In Part 2 of this powerful conversation, Richmond Heath goes deeper into the body’s language of safety, connection, and repair. You'll discover how true healing begins not with control, but with trust—trusting the body’s wisdom to guide release, restoration, and resilience from within.
You’ll hear Richmond explain how cultivating a sense of inner safety changes everything: your relationships, your stress response, even your ability to rest.
This episode goes beyond understanding TRE—it’s about learning to inhabit your body as a safe home again.
Tune in to discover how to stop managing stress and start transforming it.
Connect with Richmond:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/richmond-heath-08719326/
Join the Self-Respect Reset Course
If you’re tired of carrying the guilt, the “shoulds,” and the constant exhaustion that comes from saying yes when your body means no—this is your moment to reset.
Self-Respect Reset is a 4-week guided experience that helps you calm your nervous system, release guilt, and rebuild self-trust from the inside out. You’ll learn how to:
✨ Say no without spiraling into shame
✨ Create peace without disconnecting from others
✨ Replace exhaustion with ease and energy
✨ Build boundaries that honor your worth without guilt
It’s time to stop surviving on empty and start living from alignment.
Join the journey at
www.drkellykessler.com/selfrespectresetcourse
Let go of the guilt.
Leave the exhaustion behind.
Rebuild your peace, one boundary at a time.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Rewiring Health. If you're a high achieving woman
feeling trapped in the endless cycle of guilt and exhaustion
from always putting others first, then this is your
sanctuary. I'm Doctor Kelly Kessler, your
dedicated empowerment mentor, and I'm here to tell you that
it's time to reclaim your peace,health, and happiness.
(00:20):
Imagine waking up every day feeling energized and
unapologetically living for yourself.
Together, we'll break down the walls that have been holding you
back and unlock the vibrant, unstoppable force that you truly
are. It's time to put yourself first,
embrace your authentic self, andlive a life that's not just
endured, but celebrated. Now, let's dive in.
(00:51):
Have you ever noticed your skin reflex?
Your stress. I used to struggle with mine
Dry, dull, reactive, until I started pairing nervous system
regulation with products that actually honor your body.
That's why I love milk and butterflies.
They handcraft every formula with 100% organic ingredients
and powerful aromatherapy oils. They aren't just products for
(01:14):
your skin, they're rituals that restore hydration, resilience,
and calm even in the busiest seasons of our life.
You can try them for yourself and feel the difference.
Head to milk and butterflies anduse my promo code Doctor Kelly
for free shipping. That's DRKELLY for free
shipping. Also, check out the link in the
(01:34):
description for the podcast. Welcome to Part 2 of this
two-part episode with Richmond Heath.
If you haven't yet listened to Part 1, you'll want to listen to
it before today's episode because it's going to give you a
good foundation for what we're talking.
About today. But in this episode, we're going
to talk all about safety and healing, how to cultivate safety
within the body so that you can move forward in your life with
(01:56):
greater freedom and greater healing.
This has been such a great series with Richmond Heath, and
I'm so grateful for everything he shared from his personal
experience and his journey of helping so many people release
patterns of tension and stress in their bodies and experience a
whole new way of living. Enjoy.
So I would love to hear. More about.
(02:16):
Safety and how that plays a roleand in this whole process of.
Healing and really coming. Home to ourselves.
Yeah, All right. I'm, I'm, I'm really happy to
dive into this because it's sucha strong topic at the moment.
It's a really valuable thing. So generally in the trauma
informed world and when we thinkabout trauma informed practice,
(02:37):
generally what it means is we'regoing to create the external
conditions that mean that I never get triggered.
So you're not going to say anything or do anything where
I'm going to start to feel unsafe.
And so we want to try and createexternal conditions of safety.
We want to resource things that are going to help us.
Now that's that's great and it'sa step on the journey, but I'll
(02:59):
never forget sitting on an aeroplane and talking to David
Berselli about stuff and having this conversation about safety.
And he said something really profound to me, which was he
said, yeah, sure, trauma's in the body because we're talking
about how trauma and you know, everything's body based.
Now it's like, yeah, sure, trauma's in the body, but so is
(03:20):
safety further inside the body underneath the trauma responses.
And it was so profound because when we recognize that, yeah,
the body's generating our defensive responses, you know,
the fight flight and the freeze,the body is also generating the
shaking response. And the body only generates the
(03:43):
shaking response when it is safeto do so.
So for example, if you're if you're a mouse and the cat's
trying to wake you up and stimulate it because the
predator needs that stimulation of the chase, your body won't
start to shake and tremble because it will excite the cat.
The body will play completely dead.
If you're an environment where your body shaking and trembling
(04:05):
isn't is going to create more danger, your body won't do it.
So the moment your body starts to shake or tremble, it's
showing you that it is safe to start to heal.
And so gradually what happens ispeople when we get connected to
that, they start to go, hey, this shaking and trembling
response, it's actually it is safety.
(04:28):
It's not I have to feel safe in order to let this happen.
It is a deeper place of safety within us which is expressing,
it's saying it's time as an Organism, we are safe to let go.
We are not going to, we are not going to die here.
Now, if we're public speaking, my ego might say, oh, I don't
want to shake now, but the organism's saying, but you're
(04:50):
not going to die. And if you let it happen, you're
actually going to give a better speech because your cortex will
come back online. Your ego might take a hit.
You're going, oh, I'm feeling like I'm anxious, but that's
real. It's only shaking because of the
reality. So there's an Australian TRA
provider who once you know, saidif it's, if you're shaking, it's
over. If you're shaking, it's safe.
(05:13):
And why this is so profound is because when we recognize that,
we start to get connected to thesafety that's inside us.
And so much of us are being toldin the trauma informed world.
And again, it's not to say that it's necessarily wrong or bad,
but we're being told to find safety externally and create
(05:35):
safety externally. Now, if I can control the entire
universe for the rest of my life, I'm going to be safe.
But until we recognize that that's really just avoiding our
triggers, then we don't really heal.
This is critical. We don't heal, we just create
control. Basically, we control our
(05:55):
experience so we never actually have to move through, you know,
what's inside it. So I'll never forget Kelly at a
a a workshop early on when I wasfirst teaching Tre.
And you know, we often use you can access it many different
ways, but you'll often lie on your back with your knees open
wide and someone came up and said, Oh, you can't possibly
teach this to people who've had sexual abuse.
(06:16):
You know, that's horrendous and it's not safe and da, da, da,
because it's a again, I'll neverforget David Berselli saying to
someone when when they asked himthat and he said, if you're
someone who's been sexually abused, if you can't lie on your
back with your knees open, then you haven't healed.
So we need to be able to get to this point.
Now, it doesn't mean that we force people into positions that
(06:37):
feel uncomfortable, but we mightinvoke the tremors a different
way. But then what people will find
is that as they go back into that position and their body
starts to tremble and shake instead of going, Oh my God, I'm
not safe. Oh my God, I'm shaking.
I'm this, I'm not, I'm not feeling safe.
I'm having panic. They're going, Oh my God, I am
safe. This is my body unwinding and
the body will take us back to those positions so we can
(07:01):
reconnect with our safety. So this is where deeply
embodying and experiencing this innate process inside us.
It takes it out of being a conceptual thing of, Oh yes,
safety is inside me. Going in those moments where you
don't feel safe, when your body is starting to shake, that's a a
deeper place within you that is actually expressing the safety
(07:24):
that's within us to heal and release and relax and re embody
ourselves in those moments. And with that, like, so if
someone is not, maybe they're laying there in that position,
they're not shaking, is there? What would be the next step for
that person to? Would it be a different position
so they could feel a bit safer? Like how do you allow that to
happen? And maybe if the body isn't
(07:44):
naturally feeling able to feel safe in that position.
Yeah, so this is where when whenyou learn how to reconnect with
the shaking and trembling in a asafe and controlled way, that
falls away very quickly. So generally what we will do is
we will find a position. So for example, if if lying on
your back with your knees open doesn't feel OK, we're going,
(08:05):
well, let's not do that. Let's do a wall sit or let's do
a different, different muscle, use a different muscle group.
But then once people experience the little vibration and the
shaking, and then they stop and they're like, oh, wow, I let
that happen. I didn't end up in a psych
hospital. I haven't had a seizure.
I'm OK, well, and I can stop it right now.
Let's get it going again. And they get it vibrating a
(08:27):
little bit more and it starts tospread through them and maybe it
starts to move into an area and they're like, oh, that's a bit
too much. And they stop like, wow, I can
control this. Therefore I'm free to let go.
So we uncouple the fear that people have got at the which is
shaking is dangerous and it's not safe.
And by doing that, then they find that their body will
(08:49):
naturally start to open up. And one of the, one of the key
things I want to, I want to cover here is that sense of we
often think about the deepest thing is our emotions or we,
we've got to release our emotions.
But what I like to express to people is we generally only
release emotionally or behaviourally through behaviour
(09:15):
and actions when we've lost the pathway for the body to release
neurogenically. And that's in these spontaneous
little micro movements. Now to help understand that if
a, you know, zebra's been caughtby a line and it's been held for
half an hour and then it managesto escape, it doesn't go to the
(09:35):
water hole and then kick because, oh, while I was being
held, I needed to do this action.
And it doesn't have the necessarily have to have the
emotion of, Oh my God, I'm feeling terror.
I have to feel terror for 30 minutes.
I have to express my terror because that takes a whole lot
of energy. And as a, an energy survival
technique, that's not a, a good sensible, efficient way to
(09:57):
resolve it. So the body just does these tiny
little shake shaking micro movements.
So the zebra doesn't have to feel the fear or express the
fear. The Organism just needs to shake
and tremble. So this is when people get
connected to this movement response that's underneath the
emotions. It can be absolutely profound.
(10:20):
I'll never forget working with the woman who came to see me.
She had a a history of terrible sexual abuse.
She started doing the trembling.And then after the trembling
came in, she's like, Oh my God, I don't feel safe because you've
got to remember she is safe. But we associate the shaking
with this is fear. This is what fear is.
So we're going to be shaking means I'm not safe.
(10:42):
And all I said to her, and this was a real pivotal moment
because previously what I said was I OK, we'll stop the
tremoring. Let's do this, You know, let's
create safety and all I said to this day, I said, all right,
when we start again, all I want you to do is I want you to talk
to me about what you're physically experiencing the
movement. You're don't talk, don't tell me
what what you're feeling emotionally.
(11:02):
I want you to talk about the movements.
And as soon as her diaphragm started to wobble and that and
she started to feel a bit scaredand a bit she started to connect
with the movements and there wasNo Fear and everything let go.
So there's this element of diving deeper underneath the
emotional focus. It's not certain.
And getting connected to that and recognizing that that is is
(11:26):
where the safety is. So most of us, you know, when
something, most of us, when we're feeling our emotions,
generally what we're feeling is the containment of our emotions.
Like I'm sitting here, I'm not screaming with terror, I'm
going, I'm feeling really scared.
So I'm not actually feeling the expression of movement.
(11:47):
I'm actually feeling the my bodyholding in movement or holding
in fear. Yeah.
Does that does that make sense? Like we, it was a major sort of
insight for me is going, oh, wow.
What I thought was my emotions. Generally what I'm feeling is
the containment of my emotions because if they're not
contained, they're just being expressed.
So if I'm feeling scared and I'mnot, I'm not screaming, then my
(12:10):
body's not expressing. Or if I'm feeling angry and I'm
not actually it's the, it's the tension and the I've got, I've
gone down a bit of a different rabbit hole there.
But yeah, it's all linked into this sense of that safety is
deeper inside us, deeper inside the fear.
And when the body starts to shake and tremble, the it's like
the body's saying, yeah, yeah, Iknow you feel scared, but you
(12:32):
are safe in this moment and you are safe enough to shake and
move and stay alive and come alive in that moment rather than
having to shut down. Yeah, no, I love that.
And then just like talking abouthow that's, you know, because
it's so easy to be like, oh, we are full of fear, but like to.
Also know that that. Safety is in there and then
that's the the truest expressionof us.
And it's just that what's on topof that, and that's what's
(12:55):
allowing us to, you know, that that's coming out through the
body. I think that's it's absolutely
profound. Is twitching.
Also part of that, like if we get into like little hand
twitches or anything, is that also an expression of?
That. Coming out through the body,
yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
It can be. It can be.
And it's hard to say. You know, sometimes you can have
(13:16):
pathology that's creating something.
But yeah, often we'll find there's just little
fasciculations is another word where you get the muscles are
just rippling under the skin or you get a little jolt or a
little wave that can. That can absolutely be it as
well. The metaphor of the analogy that
I often use is, you know, if youthink about an ocean, a cross
(13:38):
section of an ocean and up abovethe ocean, you know, you've got
the clouds. And that's our narrative and our
story. You know, then you've got the
waves on the surface. And that's our emotions.
And most of us, we think that that's the depth.
And the further we go in, the more emotional we're going to
feel. Whereas the waves are like the
surface and then when we drop down deeper to where the tides
(14:00):
are deep at the, you know, there's no, there's no waves in
the bottom of the ocean. And so that's where when people
get really grounded and connected to the movements that
are underneath the emotions, then we get to connect with this
deeper place of safety and solidity.
It doesn't mean we don't feel what's happening on the surface,
(14:21):
but there's something deeper inside us, which is the fact is
we're alive. You know, the, the classic thing
is, and in the early days of my,when I wasn't as grounded or
connected to this, I, you know, I might be teaching people and
some, if someone says I don't feel safe, then I'd go, all
right, well, I have to do thingsto make you connect to safety.
I have to, you have to find safety.
(14:43):
I have to, I have to help groundyou.
These days, if people say I don't feel safe, I'll simply
often generally say, well, you are.
And it's not because I'm saying it, It's because I'm going,
you're in a room here, your body's shaking, you're in a room
what you happened in the past orwhat you're worried about, it's
not happening. And as people get connected to
(15:05):
that, we start to have an innate, authentic, embodied
sense of safety in the danger. Now the reason that's so, so
valuable is coming full circle is rather than then trying to
control our external environmentso we never get triggered and we
externally create the universe so that we're we, we never have
(15:25):
to deal with these things. Now when we get triggered and
we've got a way of releasing that pathway or down regulating
it, each time we get triggered becomes an opportunity to go
right, here's another chance to build capacity.
Wow, I felt terrified. I did that speech, I was
nervous, I was shaking. You know what, it went a bit
(15:46):
better than last time and I survived and afterwards I was
OK. Then instead of avoiding that
for the rest of my life going, oh, I'm never going to do that.
There's a little bit more capacity in our system that
says, hey, I can get through that.
And there's, we grow a little bit more safety in our, you
know, literally like in our Organism.
The, the scales start to tip. There's more safety in this than
(16:07):
danger. Again, this is where that sense
of progress and getting people connected to the direction it's
heading them in is so profound. People like, wow, I'm starting
to feel there's more safety inside me.
As these patterns let go, we getmore grounded, we get more
embodied, we get more capacity to then deal with stress and
(16:30):
trauma and triggering situations.
So we actually start to build capacity and, and lead need less
of our defences, which ultimately starts to grow what I
like to call neurophysiological maturity.
Which means it's not just that I'm acting like a mature adult,
it's that my nervous system is truly maturing.
(16:53):
And I sometimes laugh. I reckon I'm at about 22 or 23
year old, you know, I'm 54, but it's like my nervous system is
like at a 22 or 23 year old at the moment.
It's like still gets triggered, still does this, but it's much
better. When I started doing Tre, I was
like, hey, I'm like a three-yearold.
My system's constantly like that.
(17:14):
So it is this way of developing this sense of groundedness or
embodiment and authenticity and capacity in the nervous system
where we have more capacity to be in quite unsafe environments
without us getting pulled up outof ourselves and having to act
out and react to those environments because that's
(17:35):
anchored deeper inside us. And, you know, as we know with
everything, it's not just a cognitive process.
If it was, you know, I tell someone who's terrified, say,
hey, just let it go, you're safe, you're fine, it doesn't
work. But when people are anchored
physiologically into that, we start to live from this place
of, hey, there's something in methat's got this, that can get
(17:56):
through this. And I've got the capacity to
start to reawaken and re expand into those areas of our life
where we've, you know, generallyshut down to avoid our triggers.
Yeah, I love it. I so interesting the example you
used with the ocean and the waves.
Because I had Doctor. Tony Nader on the podcast a few
months ago and he talked about consciousness and the ocean
(18:18):
being the consciousness and we are waves thinking that we're
separate. And that's where like the fear
is and everything. And so it's so interesting
you're talking about with that, with the example like the body
and that we are safe and that's the truth of us.
So it's the parallels between that that like we're all one.
It, you know, the the truth is safety, the truth is love.
The truth is that we're all one,even though we can get stuck up
(18:40):
in the waves and the clouds of the stories of what we think is
truth sometimes. So it's, yeah, I love that.
Yeah, that, that's right. And and the element that we lose
is the body and the physical. The physical structure, I'll
never forget. I had a session of Tre many,
many years ago with David Bercelli and he was trying to
help my body to tremor more and he was trying all these
(19:02):
different things to make it shake more.
And in the end he's like, oh, I give up.
You're just too controlling. And too, I can't help you.
But at one point I was, he was pushing on my chest and I was
like, David, that's you're pushing too hard.
I can feel my body bracing. Yeah, you need to put softer,
just be softer. And.
And he was going a bit softer. And I remember thinking, you
know, you could drive a truck over my chest.
(19:22):
And it's just so tight and rigid.
It's not going to let go. And so I was guiding him to
eventually just just rest. Just.
That's too much pressure. He ended up just resting his
hand. And in that moment, I could just
feel my body started to melt. So it wasn't even shaking.
And like, we talk about shaking and trembling or spontaneous
movements and stretches and that.
But for me, most of my deepest experiences, Kelly, come from
(19:46):
just this sense of my body's melting or there's like, heat
coming out from my armpits or mymuscles are just softening.
And I'll never forget that. And this is relevant to that
analogy, that as I was lying there, I had this vision that,
you know, came to me as clear asday.
I wrote a poem about it. I wrote a song about it.
I did a painting about it which was this.
(20:09):
Since that, as I was sinking deeper and deeper into the
ocean, all of a sudden I found the bottom of the ocean, that
underneath, even at the bottom of the ocean and the power of
the tides, there's ground underneath there.
And so it felt like in that moment, again, this was that
sort of visual vision or analogy.
(20:29):
It was like, wow, underneath allthe movement and all the stress
and all them, there's something more solid down underneath the
earth. And then all of a sudden things
started to change for me where, you know, instead of thinking,
oh, right, I'm going too deep, I've got to jump back out and
come out of my body. There was this sense of no, when
I go further into my body, even below the tides, is the rock
(20:53):
solid earth or the ground. And then it was more like, oh,
I'm jumping up off the bottom ofthe ocean, getting swept around.
But when I relax and let go, I come back and land on the on the
the solidity and the earth underneath.
Now again, please doesn't make me sound like I'm perfectly
enlightened or I'm not, you know, stressed out and like
(21:13):
neurotic as everybody else. But there's this deep embodied
knowing that when I relax and I get out of the way and I calm my
mind and I don't try to control things, the deeper inside me and
the people I work with. And we see this is this sense of
solidity when we fully drop through and we hit the physical,
(21:37):
the physical structure and the wisdom of the body that's
beneath the narrative, beneath the beneath the emotions.
And it's about integrating that.And most of us, we don't have
that deep experience of like there's something inside me
where that solidity, you know, call it your soul, your life
(21:58):
force, your, you know, whatever it is, is somewhere there inside
us, which is always, you know, grounding us.
And it's always there no matter how turbulent, you know, life,
life goes. It's such a pro been such a
profound. It's such a profound anchor.
Even in the throes of all different, all different life
(22:19):
stresses and things going on in my life personally at the
moment, there's just this little, it's like, I can't deny
that that's that that's in thereunderneath everything.
It's it's so, so profound. Yeah, it's so powerful,
especially when you are going through things externally and
there's, you know, obviously thestressors that never really go
away. But when you can see the
(22:40):
experience that you're having inthat and on that, there is a
groundedness to that, regardlessof what's happening outside
yourself. It really is a testament to the
power of what you're doing and, and tuning into the body and
connecting with the body. So it's absolutely profound.
And I really appreciate everything you shared on on
safety because I think that's something that so many of us,
(23:02):
you know, experience things in life and feel very ungrounded,
not safe, but allowing us to have this perspective and shift
that in the shift our narrative on safety is really profound.
So thank you. Yeah, you're welcome.
Because so much of the narrativeis about creating external
safety. And that's not wrong.
That's that's valuable. But if we want true healing, we
(23:26):
have to find that. We have to find and connect and
and look within and find it. Because generally when the shit
hits the fan, we go back into our mind, into our ego heads.
We try and control everything and fix everything.
And that can be temporarily useful and relevant, but it's
not the kind of healing we're looking for.
I always like to say, you know, to people, somewhere between now
(23:49):
and the moment that you die and go into the light, you're going
to find that controlling is not going to work when you're on
your deathbed. All those patterns.
And my sort of supposition is part of the relief and the bliss
that people experience in, you know, death and near death
experiences, those moments of letting go of control and
surrendering deeper in. And we, and this is part of the
(24:10):
beauty of the practice of Tres, we can on a micro level, let go,
surrender, give in to our body. And as we practice that in
surrendering into our body, it soon flows into learning and
having more grace in surrendering to our life as
well. So yeah, look, I'm glad to at
least touched on that concept ofsafety.
(24:30):
There's, there's lots more for it, but ultimately it's about an
embodied experience. So we could talk about it
forever. But you know, I just encourage
listeners, go and learn Tre, learn the tremoring however you
want to because that's where it ultimately is, is going into
your body rather than endlessly talking about it.
Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate everything Chair,
because again, it's it's something I think it's so
(24:51):
relevant to all of us that, you know, at some point we've felt
unsafe or maybe we feel unsafe right now.
So it's allowing us to just see that there is a different way to
live and to feel more anchored in our in ourselves.
So thank you again for everything and I, I really
appreciate it. I know it's going to help
somebody who's listening right now.
You're welcome. Thanks for having me.
On Absolutely. Thank you so much for tuning
(25:14):
into this episode. If there was something in this
episode that really resonated with you or a message that stuck
with you, please share it with someone else.
It's only through sharing these messages that we can start to
rewire our minds to feel empowered and live the life that
we truly desire. Please subscribe so you never
miss an episode. And again, thank you so much for
(25:35):
tuning in to Rewiring Health.
Welcome to Rewiring Health. If you're a high achieving woman
feeling trapped in the endless cycle of guilt and exhaustion
from always putting others first, then this is your
sanctuary. I'm Doctor Kelly Kessler, your
dedicated empowerment mentor, and I'm here to tell you that
it's time to reclaim your peace,health, and happiness.
(00:20):
Imagine waking up every day feeling energized and
unapologetically living for yourself.
Together, we'll break down the walls that have been holding you
back and unlock the vibrant, unstoppable force that you truly
are. It's time to put yourself first,
embrace your authentic self, andlive a life that's not just
endured, but celebrated. Now, let's dive in.
(00:51):
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(01:34):
description for the podcast. Welcome to Part 2 of this
two-part episode with Richmond Heath.
If you haven't yet listened to Part 1, you'll want to listen to
it before today's episode because it's going to give you a
good foundation for what we're talking.
About today. But in this episode, we're going
to talk all about safety and healing, how to cultivate safety
within the body so that you can move forward in your life with
(01:56):
greater freedom and greater healing.
This has been such a great series with Richmond Heath, and
I'm so grateful for everything he shared from his personal
experience and his journey of helping so many people release
patterns of tension and stress in their bodies and experience a
whole new way of living. Enjoy.
So I would love to hear. More about.
(02:16):
Safety and how that plays a roleand in this whole process of.
Healing and really coming. Home to ourselves.
Yeah, All right. I'm, I'm, I'm really happy to
dive into this because it's sucha strong topic at the moment.
It's a really valuable thing. So generally in the trauma
informed world and when we thinkabout trauma informed practice,
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generally what it means is we'regoing to create the external
conditions that mean that I never get triggered.
So you're not going to say anything or do anything where
I'm going to start to feel unsafe.
And so we want to try and createexternal conditions of safety.
We want to resource things that are going to help us.
Now that's that's great and it'sa step on the journey, but I'll
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never forget sitting on an aeroplane and talking to David
Berselli about stuff and having this conversation about safety.
And he said something really profound to me, which was he
said, yeah, sure, trauma's in the body because we're talking
about how trauma and you know, everything's body based.
Now it's like, yeah, sure, trauma's in the body, but so is
(03:20):
safety further inside the body underneath the trauma responses.
And it was so profound because when we recognize that, yeah,
the body's generating our defensive responses, you know,
the fight flight and the freeze,the body is also generating the
shaking response. And the body only generates the
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shaking response when it is safeto do so.
So for example, if you're if you're a mouse and the cat's
trying to wake you up and stimulate it because the
predator needs that stimulation of the chase, your body won't
start to shake and tremble because it will excite the cat.
The body will play completely dead.
If you're an environment where your body shaking and trembling
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isn't is going to create more danger, your body won't do it.
So the moment your body starts to shake or tremble, it's
showing you that it is safe to start to heal.
And so gradually what happens ispeople when we get connected to
that, they start to go, hey, this shaking and trembling
response, it's actually it is safety.
(04:28):
It's not I have to feel safe in order to let this happen.
It is a deeper place of safety within us which is expressing,
it's saying it's time as an Organism, we are safe to let go.
We are not going to, we are not going to die here.
Now, if we're public speaking, my ego might say, oh, I don't
want to shake now, but the organism's saying, but you're
(04:50):
not going to die. And if you let it happen, you're
actually going to give a better speech because your cortex will
come back online. Your ego might take a hit.
You're going, oh, I'm feeling like I'm anxious, but that's
real. It's only shaking because of the
reality. So there's an Australian TRA
provider who once you know, saidif it's, if you're shaking, it's
over. If you're shaking, it's safe.
(05:13):
And why this is so profound is because when we recognize that,
we start to get connected to thesafety that's inside us.
And so much of us are being toldin the trauma informed world.
And again, it's not to say that it's necessarily wrong or bad,
but we're being told to find safety externally and create
(05:35):
safety externally. Now, if I can control the entire
universe for the rest of my life, I'm going to be safe.
But until we recognize that that's really just avoiding our
triggers, then we don't really heal.
This is critical. We don't heal, we just create
control. Basically, we control our
(05:55):
experience so we never actually have to move through, you know,
what's inside it. So I'll never forget Kelly at a
a a workshop early on when I wasfirst teaching Tre.
And you know, we often use you can access it many different
ways, but you'll often lie on your back with your knees open
wide and someone came up and said, Oh, you can't possibly
teach this to people who've had sexual abuse.
(06:16):
You know, that's horrendous and it's not safe and da, da, da,
because it's a again, I'll neverforget David Berselli saying to
someone when when they asked himthat and he said, if you're
someone who's been sexually abused, if you can't lie on your
back with your knees open, then you haven't healed.
So we need to be able to get to this point.
Now, it doesn't mean that we force people into positions that
(06:37):
feel uncomfortable, but we mightinvoke the tremors a different
way. But then what people will find
is that as they go back into that position and their body
starts to tremble and shake instead of going, Oh my God, I'm
not safe. Oh my God, I'm shaking.
I'm this, I'm not, I'm not feeling safe.
I'm having panic. They're going, Oh my God, I am
safe. This is my body unwinding and
the body will take us back to those positions so we can
(07:01):
reconnect with our safety. So this is where deeply
embodying and experiencing this innate process inside us.
It takes it out of being a conceptual thing of, Oh yes,
safety is inside me. Going in those moments where you
don't feel safe, when your body is starting to shake, that's a a
deeper place within you that is actually expressing the safety
(07:24):
that's within us to heal and release and relax and re embody
ourselves in those moments. And with that, like, so if
someone is not, maybe they're laying there in that position,
they're not shaking, is there? What would be the next step for
that person to? Would it be a different position
so they could feel a bit safer? Like how do you allow that to
happen? And maybe if the body isn't
(07:44):
naturally feeling able to feel safe in that position.
Yeah, so this is where when whenyou learn how to reconnect with
the shaking and trembling in a asafe and controlled way, that
falls away very quickly. So generally what we will do is
we will find a position. So for example, if if lying on
your back with your knees open doesn't feel OK, we're going,
(08:05):
well, let's not do that. Let's do a wall sit or let's do
a different, different muscle, use a different muscle group.
But then once people experience the little vibration and the
shaking, and then they stop and they're like, oh, wow, I let
that happen. I didn't end up in a psych
hospital. I haven't had a seizure.
I'm OK, well, and I can stop it right now.
Let's get it going again. And they get it vibrating a
(08:27):
little bit more and it starts tospread through them and maybe it
starts to move into an area and they're like, oh, that's a bit
too much. And they stop like, wow, I can
control this. Therefore I'm free to let go.
So we uncouple the fear that people have got at the which is
shaking is dangerous and it's not safe.
And by doing that, then they find that their body will
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naturally start to open up. And one of the, one of the key
things I want to, I want to cover here is that sense of we
often think about the deepest thing is our emotions or we,
we've got to release our emotions.
But what I like to express to people is we generally only
release emotionally or behaviourally through behaviour
(09:15):
and actions when we've lost the pathway for the body to release
neurogenically. And that's in these spontaneous
little micro movements. Now to help understand that if
a, you know, zebra's been caughtby a line and it's been held for
half an hour and then it managesto escape, it doesn't go to the
(09:35):
water hole and then kick because, oh, while I was being
held, I needed to do this action.
And it doesn't have the necessarily have to have the
emotion of, Oh my God, I'm feeling terror.
I have to feel terror for 30 minutes.
I have to express my terror because that takes a whole lot
of energy. And as a, an energy survival
technique, that's not a, a good sensible, efficient way to
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resolve it. So the body just does these tiny
little shake shaking micro movements.
So the zebra doesn't have to feel the fear or express the
fear. The Organism just needs to shake
and tremble. So this is when people get
connected to this movement response that's underneath the
emotions. It can be absolutely profound.
(10:20):
I'll never forget working with the woman who came to see me.
She had a a history of terrible sexual abuse.
She started doing the trembling.And then after the trembling
came in, she's like, Oh my God, I don't feel safe because you've
got to remember she is safe. But we associate the shaking
with this is fear. This is what fear is.
So we're going to be shaking means I'm not safe.
(10:42):
And all I said to her, and this was a real pivotal moment
because previously what I said was I OK, we'll stop the
tremoring. Let's do this, You know, let's
create safety and all I said to this day, I said, all right,
when we start again, all I want you to do is I want you to talk
to me about what you're physically experiencing the
movement. You're don't talk, don't tell me
what what you're feeling emotionally.
(11:02):
I want you to talk about the movements.
And as soon as her diaphragm started to wobble and that and
she started to feel a bit scaredand a bit she started to connect
with the movements and there wasNo Fear and everything let go.
So there's this element of diving deeper underneath the
emotional focus. It's not certain.
And getting connected to that and recognizing that that is is
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where the safety is. So most of us, you know, when
something, most of us, when we're feeling our emotions,
generally what we're feeling is the containment of our emotions.
Like I'm sitting here, I'm not screaming with terror, I'm
going, I'm feeling really scared.
So I'm not actually feeling the expression of movement.
(11:47):
I'm actually feeling the my bodyholding in movement or holding
in fear. Yeah.
Does that does that make sense? Like we, it was a major sort of
insight for me is going, oh, wow.
What I thought was my emotions. Generally what I'm feeling is
the containment of my emotions because if they're not
contained, they're just being expressed.
So if I'm feeling scared and I'mnot, I'm not screaming, then my
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body's not expressing. Or if I'm feeling angry and I'm
not actually it's the, it's the tension and the I've got, I've
gone down a bit of a different rabbit hole there.
But yeah, it's all linked into this sense of that safety is
deeper inside us, deeper inside the fear.
And when the body starts to shake and tremble, the it's like
the body's saying, yeah, yeah, Iknow you feel scared, but you
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are safe in this moment and you are safe enough to shake and
move and stay alive and come alive in that moment rather than
having to shut down. Yeah, no, I love that.
And then just like talking abouthow that's, you know, because
it's so easy to be like, oh, we are full of fear, but like to.
Also know that that. Safety is in there and then
that's the the truest expressionof us.
And it's just that what's on topof that, and that's what's
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allowing us to, you know, that that's coming out through the
body. I think that's it's absolutely
profound. Is twitching.
Also part of that, like if we get into like little hand
twitches or anything, is that also an expression of?
That. Coming out through the body,
yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
It can be. It can be.
And it's hard to say. You know, sometimes you can have
(13:16):
pathology that's creating something.
But yeah, often we'll find there's just little
fasciculations is another word where you get the muscles are
just rippling under the skin or you get a little jolt or a
little wave that can. That can absolutely be it as
well. The metaphor of the analogy that
I often use is, you know, if youthink about an ocean, a cross
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section of an ocean and up abovethe ocean, you know, you've got
the clouds. And that's our narrative and our
story. You know, then you've got the
waves on the surface. And that's our emotions.
And most of us, we think that that's the depth.
And the further we go in, the more emotional we're going to
feel. Whereas the waves are like the
surface and then when we drop down deeper to where the tides
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are deep at the, you know, there's no, there's no waves in
the bottom of the ocean. And so that's where when people
get really grounded and connected to the movements that
are underneath the emotions, then we get to connect with this
deeper place of safety and solidity.
It doesn't mean we don't feel what's happening on the surface,
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but there's something deeper inside us, which is the fact is
we're alive. You know, the, the classic thing
is, and in the early days of my,when I wasn't as grounded or
connected to this, I, you know, I might be teaching people and
some, if someone says I don't feel safe, then I'd go, all
right, well, I have to do thingsto make you connect to safety.
I have to, you have to find safety.
(14:43):
I have to, I have to help groundyou.
These days, if people say I don't feel safe, I'll simply
often generally say, well, you are.
And it's not because I'm saying it, It's because I'm going,
you're in a room here, your body's shaking, you're in a room
what you happened in the past orwhat you're worried about, it's
not happening. And as people get connected to
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that, we start to have an innate, authentic, embodied
sense of safety in the danger. Now the reason that's so, so
valuable is coming full circle is rather than then trying to
control our external environmentso we never get triggered and we
externally create the universe so that we're we, we never have
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to deal with these things. Now when we get triggered and
we've got a way of releasing that pathway or down regulating
it, each time we get triggered becomes an opportunity to go
right, here's another chance to build capacity.
Wow, I felt terrified. I did that speech, I was
nervous, I was shaking. You know what, it went a bit
(15:46):
better than last time and I survived and afterwards I was
OK. Then instead of avoiding that
for the rest of my life going, oh, I'm never going to do that.
There's a little bit more capacity in our system that
says, hey, I can get through that.
And there's, we grow a little bit more safety in our, you
know, literally like in our Organism.
The, the scales start to tip. There's more safety in this than
(16:07):
danger. Again, this is where that sense
of progress and getting people connected to the direction it's
heading them in is so profound. People like, wow, I'm starting
to feel there's more safety inside me.
As these patterns let go, we getmore grounded, we get more
embodied, we get more capacity to then deal with stress and
(16:30):
trauma and triggering situations.
So we actually start to build capacity and, and lead need less
of our defences, which ultimately starts to grow what I
like to call neurophysiological maturity.
Which means it's not just that I'm acting like a mature adult,
it's that my nervous system is truly maturing.
(16:53):
And I sometimes laugh. I reckon I'm at about 22 or 23
year old, you know, I'm 54, but it's like my nervous system is
like at a 22 or 23 year old at the moment.
It's like still gets triggered, still does this, but it's much
better. When I started doing Tre, I was
like, hey, I'm like a three-yearold.
My system's constantly like that.
(17:14):
So it is this way of developing this sense of groundedness or
embodiment and authenticity and capacity in the nervous system
where we have more capacity to be in quite unsafe environments
without us getting pulled up outof ourselves and having to act
out and react to those environments because that's
(17:35):
anchored deeper inside us. And, you know, as we know with
everything, it's not just a cognitive process.
If it was, you know, I tell someone who's terrified, say,
hey, just let it go, you're safe, you're fine, it doesn't
work. But when people are anchored
physiologically into that, we start to live from this place
of, hey, there's something in methat's got this, that can get
(17:56):
through this. And I've got the capacity to
start to reawaken and re expand into those areas of our life
where we've, you know, generallyshut down to avoid our triggers.
Yeah, I love it. I so interesting the example you
used with the ocean and the waves.
Because I had Doctor. Tony Nader on the podcast a few
months ago and he talked about consciousness and the ocean
(18:18):
being the consciousness and we are waves thinking that we're
separate. And that's where like the fear
is and everything. And so it's so interesting
you're talking about with that, with the example like the body
and that we are safe and that's the truth of us.
So it's the parallels between that that like we're all one.
It, you know, the the truth is safety, the truth is love.
The truth is that we're all one,even though we can get stuck up
(18:40):
in the waves and the clouds of the stories of what we think is
truth sometimes. So it's, yeah, I love that.
Yeah, that, that's right. And and the element that we lose
is the body and the physical. The physical structure, I'll
never forget. I had a session of Tre many,
many years ago with David Bercelli and he was trying to
help my body to tremor more and he was trying all these
(19:02):
different things to make it shake more.
And in the end he's like, oh, I give up.
You're just too controlling. And too, I can't help you.
But at one point I was, he was pushing on my chest and I was
like, David, that's you're pushing too hard.
I can feel my body bracing. Yeah, you need to put softer,
just be softer. And.
And he was going a bit softer. And I remember thinking, you
know, you could drive a truck over my chest.
(19:22):
And it's just so tight and rigid.
It's not going to let go. And so I was guiding him to
eventually just just rest. Just.
That's too much pressure. He ended up just resting his
hand. And in that moment, I could just
feel my body started to melt. So it wasn't even shaking.
And like, we talk about shaking and trembling or spontaneous
movements and stretches and that.
But for me, most of my deepest experiences, Kelly, come from
(19:46):
just this sense of my body's melting or there's like, heat
coming out from my armpits or mymuscles are just softening.
And I'll never forget that. And this is relevant to that
analogy, that as I was lying there, I had this vision that,
you know, came to me as clear asday.
I wrote a poem about it. I wrote a song about it.
I did a painting about it which was this.
(20:09):
Since that, as I was sinking deeper and deeper into the
ocean, all of a sudden I found the bottom of the ocean, that
underneath, even at the bottom of the ocean and the power of
the tides, there's ground underneath there.
And so it felt like in that moment, again, this was that
sort of visual vision or analogy.
(20:29):
It was like, wow, underneath allthe movement and all the stress
and all them, there's something more solid down underneath the
earth. And then all of a sudden things
started to change for me where, you know, instead of thinking,
oh, right, I'm going too deep, I've got to jump back out and
come out of my body. There was this sense of no, when
I go further into my body, even below the tides, is the rock
(20:53):
solid earth or the ground. And then it was more like, oh,
I'm jumping up off the bottom ofthe ocean, getting swept around.
But when I relax and let go, I come back and land on the on the
the solidity and the earth underneath.
Now again, please doesn't make me sound like I'm perfectly
enlightened or I'm not, you know, stressed out and like
(21:13):
neurotic as everybody else. But there's this deep embodied
knowing that when I relax and I get out of the way and I calm my
mind and I don't try to control things, the deeper inside me and
the people I work with. And we see this is this sense of
solidity when we fully drop through and we hit the physical,
(21:37):
the physical structure and the wisdom of the body that's
beneath the narrative, beneath the beneath the emotions.
And it's about integrating that.And most of us, we don't have
that deep experience of like there's something inside me
where that solidity, you know, call it your soul, your life
(21:58):
force, your, you know, whatever it is, is somewhere there inside
us, which is always, you know, grounding us.
And it's always there no matter how turbulent, you know, life,
life goes. It's such a pro been such a
profound. It's such a profound anchor.
Even in the throes of all different, all different life
(22:19):
stresses and things going on in my life personally at the
moment, there's just this little, it's like, I can't deny
that that's that that's in thereunderneath everything.
It's it's so, so profound. Yeah, it's so powerful,
especially when you are going through things externally and
there's, you know, obviously thestressors that never really go
away. But when you can see the
(22:40):
experience that you're having inthat and on that, there is a
groundedness to that, regardlessof what's happening outside
yourself. It really is a testament to the
power of what you're doing and, and tuning into the body and
connecting with the body. So it's absolutely profound.
And I really appreciate everything you shared on on
safety because I think that's something that so many of us,
(23:02):
you know, experience things in life and feel very ungrounded,
not safe, but allowing us to have this perspective and shift
that in the shift our narrative on safety is really profound.
So thank you. Yeah, you're welcome.
Because so much of the narrativeis about creating external
safety. And that's not wrong.
That's that's valuable. But if we want true healing, we
(23:26):
have to find that. We have to find and connect and
and look within and find it. Because generally when the shit
hits the fan, we go back into our mind, into our ego heads.
We try and control everything and fix everything.
And that can be temporarily useful and relevant, but it's
not the kind of healing we're looking for.
I always like to say, you know, to people, somewhere between now
(23:49):
and the moment that you die and go into the light, you're going
to find that controlling is not going to work when you're on
your deathbed. All those patterns.
And my sort of supposition is part of the relief and the bliss
that people experience in, you know, death and near death
experiences, those moments of letting go of control and
surrendering deeper in. And we, and this is part of the
(24:10):
beauty of the practice of Tres, we can on a micro level, let go,
surrender, give in to our body. And as we practice that in
surrendering into our body, it soon flows into learning and
having more grace in surrendering to our life as
well. So yeah, look, I'm glad to at
least touched on that concept ofsafety.
(24:30):
There's, there's lots more for it, but ultimately it's about an
embodied experience. So we could talk about it
forever. But you know, I just encourage
listeners, go and learn Tre, learn the tremoring however you
want to because that's where it ultimately is, is going into
your body rather than endlessly talking about it.
Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate everything Chair,
because again, it's it's something I think it's so
(24:51):
relevant to all of us that, you know, at some point we've felt
unsafe or maybe we feel unsafe right now.
So it's allowing us to just see that there is a different way to
live and to feel more anchored in our in ourselves.
So thank you again for everything and I, I really
appreciate it. I know it's going to help
somebody who's listening right now.
You're welcome. Thanks for having me.
On Absolutely. Thank you so much for tuning
(25:14):
into this episode. If there was something in this
episode that really resonated with you or a message that stuck
with you, please share it with someone else.
It's only through sharing these messages that we can start to
rewire our minds to feel empowered and live the life that
we truly desire. Please subscribe so you never
miss an episode. And again, thank you so much for
(25:35):
tuning in to Rewiring Health.
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