Global High-Intensity Activation, Rhythmicity & Healing with Mahshid Hager

When slowing down feels dangerous, your body might be living in Global High-Intensity Activation(GHIA): always on, always braced, always moving. Today we sit down with licensed marriage and family therapist and Somatic Experiencing faculty member Mahshid Hager to name that pattern, trace where it comes from, and chart a humane path back to rhythm. 

Mahshid explains why a body wired for survival often resists rest, and how to work with that reality using micro-rests that your system will actually allow. We unpack the gas-and-brake reciprocity between sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, the difference between hyperarousal and global high, and how swings between overdrive and full collapse can fuel chronic pain, inflammation, and exhaustion. Along the way, curiosity shows up as the quiet superpower ~ because genuine curiosity cannot coexist with threat.

Mahshid shares a story about her relationship with the mountains over the years, and how the same thing that triggers panic can become a source of awe years later - not with forced exposure, but with care for the body.  We also reflect on capitalism’s applause for burnout and the 24/7 news cycle that delivers shock without local action. You’ll hear smart, doable suggestions for managing news & technology in a way that keeps you engaged , but not overwhelmed.

If you’re always in GO mode, running on fumes, or trying to support clients through trauma, this conversation offers language, tools, and hope. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a break, and leave a review to help more listeners find their way back to rhythm.

Support the show

Episode Transcript

Lisa Danylchuk (00:03):
Welcome back to the How We Can Heal podcast.
Today, our guest is MahshidHager.
Mahshid is a licensed marriageand family therapist and a
somatic experiencinginternational faculty member.
She also serves on the board ofthe United States Association
of Body Psychotherapy, anonprofit dedicated to
developing and advancing theart, science, and practice of

(00:25):
body psychotherapy.
Mahshid was born in Tehran,Iran.
Her lived experience as animmigrant and an expatriate
gives her a unique understandingof cultural and social impacts
and systemic inequities.
Today we focus on our nervoussystem's response to extreme
stress and trauma and how globalhigh-intensity activation shows

(00:48):
up in our bodies.
She also shares her journeyfrom Tehran to Germany to the
US, and we explore avenues forrhythmicity and rest amidst our
ongoing exposure to trauma andsocial and political challenges.
I so appreciated ourconversation and I'm thrilled to
share it with you here today.
Please join me in welcomingMahshid Hager to the show.

(01:12):
Welcome to the Hell We Can HealPodcast.
I'm so excited to have you hereand to talk with you about
global high-intensityactivation, trauma, healing, all
of those things.
Sounds great.
And you've spent a lot of timethinking about and working with
and teaching.
So my first question for you isjust how did you find somatic

(01:33):
experiencing or how did it findyou?

Mahshid Hager (01:36):
Oh goodness.
I was at a state in my lifewhere not much was going right.
2000 uh 2003 is kind of knownas the no good, very bad year in
my family.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:51):
Mine was 2002.
Hey.

Mahshid Hager (01:55):
Right there with each other.
Yes.
I mean, my my father passedaway from a 10-year battle with
cancer, and my marriage fellapart, and I became a single mom
of two little ones.
My house almost burned down ina wildfire.
Wow.
I was still finishing gradschool, and it was just like

(02:18):
nothing worked.
I'd been a, you know, I was ingrad school.
I'd been in therapy before.
I'd had experiences ininternships with therapy, and
none of those tools worked.
I was just constantlyoverwhelmed, unable to stay
present in my life with my kids,with my family.

(02:40):
I was representing myself incourt and just falling apart,
just falling apart.
And I needed, like I in mymind, I needed an emergency
measure because the court thingwas really eminent.
And I I needed to pull ittogether and you know be
representative of myself and mykids appropriately and kind of

(03:03):
started asking around about uhif people knew a good therapist
that could kind of patch me backup.
Yeah, like help.
And and you know, people werelike, what about your old
therapist?
And you know, I'd I'd hadwonderful experiences with
therapists, and I could kind ofthink, think about those

(03:25):
sessions and and remember whatthey would tell me.
I would say, none of thosethings are working.
I am doing all of the thingsI've learned in therapy and
they're not working.
And so one of my friends uhreferred me to uh his therapist
who was here in town, who was asomatic experiencing
practitioner.
And he didn't tell me she was asomatic experiencing

(03:48):
practitioner.
He just said she's verydifferent.
You know, the way that sheapproaches therapy is different
from any other talk therapy thatI've I've experienced.
And so I was like, what do Igotta lose?
Let's let's go, let's let's seewhat this is.
And yeah, that was uh, youknow, she was the first person
to say, and what do you noticein your body?

Lisa Danylchuk (04:10):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (04:11):
And I remember just being so confused by that
question at first.
Like, what do you mean?
My body's fine, my body'snormal, I feel nothing, you
know, yeah.
And so it was just this likeslow reintroduction to noticing
my physiology, noticing my mybody.

(04:34):
And I say reintroductionbecause I grew up in Iran uh in
a multi-generational household,was my you know, zero to seven
years, and and the body was verymuch part of that culture, very
much part of the equation.
And then we uh fled the countryand went to Germany, and that's

(04:56):
the detour from the body,right?
It's just like now we are onthe go.
Now you need to, now you're ina in a different plane where
survival is priority, and wedon't have time to dwell on the
past, and we don't have time tocheck in on the body, and we
don't have time to rest.
Yes, just go, go, go, go, go.

(05:17):
And so I had I had lost thatskill of noticing what cues does
my body send to me about thesedifferent experiences, you know,
that I'm having.
And uh yeah, my my firstsomatic experiencing
practitioner taught me how toreintegrate the body into the

(05:39):
conversation.
And it kind of made an impactright away.
I remember walking out of thatfirst session, just feeling
taller, you know, some of thepractices that we did in that
first session just reallyexpanded something inside.
And I remember walking outthinking, okay, I can I can
handle my life for the next fewweeks.

(06:01):
And I, you know, I was I was asingle mom.
I didn't have uh the funds tosee her weekly, but I I found
that even every three weeks orso was enough.
I could practice the tools shehad given me um to continue
benefiting from them throughoutthe weeks.
And then I stayed uh stayed intherapy post-divorce and post

(06:24):
all of that because uh I reallyuh appreciated this new tool and
wanted to know more and learnmore.
And I wanted to help my kidsthrough the transition with
these tools and direct them totheir body and notice all these
different ways that they'reprotecting themselves.
And and then eventually thetraining came back around in my

(06:48):
town in San Diego, and I signedup for it, and the rest is
history, as they say.
Yes, and now you're teaching onthe faculty, and now I'm
teaching, yes, yes, yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (07:00):
It's so interesting to track for all of
us, right?
How our personal journeyinterweaves with that
professional path and howmoments where we go, oh, that
really helps me.
I want to learn more about it.
Yes, right, because for me itwas 2002, it was my brother who
passed away, and I went to yoga,and yoga was doing for me.

(07:20):
And my parents are boththerapists, very good therapists
at that.
Yeah, I was very familiar withthe therapy world, but I needed
something different, like yousaid, I needed movement and
breath and to notice what wasmoving through and to have space
to let it move through.

Mahshid Hager (07:37):
Absolutely.

Lisa Danylchuk (07:38):
I mean, I feel like we live in a culture of
global high, and we can maybetalk about that more.
So I think it's one of thereasons I feel like people love
yoga and focus on the calmingside of yoga, like, oh, it can
stir things up, and then you canleave balanced at the end
because there's actually maybe10 or 20 minutes in most classes

(07:59):
these days at the end for youto lie down or rest, or yeah,
like we don't have I don't thinkAmerican culture has that
integrated of just rest time,really casual social time.
I think of so many countries,you know.
I lived in Italy for a whilewhere people just walk.
You know, yes.
What do you do on Sunday?
Oh, we have breakfast, we gofor a walk, yeah, go to church,

(08:24):
you know, everything's closed.

Mahshid Hager (08:27):
Yeah, Sundays, everything's closed, yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (08:31):
Yeah, no, we just rest, we just hang out.
And I feel like you know,American culture, even coming
back to that, it's just it canbe very go, go, go.

Mahshid Hager (08:39):
Absolutely.

Lisa Danylchuk (08:40):
So, to back up a little, can you just describe
to listeners what is global highintensity activation?
What does that look like?

Mahshid Hager (08:51):
Yeah, so global high is a global response from
the physiology, something thathappens where our nervous system
gets a surge or a flood ofenergy and activation, and the
whole physiology has to respond.

Lisa Danylchuk (09:10):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (09:10):
And it when people experience that, the
physiology enters into sort oflike end stage survival
strategies, like the mostextreme survival strategies.
So subcategories of global highor the events that can put a
person in a global highpresentation are things like

(09:34):
extreme fetal distress, um,suffocation, drowning, uh, high,
high fevers that are dangerous,uh, electrocutions.
I mean, like really where thewhere the where the physiology
uh goes into a flood of responseuh and extreme survival

(09:55):
strategies.
And you know, we see this a lotin folks who've had those
experiences, but also folks whohave grown up in unsafe
conditions uh without safety,without attunement, where
caregivers were in the midst oftheir own survival strategies,
uh, survival responses.

(10:15):
And so the baseline for thistype of nervous system is that
of activation.
The sense of calm and rest isreally high, really difficult to
access, really hard to come by.

Lisa Danylchuk (10:32):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (10:32):
Yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (10:34):
So it's having a hard time settling down, um,
being in go mode, always doing,right?
Always busy, which again justfeels so I feel like American
culture is in that place, andprobably because of the way the
country was founded on genocide,right?
I feel like there's just thisglobal high pattern.

(10:54):
And it's easy if you're in thatplace in your nervous system,
especially maybe more so in someareas, big cities, to just
always be going, right?

Mahshid Hager (11:04):
Yeah, I mean, it becomes the norm.
It becomes uh not only thenorm, but people uh, you know,
people get rewarded for, youknow, capitalism really relies
on a bunch of us beingconstantly in global high
presentation in our nervoussystem because you can get a
raise and you can getpromotions, and your friends

(11:26):
think you're, you know,superwoman, and how does she do
it all?
There's a lot of kudos for thattype of go, go, go.
Um, and so people lose accessto that rhythmicity.
Like for me, a lot of somaticexperiencing is about how can I
create the conditions so thatthis nervous system in front of

(11:49):
me can experience therhythmicity it was born with,
the rhythmicity, that innaterhythm that's geared towards
coherence, greater health,greater presence.
How can we create theconditions so this person can
experience that rhythmicityagain?
Because, yeah, I can I can go,go, go, go, go and get rewards

(12:13):
and get you know promotions andraises.
And that kind of physiology wassupposed to be used on a
short-term basis, yeah, and thelong-term chronic use of it is a
lot of wear and tear on thephysiology.
And eventually some thingsbegin to demand attention, you

(12:36):
know.
Yeah, yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (12:38):
If we don't have rest or if we don't have
quality sleep, that will reallystart to impact someone
mentally, physically,emotionally level.
Yeah.
It makes me think about yeah,just the rewards we get from
culture in going and going andgoing, and also the
opportunities in technology tonever turn off, right?

(13:02):
Oh, yes.
Like you can be in bed withyour phone.
Oh, yes, chatting with someoneor or responding to a
distressing message, or youknow, I so I feel like
boundaries plays a role here interms of managing maybe that
global high.
But I'm curious from thesomatic experiencing standpoint,

(13:23):
or just from a nervous systemstandpoint, what are some
windows in?
Like if someone's listening,they're like, This is me, I'm on
global high.
I've got a lot of promotions atwork, but I'm not feeling great
in my body, or I know there'strauma there.
What are some windows into thatshift, that downshift that you
found really helpful?

Mahshid Hager (13:43):
Yeah.
So I I want to name that forfolks who are global high, the
slowing down will actuallysignal danger.
So it, you know, the thisthere's safety in that more
elevated uh mobilizationresponse.
It's what's it's what's worked,it's what's saved us, it's

(14:06):
what's uh, it's been a goodfriend, you know, for many.
And so that slowing down willactually feel very uncomfortable
in the physiology at first.
I remember in my in that veryfirst session with my SCP, uh,
you know, I kind of laid out mylife.
This, these are the things.
I'm in an internship, I'mfinishing grad school, the kids

(14:27):
are in school, I'm, you know,85% custody during the week,
they're with me.
I have to get home, I have todo all of the things, right?
And towards the end of thatsession, she said, okay, here's
what I need you to do forhomework.
You have to take a 10-minuterest between leaving work and
getting your kids.

(14:48):
And the car ride doesn't count.

Lisa Danylchuk (14:50):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (14:51):
So either when you leave work, go for a
10-minute walk before you get inthe car, or when you arrive at
the kids' after school care, sitin your car, listen to music,
go for a walk, do nothing,listen to birds, just sit for 10
minutes.
Yes.
And I thought she was out ofher mind.

(15:13):
Like, how?
Why?
And I was like, I don't have 10minutes.
I have to get home, they havehomework, I have to cook dinner.
Sometimes I even have to gogrocery shopping first.
I've got my own notes tofinish.
There is no time.
There is no time.
And she said, uh, I am tellingyou, if you don't do this,

(15:35):
you're gonna get sick.

Lisa Danylchuk (15:36):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (15:37):
And then you won't be present for your kids
at all.

Lisa Danylchuk (15:40):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (15:41):
And so then I argued with her.
I was like, I can see myselfdoing this for three minutes,
and she said, seven minutes.

Lisa Danylchuk (15:49):
I love the bargaining that happens in
therapy.
Six point five.

Mahshid Hager (15:55):
We agreed on five minutes.
Okay, and I remember those fiveminutes being so long.
Like, you know, just sitting inmy car waiting for the time to
pass, feeling so uncomfortablebecause your physiology is used
to the go, go, go.
That's almost easier, you know,than just the stillness.

(16:19):
Yes.
But then I notice thedifference right away, which is
you know, the gift onsomaticity.
Therapist is right.
Yes.
I would notice that I wouldpick up the kids with a
different capacity.

Lisa Danylchuk (16:34):
Yes.
Wow.

Mahshid Hager (16:36):
That I would come home and it wouldn't be rush,
rush, rush, rush, rush, thatthere would be, you know,
playfulness, that I would beable to be present with them,
that they responded to that withtheir own curiosity and their
playfulness, you know, so Ireally couldn't deny that it had
an impact, even thatfive-minute break.

(16:56):
And so my suggestion forsomeone who's uh listening to
this and recognizing themselvesis see if you can even a minute
and a half, even just a coupleof minutes, you know, between
work and lunch, maybe, or afterlunch, before you open up your
email again, can you just noticewhat your body does in

(17:20):
stillness?

Lisa Danylchuk (17:21):
Yes.

Mahshid Hager (17:22):
Can you just listen and see where is it
holding tension?
Where is that energy?
You know, I'm not I'm notexpecting a state of calm right
away.

Lisa Danylchuk (17:32):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (17:32):
But but curiosity in those moments of stillness
is going to have is going togive us a lot of information.

Lisa Danylchuk (17:42):
Yeah.
I love that you shared just thefeeling of not having time,
because that's actually one ofmy own like self-awareness cues
that I'm in hyperarousal.
Yeah.
When I'm like, I don't havetime, I don't have time.
Oh, I have so much to do and Idon't have time.
It's like, you know what?
You do have time.
You have time for the nextthing.

(18:02):
What's the next thing?
That's right.
You know, okay, that's right.
Now I have time for the nextthing.
And it turns out the sameamount of time can feel so
different depending on the stateof your nervous system.
Yeah.
Right.
And so for me, that thought, Idon't have time.
I mean, sometimes we are verypressed for time.
We're like, okay, it's a17-minute drive there, and it's

(18:24):
we have 15 minutes to get there.
And that can cause a sense ofactivation.
But if we notice, if we cannotice that activation, we can
work with our nervous system,like talk to it, coach it, give
it some movement or breath orwhatever it needs, and then
approach from a different state,the whole experience is

(18:44):
different, right?
Yeah, everything changes.
And I think there's people whowould argue you bend time and
you get there on time becauseyou're calm.
Like that's not my area ofexpertise.
I love it super into it.
But but there is somethingreally interesting about these
state shifts for us and how weexperience time, how we
experience our relationships.

(19:05):
And you just mentioned too,when you're able to go, okay,
I'll bargain with my therapist,but it'll be five minutes.
Notice this is changingsomething.
Oh, there's more room forconnection.
There's play.
Like this maps with everythingwe know about our nervous
system, right?
That's right.
In if we're in sympatheticdrive, some form of fight or

(19:26):
flight or hyper arousal oractivation, whatever words we
want to use, if we're there, wedon't feel a lot of access to
play.
There's stress, there's demand,there's tension, there's no
space.
I'm gonna tell you how space,and I'll spend five minutes
telling you there's no space.
That's right.
But I won't spend five minuteslooking at the clock, noticing

(19:49):
how slow the second hand isgoing to go, taking a really
long breath in and a really longbreath out because it feels
like a waste of time.
Yeah, it's the same amount oftime that you could have spent
arguing your position, right?
But you're absolutely yeah.
So, and I think there'ssomething about the collective
nervous system you're speakingto in your family as a single

(20:11):
parent, running the household,right?
And then seeing with fiveminutes, right?
The shift, yeah, incredible.
And yeah, it just happens, andyou just have to spend that
time, right?
So it's yeah, as well findintentional time to open the
door to rest, right?
To invite it in.

(20:32):
It might not show up anyway,but just that possibility, and
then noticing wow, this isreally changing my life and my
kids' life.
I mean, that's really powerful.
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (20:44):
And it's about coming back into that, like um,
you know, the the go, go, gomechanism of our of our
physiologies, all under thisbranch of the sympathetic
nervous system.
Yeah uh the mobilizationphysiology.
Uh, one of my teachers andmentors, Kathy Kane, says this

(21:05):
phrase that I really like, whichsays, uh, the sympathetic
nervous system is supposed topick you up and move you.
Yes.
Like that's its function.
That go, go, go, go, go is bydesign.

Lisa Danylchuk (21:19):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (21:20):
What happens then, though, if you're using
the gas all of the time, thenthe brakes don't ever get to
come on.
The parasympathetic rest anddigest system never gets to
engage.
And these two systems aresupposed to be in reciprocal
relationship to each other.
And now we're just using oneall of the time.

(21:40):
And that five-minute restactually allows for the shift to
happen.
And our physiology really likesthat, right?
That phase shift into restphysiology is essential for our
well-being, for our health andour growth.
Um, and that that mobilizationphysiology, the system that

(22:03):
picks you up and moves you, thebyproduct of that is less
connection, not just to lovedones, but less connection to
myself, less connection to thehere and now, less connection to
playfulness.
That's its function.

Lisa Danylchuk (22:18):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (22:19):
And so we we need to bring about opportunities,
as you said, for our nervoussystem to shift gears into
something else so that we canactually be present to our
lives.

Lisa Danylchuk (22:30):
Yeah.
And I love this concept of justthe smallest bite you can chew.
Like for you, it was threeminutes, your therapist
negotiated it to five.
Okay, we start there.
We start with the smallest biteto chew that feels possible.
That's like, well, okay, Iguess I could do that.
Yeah.
It makes me think of Carolai, ameditation teacher we had on

(22:51):
this season.
And she's done a year-longmeditation retreat.
Like she has meditated her faceoff in her right.
So much respect for people.
We can't do that.
Wow, right?
And it's so interesting becausethe learning of the year-long
retreat, you know, folks canlisten to the episode was like,
wow, maybe I don't need tomeditate this much.
And so many other lessons inthere, right?

(23:13):
About things that connect withthis, about connection, about,
you know, working with ourselvesrather than against ourselves.
But the point as thinking ofher, because she said that early
in her meditation, she had thisbig shift in her system and it
lasted a few days.
And it was this taste of like,whoa, I want more of that.
And at that time, she wassitting eight minutes a day.

(23:34):
Eight minutes a day.
And there's there have beentimes for me, you know, I have a
two-year-old where it's likeone minute a day, I'm gonna
commit to that because I know Ican do it.
That's great.
I could do it while I'mbreastfeeding.
I can I give myself parametersof like what's okay and what's
not.
Whatever works slippery.

(23:54):
So it's like breastfeedingcounts, car does not, right?
Walking doesn't in this case,like, but just sitting still in
some capacity, connecting withmy breath, noticing my thoughts.
And the the funny thing is, andthis is like again, I have a
pretty significant history withyoga and meditation.
I have a little timer on myphone I'll use.
I can forget that I'mmeditating within like 90

(24:17):
seconds.
Yeah, I can be like, oh, I wastotally just planning tomorrow.
Yeah.
And not noticing my breath.
I mean, that's part ofmeditation, to be fair, is like
going away and coming back.
But but picking that small bitethat you can chew.
Yeah.
And then, you know, oh, whenyou like it, when you notice the
benefits of it, allowing thatto expand a little more.

(24:40):
So, so it's doable.
I think it's easy for us tothink, yeah, oh, this is some
big lofty goal, or my nervoussystem doesn't feel like it can
go there.
So just finding that window tostart.

Mahshid Hager (24:52):
Yeah, I mean, I I love to start with things that
are easy.
Yeah.
The world is hard enough.
Yeah.
And even that one minutemeditation, even if you're
planning your next thing doing,if you can walk away from that
saying, I did it, I committed tothis thing and I did it, that's
gonna land in your nervoussystem as success, you know?

(25:12):
Yeah, yeah.
Even if the experience of itwasn't like, you know,
life-changing, life sublime, youknow.
But just knowing that I set agoal that I could accomplish and
I accomplished it, yeah, givesyour gives your nervous system
uh a sense of success, andthat's important.

(25:32):
Yeah.
In a world that's mostlyoverwhelming.

Lisa Danylchuk (25:37):
Mostly increasingly so, I might say.

Mahshid Hager (25:41):
Yes, absolutely.

Lisa Danylchuk (25:42):
So I'm curious about global high and how it's
different from hyper arousal,right?
We talk about hyper-arousal andpost-traumatic stress.
Do you see a differentiationthere that's important?

Mahshid Hager (25:57):
Um, that's a good question.
A hyper-arousal to me speaks ofsomething happened.
My physiology didn't get tocomplete.
It's a blueprint forself-protection.
We all have a blueprint forself-protection that has these

(26:20):
like very distinct phases.
I first orient towards thethreat, then I will use my, you
know, if I've had the goodfortune of growing up in safety
and attunement, I'll bandtogether with those around me to
figure out the solution.
If that doesn't work, I go intofight, flight, or freeze.
And then I'm I'm able tosurvive the thing, and then

(26:42):
completion happens, and I cancome back to uh to a state of
relaxed alertness.
If that blueprint getsinterrupted anywhere along its
response, which is so often truein today's world, then the body
really doesn't get the messagethat the threat is over.

Lisa Danylchuk (27:01):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (27:02):
And so it remains in this sort of continuous
threat response because itthinks the threat is around the
corner.
And I have now a bigger startleresponse, and now I'm less
oriented to the here and nowbecause my physiology is
preoccupied with uh with threatresponse.
Global high remains in placeeven you know, even in in the

(27:30):
aftermath of having responded toa threat.
It's just it's beenestablished, it's often
established when the physiologyhas to navigate between uh
competing impulses for survival.
Like do I act or do I freeze?
Do I scream or do I play dead?
Those kinds of um, you know,competing impulses can can cause

(27:56):
this sort of global response.
And then and then, you know,it's not about completion, but
about the navigation of what issafety, what is threat, what is
baseline, and it just shows updifferently.
Um, so it it's uh it's a littlebit nuanced, that's how I
understand it.

Lisa Danylchuk (28:16):
Um yeah.
A little bit of a differentflavor.
Yeah, yeah.
You're talking about the freezeresponse to and shutting down
or collapse, all these kind ofstages that we go through in
response to threat and trauma.
I'm wondering how dissociationfolds in.
Well, uh, actually, let merephrase that, because I think

(28:37):
we can talk about a lot ofthings when we talk about the
freeze response and dissociationis one of those.
But when um, to use theanalogy, we love to use you
know, the car analogy of the gasand the brake.
If if something happens that'straumatic and overwhelming, and
someone gets to that freezecollapse, and let's just say

(28:58):
like the brake is on, theparking brake is on, like their
system has been told to shutdown.
And that maybe there's somedissociation that's not
integrated, right?
That story, that experience wasso overwhelming.
It's sort of in its owncompartment in the brain or in
memory or in identity.
Like people don't really fullyremember or connect with what

(29:19):
happened.
I'm curious about therelationship between that and
global high.
Like people have to find a wayto function in the world.

Mahshid Hager (29:27):
Yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (29:28):
And so it's like the gas goes on full speed
ahead because it's like that'sthe only way to move with the
parking brake on.
And they might feel internallya lot of heaviness or depressive
symptoms, even though there'sthe sense of I can't rest, I'm
going all the time.
In yoga, we'd call it rajasicdepression.
It's like the energy, thisrajas, this heat, this movement

(29:51):
with the feeling of heaviness orwith the feeling of, oh, I
can't get myself off the couchat the same time, even though I
have to keep always doingthings.
Physically, I think it mightmanifest in different ways, but
I'm thinking about that internalexperience of go, go, go.
And if you see it alsoconnecting with that shutdown

(30:12):
response, absolutely.
Yeah.
And so when people start toaddress the go-go, what's there
can be really challenging too tostart to digest.
Yeah.
Physically.

Mahshid Hager (30:24):
I mean, one of the ways that uh a nervous
system, a physiology, or anorganism might learn to navigate
this constant go, go, go, gothing is by pushing a little bit
further.
Yeah.
Because then you reach a pointof no return where the

(30:46):
physiology takes over and thedorsal breaks come on and it's
energy conservation time, right?
So for folks who have had tonavigate global high physiology
for a long time, sometimes theonly way to find some rest to,
you know, uh to drop into theparasympathetic is through this

(31:08):
highway of freeze.
Yeah.
It's like I'm my system is hasbeen go, go, go, go, go for so
long, and I can't find a spacefor rest.
And so this motor is just gonnaspeed up, speed up, speed up,
speed up, and then theheartbreaks come on.
Yeah.
Right.
And when it gets to that pointwhen the only way to navigate uh

(31:36):
a balance between activationand rest becomes high activation
freeze, high activation freeze,that's really when we see the
functional organs begin to breakdown.

Lisa Danylchuk (31:48):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (31:48):
Because both of those systems, the high, high
mobilization system and thehard, hard break system, were
designed for extreme threat.

Lisa Danylchuk (31:58):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (31:58):
And they were meant to be short-lived.

Lisa Danylchuk (32:01):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (32:01):
And now we're using that system just to find
rhythmicity.

Lisa Danylchuk (32:06):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (32:06):
You know, and that can be that can cause a lot
of wear and tear on ourfunctional organs.
And that's when we begin to seethings like chronic digestive
issues, autoimmune issues,fibromyalgia, chronic pain
issues, and chronicinflammation.
Uh, that's when that begins toshow up.

Lisa Danylchuk (32:27):
Yes.
And I know we have so manydifferent models of the nervous
system that we can kind ofintegrate together in this work.
But what's coming to mind isjust from you know, 1999 at
UCLA, right before you and I hadour bad years.
Dan Siegel's window oftolerance, right?
And I just see the waves.
There's the window in themiddle, and then there's like

(32:47):
way up and way and then beingstuck up here and being stuck
down there.
Exactly.
Hyper and hypo, and the and thewindow being, oh, I'm just
gonna relax, have a cup of tea.
Yeah.
And that also makes me think ofbipolar diagnoses and
experiences that people have anddifferentiating that.
Is there anything that you'venoticed from that somatic

(33:11):
standpoint?
You know, I I've worked withpeople who've had bipolar
diagnoses and they have verydifferent flavors sometimes.
Sometimes I'm just like, thisjust feels like a trauma
response, right?
And other times I'm like, no,this feels different.
There's something else.
Yeah, there's a chemical thinggoing on.
There's something else going onhere.
It doesn't feel so much justlike normally if I'm working

(33:31):
with someone, they have a traumahistory, I know their history,
and there's a trigger.
They know the moment that theywent into hyper was because they
watched a movie that remindedthem of when they were in
school, or then they go intomore of a hypostate and they
were really exhausted and theywere drained and they were
parenting, and then somebodysaid something unkind, and you

(33:53):
know, whatever it is.
I'm sort of making up scenariosand putting them together, but
I think that can be a challengefor mental health providers to
discern.
So I'm wondering if you've comeacross conversations or tools
for mental health providerslistening to to help
differentiate that.
Is that something that's comeup?
Gosh, I I this is a toughquestion because you don't think

(34:17):
we have the answer.
I'm not thinking I'm wondering.

Mahshid Hager (34:20):
No, I'm just thinking about, you know, I'm
every now and then I getreminded of how much somatic
experiencing has changed the wayI view diagnosis of any kind,
you know?

Lisa Danylchuk (34:33):
Yeah, knowledge of trauma and all of a sudden.

Mahshid Hager (34:36):
Yeah, I feel like sometimes the diagnosis is
helpful in terms of like myclients really find a lot of
relief with knowing what it is.
It has a name, and here'shere's the you know, here's the
guidelines around it, here's thecriteria for it.
That that can feel like uh likesome relief for my clients.

(34:57):
But for me, it just it justmuddies the waters.

Lisa Danylchuk (35:02):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (35:03):
Uh my stance usually is like if if the
diagnosis is helpful to you,that's great.

Lisa Danylchuk (35:08):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (35:09):
My work doesn't change.
I am doing nervous systemregulation work.

Lisa Danylchuk (35:14):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (35:14):
My my aim is to give you some tools for explicit
self-regulation at first, sothat you can you can tap into
this rhythmicity a little bitmore.
You know, you can find thesetools that can help you shift
gears out of hypervigilance intosomething else or deep freeze
into some mobilization.

(35:34):
And then I, you know, I'm I'mlooking out for whether these
tools are going to help yourphysiology remember its
rhythmicity.

Lisa Danylchuk (35:47):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (35:49):
And I found that with nervous, you know, somatic
experiencing is not a cure allfor all for all illness and all
diagnoses.
Yeah.
But I feel like nervous systemregulation work doesn't hurt
anyone.
It can help, right?
No matter what your diagnosis,knowing more about your nervous

(36:10):
system response, knowing moreabout what happens in threat
response, knowing how yourtrauma history has impacted your
symptoms can be helpful.
Yeah.
And then, you know, in six toeight weeks, we're gonna look at
your diagnoses and the symptomsagain and see if they're still
there, if they're still asstrong.
And sometimes they are, andsometimes we need medication,

(36:31):
and sometimes it's a chemicalthing that has nothing to do
with your trauma history.
And other times you find a lotof relief just having learned
these tools and having tappedinto a different rhythm in your
nervous system.

Lisa Danylchuk (36:44):
Yeah.
What do you wish everyone knewabout their nervous system?
Oh gosh.

Mahshid Hager (36:53):
I think I would want everyone to know that the
answers are all right there.

Lisa Danylchuk (36:59):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (37:00):
Like it's not something that comes from the
outside.

Lisa Danylchuk (37:04):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (37:05):
Like that innate rhythm is our birthright, and
it's just waiting for us toconnect to it.
You know?
And the world will have youbelieve that your trauma
response, your trauma rhythm isyour innate rhythm.
Yes.
You know, the the world may maymake you feel like uh that's
how you were wired.

(37:26):
You were not, and there issomething else possible.

Lisa Danylchuk (37:31):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (37:33):
And I what one of the things I love about somatic
experiencing is that it's inits basis, it's an empowerment
approach.
I am, I often refer to myselfas someone with a flashlight.
We're just looking, we're justlooking for because something is
working, otherwise, youwouldn't be in my office.

(37:54):
You wouldn't be in myclassroom.
Something is working.
Yes.
And together we're gonna findout where things are actually
working, and that's where we'regonna pay attention, and that's
what we're gonna reinforce so wecan have more and more of that.

Lisa Danylchuk (38:08):
Yeah.
So I'm noticing we're talkingabout somatic experiencing, and
there might be folks listening.
I mean, some people are mentalhealth professionals, they're
familiar with it, but somepeople might be like, What is
that?
So, how do you explain somaticexperience to someone who's new
to it?

Mahshid Hager (38:23):
Okay, here's my like 30-second element.

Lisa Danylchuk (38:26):
Yes, go.

Mahshid Hager (38:29):
Somatic experiencing is a modality we
use to uh help folks who've hadpervasive stress in their lives
or trauma, where the nervoussystem holds some part of those
experiences.
Uh, it was developed by PeterLevine, Dr.

(38:50):
Peter Levine.
And it's, I mean, basicallywhat it means is that we're
including the body in theconversation.
We're including the nervoussystem in the conversation.
It's a bottom-up approachrather than a top-down approach.
Not that, you know, there's notalking in a somatic
experiencing session, not thatyour thoughts and meaning making

(39:13):
doesn't matter, but we're justmaking space for the body to
tell us the story of uh whateverit is that you're struggling
through, either presently or inthe past.

Lisa Danylchuk (39:23):
Yeah.
So rather than going from wordsand meaning making to somewhere
else or to the body, you'reletting the body sort of inform
the conversation if there's aconversation happening.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
You mentioned extreme stress ortrauma.
So I'm wondering if you feellike specifically global high,

(39:44):
does it does it feel like that'salways a trauma response?
Do you see it come from otherthings ever?

Mahshid Hager (39:52):
Uh I mean, trauma and pervasive stress, I'd say,
yeah.
You know, folks who grow up inin um in unsafe conditions and
chaotic conditions and violentconditions can have that too.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (40:07):
And have you noticed ever like certain people
or characteristics,predispositions for um for I
mean, we all have a nervoussystem, right?
But I'm wondering abouthormones, you know, obviously
cortisols involved here.
I wonder if there's anythingyou've seen of folks who are

(40:28):
more likely to get stuck inglobal high versus folks who
maybe aren't.

Mahshid Hager (40:35):
Um I'm probably not the first best person to
speak on uh hormones and all ofthat, but I know that there can
be generational impact.
There can be kind of historicalgenerational impact and trauma
in their history, in theirgenerational history.
Um, and so uh that thatdefinitely shows up.

(40:56):
Yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (40:57):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's an importantpiece, intergenerational trauma.
And I know there's you knowpeople doing great epigenetic
research on that.
And that's right.
Look to them to guide us.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You told a story.
I I heard you tell a storyabout your relationship to the
mountains, and I'm wondering ifyou wouldn't be sharing that

(41:20):
with us today.

Mahshid Hager (41:23):
Uh yeah, I uh I grew up uh in Tehran, Iran.
Uh I spent zero to ten there,and Tehran is surrounded by
mountains.
Uh, and so you know, we're in avalley, and everywhere you
look, especially to the north,you can see the mountains at all
times of the year.
So they've been part of thelandscape uh of my life growing

(41:47):
up.
And then my family uh left Iranthrough those mountains.
Yeah.
And uh that was obviously uh anordeal and uh a big scary event
uh in my family's history.
And then kind of subconsciouslyI'd avoided mountains.
I mean, that it wasn't an itwasn't an active, I'm not going

(42:12):
to, but you know, the area weended up in was pretty flat and
uh we weren't skiers or hikers,you know, at the time.
And then I come to San Diegoand I, you know, establish my
life here, and I get married andI have kids and I'm in school,
and I become a therapist.
And uh in an effort to takecare of my body more, I'm

(42:37):
exercising, I started walking,and um I uh, you know,
eventually it was like walkingis not enough, and I'm not a
runner, so I'm gonna starthiking, and I'm looking out
there because there's mountainsaround my house right now that I
can see from my window.
And I was like, I want to gofind hiking trails.
And I, you know, became an avidhiker.

(42:58):
And one day I came home from ahike and it had I'd gone out
before sunrise, and my husbandand my current husband uh was
sitting at the kitchen table uhdrinking coffee, and I burst
through the door and I was like,Oh my god, it was glorious out
there, like the sun came up, andI was above the clouds, and it

(43:18):
was all pinks and purples, and Ijust feel so energized.
I was just going off, and he'sjust like looking at me, and he
goes, Wow, you don't evenremember being afraid of
mountains, huh?
And I go, Oh, because him andI, one of our first trips we
took together was to MammothMountains for skiing.

Lisa Danylchuk (43:40):
Wow.

Mahshid Hager (43:41):
And I we hit those mountains.
It was my very first timeskiing, and the road up, I I
was, I was like, I'm I'llexplain this later.
I'm gonna close my eyes whilewe drive up because I was
feeling so much anxiety, so muchanxiousness, just and then you

(44:01):
know, bunny hills that weekend.
Like I just couldn't, you know.
And he was just like, wow, youdon't even you don't even
remember.
And it was really this kind oflike, oh right, that used to be
a thing.
And it was surprising becausemy fear of mountain had never

(44:22):
been something that I'dprocessed in all those years in
in somatic experiencing therapy,right?
But something about the overallactivation in my system had
reduced enough to uncouple thisbeautiful, you know, majestic
element from my trauma response.

(44:44):
And so the activation thatinformed that anxiety just
wasn't present anymore.
And I had, you know, going backto connection and curiosity, I
had that available.
I had the curiosity of what itwould be like to go hiking in
these mountains.
Yes, and and connecting to thejoy of that activity, you know,

(45:06):
that's not available when you'rein trauma response.

Lisa Danylchuk (45:09):
It's not, yeah.
If it is a global high, youjust go, go, go.
And if it is like a very realexperience of fear, or however
it's in there, if we're notaddressing it, the trigger is
gonna continue to bring up thatfeeling.
That's right.
There's so much richness inthat story.
I think of first of all, I justthink of one person's trigger

(45:31):
is another person's resource.
I love the mountains all thetime when people talk about
resourcing.
My examples are always natureand animals.
And I'm very aware because I'vehad clients that are triggered
by going out alone in nature,that are triggered, but they've
had unsafe experiences withanimals too.
So it's like there's never athing that is by definition a

(45:52):
resource or by definition atrigger.
Like we have to find there'skind of categories that feel
safer in general, totally, butthere's always exceptions,
right?
And so it's like it's it'sthere's there's no category that
we can place things in, andit's not about the trigger
itself.
Like the mountains were thething that you wanted to hide

(46:12):
from driving up to man.
And all the work that you didin your nervous system just
shifted that you didn't have tofocus on it.
Wasn't it was never themountains itself, it was the
right to them, it was thehistory with them, it was how
that was living alive in yourbody.
That's right, continuous waythat maybe you weren't conscious
of until you started going, oh,those five minutes in the car

(46:36):
really felt nice.
Like, what else?
Yes, what else pathway tobecome an S trainer?
That's right.
You just kept going, What?
How much better could this get?
Let me just happen in thisdirection.
Yeah.
And there's so muchpossibility, I think, in that
for folks listening or folksworking with trauma.
It's like, I think we can getmyopic sometimes with trauma,

(46:58):
like really focusing in on thethick or the dynamic.
And yeah, and I love body-basedwork because it's like, well,
what's happening right now whileyou're talking about that,
right?
Like what's happening in thismoment in response to that
association, that story, thatmemory.
That's right.
And sometimes what's happeningin our bodies is amazing, like

(47:20):
remembering that, oh, I was outin the morning in the moon and
this and the mountains.
Like we can resource throughthat for sure, but we can also
um give space to digest orprocess, and especially, you
know, with a caring other personto like let some of these high
stress or fear or traumaresponses have their moment,

(47:43):
have their moment of recognitionand process and move through
and not be this background,seemingly end-all-be-all truth
that we're living every day.

Mahshid Hager (47:53):
Yeah, yeah.
Just what else?
Just that question, you know,what else is there?
You know, I asked that so oftenin uh in session where folks
are really preoccupied by thesiren of the trauma.
It's like, oh, there's thismemory, or there's this person,
or there's this pain, or there'sthis contraction in my system.

(48:14):
And just saying, yes, there isthat, and what else is there?
Yeah, you know, it just allowsfor uh one of the people I uh
she used to be a student andthen became an assistant at one
of my trainings, said this thingthat I often think about and
use, which is curiosity is theantidote to trauma response.

(48:35):
Like as soon as you're able togo, yes, and what else?
You're shifting into somethingother than that threat response.
You know, curiosity is notavailable to us in the midst of
survival.
Yes.
Um, and and yeah, that's I feellike the gift of any body-based

(48:55):
approach is to like expand thatlens and go, yes, there is this
really upsetting thing.
And what else is there?
What other information does mybody have for me?

Lisa Danylchuk (49:05):
Yes, I'm thinking of a client who is very
activated and just saying,we're having very different
experiences right now, liketrying to leave room, or like
we're in the same room, youknow, same environment.
And what's happening in yournervous system is very different
from what's happening in mine,and we're making very different

(49:27):
meaning.
Yeah, right.
It's like a little bit of justopportunity for more than
perspective, maybe.
Yeah, that's hard.
When we're in a defenseresponse, there, there, those
defenses are there for a reason,right?

Mahshid Hager (49:41):
And they've been good friends, yes, save our
lives.

Lisa Danylchuk (49:45):
And so it's like I'm not gonna let that go
really just because you said youhave a different experience,
but that's right, but thatcuriosity as the shift, yeah,
yeah.
So I'm curious too, just aboutyour contrast between I know it
was zero to 10 that you're inIran, and it sounds like Germany
after that for a good chunk oftime, and then the year.

(50:07):
Yeah, so what strong contrastof culture in your nervous
system and in your lifeexperience?
I'm wondering if you can speakto particularly the relationship
to the body that you notice,like any cultural practices that
you see you were talking abouthow in Iran it it was

(50:28):
integrated.
It was like a re-knowing of,oh, this is my body.
Do you feel like that was moreum facilitated by culture?
Was that also?
I mean, obviously, in the storyyou're telling, the transition
through the mountains was a hugetraumatic experience for you
and your family.
And then there's after that.
So I don't, you know, none ofus is gonna give a completely

(50:49):
neutral read of any culture.
But what do you see in thesedifferent cultures that maybe
encourages global high?
You're talking about capitalismearlier, or encourages
connection to our our presentmoment embodied experience.

Mahshid Hager (51:05):
I mean, I remember uh in Iran out now, it
was also a very different time,early, uh early 70s, 1970s,
right?
Before the age of internet and24-hour television and all of
that.
But I my family, we lived in mygrandmother's house, my
grandparents' house, uh, fromzero to six.

(51:29):
And it was a multi-generationalhousehold with aunts and
grandparents, and my parents,and my great-grandmother, and
even the aunts and uncles whohad, you know, married and moved
on, their kids would, you know,my grandmother was like our
daycare every day.
The parents would go to workand the cousins would all get
together.
And my grandma cooked meals forthe whole family, for

(51:53):
everybody, right?
That was her task every morningis to get up, get us fed, start
cooking the meals, doing somecleaning.
And I just remember that thatwoman napped every day of like
the whole household had to godown at 1 p.m.
It's it's after lunch.

(52:14):
There is one hour rest.
Kids don't play, kids lay down.
You can lay down with a book,you can lay down with a coloring
page, but the house shuts downfor an hour.

Lisa Danylchuk (52:26):
Yeah, right.

Mahshid Hager (52:29):
That's rhythm.
That's rhythm.
She was a busy woman, she had abig household to run, right?
But that one hour nap was everyday, every single day, right?
And then in the afternoons whenthe family came home, you know,
it was like, it wasn't like wewere all sitting around the
television.
It was like, oh no, now it'safternoon tea time, and everyone

(52:52):
gets together in the backyardand we sit around the samovar
and we drink tea.
And my, you know, my grandpamight smoke a pipe or whatever.
You know, it's just like it'sdowntime, it's playtime, it's
connection time, right?
And so I go from that to uh mymy family moved out of that

(53:16):
house when my mom becamepregnant with my second sister
at the height of the revolution.
And so now we're on our own,and there's this big scary thing
happening out in the world,right?
And we're trying to navigatethat.
How does work and play looklike in a in a place that's

(53:36):
increasingly more violent anddangerous?
And so you become a little bittighter, and uh you become a
little bit more um, you know,your threat response kind of
doesn't get to let up.

Lisa Danylchuk (53:49):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (53:50):
And then, you know, my mom had a second baby,
then the war with Iraq started,and like it things got
increasingly to a place wherelife became not sustainable in
Iran for my family.
And so we made the pilgrimage,we made the escape through the
mountains into Turkey at first,and then with the help of family
members into Germany.

(54:10):
And Germany has a verydifferent character, yeah,
culture, work ethic.
You know, this post-World WarII Germany is very much focused
on doing when it's doing time.
So you go to school, you haveto excel at school as a refugee,
as an immigrant, even more so,right?

(54:33):
You have to prove yourself.
You can't be lazy, you can't,you can't fall behind.
You this just that's go, go,go, go, go.
And then uh the the work, youknow, for for uh for my parents,
the work was kind of a constantin that in that vein of not
falling behind, in that vein ofmaking it in this new place.

(54:55):
But as you said, even eventhere in Germany, Sundays,
everything shut down.
Yeah, you know, Sunday was restday, and uh, you know, the the
uh vacation times in in Europeare famous.
You know, if you have afull-time job, you get four
weeks of vacation.

(55:15):
That's just a given.
You know, people would takefour weeks at a time in the
summer and just go to the, youknow, go to Mediterranean, go to
Spain, go to Italy, go toGreece.
Um, and so that that's adifferent rhythm, but there's
still a rhythm.
Yes, you know, and then uh andthen I came here.
And Germany has changed sinceuh since I since the early 80s.

(55:39):
Like there's a lot of storesopen now on Sundays, you know,
restaurants are open, bakeriesare open, coffee shops are open.
It you really used to beeverything was shut down, you
know, even grocery stores openfor a few hours here and there.
And so their system haschanged.
And then I come here and it'syou know, college and language

(56:01):
classes, and you know, making itagain in a different way, and
capitalism, and you know, it'slike working, you know.
I I worked in sales while I wasin college.
There's no weekends in sales,there's long hours until 10 p.m.
You're at work at the mall, youknow.
So it was just like a differentlevel of go, go, go, go, go,

(56:22):
which you know, my system wasreally accustomed to.

Lisa Danylchuk (56:25):
Yeah, you know, it works well for me.
Yeah, yeah.

Mahshid Hager (56:29):
Let's keep going.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I can I can I can work afull-time job and I can go to
school and oh yeah, I can getmarried and have a couple of
kids and be in grad school, noproblem.

Lisa Danylchuk (56:40):
Like you said, it's rewarded in this culture.
Why superwoman?
How do you do it?
You're amazing.
Look at how much you canaccomplish, right?
I remember seeing an ad for agym on a billboard on the way to
teach yoga, and the ad for thegym just said, do more, rolled
up to the yoga studio.
Like that is not our agenda fortoday, everyone.

(57:01):
Just so you know.

Mahshid Hager (57:03):
Yeah, do more.
That's that's so funny.
That's so we're gonna do lesstoday.

Lisa Danylchuk (57:10):
Yeah, we are doing that, but we're gonna rest
a lot.

Mahshid Hager (57:14):
Yeah.
And I, you know, I oftenreflect back and think, thank
God there was no social mediawhen I was a new mom.
Like, thank God there was nosocial media when my kids were
little, little, you know, yeah,because now the world of social
media has have has you believingthat everyone is doing that

(57:35):
much and their house isperfectly clean and their
vacations are immaculate andtheir children are always well
behaved and cute, you know?
And it's like it's just thelevel of intensity is just
increasing and not decreasing.
And then there comes so muchguilt and shame with stepping

(57:56):
off of that hamster wheel, youknow, whatever the hamster wheel
may be, whether it's, you know,training after training after
training after training, whetherit's new degrees, whether it's
um, you know, new work projects,whether it's you know, hobbies,
even hobbies have becomeintense, you know?

(58:16):
Right.
Whether it's activism, it'slike do, do, do, do, do more, do
more, do more.
Yeah.
And when you step off of it, itfeels backwards.
Yeah.
It feels like I'm doingsomething wrong.
It feels like I'm uh I'm gonnaget left behind, or I'm leaving

(58:37):
behind something or some causeor some community, you know.
I'm having that conversation alot these days with folks where
it's like, yeah, your nervoussystem really was designed
designed for a village whereeveryone knew your name, yes,
where people were ready to help,where you knew if something bad

(58:58):
happened to a village memberand you had the capacity to
respond.
It wasn't it wasn't meant tohave the world's news at your
fingertips in your pocket at alltimes.

Lisa Danylchuk (59:12):
Yeah.
Yeah, if there was an event, itwas someone you knew or someone
who you knew someone who knewthem, and would activate, you
would use the activationresponse to probably go and help
or help the people who arehelping until the crisis is
hopefully resolved.
Right.
And then you would go back todaily rhythm and life.

(59:33):
Exactly.
Yeah, and we can't do that ifwe look pick up our phone or
open a browser with news.
It's like we're getting all theinformation as if, oh, this
happened to your neighbor, thishappened to your neighboring
country, this happened on theother side of the world, but
we're getting all the details ofit without the physical access

(59:55):
to walk over there and go, Hey,are you okay?
What can I do?
Right.
I think it's a very huge.
Response.
Hey, are you doing all right?
Like if something happens onour block, people come outside,
they look, they gather, they go,we need to help.
Do we need to call?
What do we need to do?
And I think that's like theclosest we can get to how we

(01:00:15):
evolved, right?
And but but now so much of whatwe're digesting is we're
digesting the nervous system ofthe world through technology.
And so much of that is curatedin different ways.
Whether it's, well, I want tomake sure you click this
headline, so I'm gonna make itreally sensational, or it's oh,
I really want to look good inthis picture, so I'm gonna put
an extra filter, or I'm gonnaput an AI background with a

(01:00:38):
clean house or whatever.
And with AI, that adds so muchmore because it's not even just
a policy picture.
Sometimes we don't even know ifit's real and we don't even
know if it's that person inhonest truth.
So there's so many layers totechnology.
So get why you're saying, I'mglad that wasn't an element back
then.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
And one of the things I findworking with people is that

(01:01:00):
boundary with technology can bean important part of regulating
your nervous system, right?
Because it does, even thoughit's this tiny little box and
screen that you touch within afew inches, it can still, you
can open a social media app ornews or or even just see a
notification and have a fullnervous system response based on
what that means.

(01:01:20):
You can see a text.
I mean, I do a modality calleddeep brain reorienting, and
we're always looking for thatfirst moment of shock and the
amount of times it's someone'sname on a phone.
Oh, yeah.
Showing up and this full bodyshock response comes up.
And I imagine most people canrelate to that.
It's an everyday thing thesedays, but it's so different than

(01:01:43):
what our bodies have inhistory.

Mahshid Hager (01:01:47):
Yeah, sometimes I'm in um like I'm I'm teaching
all over the place, but youknow, uh, as you said, shocking
things are have become part ofour everyday life.
And sometimes I'll go like,we'll go on a break and I come
back and I go, what happened?
Yeah, you know, yeah, becausepeople saw some news headline on

(01:02:07):
their phone and it's palpablein the room because even though
I cannot walk over to help, yournervous system is still gonna
feel like it wants to or it hasto.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:02:20):
Yeah, oh, I gotta do something.
There's this a war on the otherside of the world, right?
Right that would take 12 hoursto fly to.
Like if we're feeling it.
It feels like it's imminent andit's here, and I have to
respond.
And we don't have that physicalaspect to do it.
I mean, we can find pathwaysmaybe through technology or

(01:02:40):
other things, right?
Then we're still just havingall of this input on such a
large scale.

Mahshid Hager (01:02:46):
Yeah, that's a lot to digest, it's a lot to try
and then I I connect that tothat level of threat response.
The hallmark of it isdisconnection.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:03:01):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (01:03:02):
The hallmark of it is that now you're less
present to your life.
Now you're less present toyourself, now you're less
present to your family, nowyou're less present to your
work.
Right.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:03:12):
And so yeah, that's yeah, there's so much
power in.
I find myself, you know, in inso much of what we're talking
about, I've I find myself reallyhaving to anchor into like
what's actually happening for meright now.
Right.
So even you were talking aboutwe were talking about different

(01:03:34):
cultures.
I remember when I started beingself-employed and having a
private practice, I felt like Ihad to work nine to five.
Like if I was, I couldn't likeI felt like I couldn't rest
between those hours because thenI was, you know, some
conditioned, like, well, you'renot working.
But if I don't have a clientfor an hour, I can lie down.
That's fine.
Like it took me time for mynervous system to be like, yeah,

(01:03:56):
you can even if there's emailor other stuff you could be
doing, if you're tired, if likeyou can find a rhythm that's
different, you can slow down.
And in what you're talkingabout right now, of like how we
can mentally, I think of it asthis like dive into technology,
our brain just like wires tothis whole network of other
things that are not happeningfor us right now, right?

(01:04:19):
Right.
And are very interestinglycurated in terms of what you see
when you log in.
So it's like the amount oftimes that I just find myself
like, oh, actually, everything'sreally nice right now.
Like, yeah, right here, rightnow.
And I think that skill, likethat awareness in that skill is

(01:04:41):
not something we're taught.
It's something that'sincreasingly important, right?
Because of the way the worldhas shifted.
But unless we're in somaticexperiencing or maybe tai chi or
meditation or yoga worlds wherethere's this really present
moment focused practice, weprobably won't even notice if

(01:05:01):
we're in global high and we'rejust going all the time.
Oh, I had no idea.
Right?
You're like, this is great.
I'm getting work done.
Yeah, I had no idea somethingelse was possible.
Yeah, we have a differentexperience in our body.
We don't have an appreciationfor that.
So what's the word that yourassistant used?

Mahshid Hager (01:05:20):
The curiosity question is the antidote to
trauma response.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:05:25):
Yeah.
Curiosity is the antidote.
And so what else could be trueright now?
What else could be true rightnow?
Or you also said, well, whatdoes play look like?
What is what does that feellike?
I feel like this curiosityabout how our nervous systems
could experience rest and playand joy and any of it is a

(01:05:47):
really important ongoingconversation.
And I get a lot of questionsfrom people about just
collective trauma and the traumaof the news and how do we
manage that?
And like we really takeownership of our own nervous
system because this stuff canhijack it.
So I'm wondering if you haveany other thoughts or little
threads people can follow justto connect with their own

(01:06:08):
nervous system in the moment.

Mahshid Hager (01:06:11):
I just want to make sure that I'm not being
misunderstood.
I'm not saying that we ignoreall of that for the sake of our
nervous system, right?
For me, it's so much aboutbalance.
It's like if I just do thatdeep dive and continue doing
that at all hours of day andnight, yes, then I'm actually

(01:06:32):
not available to respond in theways that I want to to all of
these tragedies.
You know, I I took a uh hiatusfrom social media for a year, a
couple of years ago.
And it was remarkable becauseon the outside it might look
like, oh, Mashida'sdisconnecting.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:06:51):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (01:06:52):
Right?
She's taking herself out of theequation, she's disconnecting.
I actually found that I wasmore connected in that time.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:07:01):
Yeah.

Mahshid Hager (01:07:02):
And not less.
I would check the news in themorning while having breakfast.
I would respond in the waysthat I wanted to respond, maybe
donate some money here, maybeshare an article with, you know,
with my family members on thefamily thread.
And then I would go about myday and actually be present to
my clients doing healing workthat I'm passionate about, you

(01:07:25):
know?
And I would go to classroomsand I would have the reach of to
50, 60 people in the room thatI could teach these skills to
and know that they're gonna goout into their communities and
that's gonna have a rippleeffect.
And then maybe at lunchtime Iwould get on the phone and check
with my family, like, how arethe kids doing?
How's my husband doing?
You know, how's how's the worlddoing?

(01:07:47):
And that would be it, you know.
And then I would come home andmake a meal and we would have
family dinner together.
And there wasn't this constant,oh, how did my post do?
Oh, how did did this resp thisperson respond to my message?
That that element just wasn'tthere.
And I found that I actuallyhelped me be the kind of
activist I wanted to be.

(01:08:09):
Yes, present, focused, yes, um,small community, you know, like
what what are the causes thatactually matter to me, you know,
that I actually feel like I canspeak to, you know, without
getting an additional degree,which is some of these causes
need an additional degree, youknow.

(01:08:29):
This is true.
This is true.
Yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:08:32):
There's so much wisdom in everything you're
sharing.
So I want to thank you forsharing that with us today and
your personal experiences too.
I know there's so much depth toany, I mean, any of our
histories, but the stories thatyou're telling.
There's so much so much there.
So I want to thank you and justhonor that um that experience
that your family went through,which is is really significant.

(01:08:54):
Have you been back to Iran?
Is that I have not.
Wow.
Yeah, yeah.

Mahshid Hager (01:09:00):
Yeah, that's a that's a deep, uh, deep wound
still.
Uh yeah, yeah.
And it's, you know, I'm notsure that the conditions will be
such that I will be able to goback in my lifetime, you know.
That's that's one of the thingsthat uh is getting stirred up
these days a lot, which is likeyou know, structural change like

(01:09:25):
that in in a country, once ittakes hold, it's not easily
reversed.
Yeah.
You know, my country has beenunder occupation really for 46
years now.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:09:39):
Wow.

Mahshid Hager (01:09:40):
So um, yeah, that's that's a that's a that's
a whole other podcast.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:09:45):
Next time, next time.
But I do want to just honor thetruth and the impact of that
for you and for other peoplewho've experienced, you know, a
very similar journey or adifferent thing.

Mahshid Hager (01:09:56):
Millions of people, yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:09:57):
Millions of people, yeah, who can't be in
their home for politicalreasons.
And so just honoring that um aswe wrap up today, because it
feels really important.
You know, we can tell stories,and and I do think your
relationship to the mountains isa beautiful story, but I just I
know there's so much, so muchdepth to that.
So for for you and for anyonelistening who's been through

(01:10:19):
something that pivotal andimpactful in their lives, I just
want to honor that.
I appreciate that, Lisa.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, so I'm sure folkslistening um are gonna be
interested in your work andwhere to find you.
Uh, where can people get intouch with you?

Mahshid Hager (01:10:35):
Um, I think the easiest thing to do is
mashidhager.com.
That's my website.
You can contact me throughthat.
I have a calendar of myupcoming trainings in there as
well, consultations that Ioffer.
Um, so that's probably theeasiest thing to do.
And then if anyone isinterested in somatic
experiencing, their website istraumahealing.org.

(01:10:59):
Uh, and you can searchtrainings by your location.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:11:02):
Yeah, by your region.
Yeah.
Anything specific coming up foryou you want to share other
than the trainings on yourwebsite?

Mahshid Hager (01:11:12):
No, just gearing up for the holidays.
There's uh, yeah, there's uh,you know, it's my my schedule is
is rhythmic as well.
There's a busy season, and I'mlooking forward to the end of
that coming up here in November.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:11:24):
So yeah, looking forward to settling down in the
winter.
Yeah.
Celebrating that rest anddowntime.
Yes, for all of us in thewinter.
Awesome.
Yeah, thank you.
All right, thank you so muchfor coming on the show Mahshid.

Mahshid Hager (01:11:37):
Yeah, thank you, Lisa.
Thanks for having me.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:11:44):
Thank you so much for listening.
Now, I'd really love to hearfrom you.
What resonated with you in thisepisode and what's on your mind
and in your heart as we bringthis conversation to a close?
Email me at info at how we canheal.com or share your answers
and what's been healing for youin the comments on Instagram

(01:12:04):
where you'll find me at How WeCan Heal.
Don't forget to go tohowwecanheal.com to sign up for
email updates as well.
You'll also find additionaltrainings, tons of free
resources, and the fulltranscript of each and every
show.
If you love the show, pleaseleave us a review on Apple,
Spotify, Audible, or whereveryou're listening to this podcast

(01:12:27):
right now.
If you're watching on YouTube,be sure to like and subscribe
and keep sharing the shows youlove the most with all your
friends.
Visit how we can heal.comforward slash podcast to share
your thoughts and ideas for theshow.
I always, always love hearingfrom you.
Before we wrap up for today, Iwant to be super clear that this

(01:12:49):
podcast isn't offeringprescriptions.
It's not advice, nor is it anykind of mental health treatment
or diagnosis.
Your decisions are in yourhands, and I encourage you to
consult with any healthcareprofessionals you may need to
support you through your uniquepath of healing.
In addition, everyone's opinionhere is their own, and opinions

(01:13:10):
can change.
Guests share their thoughts,not that of the host or
sponsors.
I'd like to thank our gueststoday and everyone who helped
support this podcast directlyand indirectly.
Alex, thanks for taking care ofthe babe and taking the prayer
babies out while I record.
Last and never least, I'd liketo give a special shout out to

(01:13:31):
my big brother Matt, who passedaway in 2002.
He wrote this music and itmakes my heart so very happy to
share it with you here.