March 4, 2025 • 51 mins
This is a part two episode with Nervous System Regulation Coach, Sofia Ejaz. This time, we get more specific on what you're actually doing within nervous system regulation work, why it's important, and what's possible when you lean into it.
We discuss how understanding and regulating one's nervous system can help break free from survival patterns, leading to healthier relationships and a deeper sense of self-acceptance. The conversation emphasizes the importance of feeling safe within oneself and how this foundational safety can enhance self-love and personal growth. Sofia shares practical tools and insights on how to navigate emotional triggers and cultivate a more regulated nervous system, ultimately fostering a healthier relationship with oneself and others.
---
About Sofia:
Sofia is passionate about helping individuals break free from cycles of being stuck in their head, stress, self-doubt, and overwhelm by guiding them to regulate their nervous system and silence their inner critic.
Through a blend of life coaching and Neuro-Somatic Intelligence (NSI) techniques, Sofia empowers her clients to cultivate self-compassion, build resilience, and experience true emotional freedom.
---
Link to the part one episode-
(Spotify): https://open.spotify.com/episode/36fKsXshH5Pq1gS9cWxiXJ?si=010bb922b59d4630
(YouTube): https://youtu.be/jrLXjZZyPCY
---
Join Sofia's free Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/469520312829743 Connect with Sofia here: https://www.sofiaejaz.com/ and here https://www.facebook.com/sofia.ejaz.9/ Free-session
---
Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/DcZtDK5z1LI
Keywords
nervous system regulation, self-love, emotional safety, trauma healing, mindfulness, relationships, personal growth, self-acceptance, cognitive overload, survival patterns
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, welcome or welcome back to Openly Spoken.
(00:02):
This is a part two episode with Sofia Ejaz,
who is a certified nervous system regulation
and life coach.
The part one episode came out on January 28th, 2025.
So if you have not listened to that or watched that yet,
go ahead and search back for that.
I'll also link it in the caption or in the show notes below.
(00:25):
And in this episode, we went a little bit more deeper
about why nervous system regulation is important,
what's possible when you lean
into nervous system regulation, what it even means,
like what are you physically actually doing?
And it's a very informative episode.
I think that nervous system regulation also really points
(00:45):
to why some of the things that I talk about
on this podcast is like secret sexuality
and bringing mindfulness to sexuality.
If you've listened to those episodes before
and then you listen to how the nervous system regulation
is all about these like inputs of sensation
and slowing down with the sensations
(01:06):
and that that input helps your nervous system relax.
I think that really illustrates why bringing mindfulness
to sexuality and to your self-love is really beneficial
because your nervous system is untangling
from this fight or flight response.
So I thought that was very interesting.
We don't talk about sexuality in this episode at all,
(01:29):
but listening back to it,
I thought that was a very interesting correlation.
And yeah, in case you have not listened to part one before,
I am going to reintroduce Sofia Ejaz to you right now.
Sofia is a certified nervous system regulation coach
and a life coach.
She is passionate about helping individuals break free
(01:51):
from cycles of being stuck in their head,
cycles of stress, self-doubt, and overwhelmed
by guiding them to regulate their nervous system
and silence their inner critic.
Through a blend of life coaching
and neurosomatic intelligence techniques,
which is NSI for short,
Sofia empowers her clients to cultivate self-compassion,
(02:13):
build resilience, and experience true emotional freedom.
Sofia is on a mission to help others reconnect
with their bodies, expand their nervous system capacity,
and step into confident self-expression.
Enjoy the episode.
["Sofia Ejazz's Bio/Intro"]
(02:39):
Welcome to Openly Spoken,
the podcast to help you show up, speak out,
and be seen in healthy relationships.
On this show, we talk about self-love, sexuality,
relationship tips, including recovering from toxic relationships,
and we also talk about learning to heal and thrive
after a breakup.
I'm your host, Cilia Antoniou,
(03:01):
a certified sex love and relationship coach
who supports ambitious women
with a history of toxic relationships
to feel deeply connected in love.
Thank you so much for being here,
and I hope that you find this show very valuable,
and I would very much appreciate it
if you would leave a rating and a review for this show
(03:21):
on Apple, on Spotify,
or wherever it is that you might be listening.
[Sofia Ejaz's intro]
Okay, so maybe you should repeat what you said.
So yeah, I had this coach come up to me,
(03:42):
and she went through my whole list of,
I gave her a document of what I do,
and what she picked out was like,
I use nervous system regulation
to help people regulate emotions.
I was like, oh, I did not even realize I was doing that,
you know?
Yeah.
So I just looked at it like rewiring survival patterns.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was interesting.
(04:03):
Yeah, to me, it makes sense,
because I feel like when you're regulated,
you're more grounded,
and then you're able to notice what emotions come up,
and do what you need for them,
rather than being in this state of,
like you said, survival mode,
is kind of like an emotion comes up,
and you just react,
and you don't really know what's happening.
Yeah.
(04:23):
And you get that altitude, I feel,
from like, this is my emotion,
this is something messy that's happening,
I'm reacting, I'm human,
but this is me, we're not the same,
and I can have distance between what's happening,
and I don't need to respond reactively to it,
if that makes sense.
It gives you that one second gap,
if you wanna call it,
very close relationship between those two things.
(04:44):
And not, because when I was triggered,
I always used to be like,
this is me again,
this is my angry self again,
this is my reactive self again,
and I don't have any control over it,
I used to feel like that.
But now that I regulate,
and I feel like there's this distance
between my triggered self,
it still comes on at times,
and me, if you wanna say.
(05:05):
And that helps me, I think,
respond much better to situations now.
Yeah, I love that,
creating that distance between your triggered self,
and your true self.
Yeah, it's very interesting.
It's, yeah, what do you wanna call it?
True self, regulated self?
What is that self, you know?
I don't know, higher self,
(05:28):
authentic self.
Yeah. Authentic self.
Yeah, that's a good one.
That's a good one.
That's a good one.
Like that us, authentic in that moment.
I think that self changes too over time, right?
As we keep growing and we keep getting wiser,
it's like our authenticity,
we could become more and more authentic, I feel,
(05:48):
to ourselves and what we wanted to.
Yeah.
I agree. Yeah.
It's a nice place. That explains why,
I don't know if you ever had this experience,
but do you ever go on Facebook,
and a very old Facebook status from like,
20 years ago?
Yeah, 20 years ago?
No, Facebook didn't exist yet, 20 years ago.
(06:10):
15 years ago.
You'll see a status from 15 years ago,
and you're like, oh, why did I write that?
And I'm just like, oh, delete.
That's been happening to me too recently.
Yeah.
What comes up for me is like, old, sad lyrics.
Apparently I was born to-
Oh my gosh, yes.
Or any lyrics in general, and when I see that,
(06:31):
I'm like, nobody cares about these lyrics.
Nobody knows where I'm putting that out from, you know?
Like, I'm just, you know, very wise-line.
And then dot, dot, dot, dot.
Yes, that makes me so-
That makes me so grateful that TikTok wasn't around
when we were teenagers, because the younger generation,
(06:54):
they get to see full-on videos that they put up
of themselves when they were teenagers,
when they are in their 30s, they're gonna look and be like,
what was I doing?
And I think that's worse than just words that you typed.
Yep, they're only visible to me, you know?
Like, they just come up for me.
Nobody's gonna go into my timeline and dig out those things.
(07:16):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Oh my gosh, that is so funny.
Yeah, but that was a phase.
That was, I felt personally, you know, those lyrics and all.
Yes.
They were important.
They were important.
Or sometimes for me, it would be like,
wow, this one lyric is just so good.
Let me post it.
(07:37):
And you know, to be honest, on my personal Instagram,
I still have a lyric in there,
because it's my favorite lyric.
And it's very related to the nervous system, actually.
It's to obtain a bird's eye is to turn a blizzard to a breeze.
A blizzard to a breeze.
Oh, to obtain a bird's eye.
What is a bird's eye?
(07:57):
A bird's eye, like a bird's eye view.
Bird's eye view?
To see everything.
Ah, got it.
Wow.
Yeah, and that's like my all time favorite lyric.
And that's like, that relates so well to the distance
that we're talking about, right?
It does.
Interesting, right?
I love that.
To turn a blizzard into a breeze.
It does look like that.
When you're in it, it does look like a blizzard.
(08:19):
It's a storm.
And you're like, ah, I'm in the middle of it.
I don't know what's happening.
I cannot, you're not control.
You cannot do anything.
But if you're outside of that, it's just passing by.
It's just a breeze.
Yeah, it's just a breeze.
It's not that big of a deal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love that.
I need to get that song too.
Oh, no.
(08:39):
It's by Incubus.
And I have to go through the lyrics
to figure out what song it is.
I think it's, I wish you were here.
I'm going to search it too.
Nice to know you.
Nice to know you.
I got it.
I was like, it says nice to know you in the lyrics.
And I was like, OK, what lyrics come after 212?
(09:00):
Yeah, it's nice to know you.
And it's by Incubus.
And it's on an album called Morning View.
And honestly, that entire album is so good.
They're currently touring right now,
doing a whole performance of the entire album
because it turned 20 during the pandemic.
Wow.
And they put that on hold.
(09:21):
Yeah, the album was old.
I think it came out in.
I like it.
Yeah.
Did it turn 20 on the pandemic?
I think it came out in 2004.
But my husband and I went to one of the concerts here.
And I hope that concert venue still exists because Los
Angeles is currently on fire.
I don't know if you've seen the news.
(09:42):
Oh my god, yeah, it's been horrible.
Yeah, luckily, we are in a pocket of LA that is fine.
I got myself ready to evacuate all the supplies and stuff
and the evacuation orders on earlier in the week,
last week, because now it's Monday again.
I don't know how that happened.
The evacuation orders ended five miles from our neighborhood.
(10:06):
Wow.
So we're like, me and my neighbors
are texting each other, making a plan of where we're going to go.
But to be honest, I don't know if it's
the nervous system, regulation work it probably is.
I never really went into that survival mode.
It's just kind of this weird feeling of I'll be OK.
Yeah.
And there's something about when you have to take the time
(10:26):
to pack your belongings in case you need to leave on a moment's
notice and you realize how little you actually need.
You're like, oh, I need just a couple of clothes
so I have something to wear.
Yeah.
Some food, some cat food for the cats, lots of water.
And that's about it.
Like, there's not much.
You're important documents, obviously.
But it's very humbling to realize you don't need all this stuff.
(10:50):
Even photographs, all the photographs
are backed up on a hard drive, digital somewhere.
And I packed the hard drive.
That's all your life.
It can fit in a suitcase.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I've been thinking about those things too,
but I will tell you those things later.
Yeah, so with this piece of how we just
(11:11):
talked about creating distance, I
think that speaks really well into why nervous system
regulation is important.
And I would love for you to speak more on that
because you mentioned that was something
you wanted to talk about today.
Yeah.
So nervous system work is something
that really, really helped me first get aware
that I'm in survival loops.
(11:31):
And that then gave me some control,
if you want to say, over my triggers.
And then how can I actually distance myself
from my triggers.
And like, even if I'm in a triggered state, OK, yeah,
it's happening, but I'm not in it.
I'm outside of it.
And I know I'm going to be fine.
So for me, I'm somebody who grew up
in a lot of dysfunction and chaos.
(11:53):
So being stressed out was the normal.
Always problem solving has been my normal.
Like, if there's nothing to solve,
I'm like, what the F is wrong?
I need something.
Give me something.
Give me some support.
I'm bored.
If there's no problem, I will create a problem
and I will do that.
That's a very survival pattern, right?
That was my way of just making myself useful
as I was growing up and feel safe.
(12:14):
But growing up, this survival pattern
and other survival patterns that I was in
were actually not useful for me.
And they were causing me harm.
And they were very much keeping me stuck in my head
and keeping me in constant fight or flight.
Like, I would be exhausted and sleep for like nine hours.
I would get up and my mind would be turned on.
(12:35):
And I would literally be solving stuff that was non-existing.
There was no problem.
But I would create a scenario.
What would happen if this blah, blah, blah?
What the F am I doing?
And I couldn't like, yeah, I was just stuck in that.
I was just always, always, always in my mind.
And I tried a lot of, I think I mentioned therapy.
I was trying self-help books.
I was trying affirmations.
(12:56):
I was trying whatever I could to like,
help me take myself off of this edge
because I knew there was something wrong.
I was really reactive too at that point.
Like I didn't know how to control my emotions.
I would go angry, you know, in a heartbeat.
I was just very much in survival mode all the time.
And so if you are stuck in your survival pattern,
(13:17):
especially to the point like they become your identity
and you feel like I am just an angry person,
I am just an anxious person,
I just get stressed out easily.
Like those patterns have kind of become your identity
and you're just very much caught up in your head.
So if you're at that point, unfortunately,
if you are already caught up in your head
and you're not able to like calm down, rest and relax,
(13:37):
as human beings, we need a healthy combination
of just getting activated using our mind,
but then being able to relax and calm down
and process the stress that came from that activation.
And then when needed to be activated again,
going back into activation, but then relaxing back again.
But if you do not do that,
if you're caught up in either of the two,
let's say if you're caught up in that stress cycle,
(13:59):
it turns into chronic stress
and you are cognitively overloaded already
because you're up in your head all the time.
And if that's when you're trying to move yourself
to break this pattern through more cognitive overload,
let's say affirmations,
or for me it was like talk therapy or CBD,
it doesn't really help.
(14:20):
Like it can, for me it felt like a bandaid,
but it was not really resolving my issues
because my issues were deep inside my body
and my nervous system I wanna say.
And cognitive work unfortunately does not resolve that.
So for me, nervous system work is so important
to break these hard-fired survival patterns
(14:41):
because unfortunately the modalities that we have available,
not all of them, but the go-tos that people usually go to
the first time or the first few times that we try
are very cognitive based
and they don't address the body and the nervous system.
But nervous system work is actually
how can we calm down the mind
without using any cognitive words or cognitive input?
(15:05):
How can we use the body and the nervous system
to calm down the brain?
So when it comes to nervous system,
the language of the nervous system is not any language.
It's not English language, it's not Spanish,
it's not any of the languages.
It's literally the inputs that are going
into the nervous system.
Like that is how it's getting all the data
(15:27):
through the inputs and those inputs are our vision,
our balance, our internal sensations,
our sense of smell, our body map in the space.
All of these are inputs that are going
into the nervous system.
But if we are very much caught up in our head,
very caught up in survival patterns and fight or flight,
(15:48):
what happens is we lose touch with the body.
We lose touch with these inputs.
So the inputs that are coming in are not clear.
If the inputs coming in are not clear,
the brain does not have eyes, of course.
It cannot see that what's right in front of us.
It's through these inputs that it's trying
to assert what's in front of us, if you're safe or not.
(16:09):
If the input coming in are not safe,
let's say the internal sensations coming in,
we are stressed out.
But what happens if you're stressed out?
Your breathing gets shallow and you are very much up here.
You don't know, you lose, you start, you're breathing shallow.
You lose sometimes even that sense of,
am I hungry?
Do I need the washroom?
Because we're just too much here.
So if that's happening, the brain does not really know
(16:33):
is the breathing shallow because somebody's sitting
on our chest or we're just stressed out.
If you're up here, we don't have the map of our foot clear.
The brain does not know if our foot is
in the mouth of a lion.
You know?
Oh my gosh.
It doesn't know.
Is that a threat or no?
It doesn't know.
But if it's not getting the input,
it's going to say, oh, the input is not clear.
(16:55):
Something is wrong, a threat response.
And that could be stress, anxiety, lack of sleep,
lack of focus, so on and so forth.
And that all is happening
because we're not getting clear inputs.
So if we can, instead of like, let's say the, you know,
we are very much caught up in the head
and we are stressed out and we are like,
(17:15):
then trying to say, hey, calm down.
You see everything is okay.
Just calm down and everything will be okay.
It doesn't really work because cognitive input
is not working at the time.
You are too stressed out already.
You'd really need to like go at the level of the body
and give input to the nervous system
so the brain can automatically go,
(17:36):
I see the foot clearly if you're safe.
Our breathing is better if you're safe.
Oh, we can feel the diaphragm if you're safe.
So you don't have to go and say, hey, if you're safe
and try to convince and go in that tug of war,
or like, you know, see all the things around you.
Oh, you're safe.
I have done those exercises too, but they really, again,
they don't, this grass is service,
(17:56):
but they really don't go deep.
But if you can go at the level of the nervous system
and don't try to convince the brain that you're safe,
but show like hard evidence, here is the foot,
here is the breathing.
The brain automatically can feel safe.
So, and how the brain and the nervous system is working
(18:16):
is inputs are coming in, right?
And then the brain's major job is to process
and determine are we safe or not.
If it feels we're not safe, if the inputs are not clear,
it's gonna say we're not safe.
It does not know why the inputs are not clear.
It doesn't have that capacity.
If the inputs are not clear,
we're not safe, stress response, threat response.
(18:38):
So that could be, you know, chronic stress,
pain in the body, disease, lack of focus,
lack of clarity, just being on edge, so on and so forth.
All the icky behaviors that we don't wanna have,
most of them are coming because the nervous system
is so dysregulated and our, you know,
up regulation and down regulation is so out of sync.
So yeah, and then like we are stressed out
(19:00):
and that's stressed out, like the input is not clear.
We are getting an input of lack of focus, let's say,
and that lack of focused output then becomes our input.
So the brain is like, oh, why can we not freaking focus?
What's wrong?
And then the inputs are not clear.
And the brain goes into, the brain and nervous system
goes into this loop of unclear input, not safe output.
(19:21):
The output then of not safety becomes the input
and it keeps going in this loop over and over
to the point it's like, you know,
it feels like that's our identity,
but that's really not the case.
We just need to be able to like break the loop
and we do that like at the level of input,
gave ourselves a clearer input
(19:42):
so the brain can process without any cognitive input.
Yes, we are safe and we get better outputs of more focus,
better sleep, better productivity, less pain,
so on and so forth.
And then that output again becomes input
coupled with hopefully, you know, clearer inputs.
You can break the cycle and you can like break our patterns
(20:03):
and like retrain the nervous system
to really foster true safety, authentic safety in our body,
but you're not having to like convince ourselves
all the time that we're safe.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh, I love this.
So what I, I'm gonna mirror back some things
just to make sure I understand it
(20:24):
and to like double highlight it
for the people that are listening.
So firstly, you're saying that this up and down regulation
of like being in stress or like fight or flight
and then being in that rest and digest,
like that oscillating between the two
is natural and important.
Yes, exactly.
We are always on a continuum of,
(20:47):
we're always doing these things.
So, you know, on one end we have fight or flight,
on the other we have rest or digest.
So we are always moving between those.
There is no other state.
Yeah.
So we are supposed to be modulating between those two
Yeah.
easily and healthily and not getting stuck
in either of them.
That's, yeah, that's literally like there is a
(21:07):
healthy nervous system regulation,
if you wanna say like, that's the goal.
Being able to go into rest, rest and digest,
then being able to like come up and get activated
and then come down to rest and digest.
So we know that when we're too activated,
it becomes like chronic stress or chronic anxiety.
What if we're too down regulated?
Is that a thing?
(21:27):
Yep, that happens too.
So if you go into chronic fatigue,
you go into exhaustion.
Chronic fatigue, okay.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
So chronic fatigue, exhaustion, I had a shutdown.
Like I think we talked about that earlier.
I was in my bed for days and I had no idea
what was going on.
I would just get up to eat.
I would listen to podcasts.
I was like, okay, fine, this is my life for now.
(21:47):
I had no idea what was going on,
but that was like my breaking point.
So my stress level rose, rose, rose to the point
that I just couldn't take more
and my body had to force a shutdown on me
and put me in a down regulation.
Okay.
Okay.
And then another part of what you said was that
our brain doesn't have eyes.
(22:09):
Our brain is receiving messages from the outside world,
whether or not we are safe from all five of our senses,
from sight, from taste, from touch, from smell.
Yep.
And you can add to that.
Yep.
And you can like add to the senses,
like our internal sensations.
Internal sensations.
Yep.
And the map of the body, like where we are in space,
(22:30):
the balance part.
Yes.
And that, I think that's an interesting one,
the map of the body where we are in space,
because when we come from dysfunctional families
or even if we're just someone who has a high stress job,
someone who's very ambitious and always hustling,
we get used to being in the head
and then we don't really feel the rest of our body anymore.
(22:53):
And when we come from dysfunctional families,
we learn it's safe to be in the head
and to not feel the body.
So then we don't even really realize
that we can't feel the tips of our toes.
Yeah.
And then that's adding to the nervous system
going into that loop thing that you were talking about.
Yep.
Yeah. Exactly.
(23:13):
So that loop thing as well is
the brain is getting an input that it's not safe
because it can't feel your toes or whatever it is.
And then it's getting that input and it's like, I'm not safe.
And then the output can be like heightened heartbeat
or something.
And then that's the output.
And then that output is giving even more input
(23:34):
that you're not safe and it just keeps going.
Exactly. Exactly.
Like that, so the stress is here right now.
If you're not coming down here,
like if you're not doing anything to resolve
and like de-stress, let's say like,
through giving clearer inputs,
the stress will just keep rising.
So the stress in the stress bucket is rising,
rising, rising to the point it just overflows.
(23:55):
Because the looping is happening,
the looping is happening and the stress is getting bigger
and bigger and bigger to the point
something detrimental happens.
For me, if it's my shutdown, for others,
it could be autoimmune disease or cancer, unfortunately.
Yeah. Yeah.
So shutdown, thank God.
I feel like if it was a shutdown, I could handle that.
(24:17):
Yeah.
Okay. So I hope I reflected back all of the points
that you said, I think that was all of it.
I think so too.
Yeah. Okay.
So now that we're at that part where we talked about
that loop and breaking the loop and the inputs,
what exactly do we do to break that loop?
And like, how do we give our body an input
(24:38):
that gives it the message that you are safe?
Amazing. I love that question.
And what we're doing is we're going at the level
of the input and giving it concrete data
through using our drills and our tools.
So let's say if we're doing a body map exercise,
what we can do, like we're trying to like,
(25:00):
give clear input for the map of the body in space.
So we have, I've done a few drills with you already,
so you know that, but let me see if I can find.
I'm gonna use this tissue.
You can like use a clot too, right?
So let's say if you're trying to give the brain
and the nervous system clearer body map.
So what you can do is like literally use like a,
(25:21):
we're doing drills.
So one of the drills is like, yeah.
Satin scrunchie.
Feels nice.
What we can do is like not use a barrier.
So I'm using a tissue.
You can use cloth, you can use brush, et cetera, et cetera.
And we are mapping, let's say our hand.
And if you can close eyes and like not look at the hand,
(25:43):
that's even better because you're trying to build
the map of the hand through the sensations.
So if you don't look, that's even better.
And we're just looking to be-
If someone's not watching the video,
can you explain what mapping a hand is?
Like what does that mean?
Right.
So the brain has a map of the body, like 24 seven.
It needs to know where we are in space.
(26:05):
And if you are too stressed out, that map can get blurry.
So through mapping, what we're trying to do is
using an external object like a cloth or a brush
or a tissue paper and not using the sight to map the hand,
but the sensation that comes when you're rubbing
an external object on the hand.
(26:26):
We're trying to map the hand through these sensations
and just being curious and going,
this is what my left hand feels like.
This is what my pinky finger feels like.
And just giving the brain very clear data
that this is what the hand feels like,
that the hand is on us.
It's not still attached to the body
(26:48):
and not having to say to the brain that we're safe,
you're literally giving data
to so that it can feel that it's safe.
It's concrete evidence for it to feel that it's safe.
It doesn't have to guess what's happening.
So this is one type of like input training
or like giving clearer inputs.
Like this, we have more drills.
(27:08):
Most of them that are based on the body.
Some of them are for vagus nerves.
Some of them are like for cranial nerves
that we are using to give clear inputs
to the nervous system.
So the brain can really
see, feel that it's safe,
that nothing wrong is happening.
(27:28):
And that is how basically we are training the nervous system
through giving clearer inputs using these drills.
That was nice.
I was like still rubbing
my hands off camera, rubbing my hand.
But that was crunchy.
You can actually like under my table,
I was like doing my foot babes, you know?
Ah.
(27:49):
Foot babes is like another drill that we do
to like map the foot again.
So I was like doing a drill under the table
because it helps me feel grounded.
Like right now I'm activated, which is amazing,
but I also want to be here.
So I'm like doing my drill under the table.
Nobody knows, but my brain knows, yeah, we are safe.
Yeah, yeah.
These are really cool tools to have in someone's toolbox
(28:11):
as someone who's had sessions with you.
Like it's like an actual physical thing that you can do
in a moment of distress that-
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah, and like you don't have to,
the thing when we're stressed is,
we are stressed and most of the times
it's a cognitive overload
(28:31):
and we're trying to solve that stress by overthinking.
So putting more cognitive overload
to solve that cognitive overload.
Most of the time it does not, it does not work.
It does not work.
So it's really important like in those moments of stress
to not try to solve it through cognitive overload.
And I think these drills come really handy at that point
because it's not cognitive.
(28:52):
Like if I'm stressed out, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go.
Like we have a back breathing exercise.
I'm like, I'm taking my bag, I'm breathing.
And I'm doing that till I feel like,
oh, okay, I'm out of that trigger if you wanna call.
And then I can be like, okay, what's happening?
So yeah, I love these.
So I have like a piece on my refrigerator as well.
(29:15):
So if I'm too stressed out and I don't know what to think,
like what drill to go for, if my brain is going,
which drill to do or just, it's just blanked out,
I will look at that paper.
My drills are there, let's go.
That's a good idea.
Yeah, you can try that, yeah.
Yeah.
I usually do the foot mapping thing
that we did in our sessions.
(29:37):
It's like the same thing we did with the hand,
but with the foot for people who are watching.
I think what's also another common tool to go to
except for giving us more mental overload
is taking deep breaths.
I feel like that's like universally known as,
I need to calm down, let me take a deep breath.
And that works.
(29:57):
However, sometimes,
I don't know if you've felt this,
sometimes there's so much cognitive overload
that when you're taking the deep breaths,
you're not really fully grounded as you're doing it.
Like it doesn't really, it doesn't help all the time
because it's hard to really be present with the breath.
You're just kind of, as you're breathing,
you're still doing the overthinking.
(30:18):
Exactly, yeah.
It's like, I feel like it's very hard to be present
if you're stressed out.
For me, it's very hard to be,
because I'm triggered, I'm dissociated.
Like my stressed out thing is I go into dissociation,
I'm overthinking, so, and I'm very good.
Like I have a phone response,
I don't remember if we talked about it.
(30:38):
So I'm a very good people pleaser.
So I can breathe deeply if you wanna tell me to breathe
and I can, you know, to get that check mark,
but I'm not really here, you know?
I'm not really in my body.
Yeah.
So for me, like the drills work really well
because they're going at the level of the nervous system
(31:00):
and really resetting me at that point, at that level.
So it's really, really helpful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wanna check the bullet point list,
cause we, to see if phone response,
if we talked about it last time.
I think we did a little bit, right?
The authentic, like authenticity and connection.
(31:22):
Do you want me to read you the rest of the takeaways?
Cause we read the first one
and then that like set off our conversation
and I was like, let me record.
Sure thing.
I love how organic these conversations are
and like whatever comes, whatever comes.
And like, that's amazing actually.
I like to like just talk.
(31:43):
I'm not good to have to like look at the screen
and like, you know, give you an answer
that I have on the screen.
It's good too, because in my opinion,
like it really shows that you really know this stuff.
You really know this nervous system regulation topic
and you really know how to hold people through it
and how to help them,
(32:03):
because you can just freely talk about it
rather than needing to rely on any pre-decided questions
or pre-decided notes or anything like that.
So, good job.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Okay.
So some of the other ones we talked about
was cultural influences can significantly
(32:25):
affect perceptions of therapy.
I remember talking about that.
Understanding complex trauma is crucial for healing.
Shame can lead to inflammation
and the nervous system, that's interesting.
But this is all stuff we talked about already.
So maybe this isn't helpful to read.
Healthy relationships reflect our patterns back to us,
(32:46):
setting boundaries as a form of self-care.
Yeah.
A lot.
Yeah, maybe that's not helpful to read.
Because those are all things we talked about already.
We did.
Yeah.
I'm just remembering our last session.
Yeah, it was a good one too.
So what is possible for,
I guess I'll paint you a picture of like the specific person
(33:08):
that this show is made for,
to then ask you what's possible for them
when they lean into nervous system regulation work.
So the people who I hope are listening to this
are ambitious women with a history of toxic relationships.
And they might have gone through a breakup
a couple of months ago.
(33:29):
And they're in that sweet spot, that little chapter of,
they've gone through a breakup and done a couple,
they've done some healing
and they're ready to go deeper with that healing.
And they do wanna date,
but they have the self-awareness to realize,
I should not be dating right now.
Like there's still some stuff I wanna do
(33:49):
because she wants that long-term committed partner.
And she doesn't wanna repeat the same toxic patterns
from her past relationship.
Yeah.
So for a woman like that who's listening,
what's possible for her when she leans
into nervous system regulation work?
I love that, I love the question.
(34:10):
I feel like a lot of codependent relationships,
if you wanna say,
they are that need for,
I am talking about myself and it comes to,
so I had like this very codependent pattern.
And I feel like it was emanating,
it was coming because I never felt safe
(34:30):
in my own body and my own self.
So I always needed another person to like latch onto
and give me safety.
So I feel nervous system work is really, really good
to like connect to yourself, your body,
your intuition, like if you don't have intuition,
if you're not connected to your body,
you are then totally coming from your head
(34:52):
when it comes to, let's say what you want in a partner
or what you need to work on yourself.
It's very cognitive based.
And if it is very, most of the times,
if it's all mental based, it's all chase, chase, chase,
chase, chase, but that takes you away from being here,
right, being in your body.
So nervous system work is really good
(35:12):
to connect with yourself, to feel safe in your body.
And from that place to know actually what you want, right?
Because if you're not safe with yourself,
I don't think it's very tricky then to actually attract
a healthy relationship and to feel safe in that relationship
because if you're not safe with yourself,
(35:34):
it's gonna be a very, for me,
it was very unhealthy attachments that I was going through.
And they were very coming from my cognitive mind
of that checklist that I had.
I got this, I'm good, but yeah.
So yeah, like I feel safety,
safety and clarity about what we want from ourselves
(35:55):
and the other person.
I think that's something that nervous system work
can really help with.
I love that.
That's what we all,
that's what I think that's what every ambitious woman needs
is that safety and like feeling completely whole
in herself, especially if she's,
wanting that long-term partnership
(36:16):
and wants to feel as prepared as she can to go into it.
Cause I think it's also important to mention
like you don't have to be 100% healed
before you get into a relationship
cause more of the work happens in a relationship
that can't happen outside of a relationship
cause the relationship is a trigger.
(36:37):
Yeah, I love that.
I love that, but I think that sense of completion
in our own selves, right?
Like I don't have mastery in self-love.
Like I've heard people talk about,
I do think self-love is pretty important,
but I don't think I'm at a place where I feel like
I have really got it,
but I am able to feel safe with myself now, you know?
(37:01):
And I feel like that's like the seed I wanna say.
Your cat is so funny in the background.
Sorry. I can hear him.
Oh my God, I like locked him outside.
No.
My cat's locked outside too of this room
and he was meowing earlier.
Maybe it's the cats, they wanna talk.
Let's start them a podcast.
We need to have one.
My cat talks.
(37:22):
He really talks.
Oh my God, I should get him on a podcast.
Yeah.
Yeah, my boy cat talks a lot too.
The girl one is quite-
It's a boy thing then.
I know.
My cat is too, oh my God, he's a boy.
He talks.
Maybe the testosterone makes them talkative, I don't know.
No idea.
Yeah, I think what I was saying was like,
(37:45):
like safety in self, I think that's the seed we need
for anything, I feel like that.
That's the place I wanna come from that safety in self
to feel complete in myself, to love myself,
like truly love yourself.
You need to be able to first feel safe with yourself, right?
Yes.
And that also, what's coming up next for me is like,
(38:08):
acceptance of where you are at right now, like that healing.
I think healing is lifelong journey.
We're always going to heal.
We're always gonna look at our flaws.
We're always gonna have flaws.
There's no point in time where we're gonna be like
100% healed, no healing required, flawless.
We're not gonna be that, right?
So I think feeling, when I say like feeling safe in yourself
and with yourself, it's like that acceptance of,
(38:29):
okay, I'm this person, I have my own flaws,
but that's okay, I'm still very lovable.
Being acceptable, accepting our flaws
without like judging ourselves or ridiculing ourselves
or like trying to fix them right away.
Yes.
I think that's very important to anything.
That safety, even you have like that safety in self,
(38:50):
it comes, that acceptance.
Mm-hmm, yeah, and that completely sets the tone.
That safety in self sets the tone for, you know,
for relationships, but also a relationship isn't just
romantic relationship.
I think it's your relationship to everything.
Yeah.
Your relationship to food, to money, to work, to career,
(39:11):
to like yourself, and you know,
that's the most foundational one,
your relationship to self, and your relationship to self
feels more like there's this acceptance,
even if like you said that you don't feel like
you're at mastery of self-love.
However, you feel that safety and acceptance in yourself
and like that's, that in itself is self-love, you know?
(39:36):
That's like the goal, and like I really do think
that's the goal to be like, I'm good as I am now,
and I see where I can improve.
Yeah, we need that too, right?
Yeah.
We need to be able to, I want to work on myself.
I wanna see the, you know, where I can grow,
where I can learn, I wanna see, I love that.
It is so much fun in that growth and that work, right?
(39:58):
Yeah, but like also, I think what I used to do before
is like I'm not enough right now,
and I need to be this version of myself in the future.
That's the goal, that's when I will be enough.
Yes.
And that never happened, right?
Yeah.
Even if we reach that, like I said,
there's something else we need to reach to,
and it's just a never-ending cycle of chase
(40:20):
and running away from ourselves, I feel,
running away from like our bodies,
and how we truly feel about ourselves.
So we're not like, I would not face how I truly,
I had a lot of shame about myself,
and I still get that like for me, shame, inner criticism,
those are my patterns, like inner dialogue patterns,
if you wanna say like that's how I can feel about myself.
(40:44):
I can be very critical, I can be very like,
I'm bad, bad, bad, no matter what,
but, and I'm then chasing goals,
like I need to get this accomplishment
to be enough, then I will be a good person,
I need to be this, so I will be good,
but that's a never-ending chase, that never.
It totally is, yeah, it's relatable, yeah.
(41:04):
Exactly, and when I'm able to like sit with myself and see,
why am I even feeling bad about myself?
Okay, this is what's up, is it even true?
But like, I actually know it's just my own gunk
that I just need to clear out and part my ways with now,
you know?
Yes.
So that work I feel is like, that happens for me
(41:24):
when I have safety in myself, right?
I can like sit with myself and have that distance.
I'm not bad, it's just a pattern that's playing out,
what needs to be shifted here, and then do the work,
rather than go in that, I need to get to this goal to be okay,
I need to get to this next goal to be okay.
Yeah.
Because you just mentioned that,
(41:45):
of like getting the safety in yourself first,
and then doing this kind of like inquiry of,
is this actually true?
Yeah.
Something I wanted to ask you earlier,
when you talked about working at the cognitive level,
versus working at the body level,
I'm so curious with, let's say,
let's take the example of affirmations.
(42:06):
Is it possible, and if it is,
what happens when we do the nervous system drills,
and then maybe combine it with something
a little bit more cognitive, like,
affirmations? Is that something, is that a thing?
Yep, totally.
I feel like, so we do do a little bit of cognitive work,
when we are shifting limiting beliefs,
(42:26):
but when we're doing that cognitive work,
we have a certain level of safety already in the body.
So with my clients, like we already do some sessions before,
where we're just focusing on the safety,
and then we go into like cognitive work.
And even with the cognitive aspect,
we first make sure that we are in that session,
(42:47):
let's say we first make sure we are safe in the body,
and then we go towards, okay, what's happening?
Like with that inquiry thing.
And then I help my clients, like,
come up with a belief that is more empowering to them.
And again, throughout the session,
we're checking in with the body to see,
is that new belief ever coming up?
Is the body actually behind it or not?
(43:07):
So if you have affirmations that your body
and your nervous system is actually behind,
your nervous system is actually behind, doing the drills,
doing the affirmation, it's very powerful.
And like your body actually,
so what's the problem with affirmation?
It's like you are saying affirmations
without knowing if that's the affirmation for you,
especially if you're just in the cognitive.
(43:29):
A lot of times what we're doing is we see,
affirmations and where money loves me,
and we're just repeating it, repeating it, repeating it.
But how is your body feeling towards it?
If you're subconscious, it's like, money is bad,
I never wanna have money.
And you're like, money loves me, money loves me.
And there is this conflict and disconnect
that's happening, right?
So that affirmation is actually not good for you
(43:50):
in that point of time.
These affirmations are good,
but they need to come from the level of the body
and the nervous system.
Again, so your subconscious is not repelling
the thing you're putting in.
But if you find that affirmation,
if you have this affirmation,
if you have this belief that are actually pleasant
to the body, doing them and doing them with the drills
is actually very powerful.
(44:11):
That's something I love.
I have my affirmations, if you wanna say,
my new beliefs that I have come up with.
Again, working with the body,
this is the belief that I wanna shift,
this is where I'm going.
I love to look at them and repeat them
while I'm doing my drills, and it's so good.
I love it when I do it.
And before, when I used to do affirmations in the past,
I felt like, and they were not mine.
(44:34):
I would get them from YouTube videos,
whereas of course I did, and I'm repeating them, right?
And it felt like, it was painful.
Like I was forcing myself, like, when will I accept this?
Why is it not working?
I've said this 10 times, and there was this very icky energy
that was hard, it was all because my subconscious
was vague on the other end, and I'm like,
(44:56):
no, no, no, come here, run, why are you not running?
What's wrong with you?
It never worked for me, unfortunately.
Yeah, like, doing them in a way
where your subconscious is actually accepting of them
is very, very...
Yeah, so for anyone listening
who has lost faith in affirmations,
(45:19):
do some nervous system regulation work first,
and then maybe try the affirmations again
and see if it works.
Yep, and even doing the affirmation where you're doing,
like, we have this wave, and you're doing the drills,
we can check if the drill was positive or negative.
So doing the drill, checking after the drill,
if the drill was negative, that means your body
(45:41):
is not behind the affirmation.
So you have that clear could be of knowing
if it's working for you or not.
Like through this route that we can literally check
and see, oh, okay, this really not good for me
at this point of time, I will revisit it.
Yes, yes.
Oh my gosh, I've loved this conversation.
Me too.
Yeah, and I know this is a part two,
(46:03):
so I've already asked you the closing questions
that I ask every guest in our last episode,
but I'll just ask one of them to you again,
just in case something different comes up.
And that question is what does self-love mean to you?
I love it, I remember you asked me last time.
I don't remember my answer, but I think self-love,
(46:27):
okay, the recent, I think the last time I said too,
it's always changing for me, and it always is.
In this point of time, it's that self-acceptance
because right now, like I've, so many changes are happening
and I noticed like I was, I had this pattern
of like trying to control the situation to keep myself safe
(46:47):
against the rebel pattern.
But now I'm leaning more into now, I'm gonna surrender
and I'm gonna choose how I am responding
rather than controlling the situation.
And with that, a lot of self-acceptance,
if you wanna say of where I am and where I'm going
(47:08):
and not trying to like control.
So that is my self-love, like that's how I'm loving myself
right now by not controlling the situation anymore
and just going, not really going inside,
but really surrendering.
And in that surrender, I noticed like when I was trying
to like control the situation,
I was disconnected with a higher power of God,
(47:31):
universe, whatever you wanna call.
But now I'm leaning more into now I'm safe.
I'm gonna be safe, I'm gonna figure this out
like the thing you were saying with the,
like when you're packing your bag and you're like,
I'm okay, it's a, you missed the situation,
but I'm gonna be okay.
So having that, that I'm gonna be okay
(47:51):
and connecting and surrendering to a higher power
for me that's God, that's my version of self-love
right now.
Beautiful.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
And for people listening, where can they find you online?
Where can they connect with you?
And tell us a little bit more about how they can work
with you as well.
(48:12):
Amazing.
So my website is Sofia at the right Sofia,
no, sofiaejaz.com.
So the website is sofiaejaz.com, S-O-F-I-A-E-J-A-Z.com.
You can reach out to me there.
And I'm very active on Facebook right now.
I'm under same name, Sofia Ejaz.
I have my profile and I also have my group
(48:33):
that I think you're gonna share the link in the notes
that you can definitely join in there.
I talk more about nervous system regulation,
how we can break cerebral patterns,
how we can manage our triggers,
how we can feel safe in the body and so on and so forth.
So, and we also, I'm starting like challenges now,
like free challenges that you can like hop on.
And I think right now the challenges are braced around
(48:55):
like rewiring the survival patterns
and how we can take control like of our daily lives.
I feel like we're out of control of our daily lives.
Like forget about the future.
What's the name of the group for the people listening?
The Rising Entrepreneur.
So it's based around for business women, entrepreneurs.
I feel like our stress loads are very high on the daily
(49:18):
because there's so many hats we're bearing.
There are so many roles we're having to juggle.
And a lot of I feel entrepreneurs are like rule breakers
and they already had like some,
I don't wanna say trouble, but like difficult,
not even difficult.
Like the stress buckets are usually higher.
And so it's geared around those people
(49:38):
who are like ambitious, rule breakers,
who wanna do things, who have tried things
and have gotten stress as a result of that.
So it's for those people and how you can,
it's important to be daring.
It's important to be courageous.
It's important to take risks.
But how don't we, how we not like break our backs
doing those things?
Because I've broken down so many times in my journey
(49:59):
because I'm that person, I'm breaking rules.
I'm questioning the norms.
I'm questioning the status quo.
So when you're doing that, it's important to keep doing that
while being regulated so we don't, you know,
let our stress buckets rise and go into a shutdown
like I did or something worse got for bit.
So it's for those people, yeah.
(50:19):
Yes.
In a nutshell, not really.
Did you say people with no chill?
People with no chill?
Is that what you said?
No, in a nutshell.
In a nutshell.
In a nutshell, it's this.
I thought you said it's for people with no chill.
It can be that too actually, yeah.
I would have very much no BS strategy going on.
(50:42):
Like I'm very straightforward, right?
And I don't like BS.
So yeah, no chills can come to you.
I think they will enjoy this.
Awesome, thank you so much.
You're most welcome.
Thank you for that question.
Yeah, thanks for being back on the show for a second time.
My pleasure.
Thank you for inviting me again.
(51:02):
And it was such an awesome ride.
It's always fun to talk with you.
I'll see you next time.
Hello, welcome or welcome back to Openly Spoken.
(00:02):
This is a part two episode with Sofia Ejaz,
who is a certified nervous system regulation
and life coach.
The part one episode came out on January 28th, 2025.
So if you have not listened to that or watched that yet,
go ahead and search back for that.
I'll also link it in the caption or in the show notes below.
(00:25):
And in this episode, we went a little bit more deeper
about why nervous system regulation is important,
what's possible when you lean
into nervous system regulation, what it even means,
like what are you physically actually doing?
And it's a very informative episode.
I think that nervous system regulation also really points
(00:45):
to why some of the things that I talk about
on this podcast is like secret sexuality
and bringing mindfulness to sexuality.
If you've listened to those episodes before
and then you listen to how the nervous system regulation
is all about these like inputs of sensation
and slowing down with the sensations
(01:06):
and that that input helps your nervous system relax.
I think that really illustrates why bringing mindfulness
to sexuality and to your self-love is really beneficial
because your nervous system is untangling
from this fight or flight response.
So I thought that was very interesting.
We don't talk about sexuality in this episode at all,
(01:29):
but listening back to it,
I thought that was a very interesting correlation.
And yeah, in case you have not listened to part one before,
I am going to reintroduce Sofia Ejaz to you right now.
Sofia is a certified nervous system regulation coach
and a life coach.
She is passionate about helping individuals break free
(01:51):
from cycles of being stuck in their head,
cycles of stress, self-doubt, and overwhelmed
by guiding them to regulate their nervous system
and silence their inner critic.
Through a blend of life coaching
and neurosomatic intelligence techniques,
which is NSI for short,
Sofia empowers her clients to cultivate self-compassion,
(02:13):
build resilience, and experience true emotional freedom.
Sofia is on a mission to help others reconnect
with their bodies, expand their nervous system capacity,
and step into confident self-expression.
Enjoy the episode.
["Sofia Ejazz's Bio/Intro"]
(02:39):
Welcome to Openly Spoken,
the podcast to help you show up, speak out,
and be seen in healthy relationships.
On this show, we talk about self-love, sexuality,
relationship tips, including recovering from toxic relationships,
and we also talk about learning to heal and thrive
after a breakup.
I'm your host, Cilia Antoniou,
(03:01):
a certified sex love and relationship coach
who supports ambitious women
with a history of toxic relationships
to feel deeply connected in love.
Thank you so much for being here,
and I hope that you find this show very valuable,
and I would very much appreciate it
if you would leave a rating and a review for this show
(03:21):
on Apple, on Spotify,
or wherever it is that you might be listening.
[Sofia Ejaz's intro]
Okay, so maybe you should repeat what you said.
So yeah, I had this coach come up to me,
(03:42):
and she went through my whole list of,
I gave her a document of what I do,
and what she picked out was like,
I use nervous system regulation
to help people regulate emotions.
I was like, oh, I did not even realize I was doing that,
you know?
Yeah.
So I just looked at it like rewiring survival patterns.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was interesting.
(04:03):
Yeah, to me, it makes sense,
because I feel like when you're regulated,
you're more grounded,
and then you're able to notice what emotions come up,
and do what you need for them,
rather than being in this state of,
like you said, survival mode,
is kind of like an emotion comes up,
and you just react,
and you don't really know what's happening.
Yeah.
(04:23):
And you get that altitude, I feel,
from like, this is my emotion,
this is something messy that's happening,
I'm reacting, I'm human,
but this is me, we're not the same,
and I can have distance between what's happening,
and I don't need to respond reactively to it,
if that makes sense.
It gives you that one second gap,
if you wanna call it,
very close relationship between those two things.
(04:44):
And not, because when I was triggered,
I always used to be like,
this is me again,
this is my angry self again,
this is my reactive self again,
and I don't have any control over it,
I used to feel like that.
But now that I regulate,
and I feel like there's this distance
between my triggered self,
it still comes on at times,
and me, if you wanna say.
(05:05):
And that helps me, I think,
respond much better to situations now.
Yeah, I love that,
creating that distance between your triggered self,
and your true self.
Yeah, it's very interesting.
It's, yeah, what do you wanna call it?
True self, regulated self?
What is that self, you know?
I don't know, higher self,
(05:28):
authentic self.
Yeah. Authentic self.
Yeah, that's a good one.
That's a good one.
That's a good one.
Like that us, authentic in that moment.
I think that self changes too over time, right?
As we keep growing and we keep getting wiser,
it's like our authenticity,
we could become more and more authentic, I feel,
(05:48):
to ourselves and what we wanted to.
Yeah.
I agree. Yeah.
It's a nice place. That explains why,
I don't know if you ever had this experience,
but do you ever go on Facebook,
and a very old Facebook status from like,
20 years ago?
Yeah, 20 years ago?
No, Facebook didn't exist yet, 20 years ago.
(06:10):
15 years ago.
You'll see a status from 15 years ago,
and you're like, oh, why did I write that?
And I'm just like, oh, delete.
That's been happening to me too recently.
Yeah.
What comes up for me is like, old, sad lyrics.
Apparently I was born to-
Oh my gosh, yes.
Or any lyrics in general, and when I see that,
(06:31):
I'm like, nobody cares about these lyrics.
Nobody knows where I'm putting that out from, you know?
Like, I'm just, you know, very wise-line.
And then dot, dot, dot, dot.
Yes, that makes me so-
That makes me so grateful that TikTok wasn't around
when we were teenagers, because the younger generation,
(06:54):
they get to see full-on videos that they put up
of themselves when they were teenagers,
when they are in their 30s, they're gonna look and be like,
what was I doing?
And I think that's worse than just words that you typed.
Yep, they're only visible to me, you know?
Like, they just come up for me.
Nobody's gonna go into my timeline and dig out those things.
(07:16):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Oh my gosh, that is so funny.
Yeah, but that was a phase.
That was, I felt personally, you know, those lyrics and all.
Yes.
They were important.
They were important.
Or sometimes for me, it would be like,
wow, this one lyric is just so good.
Let me post it.
(07:37):
And you know, to be honest, on my personal Instagram,
I still have a lyric in there,
because it's my favorite lyric.
And it's very related to the nervous system, actually.
It's to obtain a bird's eye is to turn a blizzard to a breeze.
A blizzard to a breeze.
Oh, to obtain a bird's eye.
What is a bird's eye?
(07:57):
A bird's eye, like a bird's eye view.
Bird's eye view?
To see everything.
Ah, got it.
Wow.
Yeah, and that's like my all time favorite lyric.
And that's like, that relates so well to the distance
that we're talking about, right?
It does.
Interesting, right?
I love that.
To turn a blizzard into a breeze.
It does look like that.
When you're in it, it does look like a blizzard.
(08:19):
It's a storm.
And you're like, ah, I'm in the middle of it.
I don't know what's happening.
I cannot, you're not control.
You cannot do anything.
But if you're outside of that, it's just passing by.
It's just a breeze.
Yeah, it's just a breeze.
It's not that big of a deal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love that.
I need to get that song too.
Oh, no.
(08:39):
It's by Incubus.
And I have to go through the lyrics
to figure out what song it is.
I think it's, I wish you were here.
I'm going to search it too.
Nice to know you.
Nice to know you.
I got it.
I was like, it says nice to know you in the lyrics.
And I was like, OK, what lyrics come after 212?
(09:00):
Yeah, it's nice to know you.
And it's by Incubus.
And it's on an album called Morning View.
And honestly, that entire album is so good.
They're currently touring right now,
doing a whole performance of the entire album
because it turned 20 during the pandemic.
Wow.
And they put that on hold.
(09:21):
Yeah, the album was old.
I think it came out in.
I like it.
Yeah.
Did it turn 20 on the pandemic?
I think it came out in 2004.
But my husband and I went to one of the concerts here.
And I hope that concert venue still exists because Los
Angeles is currently on fire.
I don't know if you've seen the news.
(09:42):
Oh my god, yeah, it's been horrible.
Yeah, luckily, we are in a pocket of LA that is fine.
I got myself ready to evacuate all the supplies and stuff
and the evacuation orders on earlier in the week,
last week, because now it's Monday again.
I don't know how that happened.
The evacuation orders ended five miles from our neighborhood.
(10:06):
Wow.
So we're like, me and my neighbors
are texting each other, making a plan of where we're going to go.
But to be honest, I don't know if it's
the nervous system, regulation work it probably is.
I never really went into that survival mode.
It's just kind of this weird feeling of I'll be OK.
Yeah.
And there's something about when you have to take the time
(10:26):
to pack your belongings in case you need to leave on a moment's
notice and you realize how little you actually need.
You're like, oh, I need just a couple of clothes
so I have something to wear.
Yeah.
Some food, some cat food for the cats, lots of water.
And that's about it.
Like, there's not much.
You're important documents, obviously.
But it's very humbling to realize you don't need all this stuff.
(10:50):
Even photographs, all the photographs
are backed up on a hard drive, digital somewhere.
And I packed the hard drive.
That's all your life.
It can fit in a suitcase.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I've been thinking about those things too,
but I will tell you those things later.
Yeah, so with this piece of how we just
(11:11):
talked about creating distance, I
think that speaks really well into why nervous system
regulation is important.
And I would love for you to speak more on that
because you mentioned that was something
you wanted to talk about today.
Yeah.
So nervous system work is something
that really, really helped me first get aware
that I'm in survival loops.
(11:31):
And that then gave me some control,
if you want to say, over my triggers.
And then how can I actually distance myself
from my triggers.
And like, even if I'm in a triggered state, OK, yeah,
it's happening, but I'm not in it.
I'm outside of it.
And I know I'm going to be fine.
So for me, I'm somebody who grew up
in a lot of dysfunction and chaos.
(11:53):
So being stressed out was the normal.
Always problem solving has been my normal.
Like, if there's nothing to solve,
I'm like, what the F is wrong?
I need something.
Give me something.
Give me some support.
I'm bored.
If there's no problem, I will create a problem
and I will do that.
That's a very survival pattern, right?
That was my way of just making myself useful
as I was growing up and feel safe.
(12:14):
But growing up, this survival pattern
and other survival patterns that I was in
were actually not useful for me.
And they were causing me harm.
And they were very much keeping me stuck in my head
and keeping me in constant fight or flight.
Like, I would be exhausted and sleep for like nine hours.
I would get up and my mind would be turned on.
(12:35):
And I would literally be solving stuff that was non-existing.
There was no problem.
But I would create a scenario.
What would happen if this blah, blah, blah?
What the F am I doing?
And I couldn't like, yeah, I was just stuck in that.
I was just always, always, always in my mind.
And I tried a lot of, I think I mentioned therapy.
I was trying self-help books.
I was trying affirmations.
(12:56):
I was trying whatever I could to like,
help me take myself off of this edge
because I knew there was something wrong.
I was really reactive too at that point.
Like I didn't know how to control my emotions.
I would go angry, you know, in a heartbeat.
I was just very much in survival mode all the time.
And so if you are stuck in your survival pattern,
(13:17):
especially to the point like they become your identity
and you feel like I am just an angry person,
I am just an anxious person,
I just get stressed out easily.
Like those patterns have kind of become your identity
and you're just very much caught up in your head.
So if you're at that point, unfortunately,
if you are already caught up in your head
and you're not able to like calm down, rest and relax,
(13:37):
as human beings, we need a healthy combination
of just getting activated using our mind,
but then being able to relax and calm down
and process the stress that came from that activation.
And then when needed to be activated again,
going back into activation, but then relaxing back again.
But if you do not do that,
if you're caught up in either of the two,
let's say if you're caught up in that stress cycle,
(13:59):
it turns into chronic stress
and you are cognitively overloaded already
because you're up in your head all the time.
And if that's when you're trying to move yourself
to break this pattern through more cognitive overload,
let's say affirmations,
or for me it was like talk therapy or CBD,
it doesn't really help.
(14:20):
Like it can, for me it felt like a bandaid,
but it was not really resolving my issues
because my issues were deep inside my body
and my nervous system I wanna say.
And cognitive work unfortunately does not resolve that.
So for me, nervous system work is so important
to break these hard-fired survival patterns
(14:41):
because unfortunately the modalities that we have available,
not all of them, but the go-tos that people usually go to
the first time or the first few times that we try
are very cognitive based
and they don't address the body and the nervous system.
But nervous system work is actually
how can we calm down the mind
without using any cognitive words or cognitive input?
(15:05):
How can we use the body and the nervous system
to calm down the brain?
So when it comes to nervous system,
the language of the nervous system is not any language.
It's not English language, it's not Spanish,
it's not any of the languages.
It's literally the inputs that are going
into the nervous system.
Like that is how it's getting all the data
(15:27):
through the inputs and those inputs are our vision,
our balance, our internal sensations,
our sense of smell, our body map in the space.
All of these are inputs that are going
into the nervous system.
But if we are very much caught up in our head,
very caught up in survival patterns and fight or flight,
(15:48):
what happens is we lose touch with the body.
We lose touch with these inputs.
So the inputs that are coming in are not clear.
If the inputs coming in are not clear,
the brain does not have eyes, of course.
It cannot see that what's right in front of us.
It's through these inputs that it's trying
to assert what's in front of us, if you're safe or not.
(16:09):
If the input coming in are not safe,
let's say the internal sensations coming in,
we are stressed out.
But what happens if you're stressed out?
Your breathing gets shallow and you are very much up here.
You don't know, you lose, you start, you're breathing shallow.
You lose sometimes even that sense of,
am I hungry?
Do I need the washroom?
Because we're just too much here.
So if that's happening, the brain does not really know
(16:33):
is the breathing shallow because somebody's sitting
on our chest or we're just stressed out.
If you're up here, we don't have the map of our foot clear.
The brain does not know if our foot is
in the mouth of a lion.
You know?
Oh my gosh.
It doesn't know.
Is that a threat or no?
It doesn't know.
But if it's not getting the input,
it's going to say, oh, the input is not clear.
(16:55):
Something is wrong, a threat response.
And that could be stress, anxiety, lack of sleep,
lack of focus, so on and so forth.
And that all is happening
because we're not getting clear inputs.
So if we can, instead of like, let's say the, you know,
we are very much caught up in the head
and we are stressed out and we are like,
(17:15):
then trying to say, hey, calm down.
You see everything is okay.
Just calm down and everything will be okay.
It doesn't really work because cognitive input
is not working at the time.
You are too stressed out already.
You'd really need to like go at the level of the body
and give input to the nervous system
so the brain can automatically go,
(17:36):
I see the foot clearly if you're safe.
Our breathing is better if you're safe.
Oh, we can feel the diaphragm if you're safe.
So you don't have to go and say, hey, if you're safe
and try to convince and go in that tug of war,
or like, you know, see all the things around you.
Oh, you're safe.
I have done those exercises too, but they really, again,
they don't, this grass is service,
(17:56):
but they really don't go deep.
But if you can go at the level of the nervous system
and don't try to convince the brain that you're safe,
but show like hard evidence, here is the foot,
here is the breathing.
The brain automatically can feel safe.
So, and how the brain and the nervous system is working
(18:16):
is inputs are coming in, right?
And then the brain's major job is to process
and determine are we safe or not.
If it feels we're not safe, if the inputs are not clear,
it's gonna say we're not safe.
It does not know why the inputs are not clear.
It doesn't have that capacity.
If the inputs are not clear,
we're not safe, stress response, threat response.
(18:38):
So that could be, you know, chronic stress,
pain in the body, disease, lack of focus,
lack of clarity, just being on edge, so on and so forth.
All the icky behaviors that we don't wanna have,
most of them are coming because the nervous system
is so dysregulated and our, you know,
up regulation and down regulation is so out of sync.
So yeah, and then like we are stressed out
(19:00):
and that's stressed out, like the input is not clear.
We are getting an input of lack of focus, let's say,
and that lack of focused output then becomes our input.
So the brain is like, oh, why can we not freaking focus?
What's wrong?
And then the inputs are not clear.
And the brain goes into, the brain and nervous system
goes into this loop of unclear input, not safe output.
(19:21):
The output then of not safety becomes the input
and it keeps going in this loop over and over
to the point it's like, you know,
it feels like that's our identity,
but that's really not the case.
We just need to be able to like break the loop
and we do that like at the level of input,
gave ourselves a clearer input
(19:42):
so the brain can process without any cognitive input.
Yes, we are safe and we get better outputs of more focus,
better sleep, better productivity, less pain,
so on and so forth.
And then that output again becomes input
coupled with hopefully, you know, clearer inputs.
You can break the cycle and you can like break our patterns
(20:03):
and like retrain the nervous system
to really foster true safety, authentic safety in our body,
but you're not having to like convince ourselves
all the time that we're safe.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh, I love this.
So what I, I'm gonna mirror back some things
just to make sure I understand it
(20:24):
and to like double highlight it
for the people that are listening.
So firstly, you're saying that this up and down regulation
of like being in stress or like fight or flight
and then being in that rest and digest,
like that oscillating between the two
is natural and important.
Yes, exactly.
We are always on a continuum of,
(20:47):
we're always doing these things.
So, you know, on one end we have fight or flight,
on the other we have rest or digest.
So we are always moving between those.
There is no other state.
Yeah.
So we are supposed to be modulating between those two
Yeah.
easily and healthily and not getting stuck
in either of them.
That's, yeah, that's literally like there is a
(21:07):
healthy nervous system regulation,
if you wanna say like, that's the goal.
Being able to go into rest, rest and digest,
then being able to like come up and get activated
and then come down to rest and digest.
So we know that when we're too activated,
it becomes like chronic stress or chronic anxiety.
What if we're too down regulated?
Is that a thing?
(21:27):
Yep, that happens too.
So if you go into chronic fatigue,
you go into exhaustion.
Chronic fatigue, okay.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
So chronic fatigue, exhaustion, I had a shutdown.
Like I think we talked about that earlier.
I was in my bed for days and I had no idea
what was going on.
I would just get up to eat.
I would listen to podcasts.
I was like, okay, fine, this is my life for now.
(21:47):
I had no idea what was going on,
but that was like my breaking point.
So my stress level rose, rose, rose to the point
that I just couldn't take more
and my body had to force a shutdown on me
and put me in a down regulation.
Okay.
Okay.
And then another part of what you said was that
our brain doesn't have eyes.
(22:09):
Our brain is receiving messages from the outside world,
whether or not we are safe from all five of our senses,
from sight, from taste, from touch, from smell.
Yep.
And you can add to that.
Yep.
And you can like add to the senses,
like our internal sensations.
Internal sensations.
Yep.
And the map of the body, like where we are in space,
(22:30):
the balance part.
Yes.
And that, I think that's an interesting one,
the map of the body where we are in space,
because when we come from dysfunctional families
or even if we're just someone who has a high stress job,
someone who's very ambitious and always hustling,
we get used to being in the head
and then we don't really feel the rest of our body anymore.
(22:53):
And when we come from dysfunctional families,
we learn it's safe to be in the head
and to not feel the body.
So then we don't even really realize
that we can't feel the tips of our toes.
Yeah.
And then that's adding to the nervous system
going into that loop thing that you were talking about.
Yep.
Yeah. Exactly.
(23:13):
So that loop thing as well is
the brain is getting an input that it's not safe
because it can't feel your toes or whatever it is.
And then it's getting that input and it's like, I'm not safe.
And then the output can be like heightened heartbeat
or something.
And then that's the output.
And then that output is giving even more input
(23:34):
that you're not safe and it just keeps going.
Exactly. Exactly.
Like that, so the stress is here right now.
If you're not coming down here,
like if you're not doing anything to resolve
and like de-stress, let's say like,
through giving clearer inputs,
the stress will just keep rising.
So the stress in the stress bucket is rising,
rising, rising to the point it just overflows.
(23:55):
Because the looping is happening,
the looping is happening and the stress is getting bigger
and bigger and bigger to the point
something detrimental happens.
For me, if it's my shutdown, for others,
it could be autoimmune disease or cancer, unfortunately.
Yeah. Yeah.
So shutdown, thank God.
I feel like if it was a shutdown, I could handle that.
(24:17):
Yeah.
Okay. So I hope I reflected back all of the points
that you said, I think that was all of it.
I think so too.
Yeah. Okay.
So now that we're at that part where we talked about
that loop and breaking the loop and the inputs,
what exactly do we do to break that loop?
And like, how do we give our body an input
(24:38):
that gives it the message that you are safe?
Amazing. I love that question.
And what we're doing is we're going at the level
of the input and giving it concrete data
through using our drills and our tools.
So let's say if we're doing a body map exercise,
what we can do, like we're trying to like,
(25:00):
give clear input for the map of the body in space.
So we have, I've done a few drills with you already,
so you know that, but let me see if I can find.
I'm gonna use this tissue.
You can like use a clot too, right?
So let's say if you're trying to give the brain
and the nervous system clearer body map.
So what you can do is like literally use like a,
(25:21):
we're doing drills.
So one of the drills is like, yeah.
Satin scrunchie.
Feels nice.
What we can do is like not use a barrier.
So I'm using a tissue.
You can use cloth, you can use brush, et cetera, et cetera.
And we are mapping, let's say our hand.
And if you can close eyes and like not look at the hand,
(25:43):
that's even better because you're trying to build
the map of the hand through the sensations.
So if you don't look, that's even better.
And we're just looking to be-
If someone's not watching the video,
can you explain what mapping a hand is?
Like what does that mean?
Right.
So the brain has a map of the body, like 24 seven.
It needs to know where we are in space.
(26:05):
And if you are too stressed out, that map can get blurry.
So through mapping, what we're trying to do is
using an external object like a cloth or a brush
or a tissue paper and not using the sight to map the hand,
but the sensation that comes when you're rubbing
an external object on the hand.
(26:26):
We're trying to map the hand through these sensations
and just being curious and going,
this is what my left hand feels like.
This is what my pinky finger feels like.
And just giving the brain very clear data
that this is what the hand feels like,
that the hand is on us.
It's not still attached to the body
(26:48):
and not having to say to the brain that we're safe,
you're literally giving data
to so that it can feel that it's safe.
It's concrete evidence for it to feel that it's safe.
It doesn't have to guess what's happening.
So this is one type of like input training
or like giving clearer inputs.
Like this, we have more drills.
(27:08):
Most of them that are based on the body.
Some of them are for vagus nerves.
Some of them are like for cranial nerves
that we are using to give clear inputs
to the nervous system.
So the brain can really
see, feel that it's safe,
that nothing wrong is happening.
(27:28):
And that is how basically we are training the nervous system
through giving clearer inputs using these drills.
That was nice.
I was like still rubbing
my hands off camera, rubbing my hand.
But that was crunchy.
You can actually like under my table,
I was like doing my foot babes, you know?
Ah.
(27:49):
Foot babes is like another drill that we do
to like map the foot again.
So I was like doing a drill under the table
because it helps me feel grounded.
Like right now I'm activated, which is amazing,
but I also want to be here.
So I'm like doing my drill under the table.
Nobody knows, but my brain knows, yeah, we are safe.
Yeah, yeah.
These are really cool tools to have in someone's toolbox
(28:11):
as someone who's had sessions with you.
Like it's like an actual physical thing that you can do
in a moment of distress that-
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah, and like you don't have to,
the thing when we're stressed is,
we are stressed and most of the times
it's a cognitive overload
(28:31):
and we're trying to solve that stress by overthinking.
So putting more cognitive overload
to solve that cognitive overload.
Most of the time it does not, it does not work.
It does not work.
So it's really important like in those moments of stress
to not try to solve it through cognitive overload.
And I think these drills come really handy at that point
because it's not cognitive.
(28:52):
Like if I'm stressed out, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go.
Like we have a back breathing exercise.
I'm like, I'm taking my bag, I'm breathing.
And I'm doing that till I feel like,
oh, okay, I'm out of that trigger if you wanna call.
And then I can be like, okay, what's happening?
So yeah, I love these.
So I have like a piece on my refrigerator as well.
(29:15):
So if I'm too stressed out and I don't know what to think,
like what drill to go for, if my brain is going,
which drill to do or just, it's just blanked out,
I will look at that paper.
My drills are there, let's go.
That's a good idea.
Yeah, you can try that, yeah.
Yeah.
I usually do the foot mapping thing
that we did in our sessions.
(29:37):
It's like the same thing we did with the hand,
but with the foot for people who are watching.
I think what's also another common tool to go to
except for giving us more mental overload
is taking deep breaths.
I feel like that's like universally known as,
I need to calm down, let me take a deep breath.
And that works.
(29:57):
However, sometimes,
I don't know if you've felt this,
sometimes there's so much cognitive overload
that when you're taking the deep breaths,
you're not really fully grounded as you're doing it.
Like it doesn't really, it doesn't help all the time
because it's hard to really be present with the breath.
You're just kind of, as you're breathing,
you're still doing the overthinking.
(30:18):
Exactly, yeah.
It's like, I feel like it's very hard to be present
if you're stressed out.
For me, it's very hard to be,
because I'm triggered, I'm dissociated.
Like my stressed out thing is I go into dissociation,
I'm overthinking, so, and I'm very good.
Like I have a phone response,
I don't remember if we talked about it.
(30:38):
So I'm a very good people pleaser.
So I can breathe deeply if you wanna tell me to breathe
and I can, you know, to get that check mark,
but I'm not really here, you know?
I'm not really in my body.
Yeah.
So for me, like the drills work really well
because they're going at the level of the nervous system
(31:00):
and really resetting me at that point, at that level.
So it's really, really helpful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wanna check the bullet point list,
cause we, to see if phone response,
if we talked about it last time.
I think we did a little bit, right?
The authentic, like authenticity and connection.
(31:22):
Do you want me to read you the rest of the takeaways?
Cause we read the first one
and then that like set off our conversation
and I was like, let me record.
Sure thing.
I love how organic these conversations are
and like whatever comes, whatever comes.
And like, that's amazing actually.
I like to like just talk.
(31:43):
I'm not good to have to like look at the screen
and like, you know, give you an answer
that I have on the screen.
It's good too, because in my opinion,
like it really shows that you really know this stuff.
You really know this nervous system regulation topic
and you really know how to hold people through it
and how to help them,
(32:03):
because you can just freely talk about it
rather than needing to rely on any pre-decided questions
or pre-decided notes or anything like that.
So, good job.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Okay.
So some of the other ones we talked about
was cultural influences can significantly
(32:25):
affect perceptions of therapy.
I remember talking about that.
Understanding complex trauma is crucial for healing.
Shame can lead to inflammation
and the nervous system, that's interesting.
But this is all stuff we talked about already.
So maybe this isn't helpful to read.
Healthy relationships reflect our patterns back to us,
(32:46):
setting boundaries as a form of self-care.
Yeah.
A lot.
Yeah, maybe that's not helpful to read.
Because those are all things we talked about already.
We did.
Yeah.
I'm just remembering our last session.
Yeah, it was a good one too.
So what is possible for,
I guess I'll paint you a picture of like the specific person
(33:08):
that this show is made for,
to then ask you what's possible for them
when they lean into nervous system regulation work.
So the people who I hope are listening to this
are ambitious women with a history of toxic relationships.
And they might have gone through a breakup
a couple of months ago.
(33:29):
And they're in that sweet spot, that little chapter of,
they've gone through a breakup and done a couple,
they've done some healing
and they're ready to go deeper with that healing.
And they do wanna date,
but they have the self-awareness to realize,
I should not be dating right now.
Like there's still some stuff I wanna do
(33:49):
because she wants that long-term committed partner.
And she doesn't wanna repeat the same toxic patterns
from her past relationship.
Yeah.
So for a woman like that who's listening,
what's possible for her when she leans
into nervous system regulation work?
I love that, I love the question.
(34:10):
I feel like a lot of codependent relationships,
if you wanna say,
they are that need for,
I am talking about myself and it comes to,
so I had like this very codependent pattern.
And I feel like it was emanating,
it was coming because I never felt safe
(34:30):
in my own body and my own self.
So I always needed another person to like latch onto
and give me safety.
So I feel nervous system work is really, really good
to like connect to yourself, your body,
your intuition, like if you don't have intuition,
if you're not connected to your body,
you are then totally coming from your head
(34:52):
when it comes to, let's say what you want in a partner
or what you need to work on yourself.
It's very cognitive based.
And if it is very, most of the times,
if it's all mental based, it's all chase, chase, chase,
chase, chase, but that takes you away from being here,
right, being in your body.
So nervous system work is really good
(35:12):
to connect with yourself, to feel safe in your body.
And from that place to know actually what you want, right?
Because if you're not safe with yourself,
I don't think it's very tricky then to actually attract
a healthy relationship and to feel safe in that relationship
because if you're not safe with yourself,
(35:34):
it's gonna be a very, for me,
it was very unhealthy attachments that I was going through.
And they were very coming from my cognitive mind
of that checklist that I had.
I got this, I'm good, but yeah.
So yeah, like I feel safety,
safety and clarity about what we want from ourselves
(35:55):
and the other person.
I think that's something that nervous system work
can really help with.
I love that.
That's what we all,
that's what I think that's what every ambitious woman needs
is that safety and like feeling completely whole
in herself, especially if she's,
wanting that long-term partnership
(36:16):
and wants to feel as prepared as she can to go into it.
Cause I think it's also important to mention
like you don't have to be 100% healed
before you get into a relationship
cause more of the work happens in a relationship
that can't happen outside of a relationship
cause the relationship is a trigger.
(36:37):
Yeah, I love that.
I love that, but I think that sense of completion
in our own selves, right?
Like I don't have mastery in self-love.
Like I've heard people talk about,
I do think self-love is pretty important,
but I don't think I'm at a place where I feel like
I have really got it,
but I am able to feel safe with myself now, you know?
(37:01):
And I feel like that's like the seed I wanna say.
Your cat is so funny in the background.
Sorry. I can hear him.
Oh my God, I like locked him outside.
No.
My cat's locked outside too of this room
and he was meowing earlier.
Maybe it's the cats, they wanna talk.
Let's start them a podcast.
We need to have one.
My cat talks.
(37:22):
He really talks.
Oh my God, I should get him on a podcast.
Yeah.
Yeah, my boy cat talks a lot too.
The girl one is quite-
It's a boy thing then.
I know.
My cat is too, oh my God, he's a boy.
He talks.
Maybe the testosterone makes them talkative, I don't know.
No idea.
Yeah, I think what I was saying was like,
(37:45):
like safety in self, I think that's the seed we need
for anything, I feel like that.
That's the place I wanna come from that safety in self
to feel complete in myself, to love myself,
like truly love yourself.
You need to be able to first feel safe with yourself, right?
Yes.
And that also, what's coming up next for me is like,
(38:08):
acceptance of where you are at right now, like that healing.
I think healing is lifelong journey.
We're always going to heal.
We're always gonna look at our flaws.
We're always gonna have flaws.
There's no point in time where we're gonna be like
100% healed, no healing required, flawless.
We're not gonna be that, right?
So I think feeling, when I say like feeling safe in yourself
and with yourself, it's like that acceptance of,
(38:29):
okay, I'm this person, I have my own flaws,
but that's okay, I'm still very lovable.
Being acceptable, accepting our flaws
without like judging ourselves or ridiculing ourselves
or like trying to fix them right away.
Yes.
I think that's very important to anything.
That safety, even you have like that safety in self,
(38:50):
it comes, that acceptance.
Mm-hmm, yeah, and that completely sets the tone.
That safety in self sets the tone for, you know,
for relationships, but also a relationship isn't just
romantic relationship.
I think it's your relationship to everything.
Yeah.
Your relationship to food, to money, to work, to career,
(39:11):
to like yourself, and you know,
that's the most foundational one,
your relationship to self, and your relationship to self
feels more like there's this acceptance,
even if like you said that you don't feel like
you're at mastery of self-love.
However, you feel that safety and acceptance in yourself
and like that's, that in itself is self-love, you know?
(39:36):
That's like the goal, and like I really do think
that's the goal to be like, I'm good as I am now,
and I see where I can improve.
Yeah, we need that too, right?
Yeah.
We need to be able to, I want to work on myself.
I wanna see the, you know, where I can grow,
where I can learn, I wanna see, I love that.
It is so much fun in that growth and that work, right?
(39:58):
Yeah, but like also, I think what I used to do before
is like I'm not enough right now,
and I need to be this version of myself in the future.
That's the goal, that's when I will be enough.
Yes.
And that never happened, right?
Yeah.
Even if we reach that, like I said,
there's something else we need to reach to,
and it's just a never-ending cycle of chase
(40:20):
and running away from ourselves, I feel,
running away from like our bodies,
and how we truly feel about ourselves.
So we're not like, I would not face how I truly,
I had a lot of shame about myself,
and I still get that like for me, shame, inner criticism,
those are my patterns, like inner dialogue patterns,
if you wanna say like that's how I can feel about myself.
(40:44):
I can be very critical, I can be very like,
I'm bad, bad, bad, no matter what,
but, and I'm then chasing goals,
like I need to get this accomplishment
to be enough, then I will be a good person,
I need to be this, so I will be good,
but that's a never-ending chase, that never.
It totally is, yeah, it's relatable, yeah.
(41:04):
Exactly, and when I'm able to like sit with myself and see,
why am I even feeling bad about myself?
Okay, this is what's up, is it even true?
But like, I actually know it's just my own gunk
that I just need to clear out and part my ways with now,
you know?
Yes.
So that work I feel is like, that happens for me
(41:24):
when I have safety in myself, right?
I can like sit with myself and have that distance.
I'm not bad, it's just a pattern that's playing out,
what needs to be shifted here, and then do the work,
rather than go in that, I need to get to this goal to be okay,
I need to get to this next goal to be okay.
Yeah.
Because you just mentioned that,
(41:45):
of like getting the safety in yourself first,
and then doing this kind of like inquiry of,
is this actually true?
Yeah.
Something I wanted to ask you earlier,
when you talked about working at the cognitive level,
versus working at the body level,
I'm so curious with, let's say,
let's take the example of affirmations.
(42:06):
Is it possible, and if it is,
what happens when we do the nervous system drills,
and then maybe combine it with something
a little bit more cognitive, like,
affirmations? Is that something, is that a thing?
Yep, totally.
I feel like, so we do do a little bit of cognitive work,
when we are shifting limiting beliefs,
(42:26):
but when we're doing that cognitive work,
we have a certain level of safety already in the body.
So with my clients, like we already do some sessions before,
where we're just focusing on the safety,
and then we go into like cognitive work.
And even with the cognitive aspect,
we first make sure that we are in that session,
(42:47):
let's say we first make sure we are safe in the body,
and then we go towards, okay, what's happening?
Like with that inquiry thing.
And then I help my clients, like,
come up with a belief that is more empowering to them.
And again, throughout the session,
we're checking in with the body to see,
is that new belief ever coming up?
Is the body actually behind it or not?
(43:07):
So if you have affirmations that your body
and your nervous system is actually behind,
your nervous system is actually behind, doing the drills,
doing the affirmation, it's very powerful.
And like your body actually,
so what's the problem with affirmation?
It's like you are saying affirmations
without knowing if that's the affirmation for you,
especially if you're just in the cognitive.
(43:29):
A lot of times what we're doing is we see,
affirmations and where money loves me,
and we're just repeating it, repeating it, repeating it.
But how is your body feeling towards it?
If you're subconscious, it's like, money is bad,
I never wanna have money.
And you're like, money loves me, money loves me.
And there is this conflict and disconnect
that's happening, right?
So that affirmation is actually not good for you
(43:50):
in that point of time.
These affirmations are good,
but they need to come from the level of the body
and the nervous system.
Again, so your subconscious is not repelling
the thing you're putting in.
But if you find that affirmation,
if you have this affirmation,
if you have this belief that are actually pleasant
to the body, doing them and doing them with the drills
is actually very powerful.
(44:11):
That's something I love.
I have my affirmations, if you wanna say,
my new beliefs that I have come up with.
Again, working with the body,
this is the belief that I wanna shift,
this is where I'm going.
I love to look at them and repeat them
while I'm doing my drills, and it's so good.
I love it when I do it.
And before, when I used to do affirmations in the past,
I felt like, and they were not mine.
(44:34):
I would get them from YouTube videos,
whereas of course I did, and I'm repeating them, right?
And it felt like, it was painful.
Like I was forcing myself, like, when will I accept this?
Why is it not working?
I've said this 10 times, and there was this very icky energy
that was hard, it was all because my subconscious
was vague on the other end, and I'm like,
(44:56):
no, no, no, come here, run, why are you not running?
What's wrong with you?
It never worked for me, unfortunately.
Yeah, like, doing them in a way
where your subconscious is actually accepting of them
is very, very...
Yeah, so for anyone listening
who has lost faith in affirmations,
(45:19):
do some nervous system regulation work first,
and then maybe try the affirmations again
and see if it works.
Yep, and even doing the affirmation where you're doing,
like, we have this wave, and you're doing the drills,
we can check if the drill was positive or negative.
So doing the drill, checking after the drill,
if the drill was negative, that means your body
(45:41):
is not behind the affirmation.
So you have that clear could be of knowing
if it's working for you or not.
Like through this route that we can literally check
and see, oh, okay, this really not good for me
at this point of time, I will revisit it.
Yes, yes.
Oh my gosh, I've loved this conversation.
Me too.
Yeah, and I know this is a part two,
(46:03):
so I've already asked you the closing questions
that I ask every guest in our last episode,
but I'll just ask one of them to you again,
just in case something different comes up.
And that question is what does self-love mean to you?
I love it, I remember you asked me last time.
I don't remember my answer, but I think self-love,
(46:27):
okay, the recent, I think the last time I said too,
it's always changing for me, and it always is.
In this point of time, it's that self-acceptance
because right now, like I've, so many changes are happening
and I noticed like I was, I had this pattern
of like trying to control the situation to keep myself safe
(46:47):
against the rebel pattern.
But now I'm leaning more into now, I'm gonna surrender
and I'm gonna choose how I am responding
rather than controlling the situation.
And with that, a lot of self-acceptance,
if you wanna say of where I am and where I'm going
(47:08):
and not trying to like control.
So that is my self-love, like that's how I'm loving myself
right now by not controlling the situation anymore
and just going, not really going inside,
but really surrendering.
And in that surrender, I noticed like when I was trying
to like control the situation,
I was disconnected with a higher power of God,
(47:31):
universe, whatever you wanna call.
But now I'm leaning more into now I'm safe.
I'm gonna be safe, I'm gonna figure this out
like the thing you were saying with the,
like when you're packing your bag and you're like,
I'm okay, it's a, you missed the situation,
but I'm gonna be okay.
So having that, that I'm gonna be okay
(47:51):
and connecting and surrendering to a higher power
for me that's God, that's my version of self-love
right now.
Beautiful.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
And for people listening, where can they find you online?
Where can they connect with you?
And tell us a little bit more about how they can work
with you as well.
(48:12):
Amazing.
So my website is Sofia at the right Sofia,
no, sofiaejaz.com.
So the website is sofiaejaz.com, S-O-F-I-A-E-J-A-Z.com.
You can reach out to me there.
And I'm very active on Facebook right now.
I'm under same name, Sofia Ejaz.
I have my profile and I also have my group
(48:33):
that I think you're gonna share the link in the notes
that you can definitely join in there.
I talk more about nervous system regulation,
how we can break cerebral patterns,
how we can manage our triggers,
how we can feel safe in the body and so on and so forth.
So, and we also, I'm starting like challenges now,
like free challenges that you can like hop on.
And I think right now the challenges are braced around
(48:55):
like rewiring the survival patterns
and how we can take control like of our daily lives.
I feel like we're out of control of our daily lives.
Like forget about the future.
What's the name of the group for the people listening?
The Rising Entrepreneur.
So it's based around for business women, entrepreneurs.
I feel like our stress loads are very high on the daily
(49:18):
because there's so many hats we're bearing.
There are so many roles we're having to juggle.
And a lot of I feel entrepreneurs are like rule breakers
and they already had like some,
I don't wanna say trouble, but like difficult,
not even difficult.
Like the stress buckets are usually higher.
And so it's geared around those people
(49:38):
who are like ambitious, rule breakers,
who wanna do things, who have tried things
and have gotten stress as a result of that.
So it's for those people and how you can,
it's important to be daring.
It's important to be courageous.
It's important to take risks.
But how don't we, how we not like break our backs
doing those things?
Because I've broken down so many times in my journey
(49:59):
because I'm that person, I'm breaking rules.
I'm questioning the norms.
I'm questioning the status quo.
So when you're doing that, it's important to keep doing that
while being regulated so we don't, you know,
let our stress buckets rise and go into a shutdown
like I did or something worse got for bit.
So it's for those people, yeah.
(50:19):
Yes.
In a nutshell, not really.
Did you say people with no chill?
People with no chill?
Is that what you said?
No, in a nutshell.
In a nutshell.
In a nutshell, it's this.
I thought you said it's for people with no chill.
It can be that too actually, yeah.
I would have very much no BS strategy going on.
(50:42):
Like I'm very straightforward, right?
And I don't like BS.
So yeah, no chills can come to you.
I think they will enjoy this.
Awesome, thank you so much.
You're most welcome.
Thank you for that question.
Yeah, thanks for being back on the show for a second time.
My pleasure.
Thank you for inviting me again.
(51:02):
And it was such an awesome ride.
It's always fun to talk with you.
I'll see you next time.
Popular Podcasts
Boysober
Have you ever wondered what life might be like if you stopped worrying about being wanted, and focused on understanding what you actually want? That was the question Hope Woodard asked herself after a string of situationships inspired her to take a break from sex and dating. She went "boysober," a personal concept that sparked a global movement among women looking to prioritize themselves over men. Now, Hope is looking to expand the ways we explore our relationship to relationships. Taking a bold, unfiltered look into modern love, romance, and self-discovery, Boysober will dive into messy stories about dating, sex, love, friendship, and breaking generational patterns—all with humor, vulnerability, and a fresh perspective.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com