapidly, you know, so weare in that overwhelm.
We don't have any sense.
(24:42):
And and most of us don't have,as you said, like a sense of our
healthy disgust.
SPEAKER_02 (24:47):
Yeah.
How much news is too much, howmuch alcohol is too much, how
much sugar is too much, how muchum what portion of food is too
much?
What how much Netflix is toomuch?
SPEAKER_05 (25:04):
Right, right.
SPEAKER_02 (25:05):
How much doom scrolling is too much?
SPEAKER_05 (25:07):
Right, and then we only know it once we've like
maybe hit it, and then we haveto like do all sorts of work to
sort of like find, but I don'tthink there's a very common
conversation of like, oh wait,I've gotta go and find my like
healthy connection to my healthydiscovery.
But I think this is such a ripetime for this.
I heard something this morningon NPR where they were saying it
was like some poll about umfolks who are supportive of the
(25:32):
new administration's immigrationdeportation policies and how
like the numbers were reallyhigh.
But in this poll that they did,once you started drilling down
into like what would actuallyhave to happen, then the sort of
bottom fell out, right?
So it's like that top layer ofdisgust and separation is really
activated.
(25:53):
But once you start to be like,well, but this is what would
happen to people, this is whatwould happen to children.
People find it, then it's like,oh, that's too far.
Yeah, that's too far.
How how I would love to hearyou, and it's funny because for
a second I forgot that we weredoing an interview and I wasn't
just listening to you because Ilove no, I love hearing your
voice.
SPEAKER_02 (26:11):
It's a delight for me.
SPEAKER_05 (26:12):
I'm enjoying that, God is but also I really enjoy
listening to you.
And I I took your disgust classand this like how we find that,
how we come, how we start topractice into, tend into.
And I know warmth is surely partof it, but oh, it's such a good
point.
(26:33):
But I'd love to hear foreveryone who's like, I don't
know what's too much, but it allseems like too much, and I do
have a handle sticking out onme, pulling me around.
How do I come back?
How do we find it?
SPEAKER_02 (26:45):
Well, the very sweetest starting point is
really to see if we have acontract not to have disgust.
I I will not, it's I will notexpress my disgust, I will not
know I'm disgusted, I will notsay no.
These are some of the bigcontracts that we can begin to
work with, and then we get tokind of sink into them.
So we go, okay, of those three,which one really resonated for
(27:09):
me?
I will not say no.
And then you go, I will not sayno.
I promise myself that I will notsay no in order to, you know,
what is it?
What's here in order to?
Be a good girl, gain my daddyand mommy's approval, um, belong
to my family, be polite so thatI don't hurt anyone.
(27:30):
Um I will uh Yeah, I will notsay no in order to prioritize
others' needs over my own.
I will not say no in order notto be selfish.
I will not say no, and I meanthis it's such an interesting
question to begin to look at.
unknown (27:49):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (27:50):
Because then once we've figured out, you know, who
it is that we're pleasing orbelonging to by not saying no,
mom, dad, family, family line.
You tell me who is your daddyand what does he do?
Country, religious group,whatever it is, as soon as we
(28:10):
figure it out, we can go, oh,and then the last part of this,
of course, is no matter the costto myself.
I will not say no in order toplease my mommy and daddy, no
matter the cost to myself.
(28:39):
And then we can go, gosh, um,doesn't sound like a very good
plan.
This is not a good plan.
I release myself from thiscontract.
I see people don't realize thatthey get to release themselves
once they figure their contractout.
I revoke this vow, and instead Igive myself the blessing to uh
(29:00):
gently start to discover what Iwant to say no to and to start
saying no.
And it's so multifaceted, youknow.
I've been working on my ownhealthy disgust for some years
now, and working on my contractsnot to say no, and I just
discovered a whole nother layer.
(29:20):
Just in the last two days, Idiscovered a whole nother layer.
SPEAKER_05 (29:26):
I love that.
I love hearing that, right?
This is just like the foreverfeeling back.
SPEAKER_02 (29:33):
Yeah, and it and it came with such interesting
realizations.
I I I uh the the the layer thatI discovered was a layer where
um my dad my dad um married mymom.
My mom had a mental illness, andmy my grandma, my dad's mom had
(29:53):
the same mental illness.
And my dad was very comfortablewith my mom and loved her very
much and loved his mom verymuch.
Much and simply put up with herinability to be relational.
He just absorbed all the cost ofthat.
And so I discovered that I had acontract to be loyal to my dad
(30:17):
and to trudge along with him andjust be loyal to people and to
just put up with the relationalnon the costs of relational
impact that were not beingacknowledged.
So it's a whole it was a wholenew layer that I'd not worked
with before in terms of sayingno, it was about disclosing
relational impact.
(30:37):
And so I I released that and andall of a sudden I was like
calling up people that uh hadthat I'd been, you know, just
speaking out about things thatare happening to me and calling
up people that had taken actionsthat had had a negative impact
on me and saying, I want to havea conversation with you about
this, and and uh and yeah, I hadthis sense of it as being quite
(31:02):
an extraordinary step to take.
Uh yeah.
And and and then simultaneouslyI was watching an old movie, uh
Graham Greene's book, uh TheThird Man was made into a movie
that old black and white moviewith Joseph Cotton and Orson
Wells.
And I realized that one of thefigures in the movie was an
(31:23):
anti-Semitic portrayal of aJewish person.
And I was like, oh my god, Ijust never I was up and we I was
re-watching them, I've nevernoticed that before.
And then sitting there thinkingabout that, and I realized that
um in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,the children's movie, Chitty
Chitty Bang Bang, there's athere's a portrayal of the
(31:44):
childcatcher.
And I realized, oh my god, thechild catcher is a completely
anti-Semitic precursor tointroducing children to a world
in which Jews are scapegoatedfor scapegoating being, I think,
uh the way that disgust is usedagainst people in order to make
(32:08):
systems work.
Right.
Uh to make family systems work,to make societal systems work,
to be a like a steam valve forthe pressure that everything's
under.
And and I was like, oh my god, Ijust never, it was like, wow, I
just never saw that before.
And so yeah, it's a there's thisfunny experience of working with
(32:30):
contracts where the spider webstarts to un unbind itself and
you go, oh shit, this is notgood.
SPEAKER_05 (32:38):
Yeah.
Here are all the ways in which Ithat that contract was
reinforced, the ways in whichwe're scanning, we take that
like interpersonal orgenerational experience and then
scanning the world around us andnot even necessarily noticing
that programming andconditioning to repel, to
(33:00):
reject, to separate, to judge.
Right, right.
Right.
And and to allow that to getpacked into the the system,
right?
We're all just carrying thesearound.
SPEAKER_02 (33:12):
The ways in which children, you know, children see
the world and they're like, oh,this is not good.
This person is hungry, that'snot good.
But they they are invited toturn that that disgust about
somebody not being hungry into adisgust for the person who's
hungry.
SPEAKER_05 (33:31):
So that feels so of this moment as well, obviously,
because we're not talking,everything's new as old, you
know, new as old.
Yeah, yeah.
Nothing happening right nowisn't necessarily things that we
haven't seen before.
Maybe the volumes turned up alittle louder and we've got like
an tech boost, but for the mostpart, like we've been also
(33:53):
conditioned into so much of thisfor so long.
Yes, right, and likegenerationally, there's
different impacts of it anddifferent waves of it.
And what you're saying about howwhen we lose that connection to
the healthy, disgust circuit,and that because of all of the
(34:15):
ways that we weren't able to sayno or have those small nos or
big nose like honored orreflected or just met in any
way, right?
SPEAKER_02 (34:26):
Well, our parents weren't doing it, you know, they
had contacts themselves, and soit wasn't modeled in any way.
Sometimes it's even that, yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (34:34):
Truly, right?
It's like in the world aroundus.
Yes, we don't have models forit, right?
How how wild when we have tolike do something that we've
never even really seen modeled,like talk about rebellion,
right?
That's really something.
But what you're saying too abouthow we turn that pain or concern
or whatever that emotionalconnection is to someone who's
(34:55):
like, Oh, wait, I'm hungry or Ineed help.
And then we because of thatbreak, it turns into like that
disgust at the person.
unknown (35:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (35:03):
And that, even in just that little poll that I was
mentioning where it's like, oh,the disgust at the people,
right?
But then once you just peel backlike wait, but this is how they
would be impacted, people arelike, oh, wait, that's a that
that actually doesn't sound sogood at all.
It just feels like proof thatlike that that healthy
connection is is available.
SPEAKER_02 (35:23):
Yeah, that's such a lovely point.
SPEAKER_05 (35:25):
Yeah.
That care is is and and that'swhy I think it's like care is
teachable in a way, right?
Like it's not just innate, likeeither you have it or you don't,
or we can look at people and belike, oh, you obviously don't
have it, because I don't feelthat way.
Like, yeah, I believe everyone'sgot this.
Everyone, you know, and we all,but as you said, it's like you
(35:46):
even you teach this work, andhere you are finding new
contracts and finding new pointsof of tenderness with yourself,
right?
Because this is about littleelusion.
SPEAKER_02 (35:58):
Yeah, the points of tenderness and revelation and
action, you know, that were notavailable to me three days ago,
you know.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (36:09):
I mean, that just gives me so much hope, Sarah, in
the like, you know, it's like,ah, something's available to you
now that wasn't three days ago.
SPEAKER_03 (36:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (36:22):
Look how new we are.
I know.
That's such a wonderful thing tosay.
Look how new we are.
I love that.
Oh gosh.
I mean, thank you for trackingthat thought about the like
overwhelm all the way back tothe disgust and and the work
with contracts.
And I'm wondering if you could,and and I've talked about this
(36:44):
and on the show before, and havesurely definitely credited you
and shared your info, but yourwork around self-warm, the
warmth in general, because theself-warmth, like how hard it is
to be in the overwhelm, right?
And to be in that sort of like,you know, broken disgust field,
(37:06):
or what you know what I mean,like that like space from the
healthy disgust and the warmthneeded.
I feel like just kind of allaround, like to me, warmth feels
like be being more relationalhumans, being more human human
beings right now.
Yeah.
That the warmth feels like atruly radical act.
(37:26):
As I think you said that at thetop.
It's like, yeah, yeah, it is.
Can you can you talk a littlemore about that?
SPEAKER_02 (37:33):
Just like how you hold it and practice it and find
it.
Um so one way to begin, one wayjust to as a foundation, the way
that humans uh perceiveemotional warmth is through the
metaphors of physical warmth.
(37:55):
There's all kinds of likemarketing studies where if you
give somebody a coffee andthey're holding a warm cup, they
respond more positively towhatever it is you're trying to
sell them or market to them.
And um and uh and that um youknow that uh that our that as
(38:16):
humans we have these littlereceptors in our skin which are
specifically made to registerwhether or not there's another
human around with the right bodytemperature.
And you can even think about howalarming it can be to touch
(38:36):
somebody who's got a fever andyou know it's the wrong body
temperature, or somebody who'sclammy, and you know it's the
wrong body temperature.
But who knew that we have littlethermal receptors that are not
actually looking for uh forwarmth coming from a fireplace
or warmth coming from a stove orfrom a furnace?
(38:57):
This is warmth that's comingfrom another human.
And when we feel that warmth,especially in combination with
feeling safe, then our bodystarts to relax.
So there's a question about, youknow, about how do we how do we
turn toward ourselves?
How do we just actuallygenuinely really like and enjoy
(39:18):
and take delight in our ownbeings?
It's such an inoculation againstum the the ills of this world.
It is it uh it is such a um aremedy, a preventive remedy
against living in a world wherethings are really difficult and
(39:43):
leads all to all kinds ofstrange and interesting places
as we begin to practice it.
Like just first of all, foranybody who's listening and
interested, you can askyourself, do I like myself?
You know, and then if I don'tlike myself right now, did I
like myself when I was five?
(40:05):
Uh if I uh and if I don't don'tlike myself when I was five, did
I like myself when I was two?
Do I do I like the thought of mytwo-year-old self?
And oftentimes people will go,no, of course I don't like my
five-year-old self.
And then I'll say, Did you doyou like your two-year-old self?
And they'll go, of course I likemy two-year-old self.
I say, Okay, what happenedbetween the ages of two and
five?
(40:25):
And they're like, Well, youknow, my my mom died, and you
know, well, everything went tohell.
My brother was, you know, it wasall kinds of terrible things
have happened.
And went between two and five.
You're like, okay, well, that'strauma talking to us.
That's not, that's, you know,that what once we start to work
with the trauma and clear thetrauma from our bodies, our
bodies start to move towardwarmth and affection.
(40:49):
So we're looking for theaffection f for self.
Where where did it get lost?
It's a it's a natural humanbirthright.
But also it gets to be augmentedas we learn about it and
practice it so that we canactually move into delight,
which may be something that ourparents did not have the
emotional energy and clarity tobe able to even feel in
(41:11):
relationship to us.
But that but every being is adelight.
Every being is a delight.
Every being just an absolutetruth.
It's a delight.
SPEAKER_05 (41:22):
You know, I I felt that in the in the in the class
the other day, just the thelittle moment you had us like
look at everyone, like, oh,these are potential people you
are going to like be in, youknow, be in work with.
And I was like scanning, beinglike, I don't know, that person
has a really bright light.
I do not like that.
(41:43):
I do not like that person.
Like talking about like ourlittle healthy disgust moment
where I was scanning and andthen you're like, okay, and now
look at you know, everyone sortof as a a possibility for you
know connection.
And then it was like, oh my God,look at us.
Look at that person's, look atthat person's horrible lighting,
(42:05):
but look how it reflects offtheir hair in the or their
glasses in the best way.
It really sometimes takes solittle to shift out of that kind
of unconscious, like, oh, allright, I'm just looking kind of
moving through the world,looking for things that I like
and I don't like, right?
The binarism of like, let me putthings into categories, right,
(42:26):
based on something I may noteven be paying attention to and
or have justified about how Imoved through the world.
And now here I am in invitedinto delight, really.
You didn't say that, but that'swhat you invited us into, or
that's what I felt, and it waslike how easy that shift was,
(42:48):
and then how new and cuteeveryone was.
I guess I really did saysomething like how new we are,
because it felt that way.
I was like, oh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (42:58):
And and so, like, even as you as I were talking,
and people are maybe catchinglittle glimpses of it, it'll
fall away, and then people willcatch a glimpse and it'll fall
away.
But um, there's a wonderfulpractice of greeting yourself
with delight when you wake up inthe morning.
Like just put us like here youare, here's Sarah, here's here's
(43:18):
Dana waking up in the morning.
You wake up, put a Dana sittingclock cross-legged beside you,
looking at you as you wake upand say, Oh, welcome to the I'm
so glad you're here.
SPEAKER_05 (43:33):
Yeah, I love that.
I don't do that, but I doanother little version of
cultivating delight in themorning, where it's like I look
out the window and I'm out herein the desert in the in Joshua
Tree.
And even whether I feel likefully saying it or not, it's not
ever usually forced, but somedays I wake up feeling a little
(43:55):
more accessible to this.
But it's like I just say, like,it's another beautiful day in
the desert.
Something miraculous is gonnahappen through me today, and it
always does.
SPEAKER_02 (44:07):
Uh, maybe before we go, I can invite you to say, ah,
another beautiful day in thedesert.
Something amazing will happenwith Dana today.
SPEAKER_05 (44:18):
Something amazing will happen with Dana today.
I mean, Sarah, here we are.
Here's my amazing thing fortoday.
So, I mean, done and done.
Look how that works.
We'll just use it retroactively.
Great.
Oh, wonderful.
SPEAKER_02 (44:35):
Well, it's lovely, lovely to be with you.
SPEAKER_05 (44:37):
Thank you so much.
This was uh such a joy, and I'veI've brought you up so many
times you know, over the overthe episodes, and it just really
thank you for your your warmthand and delight and newness and
just everything that you thatyou brought to the jacuzzi verse
(44:58):
today.
SPEAKER_02 (44:58):
Oh glad to be in the jacuzzi verse.
What a place to be.
SPEAKER_05 (45:14):
I wanted to come back and give a little update
because we ended theconversation, Sarah and I,
talking about delight.
And I don't know about you.
I mean, I kind of know about youbecause we're all in the boat
here, but I could really usesome extra delight these days.
(45:40):
I could use some softness in mysoul, I could use some lightness
in my heart, in my mind.
And so for a while I was takingSarah's suggestion and doing the
morning prayer, that little thatlittle delight affirmation,
(46:01):
putting myself in the thirdperson.
Honestly, I don't know if it wasjust that or all the fiber I'd
been eaten or both, but I wasfeeling real good.
Things were moving real well.
I was feeling warmer towardsmyself, and I even brought back
an old practice ofself-forgiveness and softness
(46:22):
that I hadn't really touchedthoroughly in years, and my
heart was softening, and anxietywas moving through my body in
different ways.
And I'm saying this in the pasttense because like practices,
sometimes we have them, theyfeel so good, and then they can
(46:46):
fall out of rhythm, they canjust slip through through the
fingers.
And with everything going on inthe world right now, Gaza's city
has gone dark.
People, states, corporations arepolicing all forms of
expression, policing expressionsof empathy, ignoring most forms
(47:11):
of political violence except forthe ones that serve them to
highlight and then wield powerwith.
Like I could use some morefucking delight.
How about you?
So I'm gonna bring back thepractice tomorrow morning.
I'm gonna greet the day andgreet the earth with intention,
(47:35):
with that intention ofcuriosity, with that intention
of being met with some softnessand sweetness and delight.
It can be small.
We can't lose it all together.
We can practice this, we canbuild this, we can do this
together.
There is this gorgeous AlexisPauline Gum's quote that I have
(47:58):
pinned on my wall.
It says, I believe in a god ofmiracles.
Her name is every day.
So come on now, we can't getthis wrong.
We can only get it right becausewe're here together, swirling
around in the jacuzzi verse,willing to be new and
experimental, loving andemotional, connective, and
(48:22):
delighted.
And I highly suggest that youhead on over to Sarah Payton.com
because that website is aportal.
It is a wealth of informationand spaces of practice and
workshops and other gorgeousresources for your own learning
(48:49):
and growth and resonance.
It's rich.
Maybe I will bump into you overthere, and we'll be delighted
together.
Love you, cry babies.
Hang in there.
(49:50):
Send it to a friend, and if youhaven't already, make sure to
boop that subscribe button soyou don't miss what's coming
next.
And if you are listening onApple Podcasts, give us a
rating.
SPEAKER_01 (50:00):
Five stars.
SPEAKER_05 (50:01):
In a written review.
Send me the name of your review,and I'll add you to the monthly
raffle for a free coachingsession with me.
Subscribing, rating, andreviewing are amazing, and they
help us out immensely.
And you listening, you sharingwith your community is the very
best thing that we in thejacuzzi verse could hope for.
(50:23):
So thank you, Crybabies.
Thank you for your support.
Earworm theme music by the verytalented Kat Otison.
Sound design and editing magicby the effervescent Rose
Blakelock.
Keep questioning, keep feeling,keep rebelling in all the ways
(50:45):
that matter.
And remember the jacuzzi iseverywhere.
At any moment you could enterinto the version of
non-normative consciousness.
That is jacuzzi consciousness.
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