June 27, 2022 • 46 mins
Ruby Rose Fox, musician, performer, nervous system coach and creator of the MuscleMusic app, joins us to discuss Polyvagal Theory and how she uses it to coach performers. She has helped performers improve their nervous system resilience so they can perform their best and feel calm and confident in their body.
We experience a key point of her teaching "the show doesn't have to go on" when Angel Amy excuses herself for feeling sick. We all learn that taking care of ourselves is crucial.
MuscleMusic app, the first trauma-informed performance and fitness app for creatives is available for for $5 a month, on both Apple and Android.
Ruby can be found at https://www.muscle-music.com/
Spill the Ginger Tea Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spillthegingerteapodcast/
Angel Amy Instagram: https://www.myangelamy.com/
Angel VIP Club at https://www.myangelamy.com/aligning-with-the-angels/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:01):
Hi, I'm Angel, Amy.
And hi, I'm Lila.
So today we have a guest, RubyRose Fox. And she is a singer
songwriter performer. She has abackground in acting. She's also
a writer. And she has evenperformed at a TED talk, which
(00:24):
is super, super amazing. Andtoday we are going to learn
about her program, which is alsoan app called muscle music. So
thank you so much for beinghere, Ruby.
Thanks for having me. So excitedto talk to you.
So Lila actually found you onInstagram. And we were talking
(00:49):
about that I had been attractingsome actresses. And as Angel Amy
with life coaching, and Lilasaid, that's crazy. I just found
this woman right, LilaYep. Yep. And I thought like
how, you know, I, what I sawwas, you know, through your the
release of your app. And Ithought like, oh, my gosh,
(01:10):
that's so amazing that you woulddo that. So I guess we should
start out a little bit, if youwould tell us about the app?
Sure. Well, it's funny, we'vebeen talking about acting,
because it's actually what wasmissing in my acting education
at Emerson College, studying,studying to be a professional
(01:31):
actress that I think most led meto making the app being a singer
songwriter did as well, butteaching singer songwriters and
actors, that it's okay to stop,the show doesn't have to go on,
to heal some of their traumarelated to the arts. And to
(01:57):
focus them on actually enjoyingtheir careers. And that the
measure of success is reallyfeeling good in your body every
day and loving what you do.
Instead of, I have to make it orI have to be famous. So muscle
music is an app for allperformers, and really all
artists who want to focus ontheir nervous system, restoring
(02:22):
their nervous system, learningabout their nervous system, and
just having a healthierrelationship to their craft.
Oh, beautiful. Yeah, I find thatpeople just forget that
actresses and actors are realpeople, and that they have
feelings and an emotionalcomponent, and also triggers,
(02:45):
right. So you know, actors andactresses are able to lean into
certain characters, but alsothey are put into very unique
situations that can be quitetriggering. And so it's great to
have tools in your toolbox to beable to handle those situations.
(03:10):
Absolutely.
And what is unfortunate is thatthose tools are still not in
professional acting trainingprograms. Wow. Not even close.
And many are not even interestedin it because the teachers were
abused and told to bypass theirbody. So yeah, so it's a new
(03:35):
science, it's actually thescience is just being
incorporated into traumatherapy, which is becoming
revolutionary in terms ofhealing. So it's new
information, new tools, and I'mjust taking those tools and
applying it to performing.
So great. So I think, I guesslike the assumption most people
(03:58):
would probably have is that ifyou decided to be any sort of
performer that you would have nonerves around it, right? Somehow
you it wouldn't miraculous?
Exactly. And I can see peoplesaying, Oh, well, if you get
that nervous, it's just not foryou. Right? Like, then you
should find something else to doversus the idea that of course,
it would be or should be nervousgetting up and standing in front
(04:20):
of either even, you know, threeor four people sitting at a
desk, you know,right, right. And it can change
in a lifetime. I justinterviewed the head of
Brandeis. And she, she recentlyhad a bout of stage fright that
came on later in life that shehad really never experienced
before and it came out ofnowhere. So even in the life of
a performer, they can havedifferent relationships to
(04:45):
anxiety, stage fright,depression, that can really
affect your career and life.
And, I mean, the biggest thingis just normalizing it right and
normalizing that we have bodiesWe're in bodies surprise. Yeah.
Right. Right. Will you tell us alittle bit more about your
(05:07):
background?
Yeah. So, um, I, again, Itrained as a theatre artist, and
also trained as a with Deb Dana,in polyvagal theory. So I also
have a trauma informedbackground there. But I've been
a singer, songwriter performerfor about a decade, making a
(05:30):
living doing pretty muchexclusively that before the
pandemic hit. And so I was sortof like, burning myself out
working myself, you know, dayand night to just make a living
as a performing artist. Yeah,and I've done multimedia shows,
I've made two full lengthrecords. Yeah, I've done a lot
(05:55):
of self producing. So when Ifirst started out, I sort of had
a theatrical mindset about beinga musician and wanted to put on
a show. So I produced my ownshows, which actually really
helped me because I wasn'twaiting for anyone to hire me. I
was like, I'm doing my ownthing. So yeah, and definitely,
(06:15):
this was all in Boston,Massachusetts, and definitely
had a very strong stance as aintersectional, feminist, and as
a voice for other women who wereperhaps struggling in the music
business. So.
So then did you develop like aset of tools that you found you
(06:37):
were using in order to performyourself?
Yeah, well, so I always feltlike I had more tools than
others. Because of my actingtraining. I knew how to create
presence on stage, I knew how tocreate Charisma on stage. But
the missing piece was, thatactually came from me coaching a
(07:00):
bunch of traumatized women, whoif they struggled, like, it was
different teaching someone whohad trauma in their body than it
was teaching someone who didn't.
There wasn't like a block there.
And even though I was doingteaching very casually, at that
point, I still had this need, Iwas like, I want to know,
(07:22):
something's happening here. AndI want to know more, I want to
be able to help them better. Andcoincidentally, I have now a
good friend, Jenny, not who I'vedone workshops with, wanted to
just meet and talk. And normallyI would be like, Oh, I don't
want to meet a fan. But for somereason, I felt okay about it.
(07:42):
And she, I was mentioning her toher something that I was doing
with artists and with myclients. And she said, Oh, well,
that sounds like polyvagaltheory. And turned out polyvagal
theory, which is this sciencematched with this like woo woo
acting technique. And I finallyhad concrete language and a
(08:06):
system for healing withinperformance. So it was truly I
can't stress how revolutionarylearning polyvagal theory was,
and applying it to myself, myown body and my students. The
theory is called polyvagaltheory. And it's actually, the
other phrase for is the scienceof safety. So it's love, I love
(08:32):
the science of finding safety inyour body, in your mind, in your
environment. And it's nonpathologizing. So it's not it's
basically it's saying that allbehaviors, even curious
behaviors, like things thatwould normally be feel very,
like maybe icky or bad, likealcoholism, like cutting like
(08:54):
anorexia, many things that manyartists struggle with. You look
at it through the lens of thisis simply the nervous system
looking for safety. It's lookingfor regulation. And I just love
to that.
Yeah. So it has to do withconnection, and learning how to
(09:16):
connect back into oneself. Isthat correct?
Absolutely. It says that.
There's three nervous systemstates that are very different
circuits. They're likecompletely different circuits.
And we only have one circuitthat is a circuit that even
allows connection, okay? So thatwhen we aren't connected or
(09:39):
don't feel connected, it's not achoice. It's an unconscious
processing system that happensto us for our own safety. And
that we don't actually have anycontrol over that. But we do
have control to shift our systemto find connection again. Once
we're triggeredSo as Angel AMI, I teach about
(10:00):
the five bodies, the mentalbody, the emotional body, the
physical body, spiritual body,an energetic body. So the first
system that you were justtalking about, would most likely
connect to the mental body. Butthen your techniques probably,
(10:21):
I'm just an I don't know whatthey they then probably move
everyone into the energeticbody, which is connected to that
subconscious ways.
So actually, each nervous systemhas all of those in them, they
(10:41):
just have different variations.
Although our ability to haveconnection, our ability to think
our ability to feel diminishesas we go down something called
the polyvagal. Ladder. So I'llexplain that like this. We all
have iPhones, I have an iPhone,right? And it has so much stuff
(11:03):
in it, it has Facebook, it hasyou can do your taxes, you can
do everything in it. It's meantfor 2022, this phone is meant
for right now. When we gettriggered, it would be the
equivalent of your phone goingpoof, and turning into a Nokia
from 1992. Okay, yeah, still,it's still phone, but it has
(11:28):
less functioning. Okay. And ifyou got triggered again into the
freeze response, it would be asif the Nokia went poof, and went
into your grandma's rotary phonefrom the 70s. You're completely
talking my language? Yeah, I'mloving this too. I feel
(11:48):
like there's a mental emotionalphysical component to every
single one of them. So forexample, the mental component of
fight or flight is that actuallythe prefrontal cortex turns off,
right. So you have brain fog,you have less ability to think
you can still think but yourattention is actually
(12:11):
biologically wired for fleeingfrom an animal. So your mind is
going somewhere else. Does thatmake sense? So there's no,
it's as Ruby completely? Do youknow, what's crazy, is I have a
whole slew of psychiatrists asclients. And I've actually
(12:31):
taught them about freeze. I lovethat you just said freeze,
flight and freeze, right? Thebiggest problem
is that if you if you don't havea trauma therapist, or a
psychiatrist, a psychiatristthat knows about polyphonic
vagal theory, no offense, butrun
a run. Because for the reasonthat for so many years, like for
(13:01):
example, like traumatized, Armyvets would come back, and they
would be in something calleddorsal which is a freeze
response. And all of a sudden,in therapy, they would explode
into these huge feelings. Andthe therapist would be like, I'm
failing, this is terrible. Thisis not going right. Through
(13:21):
polyvagal theory, it shows youthat it's an ladder of safety.
So if the only path out offreeze is fight or flight,
right, that's actually the pathof safety. And it also happens
to actors. If you're feelingshut down. If you're feeling
sad, and you're in a slightfreeze response. The way out of
(13:43):
that is actually to feelsomething pretty big. So if I
have a client that cries out ofnowhere, I'm not like, oh my
god, I'm a bad teacher. I'msaying, Oh, my God, their body
is finding safety and I need tolead them to their safe and
social response. But that is whywithout polyvagal theory, I
believe that psychiatry therapyis very dangerous.
(14:06):
Okay, so I have a quick littleangel AMI story. So So I have a
14 and a half year old daughter,and when she was around a 910
she she's definitely a feelerbecause she feels kinetically in
(14:27):
our body. And we had we were inFlorida, and we went to an
aquarium that had the dolphinthat lost her fin and this Oh,
the movie? Yeah, there's a movieand we went and we saw her. And
I have to think of her name, butI know
(14:49):
what you're talking about. Okay,thank you. Thank you. I'll see
if I can come up with the name.
And so you could go in and watchthe movie about her story. And
it was actually I'm like abiography like real footage when
they rescued her. And Julia,that's my daughter. She stood
up, we walked out of the theaterand she completely passed out
(15:13):
completely, like total vagal,vagus nerve completely on the
ground. This was like the thirdtime. And I found that her, her
she would have this reaction toextreme situations. But when you
asked her, Are you like, for theemotional component? Are you
(15:34):
okay? She couldn't articulatewhat happened to her like she's
not feeling sad or angry. Or itwas just something innate in her
wish she took on the energy andwould just completely shut down
and pass out. Wow, wow. Yeah.
Is Yeah, that actually happensto a lot of people like on
(15:54):
airplanes. Where they completelyI'm trying to remember the
technical name for it, but it'sactually like not freezing.
It's, it's like a super freeze.
It's actually the way that ananimal would freeze. When a
predator gets it in its mouth.
The animal will just play dead.
Yes, but it's not actuallyplaying dead. It's actually
(16:15):
doing what your daughter did,which is to completely freeze.
Exactly. And so she's Ovid.
She's my biological child. Sothere, there's some innate
ability to take on otherpeople's or animals, feelings or
traumas. So she would like, nowI understand it, but she would
(16:37):
sit there and actually take iton like she was the dolphin, and
then completely pass out. Yeah,and she's not the only one. So
I'll little gingersnaps listen,if you if some adults can really
relate with us in so and if youhave children that just go into
this complete freeze mode. Ihave a client that told me when
(17:01):
she had to put our cat down, shelegit laid on the vet's floor
like on our back flat like likethis. It's not funny, but just
laid there and complete traumathat they had to go in the next
room and put the cat down. Yeah,because she just completely
started to pass out. Yeah,you're onto something here.
(17:23):
There's a whole beautiful niche,because we were talking before
we came on Lila, how this helpcould help people across the
board. Like even beyondactresses and actors. Oh,
absolutely. The real secret toall the work is that it's really
applicable to everything. Imean, it can help your
relationships. It's you know it.
But the nice thing about workingon it through art is that there
(17:48):
is a play element, and it canmake it safer. Working on trauma
is really tough. When you're notsinging or play acting, it's
much easier or in muscle music,I just added an exercise
component. So I'm working on itthrough other ways than just
talking through, you know, talktherapy can be great for some
(18:12):
people. But for other people,it's extremely distressing. And
actually trying out a song,discovering your trauma, through
singing or through acting, orthrough your own craft that you
love can be safer for yoursystem. And you can get more
curious about where you'restuck, because you're doing it
through play. That'sso beautiful. So connection
(18:35):
through music is definitely asoul connection. And in the
soul, it the soul houses all thepositive emotions, and the ego
houses all the negative. So whenyou're taking someone into, like
the base of their soul, they'reable to fully step through that
(19:00):
fear of vulnerability, becausethere really is no fear
connected to the soul, andreally released that out of the
physical. Yeah, that's beautifulroot.
parts work, they would call thatself energy. And so many times
clients don't have access tothat self energy. And so often a
(19:22):
coach or a therapist can be actas that energy for them while
they're developing it forthemselves.
Beautiful, yeah, love it. Solet's talk a little bit more
about this polyvagal theory. Sois it relate? So here's my
(19:44):
question, I guess, is it relatedto that vagal vagus nerve.
So what happened to yourdaughter so Polly bagels so that
means multi multi vagus nerve,so there's the ventral vagal
nerve which looks like a bigtree You that goes it connects
to your whole body basically.
And it's, it's a regulator. Soit's the brake to your system.
(20:07):
Like if, if your spinal cord andyour brain are like putting on
the gas, then it slowseverything down. It keeps your
heart rate from being if youtook away your vagus nerve, your
heart would race like 100 B PMS.
And then behind that vagusnerve, there's something called
(20:27):
the dorsal vagal nerve. Sopolyvagal theory is around the
idea that when you freeze yourdorsal vagus nerve, which is an
older reptilian response, clampsdown, so it's like, it's like,
normally our brake is just youknow, when you're driving,
you're putting on your brake alittle bit. This is when the
brake slams down. Got it. Andthis is when passing out this is
(20:53):
when you you're just like, youfeel frozen. You're like, I just
need to lie in bed. I can't eventhink or move or I just feel
like sluggish or tired. I'mlike, it's a response. It's a
it's a trauma response to not toseverely feeling not safe.
Yeah. And so people can sort ofexist in that state for long
(21:17):
period can have I absolutelyflavors of it for sure. You can
exist in a complete you can'tcan't be, you can't update me,
right. But yeah, and it'sactually extremely unhealthy for
so it developed in reptiles andfish. And one deep question I
had was, you know, if the bodyis here for us to keep us alive,
(21:39):
why would it do this terriblething to us? Like This really
sucks, like, shutting down,freezing is unfun, and it
doesn't ever help my life. Sowhy, how is this adaptive? And
the reason that it's not thatit's not so helpful is that in
reptiles, and fish think aboutlike if they were doing their
(22:03):
little fishy reptile thing. Andthen a predator came and they
froze, they would be okay forabout 20 minutes or more. A
reptile can be underwater andnot need oxygen for a long time.
But think about how long we canhold our breath underwater.
Humans are so oxygen dependent,that when we get frozen, we
(22:25):
start to lose function. And wecan think we can't function. The
best way to think about thefreeze responses. You know, when
you're a kid and like you wrap arubber band around your finger
and it turns blue. Or you sleepon an arm and then all of a
sudden you're like it doesn'twork. And it's it's numb. So
what do people say when they'refrozen? They're feeling they
(22:48):
feel numb. So actually, thefreeze response is your body not
getting enough oxygen. So theway out of it is very similar
the way that we would treat alimb when it's frozen or numb.
You are you don't likeimmediately walk on it or you'll
fall you start to pad it and sayyou start to gently do gentle
(23:10):
movements. You just wake it up,hey, body wake up. And then of
course, there's parts of us thatare like, am I ever going to use
this arm again? And then ofcourse, it always comes back,
you know? So that's the freezeresponse.
Yeah.
I can't believe I'm going to dothis. We have to pause. I have
(23:32):
the worst pain in my stomach.
Oh, no, I don't. I'm so sorry,Ruby. This happened? Oh my god,
I'm gonna remove myself and comeback. Don't worry. So you then
went and learned all this foryourself?
Yeah, yeah. But and also to helpme to you know, but what I love
(23:53):
about it is that it just told metotal sense. So many things I
had experienced as an actor thatI was curious about, that didn't
ever make sense. would makesense underneath this system.
Right? Right. So it was like abreath of fresh air to finally
have because I'm a why personand I need science to believe
(24:18):
things. I'm not religious, and Iwouldn't say really spiritual.
So I need facts. And I need Ineed to know how systems work. I
need to know why. And so it'sbeen really fun to apply it to
performing. Yeah. Especiallyleadership and performing like
why does Why does charisma work?
Why is what is the sciencebehind that and why is it
(24:39):
effective or not effective onany given night? So, yeah,
that's amazing.
So most of the people that likeyour clients that come Are they
are they looking to get pastlike the audition process to the
work or does it incorporateusing Get in the work as well,
(25:01):
if that makes Oh yeah,it's all pervasive. So whether
you're wanting to audition, oryou're wanting to just have a
better relationship to yoursongwriting, or making music.
Yeah, it's all pervasive. Solike, I recently had a client
who's, you know, she's a coachherself, she coaches people in
fear. And is a singersongwriter, and as a recording
(25:25):
artist, but had some trauma,like as a woman in, in the
industry, and her therapy wasnot helping her or working for
her. So she was looking foranother system to think about
healing parts that weredestroyed, really distressed and
didn't feel safe.
(25:48):
I have IBS. And one of thethings that they talk about a
lot is the vagus nerve in termsof like, because IBS is
basically like, you know, wedon't really know what's wrong
with you, like, you don't haveany of the big scary diseases.
But obviously, you're affectedby something, you know, with
your digestion, your pain, youknow, whatever. And I found that
(26:12):
a lot of the stuff that'saddressing it is around like the
vagus nerve, the vagusnerve. Want me to tell you a
little about that. So, so thevagus nerve controls pretty much
everything from the head andactually goes into your face. So
the biggest thing that it does,it lights up your face, but it
also and it also has a heartconnection. But actually, what
(26:34):
controls everything, subdiaphragmatic is the dorsal
vagus nerve that we were justtalking about. So when it's
triggered is when it causes alot of disruption. But when
you're in safe and social, iswhen it actually works to help
you digest food. So if you'refeeling anxiety, or you're
(26:57):
feeling slightly shut down, orthere's a part of you that's
frozen, your digestion is notgoing to work, it's gonna be
compromised. So IBS, they'restarting to link IBS, with
anxiety with being shut down. Soit's really fascinating and
(27:18):
really logical that someone whohas trauma is way more likely to
develop IBS than than someoneelse. Right?
Yeah, it's gonna be interesting.
You know, I also I teachmeditation. And because one of
the things that they always sayto you like is, well, if we
don't know what's wrong withyou, right, like, it has to be
stress, you know, just thatBlanket.
(27:42):
Blanket term is so much morecomplex than
that, and then sort of go outand, you know, find your own
solution to the problem, youknow, I can say definitely
helps. It's also just like, comeon, there's got to be
well, that and that's what's sogreat about polyvagal theory,
it's an actual system withactual tools to shift from one
(28:03):
state to another. Exactly, whichis half the time. You can even
get it from a therapist. Soyeah, I'm huge on like, concrete
tools. Absolutely.
So we're in my late 20s, Idecided I had a bad breakup. And
I was like, either I'm gonnabecome an alcoholic or a Zen
monk and I went for the ladder.
So I lived at a Zen meditationcenter. that's run by a woman
(28:25):
named Joan Halifax, in Santa Fe,New Mexico called rupiah. And so
I lived there and meditated,probably like, at least two to
five hours a day. And it was sointense and beautiful. But
something that, that it wasinteresting how much I would be
(28:46):
sitting there in the Zendo,meditating, and all of a sudden,
this huge feeling would come up,and I would cry. You know, and
everyone's, like, really niceabout it, but they were
meditating too. But the theconclusion I had after being a
meditator for almost my entire20s, being super into Buddhist
meditation and philosophy, and Ilove all of it. But it doesn't
(29:11):
account for trauma healing. Andso it's wonderful for resetting
the nervous system and findingsafety in the body. But it's
not. It wasn't for me and mysystem. It wasn't enough. It I
needed a bigger system, I neededa system of healing that was
(29:34):
more active. And a major part ofpolyvagal theory is actually
that a lot of trauma healing hasto do with activation as well as
calming. So, a lot of times weoveremphasize the calming for
example. Like if you were infight or flight, your instinct,
(29:57):
if Someone was having a panicattack panic attack, you would
probably say, you know, wantthem to calm down or like, say
breathe. But that's actually theworst thing you can do for
someone having a panic attack,because they need to metabolize
the sympathetic energy first. Sothe night the thing you could do
(30:18):
to help someone having a panicattack is have them push on a
wall as hard as they can. Wow.
Or do a plank. So reallyactivate their whole body,
metabolize the hormones that arein their body, and then have
them meditate. And then havethem calm, and then have them
(30:38):
restore. So yeah, so it's alittle counterintuitive. Hi,
Amy. How are you feeling?
I'm so sorry.
Don't be sorry. Yeah,I'm just I'm having some issues.
I'm so sorry.
Don't even worry about it. Iwas legit in my head going,
Okay. This is like what I teachpeople. Do you push through the
pain and totally like, like,just not honor yourself, right?
(31:04):
Or do you just say something andjust remove yourself, and I just
chose to honor myself.
A mantra is the show does nothave to go on.
Crazy energetically that thishappened? Yeah. I've never know.
(31:26):
It's about I'm back. It's almostlike do we just leave it in? I
don't know. I? I'm alright withit. Honestly,
it's such a good model. Peopleneed models for leadership that
honors their body.
Yeah, yeah,I we don't we don't, we can't be
what we can't see. So it's sobeautiful. And performers do
(31:51):
this on stage. When I makemistakes on stage. I point them
out. And the audience loves it.
And they think I'm like,hilarious, but I'm like, I'm
actually just pointing outand you're is everybody? Yeah.
So I was in a spin class. And Idon't know 20 Something people.
And I started to, I actually hadto go the bathroom. So I had to
(32:14):
pee, everybody. Because ashumans, we pee. And I was like,
I can't go this whole spin classhave an impedance bad. And so I
actually got up in, went to thebathroom. And when I came back,
she started to holler. Angel,Amy just got off her bike to
(32:37):
take a big shit. No lie. And butyou know what? Rubia in that
moment, I realized that Imastered embarrassment. Like, I
wasn't embarrassed. I was like,whether I had a pee, poop, puke,
whatever the case fit, go fix.
(32:58):
None of it matters because Ihonored myself. I got off.
Something didn't feel right tome. And I needed to go address
it. And I came back when I wasready. And I think we have to
teach we should be teachingchildren I
have to tell you, when Iconvinced that, like, I would be
sitting there. Oh my god, I haveto go to the bathroom. And I
(33:19):
would tell myself like no one'sgoing to notice no one's gonna
so you just basically played outmy worst. Like, everybody's
gonna you're gonna walk back inand they're gonna say like, oh
my god, you just took a hugehit.
Right? So my, my, my team. Sothis is the inner child work.
Lila talked about her leastfavorite bird. My inner teen,
(33:42):
Rob, like, if I was a teen, Iwould have gotten off the bike
and just left. Like I would justpacked everything up and just
said, Screw this and never goneback ever. And it made me
realize that when I connected inthat moment that my inner teen
for that particular situationwas was healed. Because I didn't
(34:04):
care. I was like, Yeah, I wasbrave enough to get off my bike
and come back. And as humans, weall poop pee puke. Right,
exactly. Yeah. SoI mean, that's actually
instructions on my app for theworkouts. I say, if a big feel
even a feeling comes up a biganger, sadness, and you're
(34:25):
overwhelmed, stop, lie down onthe floor and talk to the part
of you that is hurting and needsyour attention. It's literally
like a little child being like,I'm hurt. Yeah, sad. And we
bypass these tiny little partsof us until we get so sick or
addicted, or like internallymentally ill because we're
(34:51):
constantly disrespecting theparts of us that are asking one
to be out of pain. And, and tobe healed. Like if there was a
little kid, would you ever dothat to a child? Like call them
out in a class for having to goto the bathroom? Like what is.
And I think that's the otherpart of this. That's like the
(35:15):
other part that needs to be heldas like. This doesn't just
happen with acting teachers. Ithappens with a rubbings,
instructors and trauma informedfitness is something I'm really,
really into right now. Becausethat is literally abuse to
embarrass, embarrass someone fortheir own pain. Like what what
(35:36):
are you? What are you teaching?
Here? Ifeel like I attracted it in. So
that I do see it that way. Ruby,absolutely. But in that moment,
she gave me a gift. Because Iwas like, wow, this is how far
I've come that I don't have anadverse reaction to her her
words right now and calling meout. But I'm choosing to look at
(36:00):
it that way.
Everyone around usingeveryone around me wanted to
just die for me. Yeah. And I'mlike, No, I am good. She She
just showed me that like that.
I've zero embarrassment. Andthat's how you know you're free,
(36:21):
right? Yeah, like freedomyou can't make you can't make
fun of something you can'tshame. You can't shame a part
that doesn't think it'ssomething like, if I was like,
your I was like, You're a purpleelephant. You'd be like, I'm not
offended. I'm not a purpleelephant. But if I always like,
you don't work hard enough. Yes,people like how does that
(36:47):
resonate? You can't hurt a partthat doesn't believe that it's
true. So yeah,yeah. Oh, my God, I'm getting
like, right. In that moment. Iknew I didn't just go take a big
shed. Like I legit just had apee like it right. And we all do
all these things. But you knowwhat, I also think that it's,
(37:09):
there's a realness to where weall forget, we're human. Like,
we all do these things, right?
And so we all need to, we allwould respect most of us would
(37:30):
respect someone else, if theyleft the bike to go take care of
themselves in combat. But thething that we do as humans is we
beat ourselves up for then goingto do the thing that we wish we
could go do.
And imagine. So if emotions arethe pissing and shedding of
(37:53):
feeling, like, think about like,when you cry, when you're angry?
It comes out of you. Yeah. Andthen you're done with it. It's
like peeing and pooping. It'slike, there's nothing shameful
or wrong about feeling things oremoting things. But like, think
about holding back, likeemotional constipation that we
(38:15):
have. Like, what if you heldyour poop in for like, 20 years,
your body would be really sick,very same thing with your
feelings. You hold a feeling infor 20 years, you're gonna start
getting sick.
And it comes back to those fivebodies again, right? For this,
this physical body houses theemotional body. So
(38:38):
yeah. And then sooner or later,it makes you physically sick,
right? Physically, yeah, it canstart as your emotional
experience. Eventually, it'syour back is killing you or your
hip goes out, orI loved myself more in that
moment than everybody else inthat room. But I couldn't. I
can't authentically love allthose strangers, authentically.
(39:04):
Unless I love myself first. I'mgetting choked up. Yeah. So I
really love strangers, Ruby. Andso this is just an example of
like, choosing you doesn't makeyou a bad person. Right? And so
I authentically want to liketreat everybody it has a faith
(39:30):
in Buddhism, that healingyourself is healing the whole
universe in one they say in oneinstant. Oh, and that's it.
Yeah. Chills. Yeah, that's it.
Yeah.
So beautiful. So this happenedfor a reason today and I'm back
everybodywould agree it's such a great
(39:50):
what happened is a great examplefor all performers, which I call
like, I in my work, I call it acall out so Do you call yourself
out? You say, Yes, this ishappening. I, I went out what
has happened, it shows my wholedress ripped open once and I
(40:12):
like tucked it in and I wasplaying piano and the whole
audience is seeing it. I wasjust like, you know, I do not
fit in this dress. And theythought it was really funny. But
if it freed me, and it freedthem, because now they don't
have to look at my rip dress allnight and be like, I wonder if
she knows about the red dress.
(40:32):
And then I don't have to belike, I wonder if they see the
red dress, I can focus on myfrickin show. So getting in
alignment with everything, andeveryone in our truth is where
connection and performanceactually happens. We just feel
shame, because that's what wewere taught.
Right? So it's like acceptingit, whatever it is, in the
(40:56):
moment. Just I think acceptanceis the first, the first place
that I choose to go to whensomething goes wrong, is accept
that this is happening in themoment. And there is nothing as
humans, we can't handle even theworst things, we can handle it,
(41:18):
we just might have to movethrough it later on in through
the those five bodies, but wecan handle it. Right?
Absolutely.
And we can handle it even bettertogether.
Yes. So connecting to thataudience is, I'm sure one of
your first steps right isconnection. And with performing.
(41:41):
You know, I find before I dotalks, I just remind myself that
this isn't about me. This isabout everyone in the room. So
stepping through that fear ofvulnerability to show up for
them authentically. And when Iwhen I step aside, that's what I
call when I step aside, and justown that moment that this is
(42:03):
about them. Not me, it takes allthat fear away. Like let's just
be want to do it. Right.
And and so in polyvagal theory,one of the beautiful things you
learn is that when you're infight or flight, we are actually
neurologically wired to be moreselfish and to think more about
(42:23):
ourselves, meaning so when I amknowing knowing that
information, I can have morecompassion for myself when I'm
like, Why do I not care aboutthe audience? Why do I not care
about sharing, loving and beingconnected? And it's like, I can
say, Yeah, because I'm in fightor flight, and I need to do
certain movements and certainexercises. And I need to use my
(42:47):
tools to get back into safe andsocial so that I have that I
have that wiring, I have thesystem that even allows for
connection and allows for theawareness of them and that I'm
here to lead other nervoussystems into safety.
That's beautiful. Right? So howdoes everyone find you that
(43:13):
would like to learn about thismuscle music app?
So you muscle dash music.com ismy main website for coaching.
And then the app is calledmuscle music, which is on iOS
right now. It should be up onGoogle Play either today or
(43:33):
tomorrow. So it's the Androidversion is going to be up very
soon. And Instagram is justmuscle music. You should be able
to find us there.
Okay, that's yeah.
Beautiful. Yeah. And it's a it'smasterclass. It has a nervous
(43:55):
system tracking system. So youcan track your nervous system
day to day. And it also has anew component which is workout.
So working out for your nervoussystem. So workouts for when
you're frozen workouts for whenyou need to dispel sympathetic
energy and then workouts forwhen you're just feeling great
(44:16):
and want to push yourself and beunsafe and social. Which is
brand new, so I'm still buildingcontent for that. But yeah, and
some meditations are up there.
I'm working on that as well. Soit's all in process. And yeah,
tell your friends. And it's, Ibelieve deeply in affordable
(44:37):
health care to my own detriment.
So it's only $5 a month.
That's amazing. Wow. So thankyou so much, Ruby. And thank you
all for listening. We hope thatyou have found this
enlightening. Be sure tosubscribe to our podcast and we
(44:57):
can be found wherever you getyour podcasts
Yes, and we're on Instagram atspill the ginger tea podcast. If
you have any questions orcomments, ideas for future shows
you can message us there. Sothank you for joining us and
until next time, be well
Hi, I'm Angel, Amy.
And hi, I'm Lila.
So today we have a guest, RubyRose Fox. And she is a singer
songwriter performer. She has abackground in acting. She's also
a writer. And she has evenperformed at a TED talk, which
(00:24):
is super, super amazing. Andtoday we are going to learn
about her program, which is alsoan app called muscle music. So
thank you so much for beinghere, Ruby.
Thanks for having me. So excitedto talk to you.
So Lila actually found you onInstagram. And we were talking
(00:49):
about that I had been attractingsome actresses. And as Angel Amy
with life coaching, and Lilasaid, that's crazy. I just found
this woman right, LilaYep. Yep. And I thought like
how, you know, I, what I sawwas, you know, through your the
release of your app. And Ithought like, oh, my gosh,
(01:10):
that's so amazing that you woulddo that. So I guess we should
start out a little bit, if youwould tell us about the app?
Sure. Well, it's funny, we'vebeen talking about acting,
because it's actually what wasmissing in my acting education
at Emerson College, studying,studying to be a professional
(01:31):
actress that I think most led meto making the app being a singer
songwriter did as well, butteaching singer songwriters and
actors, that it's okay to stop,the show doesn't have to go on,
to heal some of their traumarelated to the arts. And to
(01:57):
focus them on actually enjoyingtheir careers. And that the
measure of success is reallyfeeling good in your body every
day and loving what you do.
Instead of, I have to make it orI have to be famous. So muscle
music is an app for allperformers, and really all
artists who want to focus ontheir nervous system, restoring
(02:22):
their nervous system, learningabout their nervous system, and
just having a healthierrelationship to their craft.
Oh, beautiful. Yeah, I find thatpeople just forget that
actresses and actors are realpeople, and that they have
feelings and an emotionalcomponent, and also triggers,
(02:45):
right. So you know, actors andactresses are able to lean into
certain characters, but alsothey are put into very unique
situations that can be quitetriggering. And so it's great to
have tools in your toolbox to beable to handle those situations.
(03:10):
Absolutely.
And what is unfortunate is thatthose tools are still not in
professional acting trainingprograms. Wow. Not even close.
And many are not even interestedin it because the teachers were
abused and told to bypass theirbody. So yeah, so it's a new
(03:35):
science, it's actually thescience is just being
incorporated into traumatherapy, which is becoming
revolutionary in terms ofhealing. So it's new
information, new tools, and I'mjust taking those tools and
applying it to performing.
So great. So I think, I guesslike the assumption most people
(03:58):
would probably have is that ifyou decided to be any sort of
performer that you would have nonerves around it, right? Somehow
you it wouldn't miraculous?
Exactly. And I can see peoplesaying, Oh, well, if you get
that nervous, it's just not foryou. Right? Like, then you
should find something else to doversus the idea that of course,
it would be or should be nervousgetting up and standing in front
(04:20):
of either even, you know, threeor four people sitting at a
desk, you know,right, right. And it can change
in a lifetime. I justinterviewed the head of
Brandeis. And she, she recentlyhad a bout of stage fright that
came on later in life that shehad really never experienced
before and it came out ofnowhere. So even in the life of
a performer, they can havedifferent relationships to
(04:45):
anxiety, stage fright,depression, that can really
affect your career and life.
And, I mean, the biggest thingis just normalizing it right and
normalizing that we have bodiesWe're in bodies surprise. Yeah.
Right. Right. Will you tell us alittle bit more about your
(05:07):
background?
Yeah. So, um, I, again, Itrained as a theatre artist, and
also trained as a with Deb Dana,in polyvagal theory. So I also
have a trauma informedbackground there. But I've been
a singer, songwriter performerfor about a decade, making a
(05:30):
living doing pretty muchexclusively that before the
pandemic hit. And so I was sortof like, burning myself out
working myself, you know, dayand night to just make a living
as a performing artist. Yeah,and I've done multimedia shows,
I've made two full lengthrecords. Yeah, I've done a lot
(05:55):
of self producing. So when Ifirst started out, I sort of had
a theatrical mindset about beinga musician and wanted to put on
a show. So I produced my ownshows, which actually really
helped me because I wasn'twaiting for anyone to hire me. I
was like, I'm doing my ownthing. So yeah, and definitely,
(06:15):
this was all in Boston,Massachusetts, and definitely
had a very strong stance as aintersectional, feminist, and as
a voice for other women who wereperhaps struggling in the music
business. So.
So then did you develop like aset of tools that you found you
(06:37):
were using in order to performyourself?
Yeah, well, so I always feltlike I had more tools than
others. Because of my actingtraining. I knew how to create
presence on stage, I knew how tocreate Charisma on stage. But
the missing piece was, thatactually came from me coaching a
(07:00):
bunch of traumatized women, whoif they struggled, like, it was
different teaching someone whohad trauma in their body than it
was teaching someone who didn't.
There wasn't like a block there.
And even though I was doingteaching very casually, at that
point, I still had this need, Iwas like, I want to know,
(07:22):
something's happening here. AndI want to know more, I want to
be able to help them better. Andcoincidentally, I have now a
good friend, Jenny, not who I'vedone workshops with, wanted to
just meet and talk. And normallyI would be like, Oh, I don't
want to meet a fan. But for somereason, I felt okay about it.
(07:42):
And she, I was mentioning her toher something that I was doing
with artists and with myclients. And she said, Oh, well,
that sounds like polyvagaltheory. And turned out polyvagal
theory, which is this sciencematched with this like woo woo
acting technique. And I finallyhad concrete language and a
(08:06):
system for healing withinperformance. So it was truly I
can't stress how revolutionarylearning polyvagal theory was,
and applying it to myself, myown body and my students. The
theory is called polyvagaltheory. And it's actually, the
other phrase for is the scienceof safety. So it's love, I love
(08:32):
the science of finding safety inyour body, in your mind, in your
environment. And it's nonpathologizing. So it's not it's
basically it's saying that allbehaviors, even curious
behaviors, like things thatwould normally be feel very,
like maybe icky or bad, likealcoholism, like cutting like
(08:54):
anorexia, many things that manyartists struggle with. You look
at it through the lens of thisis simply the nervous system
looking for safety. It's lookingfor regulation. And I just love
to that.
Yeah. So it has to do withconnection, and learning how to
(09:16):
connect back into oneself. Isthat correct?
Absolutely. It says that.
There's three nervous systemstates that are very different
circuits. They're likecompletely different circuits.
And we only have one circuitthat is a circuit that even
allows connection, okay? So thatwhen we aren't connected or
(09:39):
don't feel connected, it's not achoice. It's an unconscious
processing system that happensto us for our own safety. And
that we don't actually have anycontrol over that. But we do
have control to shift our systemto find connection again. Once
we're triggeredSo as Angel AMI, I teach about
(10:00):
the five bodies, the mentalbody, the emotional body, the
physical body, spiritual body,an energetic body. So the first
system that you were justtalking about, would most likely
connect to the mental body. Butthen your techniques probably,
(10:21):
I'm just an I don't know whatthey they then probably move
everyone into the energeticbody, which is connected to that
subconscious ways.
So actually, each nervous systemhas all of those in them, they
(10:41):
just have different variations.
Although our ability to haveconnection, our ability to think
our ability to feel diminishesas we go down something called
the polyvagal. Ladder. So I'llexplain that like this. We all
have iPhones, I have an iPhone,right? And it has so much stuff
(11:03):
in it, it has Facebook, it hasyou can do your taxes, you can
do everything in it. It's meantfor 2022, this phone is meant
for right now. When we gettriggered, it would be the
equivalent of your phone goingpoof, and turning into a Nokia
from 1992. Okay, yeah, still,it's still phone, but it has
(11:28):
less functioning. Okay. And ifyou got triggered again into the
freeze response, it would be asif the Nokia went poof, and went
into your grandma's rotary phonefrom the 70s. You're completely
talking my language? Yeah, I'mloving this too. I feel
(11:48):
like there's a mental emotionalphysical component to every
single one of them. So forexample, the mental component of
fight or flight is that actuallythe prefrontal cortex turns off,
right. So you have brain fog,you have less ability to think
you can still think but yourattention is actually
(12:11):
biologically wired for fleeingfrom an animal. So your mind is
going somewhere else. Does thatmake sense? So there's no,
it's as Ruby completely? Do youknow, what's crazy, is I have a
whole slew of psychiatrists asclients. And I've actually
(12:31):
taught them about freeze. I lovethat you just said freeze,
flight and freeze, right? Thebiggest problem
is that if you if you don't havea trauma therapist, or a
psychiatrist, a psychiatristthat knows about polyphonic
vagal theory, no offense, butrun
a run. Because for the reasonthat for so many years, like for
(13:01):
example, like traumatized, Armyvets would come back, and they
would be in something calleddorsal which is a freeze
response. And all of a sudden,in therapy, they would explode
into these huge feelings. Andthe therapist would be like, I'm
failing, this is terrible. Thisis not going right. Through
(13:21):
polyvagal theory, it shows youthat it's an ladder of safety.
So if the only path out offreeze is fight or flight,
right, that's actually the pathof safety. And it also happens
to actors. If you're feelingshut down. If you're feeling
sad, and you're in a slightfreeze response. The way out of
(13:43):
that is actually to feelsomething pretty big. So if I
have a client that cries out ofnowhere, I'm not like, oh my
god, I'm a bad teacher. I'msaying, Oh, my God, their body
is finding safety and I need tolead them to their safe and
social response. But that is whywithout polyvagal theory, I
believe that psychiatry therapyis very dangerous.
(14:06):
Okay, so I have a quick littleangel AMI story. So So I have a
14 and a half year old daughter,and when she was around a 910
she she's definitely a feelerbecause she feels kinetically in
(14:27):
our body. And we had we were inFlorida, and we went to an
aquarium that had the dolphinthat lost her fin and this Oh,
the movie? Yeah, there's a movieand we went and we saw her. And
I have to think of her name, butI know
(14:49):
what you're talking about. Okay,thank you. Thank you. I'll see
if I can come up with the name.
And so you could go in and watchthe movie about her story. And
it was actually I'm like abiography like real footage when
they rescued her. And Julia,that's my daughter. She stood
up, we walked out of the theaterand she completely passed out
(15:13):
completely, like total vagal,vagus nerve completely on the
ground. This was like the thirdtime. And I found that her, her
she would have this reaction toextreme situations. But when you
asked her, Are you like, for theemotional component? Are you
(15:34):
okay? She couldn't articulatewhat happened to her like she's
not feeling sad or angry. Or itwas just something innate in her
wish she took on the energy andwould just completely shut down
and pass out. Wow, wow. Yeah.
Is Yeah, that actually happensto a lot of people like on
(15:54):
airplanes. Where they completelyI'm trying to remember the
technical name for it, but it'sactually like not freezing.
It's, it's like a super freeze.
It's actually the way that ananimal would freeze. When a
predator gets it in its mouth.
The animal will just play dead.
Yes, but it's not actuallyplaying dead. It's actually
(16:15):
doing what your daughter did,which is to completely freeze.
Exactly. And so she's Ovid.
She's my biological child. Sothere, there's some innate
ability to take on otherpeople's or animals, feelings or
traumas. So she would like, nowI understand it, but she would
(16:37):
sit there and actually take iton like she was the dolphin, and
then completely pass out. Yeah,and she's not the only one. So
I'll little gingersnaps listen,if you if some adults can really
relate with us in so and if youhave children that just go into
this complete freeze mode. Ihave a client that told me when
(17:01):
she had to put our cat down, shelegit laid on the vet's floor
like on our back flat like likethis. It's not funny, but just
laid there and complete traumathat they had to go in the next
room and put the cat down. Yeah,because she just completely
started to pass out. Yeah,you're onto something here.
(17:23):
There's a whole beautiful niche,because we were talking before
we came on Lila, how this helpcould help people across the
board. Like even beyondactresses and actors. Oh,
absolutely. The real secret toall the work is that it's really
applicable to everything. Imean, it can help your
relationships. It's you know it.
But the nice thing about workingon it through art is that there
(17:48):
is a play element, and it canmake it safer. Working on trauma
is really tough. When you're notsinging or play acting, it's
much easier or in muscle music,I just added an exercise
component. So I'm working on itthrough other ways than just
talking through, you know, talktherapy can be great for some
(18:12):
people. But for other people,it's extremely distressing. And
actually trying out a song,discovering your trauma, through
singing or through acting, orthrough your own craft that you
love can be safer for yoursystem. And you can get more
curious about where you'restuck, because you're doing it
through play. That'sso beautiful. So connection
(18:35):
through music is definitely asoul connection. And in the
soul, it the soul houses all thepositive emotions, and the ego
houses all the negative. So whenyou're taking someone into, like
the base of their soul, they'reable to fully step through that
(19:00):
fear of vulnerability, becausethere really is no fear
connected to the soul, andreally released that out of the
physical. Yeah, that's beautifulroot.
parts work, they would call thatself energy. And so many times
clients don't have access tothat self energy. And so often a
(19:22):
coach or a therapist can be actas that energy for them while
they're developing it forthemselves.
Beautiful, yeah, love it. Solet's talk a little bit more
about this polyvagal theory. Sois it relate? So here's my
(19:44):
question, I guess, is it relatedto that vagal vagus nerve.
So what happened to yourdaughter so Polly bagels so that
means multi multi vagus nerve,so there's the ventral vagal
nerve which looks like a bigtree You that goes it connects
to your whole body basically.
And it's, it's a regulator. Soit's the brake to your system.
(20:07):
Like if, if your spinal cord andyour brain are like putting on
the gas, then it slowseverything down. It keeps your
heart rate from being if youtook away your vagus nerve, your
heart would race like 100 B PMS.
And then behind that vagusnerve, there's something called
(20:27):
the dorsal vagal nerve. Sopolyvagal theory is around the
idea that when you freeze yourdorsal vagus nerve, which is an
older reptilian response, clampsdown, so it's like, it's like,
normally our brake is just youknow, when you're driving,
you're putting on your brake alittle bit. This is when the
brake slams down. Got it. Andthis is when passing out this is
(20:53):
when you you're just like, youfeel frozen. You're like, I just
need to lie in bed. I can't eventhink or move or I just feel
like sluggish or tired. I'mlike, it's a response. It's a
it's a trauma response to not toseverely feeling not safe.
Yeah. And so people can sort ofexist in that state for long
(21:17):
period can have I absolutelyflavors of it for sure. You can
exist in a complete you can'tcan't be, you can't update me,
right. But yeah, and it'sactually extremely unhealthy for
so it developed in reptiles andfish. And one deep question I
had was, you know, if the bodyis here for us to keep us alive,
(21:39):
why would it do this terriblething to us? Like This really
sucks, like, shutting down,freezing is unfun, and it
doesn't ever help my life. Sowhy, how is this adaptive? And
the reason that it's not thatit's not so helpful is that in
reptiles, and fish think aboutlike if they were doing their
(22:03):
little fishy reptile thing. Andthen a predator came and they
froze, they would be okay forabout 20 minutes or more. A
reptile can be underwater andnot need oxygen for a long time.
But think about how long we canhold our breath underwater.
Humans are so oxygen dependent,that when we get frozen, we
(22:25):
start to lose function. And wecan think we can't function. The
best way to think about thefreeze responses. You know, when
you're a kid and like you wrap arubber band around your finger
and it turns blue. Or you sleepon an arm and then all of a
sudden you're like it doesn'twork. And it's it's numb. So
what do people say when they'refrozen? They're feeling they
(22:48):
feel numb. So actually, thefreeze response is your body not
getting enough oxygen. So theway out of it is very similar
the way that we would treat alimb when it's frozen or numb.
You are you don't likeimmediately walk on it or you'll
fall you start to pad it and sayyou start to gently do gentle
(23:10):
movements. You just wake it up,hey, body wake up. And then of
course, there's parts of us thatare like, am I ever going to use
this arm again? And then ofcourse, it always comes back,
you know? So that's the freezeresponse.
Yeah.
I can't believe I'm going to dothis. We have to pause. I have
(23:32):
the worst pain in my stomach.
Oh, no, I don't. I'm so sorry,Ruby. This happened? Oh my god,
I'm gonna remove myself and comeback. Don't worry. So you then
went and learned all this foryourself?
Yeah, yeah. But and also to helpme to you know, but what I love
(23:53):
about it is that it just told metotal sense. So many things I
had experienced as an actor thatI was curious about, that didn't
ever make sense. would makesense underneath this system.
Right? Right. So it was like abreath of fresh air to finally
have because I'm a why personand I need science to believe
(24:18):
things. I'm not religious, and Iwouldn't say really spiritual.
So I need facts. And I need Ineed to know how systems work. I
need to know why. And so it'sbeen really fun to apply it to
performing. Yeah. Especiallyleadership and performing like
why does Why does charisma work?
Why is what is the sciencebehind that and why is it
(24:39):
effective or not effective onany given night? So, yeah,
that's amazing.
So most of the people that likeyour clients that come Are they
are they looking to get pastlike the audition process to the
work or does it incorporateusing Get in the work as well,
(25:01):
if that makes Oh yeah,it's all pervasive. So whether
you're wanting to audition, oryou're wanting to just have a
better relationship to yoursongwriting, or making music.
Yeah, it's all pervasive. Solike, I recently had a client
who's, you know, she's a coachherself, she coaches people in
fear. And is a singersongwriter, and as a recording
(25:25):
artist, but had some trauma,like as a woman in, in the
industry, and her therapy wasnot helping her or working for
her. So she was looking foranother system to think about
healing parts that weredestroyed, really distressed and
didn't feel safe.
(25:48):
I have IBS. And one of thethings that they talk about a
lot is the vagus nerve in termsof like, because IBS is
basically like, you know, wedon't really know what's wrong
with you, like, you don't haveany of the big scary diseases.
But obviously, you're affectedby something, you know, with
your digestion, your pain, youknow, whatever. And I found that
(26:12):
a lot of the stuff that'saddressing it is around like the
vagus nerve, the vagusnerve. Want me to tell you a
little about that. So, so thevagus nerve controls pretty much
everything from the head andactually goes into your face. So
the biggest thing that it does,it lights up your face, but it
also and it also has a heartconnection. But actually, what
(26:34):
controls everything, subdiaphragmatic is the dorsal
vagus nerve that we were justtalking about. So when it's
triggered is when it causes alot of disruption. But when
you're in safe and social, iswhen it actually works to help
you digest food. So if you'refeeling anxiety, or you're
(26:57):
feeling slightly shut down, orthere's a part of you that's
frozen, your digestion is notgoing to work, it's gonna be
compromised. So IBS, they'restarting to link IBS, with
anxiety with being shut down. Soit's really fascinating and
(27:18):
really logical that someone whohas trauma is way more likely to
develop IBS than than someoneelse. Right?
Yeah, it's gonna be interesting.
You know, I also I teachmeditation. And because one of
the things that they always sayto you like is, well, if we
don't know what's wrong withyou, right, like, it has to be
stress, you know, just thatBlanket.
(27:42):
Blanket term is so much morecomplex than
that, and then sort of go outand, you know, find your own
solution to the problem, youknow, I can say definitely
helps. It's also just like, comeon, there's got to be
well, that and that's what's sogreat about polyvagal theory,
it's an actual system withactual tools to shift from one
(28:03):
state to another. Exactly, whichis half the time. You can even
get it from a therapist. Soyeah, I'm huge on like, concrete
tools. Absolutely.
So we're in my late 20s, Idecided I had a bad breakup. And
I was like, either I'm gonnabecome an alcoholic or a Zen
monk and I went for the ladder.
So I lived at a Zen meditationcenter. that's run by a woman
(28:25):
named Joan Halifax, in Santa Fe,New Mexico called rupiah. And so
I lived there and meditated,probably like, at least two to
five hours a day. And it was sointense and beautiful. But
something that, that it wasinteresting how much I would be
(28:46):
sitting there in the Zendo,meditating, and all of a sudden,
this huge feeling would come up,and I would cry. You know, and
everyone's, like, really niceabout it, but they were
meditating too. But the theconclusion I had after being a
meditator for almost my entire20s, being super into Buddhist
meditation and philosophy, and Ilove all of it. But it doesn't
(29:11):
account for trauma healing. Andso it's wonderful for resetting
the nervous system and findingsafety in the body. But it's
not. It wasn't for me and mysystem. It wasn't enough. It I
needed a bigger system, I neededa system of healing that was
(29:34):
more active. And a major part ofpolyvagal theory is actually
that a lot of trauma healing hasto do with activation as well as
calming. So, a lot of times weoveremphasize the calming for
example. Like if you were infight or flight, your instinct,
(29:57):
if Someone was having a panicattack panic attack, you would
probably say, you know, wantthem to calm down or like, say
breathe. But that's actually theworst thing you can do for
someone having a panic attack,because they need to metabolize
the sympathetic energy first. Sothe night the thing you could do
(30:18):
to help someone having a panicattack is have them push on a
wall as hard as they can. Wow.
Or do a plank. So reallyactivate their whole body,
metabolize the hormones that arein their body, and then have
them meditate. And then havethem calm, and then have them
(30:38):
restore. So yeah, so it's alittle counterintuitive. Hi,
Amy. How are you feeling?
I'm so sorry.
Don't be sorry. Yeah,I'm just I'm having some issues.
I'm so sorry.
Don't even worry about it. Iwas legit in my head going,
Okay. This is like what I teachpeople. Do you push through the
pain and totally like, like,just not honor yourself, right?
(31:04):
Or do you just say something andjust remove yourself, and I just
chose to honor myself.
A mantra is the show does nothave to go on.
Crazy energetically that thishappened? Yeah. I've never know.
(31:26):
It's about I'm back. It's almostlike do we just leave it in? I
don't know. I? I'm alright withit. Honestly,
it's such a good model. Peopleneed models for leadership that
honors their body.
Yeah, yeah,I we don't we don't, we can't be
what we can't see. So it's sobeautiful. And performers do
(31:51):
this on stage. When I makemistakes on stage. I point them
out. And the audience loves it.
And they think I'm like,hilarious, but I'm like, I'm
actually just pointing outand you're is everybody? Yeah.
So I was in a spin class. And Idon't know 20 Something people.
And I started to, I actually hadto go the bathroom. So I had to
(32:14):
pee, everybody. Because ashumans, we pee. And I was like,
I can't go this whole spin classhave an impedance bad. And so I
actually got up in, went to thebathroom. And when I came back,
she started to holler. Angel,Amy just got off her bike to
(32:37):
take a big shit. No lie. And butyou know what? Rubia in that
moment, I realized that Imastered embarrassment. Like, I
wasn't embarrassed. I was like,whether I had a pee, poop, puke,
whatever the case fit, go fix.
(32:58):
None of it matters because Ihonored myself. I got off.
Something didn't feel right tome. And I needed to go address
it. And I came back when I wasready. And I think we have to
teach we should be teachingchildren I
have to tell you, when Iconvinced that, like, I would be
sitting there. Oh my god, I haveto go to the bathroom. And I
(33:19):
would tell myself like no one'sgoing to notice no one's gonna
so you just basically played outmy worst. Like, everybody's
gonna you're gonna walk back inand they're gonna say like, oh
my god, you just took a hugehit.
Right? So my, my, my team. Sothis is the inner child work.
Lila talked about her leastfavorite bird. My inner teen,
(33:42):
Rob, like, if I was a teen, Iwould have gotten off the bike
and just left. Like I would justpacked everything up and just
said, Screw this and never goneback ever. And it made me
realize that when I connected inthat moment that my inner teen
for that particular situationwas was healed. Because I didn't
(34:04):
care. I was like, Yeah, I wasbrave enough to get off my bike
and come back. And as humans, weall poop pee puke. Right,
exactly. Yeah. SoI mean, that's actually
instructions on my app for theworkouts. I say, if a big feel
even a feeling comes up a biganger, sadness, and you're
(34:25):
overwhelmed, stop, lie down onthe floor and talk to the part
of you that is hurting and needsyour attention. It's literally
like a little child being like,I'm hurt. Yeah, sad. And we
bypass these tiny little partsof us until we get so sick or
addicted, or like internallymentally ill because we're
(34:51):
constantly disrespecting theparts of us that are asking one
to be out of pain. And, and tobe healed. Like if there was a
little kid, would you ever dothat to a child? Like call them
out in a class for having to goto the bathroom? Like what is.
And I think that's the otherpart of this. That's like the
(35:15):
other part that needs to be heldas like. This doesn't just
happen with acting teachers. Ithappens with a rubbings,
instructors and trauma informedfitness is something I'm really,
really into right now. Becausethat is literally abuse to
embarrass, embarrass someone fortheir own pain. Like what what
(35:36):
are you? What are you teaching?
Here? Ifeel like I attracted it in. So
that I do see it that way. Ruby,absolutely. But in that moment,
she gave me a gift. Because Iwas like, wow, this is how far
I've come that I don't have anadverse reaction to her her
words right now and calling meout. But I'm choosing to look at
(36:00):
it that way.
Everyone around usingeveryone around me wanted to
just die for me. Yeah. And I'mlike, No, I am good. She She
just showed me that like that.
I've zero embarrassment. Andthat's how you know you're free,
(36:21):
right? Yeah, like freedomyou can't make you can't make
fun of something you can'tshame. You can't shame a part
that doesn't think it'ssomething like, if I was like,
your I was like, You're a purpleelephant. You'd be like, I'm not
offended. I'm not a purpleelephant. But if I always like,
you don't work hard enough. Yes,people like how does that
(36:47):
resonate? You can't hurt a partthat doesn't believe that it's
true. So yeah,yeah. Oh, my God, I'm getting
like, right. In that moment. Iknew I didn't just go take a big
shed. Like I legit just had apee like it right. And we all do
all these things. But you knowwhat, I also think that it's,
(37:09):
there's a realness to where weall forget, we're human. Like,
we all do these things, right?
And so we all need to, we allwould respect most of us would
(37:30):
respect someone else, if theyleft the bike to go take care of
themselves in combat. But thething that we do as humans is we
beat ourselves up for then goingto do the thing that we wish we
could go do.
And imagine. So if emotions arethe pissing and shedding of
(37:53):
feeling, like, think about like,when you cry, when you're angry?
It comes out of you. Yeah. Andthen you're done with it. It's
like peeing and pooping. It'slike, there's nothing shameful
or wrong about feeling things oremoting things. But like, think
about holding back, likeemotional constipation that we
(38:15):
have. Like, what if you heldyour poop in for like, 20 years,
your body would be really sick,very same thing with your
feelings. You hold a feeling infor 20 years, you're gonna start
getting sick.
And it comes back to those fivebodies again, right? For this,
this physical body houses theemotional body. So
(38:38):
yeah. And then sooner or later,it makes you physically sick,
right? Physically, yeah, it canstart as your emotional
experience. Eventually, it'syour back is killing you or your
hip goes out, orI loved myself more in that
moment than everybody else inthat room. But I couldn't. I
can't authentically love allthose strangers, authentically.
(39:04):
Unless I love myself first. I'mgetting choked up. Yeah. So I
really love strangers, Ruby. Andso this is just an example of
like, choosing you doesn't makeyou a bad person. Right? And so
I authentically want to liketreat everybody it has a faith
(39:30):
in Buddhism, that healingyourself is healing the whole
universe in one they say in oneinstant. Oh, and that's it.
Yeah. Chills. Yeah, that's it.
Yeah.
So beautiful. So this happenedfor a reason today and I'm back
everybodywould agree it's such a great
(39:50):
what happened is a great examplefor all performers, which I call
like, I in my work, I call it acall out so Do you call yourself
out? You say, Yes, this ishappening. I, I went out what
has happened, it shows my wholedress ripped open once and I
(40:12):
like tucked it in and I wasplaying piano and the whole
audience is seeing it. I wasjust like, you know, I do not
fit in this dress. And theythought it was really funny. But
if it freed me, and it freedthem, because now they don't
have to look at my rip dress allnight and be like, I wonder if
she knows about the red dress.
(40:32):
And then I don't have to belike, I wonder if they see the
red dress, I can focus on myfrickin show. So getting in
alignment with everything, andeveryone in our truth is where
connection and performanceactually happens. We just feel
shame, because that's what wewere taught.
Right? So it's like acceptingit, whatever it is, in the
(40:56):
moment. Just I think acceptanceis the first, the first place
that I choose to go to whensomething goes wrong, is accept
that this is happening in themoment. And there is nothing as
humans, we can't handle even theworst things, we can handle it,
(41:18):
we just might have to movethrough it later on in through
the those five bodies, but wecan handle it. Right?
Absolutely.
And we can handle it even bettertogether.
Yes. So connecting to thataudience is, I'm sure one of
your first steps right isconnection. And with performing.
(41:41):
You know, I find before I dotalks, I just remind myself that
this isn't about me. This isabout everyone in the room. So
stepping through that fear ofvulnerability to show up for
them authentically. And when Iwhen I step aside, that's what I
call when I step aside, and justown that moment that this is
(42:03):
about them. Not me, it takes allthat fear away. Like let's just
be want to do it. Right.
And and so in polyvagal theory,one of the beautiful things you
learn is that when you're infight or flight, we are actually
neurologically wired to be moreselfish and to think more about
(42:23):
ourselves, meaning so when I amknowing knowing that
information, I can have morecompassion for myself when I'm
like, Why do I not care aboutthe audience? Why do I not care
about sharing, loving and beingconnected? And it's like, I can
say, Yeah, because I'm in fightor flight, and I need to do
certain movements and certainexercises. And I need to use my
(42:47):
tools to get back into safe andsocial so that I have that I
have that wiring, I have thesystem that even allows for
connection and allows for theawareness of them and that I'm
here to lead other nervoussystems into safety.
That's beautiful. Right? So howdoes everyone find you that
(43:13):
would like to learn about thismuscle music app?
So you muscle dash music.com ismy main website for coaching.
And then the app is calledmuscle music, which is on iOS
right now. It should be up onGoogle Play either today or
(43:33):
tomorrow. So it's the Androidversion is going to be up very
soon. And Instagram is justmuscle music. You should be able
to find us there.
Okay, that's yeah.
Beautiful. Yeah. And it's a it'smasterclass. It has a nervous
(43:55):
system tracking system. So youcan track your nervous system
day to day. And it also has anew component which is workout.
So working out for your nervoussystem. So workouts for when
you're frozen workouts for whenyou need to dispel sympathetic
energy and then workouts forwhen you're just feeling great
(44:16):
and want to push yourself and beunsafe and social. Which is
brand new, so I'm still buildingcontent for that. But yeah, and
some meditations are up there.
I'm working on that as well. Soit's all in process. And yeah,
tell your friends. And it's, Ibelieve deeply in affordable
(44:37):
health care to my own detriment.
So it's only $5 a month.
That's amazing. Wow. So thankyou so much, Ruby. And thank you
all for listening. We hope thatyou have found this
enlightening. Be sure tosubscribe to our podcast and we
(44:57):
can be found wherever you getyour podcasts
Yes, and we're on Instagram atspill the ginger tea podcast. If
you have any questions orcomments, ideas for future shows
you can message us there. Sothank you for joining us and
until next time, be well
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