April 7, 2024 • 52 mins
I recently shared these thoughts on my Instagram page and I am bringing them to you here on my podcast. As someone who has been speaking and teaching about nervous systems for over 10 years, I've been anticipating the inevitability of social media influencers oversimplifying regulation tools as a cure-all. Not only does this perpetuate the cycles of bypassing that leave clients feeling broken or even more stuck, the sacred medicine of nervous system work is being exploited as yet another cure-all to sell using harmful marketing techniques.
Deep bow of gratitude to the wise women who lent their voices to this conversation on Instagram:
Kat HoSoo Lee is an Emotional Alchemy Coach, Spiritual Business Mentor and host of The Emotional Alchemy Podcast.
She loves playing in the space where science and spirituality converge because this is where we get to experience emotional alchemy. In her work, she educates space-holders about somatic physiology and environmental biology so they can deepen their practices of listening and presence which ultimately helps them expand their capacity to hold space for others.
As a Spiritual Business Mentor, she guides soulful entrepreneurs to approach their business as a spiritual practice. The work bridges the emotional landscape with practical tools which allow them to cultivate businesses that are rooted in conscious values, relational marketing and purposeful service.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi friends, I want to come on and talk to you about
something that I'm seeing in thesocial media world around
oversimplification of thenervous system and it's
something that I've beenexpecting, because I've been
talking about nervous systemsfor so long, and I find it
incredibly troubling, which iswhy I want to come on here and
(00:21):
talk to you about bringingnuance and context back into
nervous system regulation work.
This is something that I'vebeen wanting to talk to you
about for a couple of days now,and I sat down to just like
briefly write out an outline forour conversation and I went a
(00:41):
little bit overboard.
So before I I get started, Iwant to show you my notes.
Okay, so this is what I've beendoing for the last like 45
minutes is just like free formwriting, trying to map out all
the things that I want to say,and you know that when I come in
with notes like this, it'sgonna be a little intense, so I
hope you're ready, okay.
(01:02):
So, as somebody who has beentalking about nervous systems
before it was a trendy hashtag Ialso worked with nervous
systems a lot as anacupuncturist, so when I was an
acupuncturist for 12 years, Ihad my hands on bodies, really
feeling into the energeticspaces of people's nervous
(01:23):
systems and how they're holdingstress in their bodies and what
their nervous systems areactually doing.
And now that I've been doingthis work virtually for four
years, it's really fine-tuned mymuscle in terms of tracking
nervous systems and so I want tojust bring that into the
conversation and, as somebodywho's been doing this work for a
(01:44):
while, I have some real, realconcerns.
So a little bit of context ofwhy I'm having this conversation
with you is that I am beingsent reels from my community
from a very specific account andthis person talks about the
functional freeze and thisperson has over a million
followers.
A lot of these um reels arebeing sent to me in the context
(02:08):
of hey, I feel this way and I'mkind of curious about it, so can
we have a conversation about it?
So, um, I'm having thisconversation with the broader
community here because it's comeup enough times where I feel
like there's a pattern, andanytime there's a pattern, I
like to talk about it.
So, um, speaking of patterns,I'm not going to call out this
(02:30):
account.
Um, I, whenever I see somethinglike this, I want to really
talk about the pattern of whatI'm seeing, instead of um
calling certain people out.
I do not participate in call-outculture or cancel culture, and
that's a really, really hardboundary that I have, but I also
(02:51):
just want to like address thatthe nervous system is turning
into the very thing that I wasreally hoping that it wouldn't
turn into.
So I want to start out bysaying that nervous system work
(03:13):
somatic healing is just sacredmedicine.
It's been the backbone of whatI've been doing since 2011.
And the more and more I learnabout the nervous system, the
more layers get peeled off andthe deeper I'm able to go with
it, with myself and with myclients, and the more I learn
(03:33):
about traditional medicines.
Actually, I can see thatnervous system work is just
bringing western language tosomething that traditional
people have been doing all along, and so it's deeply rooted in
how we relate to nature.
It's deeply, deeply rooted inhow we relate to our own animal
bodies, and so I just want tosay, first off, that nervous
(03:57):
system work is sacred, sacred,sacred medicine, and so what I
was expecting to happen, um isat some point I knew, because
there's so many people talkingabout this work now, there's
gonna be an oversimplificationof it at some point, and it's
here.
I'm really sad that it's here,and what I mean by
(04:19):
simplification is it is akin tohow allopathic medicine treats
disease and talks about disease,and we talk about disease in
really compartmentalized ways inallopathic medicine.
I'm speaking as somebody whowas also part of the medical
industry I was a fertilityacupuncturist for many years and
(04:40):
what we do in that space is welabel the body as something that
is working against you, andthen the doctor or a medication
comes in to rescue you from yourown body, and it is so counter
(05:00):
to the sacredness of the nervoussystem, to the sacredness of
the nervous system.
What I believe, and what I knowto be true in my experience, is
that the body is always tryingto work with you, and signs and
symptoms are communication fromyour body.
And, you know, let's contrastthat with allopathic medicine
(05:21):
that says, oh, here's anuncomfortable thing that you're
feeling, here's a painful thingthat you're feeling, here's a
painful thing that you'refeeling.
Let's not ask these deeperquestions of why.
Let's just try to shut thatdown as quickly as possible for
you so that you can go back toliving a quote-unquote normal
life.
And so we are bypassing anentire conversation that we
(05:43):
could be having with our bodiesin that space, because, when we
think about it, signs andsymptoms are communication from
our body and the body doesn'thave any of the language to
speak through.
It's going to speak throughsigns and symptoms.
It's going to speak throughpain so that you actually pay
attention to it.
And so the questions that Ilike to bring into a
(06:03):
conversation with somebody whenthey're talking to me about some
of these uncomfortable thingsthat are happening in their life
and they may be body oriented,it may be experiential I want to
start asking questions aroundwhy is your body trying to
communicate to you in this wayand what is the context and that
is going to be a big word inour conversation here is context
(06:24):
matters, so so much.
So here is what this particularaccount says about a functional
freeze response.
I'm just going to read you thelist of things this has directly
taken off of this person'saccount minimal facial
expressions.
One word answers self-isolation.
(06:44):
Constant overwhelm.
Sensitivity to light, sound andtouch.
Unexplained pain in the body.
Slumped posture.
Can't cry.
Able to handle tasks but crash.
Exhausted but stay up late.
Successful but feeling empty.
Brushing your teeth in themorning but not in the evening.
Trying to eat healthy butordering delivery food in the
evening, trying to eat healthybut ordering delivery food and
(07:06):
binge watching TV.
Now, now, of course, afterlisting out all these signs and
symptoms of a functional freeze,she then comes in with the good
news is that you can get out ofshutdown in 60 days with
somatic exercises, and to me,this is the definition of
unethical marketing.
This is by definition.
(07:28):
This is pain point marketing.
Here's a list of signs andsymptoms without any context for
why this is happening in yourlife, and somebody might read
through that list and be like,oh, I see myself in four out of
those 10 things, or six out ofthose ten things, or all of them
, and I want to just note herethat, like, of course, there's a
(07:48):
resonance there.
Nobody wants to feel this way.
I completely understand thatyou don't want to feel stuck,
you don't want to feel likeyou're in a functional freeze
and again, this is where contextmatters a lot.
So I did a little bit of lightsleuthing and looked through
just briefly through some of thecomments and I saw multiple
(08:11):
comments from people saying, hey, I did the 60 day program, it
was great, but now I'm back in afunctional freeze.
Response what am I supposed todo, and her response to that is
oh, you have to finish the threecourse bundle in order to
complete the program and thenyou can be out of the freeze
response.
And I just have this like biggiant, like no, no, what you
(08:38):
need is integration.
And before I talk aboutintegration, I just want to like
take a pause here and note thatnervous system work is sacred
medicine and it is alsosomething that can be used to
manipulate people.
So what I like to think aboutwhen it comes to nervous system
(08:59):
regulation and marketing is that, yes, we want people to take
action and, in particular, wewant people to take action, and,
in particular, we want peopleto take action to move towards
us.
Right, but the intentionalityof what that can look like is so
, so different when it comes tounethical marketing versus
relational marketing.
With unethical marketing, youare actively activating
(09:22):
somebody's sympathetic nervoussystem, getting them to move
into a fight or flight state, sothat then they are motivated to
move towards you.
Versus with relationalmarketing, you are helping them
feel understood and, in thatunderstanding, tapping into
their own curiosity about theirown inner wisdom and moving
towards you from a regulated andfrom a more secure place.
(09:46):
So, yes, the action looks likethe same on the outside, but
what you do in that space of howyou work with that person's
nervous system, even in thespace of marketing, where you
aren't having these likeface-to-face interactions with
people and working with them andtalking to them in real time,
(10:07):
you are conveying all of thatthrough your own messaging.
So that's a little bit of asidebar.
Okay, so back to integration.
The irony is that this person'ssomatic exercises again, I
didn't do like a deep dive onthis person, but I did sort of
like briefly go through herreels A lot of her somatic
exercisers are actually really,really good, but the difference
(10:31):
there is.
The intention is about hackingthe nervous system so you don't
feel uncomfortable and you aretrying to get your nervous
system to change into justfeeling the good feelings, and I
think of it as being likeyou're trying to like exercise,
like you're exercising a demon.
(10:51):
You're exercising dysregulationby using the sacred medicine,
and when you do that, you arebypassing, and to me it's less
about the tool and more aboutthe intentionality.
So how are you using thatsomatic exercise?
Are you using it to help youintegrate or are you using it to
(11:16):
help you bypass?
And I feel like it's importantto note that what integration is
is that you understand thecontext of where that functional
freeze is coming from and thenyou are able to assess and see
if that's an appropriateresponse in context of the
(11:38):
situation that's happening inyour life.
And so if you look at thatfunctional freeze you know that
list of functional freeze someof them made me kind of like
roll my eyes, but a lot of itactually did make sense, right.
If you are looking at that listand you're like, yeah, actually
it totally makes sense that I'min a functional freeze response
(11:58):
right now because X, y and Zthings are happening in my life,
or because I'm processing A, band C things from my past, then
absolutely your role there, ifthe response is appropriate to
the situation, is to actuallyfeel the feelings and sit in
that functional freeze and allowyour body and trust your body
(12:22):
that it knows what to do in thatmoment.
That's actually asking you toslow down for a second for a
reason, and we're going to talkabout some of those reasons in
just a moment.
If you are able to likeobjectively, look at the
situation, you're like thisfreeze seems like it's not an
appropriate response for what'sactually happening.
(12:42):
So, then, this is where you arebeing invited to do the work,
and by doing the work, I meangoing in and doing some of those
somatic exercises, going in anddoing some of that inner child
work, going and asking for someco-regulation from some trusted
people.
Talking about your story,journaling, writing, doing all
(13:04):
these things that will help youcontextualize and understand why
you might be projecting a pastexperience onto something that's
happening right now in realtime, and why that response is
actually a much bigger responsethan is actually being called
for and is appropriate, actuallybeing called for and is
(13:30):
appropriate.
So, again, context is the thingthat tells us if that
functional freeze is appropriateor not.
And context is situational, itis environmental, it is
individual and, by the way, Iread through that list of the
functional freeze signs andsymptoms and a lot of those
signs and symptoms are actuallyoh, this is going to be a much
(13:50):
longer conversation, but, um,it's quote-unquote normal for
those of us who are reallysensitive, some of us who are
neurodivergent, some of us whohave autism or are introverted,
because, quite frankly, ourcultural environment is kind of
fucked up and the water that weswim in is in an activated state
(14:14):
, and sometimes it's hard toeven understand that we're in
that activated state.
For me personally, I don'tthink I even recognized how
dysregulating the world wasuntil I was able to purchase my
land and spend so much time insilence in nature with animals,
(14:36):
being with the weather andreally finding my rhythm in that
space.
It's really hard for me tothink about.
Oh my gosh, once upon a time Iused to live in Vancouver, a
bustling city, where I wasworking 60 to 70 hours a week
and, you know, trying to behealthy and trying to do all
(14:59):
these things and feeling shutdown in the process, and so that
shutdown was actually anappropriate response to what was
happening in my life back then.
Another example that I canoffer in terms of context and
why context matters so much isthat I'm pretty sure that the
(15:20):
owner of this account would lookat my behaviors and my
emotional state and my nervoussystem regulation in my life for
the last three months or so anddiagnose me as being as having
functional freeze, and I wouldsay, technically, yes, this this
(15:42):
is true, but this is wherecontext matters so much.
Back in November, we moved intomy friend's basement.
This is where we're at rightnow.
We decided that we were goingto be pet sitting through the
wintertime while we wereshopping for a condo to move
(16:03):
into.
While we were shopping for acondo to move into.
And when I say that these dogsare difficult, I love dogs.
Y'all know how much I loveanimals.
I've been pet sitting since Iwas 16 years old.
These are the most difficultdogs I have ever dealt with.
(16:23):
First off, one of them is blindand deaf, and so he has
difficulty even finding his wayto the doggy door.
The other one is incrediblyanxious, is on a ton of anxiety
meds and behaviorally,physically, they've been
incredibly hard to deal with.
(16:45):
And I've been living an houraway from the farm and I go out
to the farm every single day andI have to navigate this
schedule of like.
Okay, I can't leave theseelderly dogs for too long, but I
also need to go to the farm andbe with my animals and make
sure that their needs are beingtaken care of.
And so you know what I've been.
In a functional freeze, I'm ableto get everything that I need
(17:06):
to do technically done, but whenit comes to the time that I
have for myself, I am.
I have binge watched the entireseries of Big Bang Theory in
the last couple of months andit's been.
It's been difficult, beendifficult, functional freeze.
Context matters when I look atthat.
(17:30):
If I were to look at thisobjectively, as somebody just
listening to my story, I'd belike, yeah, of course, of course
you're in that state, and forme it's like presence is an
infinite.
Sorry, presence is a finiteresource and I only have so much
(17:51):
presence and I am consciouslychoosing where I am distributing
my presence, and so I'mchoosing to be completely
present when I'm with my clients, because that is my happy place
.
I'm choosing to be completelypresent when I'm with my animals
because, again, happy place,when I'm with my husband, when I
(18:12):
am on the phone with my friends, and so in those moments that I
have to myself, yes, I amchoosing a functional freeze.
And, again, history and contextmatters here as well.
What I would have done in thepast is I would have gone into a
complete fight mode andoverdone and overextended myself
(18:36):
and over committed myself.
I actually made a consciousdecision to pull away a lot of
my marketing as well during thistime because, again, presence
is a finite resource and ifthere's something that I can
drop off of my plate.
It's going to be my marketing.
I'm never going to umcompromise the quality of care
(19:01):
that I deliver to my clients,and so for me to deliver the
level of care that I deliver tomy clients, and so for me to
deliver the level of care that Ipresent and that my clients
expect from me.
I had to pull away from mymarketing quite a bit these last
couple months, so it's been animprovement for my history,
which is to overdo turn on myfight response, fight F-I-G-H-T
(19:23):
response.
Then I would go into burnoutand then I would do a complete
collapse.
And so I share this storybecause I have no shame around
the functional freeze, because Iunderstand and I've integrated
the context of why that ishappening.
And so I look at my functionalfreeze freeze and I don't even
(19:45):
look at it as something thatneeds to be changed.
It is not broken, it does notneed to be fixed.
It is actually helping mepreserve my sanity and it also
represents because of what Iused to do, it represents the
work that I've done to reallyhave a flexible nervous system.
(20:06):
So when we lose sight ofcontext, we pathologize what is
perfectly normal and perfectlydesigned for our nervous systems
and for our bodies.
So Other aspects of contextthat might resonate with you.
(20:26):
If you're considering adifficult conversation with
somebody that you love, afunctional freeze is appropriate
because your nervous system isasking you to slow down and
bring your wise self into thatconversation, that it is
completely misaligned.
A functional freeze isappropriate because without that
(20:48):
discomfort you aren't going tochange.
It's asking you to changesomething about your life and to
consciously choose somethingdifferent in a way that feels
empowering to you.
If you're feeling an emotionthat is unfamiliar and
uncomfortable for you, I knowthat when I went through a bit
(21:10):
of a spiritual awakening, I hadall this anger come up and anger
was not an appropriate emotionfor me to feel.
In my family, in fact, in theKorean culture we have a word
called hwabyung, which meansanger disease.
The Korean culture we have aword called hwabyung, which
means anger disease.
(21:31):
Anger is seen as such a bademotion that they consider the
expression of anger a disease,and so when I was going through
the first few layers of my ownsort of emotional and spiritual
journey, I had so much angercome up and I would definitely
say that if I look back on thattime in my life, I was in a
functional freeze, because whatmy body was asking me to do is
(21:53):
hey, here's a thing that'scoming up, let's set, let's sit
with this, let's set the yinintention of what this anger is.
Can we place it in the rightplace?
Can we place it with the rightperson?
And is that the appropriate wayto really tell the story?
And then, through that alignedintention setting, you're going
(22:20):
to hand that off into your yangaspects of yourself so that you
could take aligned action.
So maybe there's a hardconversation that you need to
have, maybe there's anexpression, maybe you need to go
slam some boxes or go pick upheavy shit and move that anger
through your body, right.
(22:41):
And so this is where, if we losecontext, we start to
pathologize what is actuallygood and perfect and true about
our bodies and our nervoussystems.
So I know that I say this a lothere, but I think it's worth
saying again and again and againand again which is the healing
(23:03):
journey, the personaldevelopment journey, the journey
to be closer to your Tao, isnever about banishing
dysregulation.
It's not about never feelingreally bad again, because life
is going to happen.
You also have a history, andhistory has a tendency to
(23:26):
resurface, because our livestend to evolve as a spiral.
And when that happens, if we'rejust running away from
dysregulation, then we'll neverbe able to integrate what that
experience is truly like for uson these deeper levels.
(23:48):
To integrate what thatexperience is truly like for us
on these deeper levels, and whenyou find that integration, it
means that you get a little bitcloser each time to living a
life that is more aligned withyour soul.
Living a life where you areable to hold boundaries.
Living a life where you areable to see oh, this is my
responsibility and that's theirresponsibility.
Living a life where you're likeI choose these things and I
(24:09):
choose these people.
Living a life where you areable to step even more deeply
and unapologetically into yourdesires.
And to me, that is what trueintegration is.
It's not about, oh, I neverfeel angry again, or I never
feel grief again, or I neverfeel sad again, or I never feel
(24:30):
frozen or shut down again.
It's about welcoming all ofthose experiences in within the
context of your life and beingable to look at it and be like,
hey, is that an appropriateresponse?
And yes, if it is, thenpermission to be in that space
and, yes, if it is, thenpermission to be in that space,
(24:50):
permission to feel thosefeelings.
Now, objectivity is hard.
It is so, so hard, and this iswhere I think coaches are so
important.
Whether it is you yourselfreaching out to a coach or a
mentor or you holding space forsomebody is one of the main
roles of the space holder is tohave an objective lens on what's
(25:14):
happening, because you don'thave the projections that this
person has, and that's why we dothis personal development work
for ourselves as space holders.
Right is because we don't wantto be bringing our own
projections into a space, and so, because objectivity is so hard
, I really recommend bringingsomebody in who can help you by
(25:40):
listening to your story andbeing like, yeah, I can see why
you're angry right now.
I can see why you're in afunctional freeze right now.
I can see why you are full onin sadness right now.
I can see why you're collapsedright now.
Those are actually appropriatethings to feel in this moment or
, in contrast, like that seemslike a really big response Can
(26:05):
unpack that together.
Where does that story come from?
How old is that feeling?
How far back does that story go, and can we help that little
one feel safe again so that it'snot having to sit in the
driver's seat and manage yourlife when, when things get
really scary.
And I also think that this iswhy I just like love this work
(26:32):
that I get to do.
I look at my client list whetherthey're in BAM or they're a
one-on-one client and I look atthese beautiful, sensitive souls
who have been through so much,souls who have been through so
(26:53):
much.
They have googled things thathaven't worked for them.
They've looked at, hey, how doI fix my insomnia?
And like, tried to google thator how do I?
You know, why do I feel anxiousall the time and googled that?
And then the generic hacks thatare given in that space, like,
of course it's not going to workbecause it's not individualized
and and understands the nuancein the context of what your life
(27:17):
is about.
Right, and I also get a lot offolks who I'm going to call them
practitioner wounds, where theyhave tried to do these deeper
layers of nervous systemregulation work with a
practitioner, a therapist even,and it's been really hard
(27:39):
because that space holder isbringing their own stuff in and
they're getting triggered bytheir own client in and they're
getting triggered by their ownclient, and then it reinforces
this wound of like I'm too bigor I'm taking up too much space
or I'm not enough, and so, to me, this is where choosing is so
(27:59):
important.
You have a choice when it comesto both the content that you
watch here on Instagram or thepeople that you choose to
support you.
So the first thing I want to askyou is how do you feel when you
watch someone's content?
Is there resonance there?
(28:20):
And I can say for sure thisperson with this account,
because they have over a millionfollowers.
There's a ton of resonancethere, and so, fair enough, if
you feel that resonance, right,you might look through that list
of signs and symptoms and belike that is me right.
I feel that way too, butthere's one layer deeper to that
(28:45):
.
How do you feel when you feelthat resonance?
Do you If you consume theircontent and you receive this
message and this resonance ofthere's something wrong with me,
I need to fix that.
And then they're offering youthis like magical potion that is
(29:09):
going to miraculously heal yournervous system?
I would watch that.
Or, in that resonance, do theyincite or inspire a bit of
curiosity about your own innerwisdom?
Do they ask you these layers ofquestions that take you deeper
into your own process?
(29:30):
Instead of outsourcing thatpower to somebody else, because
that's ultimately what this kindof marketing does is it asks
you to give up your own power,to give up your own wisdom and
to replace it with somebodyexternal to you.
So I guess, in short, I'm goingto wrap this up in a second If
(29:54):
there's a takeaway is yournervous system is not broken.
Even if you're experiencing afunctional freeze, it is not
broken and you have choice whenit comes to how you would like
to receive that support.
(30:14):
And please, for the sake of notjust you, but for the
collective, because we're all inthis together, we're all on
this healing journey together,and the more of us that are on
this wave of choosingpractitioners who market
ethically and practitioners whodon't pathologize your body and
(30:36):
your nervous system.
That is going to make such ahuge difference in how our
culture moves forward.
So, yeah, that was a little bitlonger than a TED Talk, but
thanks for listening to my TEDTalk.
Bye, hello.
(30:56):
My friends, it's been a coupleof days since I posted on
Instagram about theoversimplification of the
nervous system and, inparticular, this whole concept
around a functional freeze, andI've been in really lovely
insightful conversations in myDMs with other folks who are
(31:19):
doing this work and doing thismedicine and bringing it to your
people, and that's one of myfavorite things about this
community is it's not just aone-sided I am teaching sort of
a conversation.
You all bring so much moredepth and nuance to these things
and you add to the flavor ofwhat this work looks like, and
(31:40):
so I thought I would share.
Of course, these are beingshared with permission, and so I
thought I'd share some of theseinsights that you all are
bringing.
So the first thing I want toaddress is that I had a couple
folks asking me if I would sharethe Instagram account that I
was talking about in my stories,and the short answer is no, I
(32:04):
will not share, and I alsowanted to give a longer context
of why I hold that boundary.
So the first piece is that I amabout talking about patterns
rather than individuals, and soto me, it is less important that
there is this one specificaccount that people have been
(32:27):
sending me, and more so the factthat there is a particular
pattern that we're seeing whenit comes to this nervous system
work and the oversimplificationof our work, and so, you know,
since I posted, I've had otherpeople share other accounts of
other folks who are doing this,and so to me it's about
(32:47):
addressing the pattern.
The second piece is that thisperson doesn't know my account
and so they don't have theability to defend or really hold
up this part of theconversation.
And so to me for me to sharethat, even if it's in my
(33:09):
personal DMs for me to sharethat feels really gossipy and
doesn't feel aligned in terms ofhow I want to talk about people
, even when they don't know thatI'm talking about them.
And then the third piece is thewhole conversation was really
about how can you lean into yourown intuition and your own
(33:33):
wisdom when it comes to thecontent that you're consuming.
You know I had somebody reflectback to me saying like, oh, I
didn't realize that.
You know I'm following severalof these kinds of accounts and
it makes me feel like I need tofix my nervous system, and so
that was a really, really bigsort of aha click moment for her
.
So that was a really, reallybig sort of aha click moment for
(33:54):
her, and to me it's reallyabout this.
It's instead of looking at meand saying, hey, kat, you seem
to have observed these patterns,it's like, hey, thanks for
pointing that pattern out for meand this is how I'm going to
apply it.
This is the work of my ownintuition.
Of looking at some of theseaccounts and looking at some of
(34:17):
this content that's being putout there, and saying I would
like to make my own sovereigndecisions about, talk about in
my stories and in my content, isbecause it really all points to
bigger patterns.
It points to patterns of yourown intuition.
(34:50):
Okay, so I want to bringattention to Nicole's work here.
I'll tag her and I'm just goingto read her comments straight
off of the page here.
I'm looking at them right nowbecause it's just, oh my God, so
juicy.
So Nicole says we're talkingspecifically about that pause,
(35:12):
that quote unquote functionalfreeze.
So she says it's like thesacred pause we see in
physiological birth, but themainstream maternal system sees
as something wrong anddangerously intervenes.
Society can't hold space forslowing down, pausing and
resting.
And I replied and said, oh mygosh, please tell me more.
And she replied back oh gosh, Idon't even know where to start.
(35:36):
So first thoughts arereorienting to the truth that we
are nature and like nature,specifically other mammals that
give birth, we generally givethem space to do so.
They birth somewhere safe,quiet and dark.
Humans are told to birth in abright, loud, unfamiliar
hospital setting full ofinterventions, because you're
put on a clock.
In a natural birth, after awoman slash mammal goes through
(35:57):
what's called transition, shegets a sudden burst of energy,
comes back to reality out oflabor land and contractions slow
down.
This is intentional, purposefuland by nature's design.
Mainstream medicine intervenesat this slow down and disrupts
the process when actually it's asacred pause that's been
pathologized, obviously loads ofnuance.
Here I'm talking about a lowrisk, slash, healthy pregnancy,
(36:19):
but I see this closely relatedto the pathogen pathology.
I can say this word.
I promise Pathologization.
We see around the freezeresponse and oh my gosh, as
somebody who has not given birthbefore and I've been present at
several births.
But to me the place that I'mmore familiar with is the death
(36:42):
process.
I was a vet tech for severalyears and I have witnessed many,
many deaths, and this is thesame exact thing that happens in
natural death.
There is a natural slowing downand then we see a big burst of
energy where the animal seems torewind that clock back several
years and that lasts for a dayor a few hours, and then death
(37:05):
settles in Our bodies, whetherit is through the birth process
or through the death process.
They transition through theseyin-yang phases and to me
there's this like obviouscorrelation of you know, death
and birth feel like really,really obvious transitions.
But we have so many transitionsin life between birth and death
(37:28):
that require that same sort ofenergetic fluidity of being able
to shift between yin and yang.
And I think, in this world ofmodern fluidity of being able to
shift between yin and yang, andI think, in this world of
modern day hustle, in this worldof modern day go, go, go, and
you always have to be makinglinear progress.
We don't allow for that yinslowdown to happen.
And so thank you so much,nicole, for bringing in this
(37:53):
beautiful example of how thingsare not actually a freeze state,
it's actually a healthyexpression of yin, it's a
healthy expression of a sacredpause.
And by labeling something asbeing a functional freeze,
instead of being able to likesink into the feelings that come
(38:15):
up in that sacred pause, weresist it, and by resisting it
we then throw interventions inthat actually are not helpful to
this whole concept of a cycle.
Now, this next comment comesfrom Emma, who is a play coach,
and she said that she's sharedthis concept so many times to
clients.
(38:36):
Again, reading straight off ofthe page here, that makes sense
that you are and insert one ofthose activities you were listed
, and one of those activitiesmight be some of these things
that people are labeling asbeing a functional freeze,
because you're feeling X, y andZ, so of course you're going to
lean into those activities.
That doesn't mean something hasgone wrong and I love that we
(39:00):
are able to, as coaches, grantthis permission to our clients,
to our family members, andoftentimes and I can just sort
of speak to myself in thismoment of like it's so hard to
have that compassion reflectedback in words.
Right, and so when we allow forthat sacred pause, for that
(39:20):
quote unquote functional freezefor yin states to be just a
natural part of the cycle, weare able to hold deeper capacity
.
When somebody else comes intoour space and says, hey, I've
been binge watching Netflix, andinstead of you being like, oh,
we need to fix that, you canstart asking questions around
hey, does this make sense?
(39:41):
Is this an appropriate?
That's one of the questionsthat came up is this an
appropriate response to what itis that you're experiencing in
this moment?
So I had somebody ask aquestion about the
appropriateness of responses,and how do we know when we're
doing something that'sappropriate to the situation or
(40:03):
something that feels like it'sinappropriate?
And I think that this is where alot of nervous system, nuance
and, um, I want to say likeskill comes into play here.
So the first thing I want tosay is, when I talk about
appropriateness, it's not about,hey, you're never going to feel
(40:25):
triggered, you're never goingto feel activated again, you're
never going to feel collapsedagain.
It's really about looking atthe situation, for what's
happening right now, in thispresent moment, and when you are
looking at the story of what'shappening in now, in this
present moment, and when you arelooking at the story of what's
happening in this moment,doesn't make sense.
The reaction or the responsethat you're having right now.
So, um, you know, versussomething is happening and it is
(40:52):
triggering something thathappened in your history.
A inner child is rebelling, ainner child is feeling shut down
, it is rubbing up against anold story or a narrative that
your family might have placedupon you.
It's rubbing up against acondition that society has
placed on you, and in that caseI would say that that is likely
(41:15):
a situation where you might behaving an inappropriate response
.
You know, we've all had thosesituations happen where you know
somebody might say somethingthat feels really triggering and
instead of being able to likehear those words in that moment
as just something that thatperson is saying, as just
(41:38):
something that that person issaying, you are suddenly
overlaying your aunt's face, whohas judged you for your whole
life, onto that person's words,or you are overlaying, you know,
an old teacher's voice or yourparents, and you know, in those
situations it's really importantto lean on your nervous system
tools and to say, hey, thismight not be the most
appropriate response to what'shappening right here.
(42:00):
How can I get closer to thetruth?
And to me, that's where thatdeep, underlying work happens.
I'll say that this is so mucheasier when you have other
people in your corner who arewell versed in being able to do
this, and Oftentimes this iswhen I personally will go to a
(42:21):
mentor, if there's a coach thatI'm working with at the moment,
but most reliably those peopleare gonna be my husband, my
besties and a Few of my trustedcolleagues who I work with
regularly.
And so, you know, if I'm ableto share this outside of my own
experience and bring it to athird party who has an unbiased
(42:44):
opinion about what's going on,they're able to reflect back to
me and say, like, oh, thatactually seems pretty
understandable.
Or, hey, like, have youconsidered that maybe this is a
story that is persisting becauseit's your father's voice or
it's your mother's voice?
And you know, all these peoplethat I just outlined have a
(43:05):
concept of what my history isand what I get triggered by,
right, and so they have a littlebit of a roadmap to until what,
where my you know owninappropriate responses might be
coming from.
Um, I'll say, too, that bysharing it outside of myself um,
I think it's Brene Brown whotalks about shame gremlins, but
(43:26):
it really helps me reinforcethat, that messaging of I don't
have to be ashamed by this, youknow, by by me talking about hey
, I binge watched a bunch ofNetflix shows in a moment where
I was in a functional freeze.
I have no shame about that,versus, you know, if I were to
keep that inside, there's apotential that that shame might
(43:49):
mutate into something that Ifeel really like.
It feels like it needs to behidden.
So hopefully that helps interms of like being able to
gauge what an appropriate versusinappropriate response is.
And then, the last littleobservation that I want to bring
into this conversation is fromNadine.
I absolutely love Nadine.
If you don't know her, um, youdefinitely need to check her out
(44:11):
.
She has been on this podcast aton.
She is a BAM alumni.
She's also been a coach for BAM, and so she's somebody that I
just I absolutely adore her, andher observation is that, as a
manifesting generator andthere's a lot of us out there
(44:32):
she's a manifesting generator.
I'm a manifesting generator aswell.
She was just sharing with methat, like a bunch of her
clients, a manifesting generator, I'm a manifesting generator as
well.
She was just sharing with methat, like, a bunch of her
clients are manifestinggenerators and she was positing
this, this theory, that you know, perhaps this is just part of
our mani-gen cycle.
You know, if we are in thatgenerative mode, it's so easy to
be in that space because we'vebeen validated for being
(44:53):
generators, for getting shit,for being able to, like, look at
a to-do list and say boom, boom, boom I know how to do this
versus when we're in ourmanifesting phase, which is a
lot more yin, which is slow,which is about holding
intentions.
We have a tendency to resistthat, and so for some of us,
that might be.
Our natural design is to floatin and out of these yin states,
(45:16):
not just because we are part ofnature and this is what nature
does, but I would say that myown personal observations about
who I am and how my sort of workcycles are like is I am less
consistent and I am a lot moreup and down when it comes to
creating and um being in thelike generative versus the
(45:39):
manifesting phase, and so I loveall these observations.
Thank you so much for havingthis conversation with me.
I love being able to have theseconversations and, you know, one
of the things that I reallyjust want to like finish out
this conversation with is oh mygosh, how many times can I say
conversation in a row?
But anyways, um.
(46:01):
So instagram everyone saysinstagram is about short form
content.
Everyone says that it is aboutholding someone's attention for
like one minute at a time.
Holding someone's attention forlike one minute at a time.
(46:22):
I posted a 30 minute video onmy stories and was like hey,
like I kind of don't care if anylike nobody sees this.
I just feel like I need to getthis off of my chest and I just
need to like say this thing outloud, otherwise I might go a
little bit crazy.
And so I did that thing, and Ihad so many of you watch this 30
minute video on Instagram allthe way through, and now, if you
(46:44):
are listening to this secondpart of this conversation, we
are probably, I want to say,like 45-50 minutes into a
conversation that, um, you know,other business coaches, um,
other folks who advise about howto promote yourself on
(47:06):
Instagram, would say this is theopposite of what you should be
doing to me.
It's always come back torelationships and my own sort of
way of being is that, like Idon't know how to just like
dance on a reel and create likea one minute thing.
I always have these like long,deep conversations with people,
(47:27):
whether you are meeting me inperson, um, or even if we're
just like running, like I don'tknow how to do the small talk
thing you guys like, even when Iwas a bartender, um, I would
have these like long, in-depthconversations with people, and
so I don't know how to beshort-winded and I thank you for
(47:50):
being here and thank you forreally just being in
relationship with me and beingin relationship in the ways that
feels really good to me, and tome it's like you know what?
Fuck the algorithm, fuck theways that um people say you need
to promote yourself oninstagram, fuck the short form
content.
Guys.
Um, do what feels good.
(48:11):
That is like the if.
If you need any sort of likemarketing advice, like, do what
feels good, because when, likethe if, if you need any sort of
like marketing advice, like, dowhat feels good, because when
you're speaking from your heart,when you're speaking from this
place of authenticity and fromthis place of, like, genuine
care for the world, the peoplewho want to listen are going to
listen all the way to the end.
So, again, thanks for beinghere.
Uh, love the crap out of youguys and we'll chat soon.
(48:36):
This part of the conversationcomes from lauren.
Um, her instagram handle isnest and nourish and she
responded by saying I'm playingwith the idea that maybe my
functional freeze is part of mycreation cycle, and I just was
like oh my gosh, tell me more.
(48:57):
I'm so curious and, um, my owncuriosity stems from me wanting
to work on my own relationshipwith creativity.
And so she says I guess I'vejust realized that maybe my
cycle of procrastination andwhat feels like functional
freeze and maybe it's notactually and I only think that
(49:19):
and I only think it is becauseof unethical marketing, and then
the thought and creation is allpart of my creation cycle.
I love that concept.
I just want to like go throughthat again.
What she's saying is there is acycle of what she has previously
called procrastination andthere's a thought and a creation
(49:41):
and an unfreezing.
That's all part of thiscreation cycle.
And I think it goes right inline with what we were just
talking about with um, this uh,sacred pause, right.
And she continues and says it'salmost like I need that slowing
down to let things percolate inmy mind and body before I
really let something be fullycreated.
(50:02):
And I responded with all the umexclamation marks because yes,
yes, yes, it's almost like weneed an autumn and a winter
cycle for spring to come.
And the pause and the slowdownallows for the intention to
crystallize so you can takealigned action on the thing.
And she continues and says andwhen I don't shame myself or
(50:24):
attach to labels to it likeprocrastination and freeze, it
moves through with so much moreease.
And it's definitely a delicatebalance and I have to be very
aware of my own internalthoughts, my inner critic, the
somatic experience of itthroughout, or it can really
turn into almost using it as anexcuse to not take action.
And I think that this is such abeautiful, insightful way of
(50:47):
like the self-awareness thatit's that's needed in order to
do this nervous system work.
And so, uh, the first thing Iwant to just like highlight,
underline asterisk the less youshame yourself, the less you
attach labels to things and callit procrastination and you call
it freeze, and the more you'reable to sort of like accept this
(51:09):
part of the cycle, the easierit actually becomes to move to
the next part of the cycle.
It's almost by saying, hey, likeI'm fully into this yin mode
and I'm gonna just really acceptit and be in it for as long as
it needs to be.
That's when the spring comes alittle bit sooner and, of course
, um, to me the body alwaysleads the way right.
(51:33):
And so what is that somaticfeeling of a sacred pause versus
what is the somatic feeling oftrue freeze, and that's going to
look really, really differentfor different people.
It's also going to look reallydifferent in terms of, perhaps,
the stories and the narrativesthat come up around these two
(51:55):
things.
And so, instead of just lookingat the external thing and being
like, oh, that person is bingewatching a bunch of Netflix
shows, you can be like, okay, sowhat does that feel like in
your body when you are bingewatching?
What does that feel like andhow is it different from when
you have binge watched Netflixshows in the past?
And to me, that's where westart really threading through a
(52:23):
lot of this self-awareness andstop labeling and demonizing and
shaming these aspects of usthat are actually just
incredibly wise.
Hi friends, I want to come on and talk to you about
something that I'm seeing in thesocial media world around
oversimplification of thenervous system and it's
something that I've beenexpecting, because I've been
talking about nervous systemsfor so long, and I find it
incredibly troubling, which iswhy I want to come on here and
(00:21):
talk to you about bringingnuance and context back into
nervous system regulation work.
This is something that I'vebeen wanting to talk to you
about for a couple of days now,and I sat down to just like
briefly write out an outline forour conversation and I went a
(00:41):
little bit overboard.
So before I I get started, Iwant to show you my notes.
Okay, so this is what I've beendoing for the last like 45
minutes is just like free formwriting, trying to map out all
the things that I want to say,and you know that when I come in
with notes like this, it'sgonna be a little intense, so I
hope you're ready, okay.
(01:02):
So, as somebody who has beentalking about nervous systems
before it was a trendy hashtag Ialso worked with nervous
systems a lot as anacupuncturist, so when I was an
acupuncturist for 12 years, Ihad my hands on bodies, really
feeling into the energeticspaces of people's nervous
(01:23):
systems and how they're holdingstress in their bodies and what
their nervous systems areactually doing.
And now that I've been doingthis work virtually for four
years, it's really fine-tuned mymuscle in terms of tracking
nervous systems and so I want tojust bring that into the
conversation and, as somebodywho's been doing this work for a
(01:44):
while, I have some real, realconcerns.
So a little bit of context ofwhy I'm having this conversation
with you is that I am beingsent reels from my community
from a very specific account andthis person talks about the
functional freeze and thisperson has over a million
followers.
A lot of these um reels arebeing sent to me in the context
(02:08):
of hey, I feel this way and I'mkind of curious about it, so can
we have a conversation about it?
So, um, I'm having thisconversation with the broader
community here because it's comeup enough times where I feel
like there's a pattern, andanytime there's a pattern, I
like to talk about it.
So, um, speaking of patterns,I'm not going to call out this
(02:30):
account.
Um, I, whenever I see somethinglike this, I want to really
talk about the pattern of whatI'm seeing, instead of um
calling certain people out.
I do not participate in call-outculture or cancel culture, and
that's a really, really hardboundary that I have, but I also
(02:51):
just want to like address thatthe nervous system is turning
into the very thing that I wasreally hoping that it wouldn't
turn into.
So I want to start out bysaying that nervous system work
(03:13):
somatic healing is just sacredmedicine.
It's been the backbone of whatI've been doing since 2011.
And the more and more I learnabout the nervous system, the
more layers get peeled off andthe deeper I'm able to go with
it, with myself and with myclients, and the more I learn
(03:33):
about traditional medicines.
Actually, I can see thatnervous system work is just
bringing western language tosomething that traditional
people have been doing all along, and so it's deeply rooted in
how we relate to nature.
It's deeply, deeply rooted inhow we relate to our own animal
bodies, and so I just want tosay, first off, that nervous
(03:57):
system work is sacred, sacred,sacred medicine, and so what I
was expecting to happen, um isat some point I knew, because
there's so many people talkingabout this work now, there's
gonna be an oversimplificationof it at some point, and it's
here.
I'm really sad that it's here,and what I mean by
(04:19):
simplification is it is akin tohow allopathic medicine treats
disease and talks about disease,and we talk about disease in
really compartmentalized ways inallopathic medicine.
I'm speaking as somebody whowas also part of the medical
industry I was a fertilityacupuncturist for many years and
(04:40):
what we do in that space is welabel the body as something that
is working against you, andthen the doctor or a medication
comes in to rescue you from yourown body, and it is so counter
(05:00):
to the sacredness of the nervoussystem, to the sacredness of
the nervous system.
What I believe, and what I knowto be true in my experience, is
that the body is always tryingto work with you, and signs and
symptoms are communication fromyour body.
And, you know, let's contrastthat with allopathic medicine
(05:21):
that says, oh, here's anuncomfortable thing that you're
feeling, here's a painful thingthat you're feeling, here's a
painful thing that you'refeeling.
Let's not ask these deeperquestions of why.
Let's just try to shut thatdown as quickly as possible for
you so that you can go back toliving a quote-unquote normal
life.
And so we are bypassing anentire conversation that we
(05:43):
could be having with our bodiesin that space, because, when we
think about it, signs andsymptoms are communication from
our body and the body doesn'thave any of the language to
speak through.
It's going to speak throughsigns and symptoms.
It's going to speak throughpain so that you actually pay
attention to it.
And so the questions that Ilike to bring into a
(06:03):
conversation with somebody whenthey're talking to me about some
of these uncomfortable thingsthat are happening in their life
and they may be body oriented,it may be experiential I want to
start asking questions aroundwhy is your body trying to
communicate to you in this wayand what is the context and that
is going to be a big word inour conversation here is context
(06:24):
matters, so so much.
So here is what this particularaccount says about a functional
freeze response.
I'm just going to read you thelist of things this has directly
taken off of this person'saccount minimal facial
expressions.
One word answers self-isolation.
(06:44):
Constant overwhelm.
Sensitivity to light, sound andtouch.
Unexplained pain in the body.
Slumped posture.
Can't cry.
Able to handle tasks but crash.
Exhausted but stay up late.
Successful but feeling empty.
Brushing your teeth in themorning but not in the evening.
Trying to eat healthy butordering delivery food in the
evening, trying to eat healthybut ordering delivery food and
(07:06):
binge watching TV.
Now, now, of course, afterlisting out all these signs and
symptoms of a functional freeze,she then comes in with the good
news is that you can get out ofshutdown in 60 days with
somatic exercises, and to me,this is the definition of
unethical marketing.
This is by definition.
(07:28):
This is pain point marketing.
Here's a list of signs andsymptoms without any context for
why this is happening in yourlife, and somebody might read
through that list and be like,oh, I see myself in four out of
those 10 things, or six out ofthose ten things, or all of them
, and I want to just note herethat, like, of course, there's a
(07:48):
resonance there.
Nobody wants to feel this way.
I completely understand thatyou don't want to feel stuck,
you don't want to feel likeyou're in a functional freeze
and again, this is where contextmatters a lot.
So I did a little bit of lightsleuthing and looked through
just briefly through some of thecomments and I saw multiple
(08:11):
comments from people saying, hey, I did the 60 day program, it
was great, but now I'm back in afunctional freeze.
Response what am I supposed todo, and her response to that is
oh, you have to finish the threecourse bundle in order to
complete the program and thenyou can be out of the freeze
response.
And I just have this like biggiant, like no, no, what you
(08:38):
need is integration.
And before I talk aboutintegration, I just want to like
take a pause here and note thatnervous system work is sacred
medicine and it is alsosomething that can be used to
manipulate people.
So what I like to think aboutwhen it comes to nervous system
(08:59):
regulation and marketing is that, yes, we want people to take
action and, in particular, wewant people to take action, and,
in particular, we want peopleto take action to move towards
us.
Right, but the intentionalityof what that can look like is so
, so different when it comes tounethical marketing versus
relational marketing.
With unethical marketing, youare actively activating
(09:22):
somebody's sympathetic nervoussystem, getting them to move
into a fight or flight state, sothat then they are motivated to
move towards you.
Versus with relationalmarketing, you are helping them
feel understood and, in thatunderstanding, tapping into
their own curiosity about theirown inner wisdom and moving
towards you from a regulated andfrom a more secure place.
(09:46):
So, yes, the action looks likethe same on the outside, but
what you do in that space of howyou work with that person's
nervous system, even in thespace of marketing, where you
aren't having these likeface-to-face interactions with
people and working with them andtalking to them in real time,
(10:07):
you are conveying all of thatthrough your own messaging.
So that's a little bit of asidebar.
Okay, so back to integration.
The irony is that this person'ssomatic exercises again, I
didn't do like a deep dive onthis person, but I did sort of
like briefly go through herreels A lot of her somatic
exercisers are actually really,really good, but the difference
(10:31):
there is.
The intention is about hackingthe nervous system so you don't
feel uncomfortable and you aretrying to get your nervous
system to change into justfeeling the good feelings, and I
think of it as being likeyou're trying to like exercise,
like you're exercising a demon.
(10:51):
You're exercising dysregulationby using the sacred medicine,
and when you do that, you arebypassing, and to me it's less
about the tool and more aboutthe intentionality.
So how are you using thatsomatic exercise?
Are you using it to help youintegrate or are you using it to
(11:16):
help you bypass?
And I feel like it's importantto note that what integration is
is that you understand thecontext of where that functional
freeze is coming from and thenyou are able to assess and see
if that's an appropriateresponse in context of the
(11:38):
situation that's happening inyour life.
And so if you look at thatfunctional freeze you know that
list of functional freeze someof them made me kind of like
roll my eyes, but a lot of itactually did make sense, right.
If you are looking at that listand you're like, yeah, actually
it totally makes sense that I'min a functional freeze response
(11:58):
right now because X, y and Zthings are happening in my life,
or because I'm processing A, band C things from my past, then
absolutely your role there, ifthe response is appropriate to
the situation, is to actuallyfeel the feelings and sit in
that functional freeze and allowyour body and trust your body
(12:22):
that it knows what to do in thatmoment.
That's actually asking you toslow down for a second for a
reason, and we're going to talkabout some of those reasons in
just a moment.
If you are able to likeobjectively, look at the
situation, you're like thisfreeze seems like it's not an
appropriate response for what'sactually happening.
(12:42):
So, then, this is where you arebeing invited to do the work,
and by doing the work, I meangoing in and doing some of those
somatic exercises, going in anddoing some of that inner child
work, going and asking for someco-regulation from some trusted
people.
Talking about your story,journaling, writing, doing all
(13:04):
these things that will help youcontextualize and understand why
you might be projecting a pastexperience onto something that's
happening right now in realtime, and why that response is
actually a much bigger responsethan is actually being called
for and is appropriate, actuallybeing called for and is
(13:30):
appropriate.
So, again, context is the thingthat tells us if that
functional freeze is appropriateor not.
And context is situational, itis environmental, it is
individual and, by the way, Iread through that list of the
functional freeze signs andsymptoms and a lot of those
signs and symptoms are actuallyoh, this is going to be a much
(13:50):
longer conversation, but, um,it's quote-unquote normal for
those of us who are reallysensitive, some of us who are
neurodivergent, some of us whohave autism or are introverted,
because, quite frankly, ourcultural environment is kind of
fucked up and the water that weswim in is in an activated state
(14:14):
, and sometimes it's hard toeven understand that we're in
that activated state.
For me personally, I don'tthink I even recognized how
dysregulating the world wasuntil I was able to purchase my
land and spend so much time insilence in nature with animals,
(14:36):
being with the weather andreally finding my rhythm in that
space.
It's really hard for me tothink about.
Oh my gosh, once upon a time Iused to live in Vancouver, a
bustling city, where I wasworking 60 to 70 hours a week
and, you know, trying to behealthy and trying to do all
(14:59):
these things and feeling shutdown in the process, and so that
shutdown was actually anappropriate response to what was
happening in my life back then.
Another example that I canoffer in terms of context and
why context matters so much isthat I'm pretty sure that the
(15:20):
owner of this account would lookat my behaviors and my
emotional state and my nervoussystem regulation in my life for
the last three months or so anddiagnose me as being as having
functional freeze, and I wouldsay, technically, yes, this this
(15:42):
is true, but this is wherecontext matters so much.
Back in November, we moved intomy friend's basement.
This is where we're at rightnow.
We decided that we were goingto be pet sitting through the
wintertime while we wereshopping for a condo to move
(16:03):
into.
While we were shopping for acondo to move into.
And when I say that these dogsare difficult, I love dogs.
Y'all know how much I loveanimals.
I've been pet sitting since Iwas 16 years old.
These are the most difficultdogs I have ever dealt with.
(16:23):
First off, one of them is blindand deaf, and so he has
difficulty even finding his wayto the doggy door.
The other one is incrediblyanxious, is on a ton of anxiety
meds and behaviorally,physically, they've been
incredibly hard to deal with.
(16:45):
And I've been living an houraway from the farm and I go out
to the farm every single day andI have to navigate this
schedule of like.
Okay, I can't leave theseelderly dogs for too long, but I
also need to go to the farm andbe with my animals and make
sure that their needs are beingtaken care of.
And so you know what I've been.
In a functional freeze, I'm ableto get everything that I need
(17:06):
to do technically done, but whenit comes to the time that I
have for myself, I am.
I have binge watched the entireseries of Big Bang Theory in
the last couple of months andit's been.
It's been difficult, beendifficult, functional freeze.
Context matters when I look atthat.
(17:30):
If I were to look at thisobjectively, as somebody just
listening to my story, I'd belike, yeah, of course, of course
you're in that state, and forme it's like presence is an
infinite.
Sorry, presence is a finiteresource and I only have so much
(17:51):
presence and I am consciouslychoosing where I am distributing
my presence, and so I'mchoosing to be completely
present when I'm with my clients, because that is my happy place
.
I'm choosing to be completelypresent when I'm with my animals
because, again, happy place,when I'm with my husband, when I
(18:12):
am on the phone with my friends, and so in those moments that I
have to myself, yes, I amchoosing a functional freeze.
And, again, history and contextmatters here as well.
What I would have done in thepast is I would have gone into a
complete fight mode andoverdone and overextended myself
(18:36):
and over committed myself.
I actually made a consciousdecision to pull away a lot of
my marketing as well during thistime because, again, presence
is a finite resource and ifthere's something that I can
drop off of my plate.
It's going to be my marketing.
I'm never going to umcompromise the quality of care
(19:01):
that I deliver to my clients,and so for me to deliver the
level of care that I deliver tomy clients, and so for me to
deliver the level of care that Ipresent and that my clients
expect from me.
I had to pull away from mymarketing quite a bit these last
couple months, so it's been animprovement for my history,
which is to overdo turn on myfight response, fight F-I-G-H-T
(19:23):
response.
Then I would go into burnoutand then I would do a complete
collapse.
And so I share this storybecause I have no shame around
the functional freeze, because Iunderstand and I've integrated
the context of why that ishappening.
And so I look at my functionalfreeze freeze and I don't even
(19:45):
look at it as something thatneeds to be changed.
It is not broken, it does notneed to be fixed.
It is actually helping mepreserve my sanity and it also
represents because of what Iused to do, it represents the
work that I've done to reallyhave a flexible nervous system.
(20:06):
So when we lose sight ofcontext, we pathologize what is
perfectly normal and perfectlydesigned for our nervous systems
and for our bodies.
So Other aspects of contextthat might resonate with you.
(20:26):
If you're considering adifficult conversation with
somebody that you love, afunctional freeze is appropriate
because your nervous system isasking you to slow down and
bring your wise self into thatconversation, that it is
completely misaligned.
A functional freeze isappropriate because without that
(20:48):
discomfort you aren't going tochange.
It's asking you to changesomething about your life and to
consciously choose somethingdifferent in a way that feels
empowering to you.
If you're feeling an emotionthat is unfamiliar and
uncomfortable for you, I knowthat when I went through a bit
(21:10):
of a spiritual awakening, I hadall this anger come up and anger
was not an appropriate emotionfor me to feel.
In my family, in fact, in theKorean culture we have a word
called hwabyung, which meansanger disease.
The Korean culture we have aword called hwabyung, which
means anger disease.
(21:31):
Anger is seen as such a bademotion that they consider the
expression of anger a disease,and so when I was going through
the first few layers of my ownsort of emotional and spiritual
journey, I had so much angercome up and I would definitely
say that if I look back on thattime in my life, I was in a
functional freeze, because whatmy body was asking me to do is
(21:53):
hey, here's a thing that'scoming up, let's set, let's sit
with this, let's set the yinintention of what this anger is.
Can we place it in the rightplace?
Can we place it with the rightperson?
And is that the appropriate wayto really tell the story?
And then, through that alignedintention setting, you're going
(22:20):
to hand that off into your yangaspects of yourself so that you
could take aligned action.
So maybe there's a hardconversation that you need to
have, maybe there's anexpression, maybe you need to go
slam some boxes or go pick upheavy shit and move that anger
through your body, right.
(22:41):
And so this is where, if we losecontext, we start to
pathologize what is actuallygood and perfect and true about
our bodies and our nervoussystems.
So I know that I say this a lothere, but I think it's worth
saying again and again and againand again which is the healing
(23:03):
journey, the personaldevelopment journey, the journey
to be closer to your Tao, isnever about banishing
dysregulation.
It's not about never feelingreally bad again, because life
is going to happen.
You also have a history, andhistory has a tendency to
(23:26):
resurface, because our livestend to evolve as a spiral.
And when that happens, if we'rejust running away from
dysregulation, then we'll neverbe able to integrate what that
experience is truly like for uson these deeper levels.
(23:48):
To integrate what thatexperience is truly like for us
on these deeper levels, and whenyou find that integration, it
means that you get a little bitcloser each time to living a
life that is more aligned withyour soul.
Living a life where you areable to hold boundaries.
Living a life where you areable to see oh, this is my
responsibility and that's theirresponsibility.
Living a life where you're likeI choose these things and I
(24:09):
choose these people.
Living a life where you areable to step even more deeply
and unapologetically into yourdesires.
And to me, that is what trueintegration is.
It's not about, oh, I neverfeel angry again, or I never
feel grief again, or I neverfeel sad again, or I never feel
(24:30):
frozen or shut down again.
It's about welcoming all ofthose experiences in within the
context of your life and beingable to look at it and be like,
hey, is that an appropriateresponse?
And yes, if it is, thenpermission to be in that space
and, yes, if it is, thenpermission to be in that space,
(24:50):
permission to feel thosefeelings.
Now, objectivity is hard.
It is so, so hard, and this iswhere I think coaches are so
important.
Whether it is you yourselfreaching out to a coach or a
mentor or you holding space forsomebody is one of the main
roles of the space holder is tohave an objective lens on what's
(25:14):
happening, because you don'thave the projections that this
person has, and that's why we dothis personal development work
for ourselves as space holders.
Right is because we don't wantto be bringing our own
projections into a space, and so, because objectivity is so hard
, I really recommend bringingsomebody in who can help you by
(25:40):
listening to your story andbeing like, yeah, I can see why
you're angry right now.
I can see why you're in afunctional freeze right now.
I can see why you are full onin sadness right now.
I can see why you're collapsedright now.
Those are actually appropriatethings to feel in this moment or
, in contrast, like that seemslike a really big response Can
(26:05):
unpack that together.
Where does that story come from?
How old is that feeling?
How far back does that story go, and can we help that little
one feel safe again so that it'snot having to sit in the
driver's seat and manage yourlife when, when things get
really scary.
And I also think that this iswhy I just like love this work
(26:32):
that I get to do.
I look at my client list whetherthey're in BAM or they're a
one-on-one client and I look atthese beautiful, sensitive souls
who have been through so much,souls who have been through so
(26:53):
much.
They have googled things thathaven't worked for them.
They've looked at, hey, how doI fix my insomnia?
And like, tried to google thator how do I?
You know, why do I feel anxiousall the time and googled that?
And then the generic hacks thatare given in that space, like,
of course it's not going to workbecause it's not individualized
and and understands the nuancein the context of what your life
(27:17):
is about.
Right, and I also get a lot offolks who I'm going to call them
practitioner wounds, where theyhave tried to do these deeper
layers of nervous systemregulation work with a
practitioner, a therapist even,and it's been really hard
(27:39):
because that space holder isbringing their own stuff in and
they're getting triggered bytheir own client in and they're
getting triggered by their ownclient, and then it reinforces
this wound of like I'm too bigor I'm taking up too much space
or I'm not enough, and so, to me, this is where choosing is so
(27:59):
important.
You have a choice when it comesto both the content that you
watch here on Instagram or thepeople that you choose to
support you.
So the first thing I want to askyou is how do you feel when you
watch someone's content?
Is there resonance there?
(28:20):
And I can say for sure thisperson with this account,
because they have over a millionfollowers.
There's a ton of resonancethere, and so, fair enough, if
you feel that resonance, right,you might look through that list
of signs and symptoms and belike that is me right.
I feel that way too, butthere's one layer deeper to that
(28:45):
.
How do you feel when you feelthat resonance?
Do you If you consume theircontent and you receive this
message and this resonance ofthere's something wrong with me,
I need to fix that.
And then they're offering youthis like magical potion that is
(29:09):
going to miraculously heal yournervous system?
I would watch that.
Or, in that resonance, do theyincite or inspire a bit of
curiosity about your own innerwisdom?
Do they ask you these layers ofquestions that take you deeper
into your own process?
(29:30):
Instead of outsourcing thatpower to somebody else, because
that's ultimately what this kindof marketing does is it asks
you to give up your own power,to give up your own wisdom and
to replace it with somebodyexternal to you.
So I guess, in short, I'm goingto wrap this up in a second If
(29:54):
there's a takeaway is yournervous system is not broken.
Even if you're experiencing afunctional freeze, it is not
broken and you have choice whenit comes to how you would like
to receive that support.
(30:14):
And please, for the sake of notjust you, but for the
collective, because we're all inthis together, we're all on
this healing journey together,and the more of us that are on
this wave of choosingpractitioners who market
ethically and practitioners whodon't pathologize your body and
(30:36):
your nervous system.
That is going to make such ahuge difference in how our
culture moves forward.
So, yeah, that was a little bitlonger than a TED Talk, but
thanks for listening to my TEDTalk.
Bye, hello.
(30:56):
My friends, it's been a coupleof days since I posted on
Instagram about theoversimplification of the
nervous system and, inparticular, this whole concept
around a functional freeze, andI've been in really lovely
insightful conversations in myDMs with other folks who are
(31:19):
doing this work and doing thismedicine and bringing it to your
people, and that's one of myfavorite things about this
community is it's not just aone-sided I am teaching sort of
a conversation.
You all bring so much moredepth and nuance to these things
and you add to the flavor ofwhat this work looks like, and
(31:40):
so I thought I would share.
Of course, these are beingshared with permission, and so I
thought I'd share some of theseinsights that you all are
bringing.
So the first thing I want toaddress is that I had a couple
folks asking me if I would sharethe Instagram account that I
was talking about in my stories,and the short answer is no, I
(32:04):
will not share, and I alsowanted to give a longer context
of why I hold that boundary.
So the first piece is that I amabout talking about patterns
rather than individuals, and soto me, it is less important that
there is this one specificaccount that people have been
(32:27):
sending me, and more so the factthat there is a particular
pattern that we're seeing whenit comes to this nervous system
work and the oversimplificationof our work, and so, you know,
since I posted, I've had otherpeople share other accounts of
other folks who are doing this,and so to me it's about
(32:47):
addressing the pattern.
The second piece is that thisperson doesn't know my account
and so they don't have theability to defend or really hold
up this part of theconversation.
And so to me for me to sharethat, even if it's in my
(33:09):
personal DMs for me to sharethat feels really gossipy and
doesn't feel aligned in terms ofhow I want to talk about people
, even when they don't know thatI'm talking about them.
And then the third piece is thewhole conversation was really
about how can you lean into yourown intuition and your own
(33:33):
wisdom when it comes to thecontent that you're consuming.
You know I had somebody reflectback to me saying like, oh, I
didn't realize that.
You know I'm following severalof these kinds of accounts and
it makes me feel like I need tofix my nervous system, and so
that was a really, really bigsort of aha click moment for her
.
So that was a really, reallybig sort of aha click moment for
(33:54):
her, and to me it's reallyabout this.
It's instead of looking at meand saying, hey, kat, you seem
to have observed these patterns,it's like, hey, thanks for
pointing that pattern out for meand this is how I'm going to
apply it.
This is the work of my ownintuition.
Of looking at some of theseaccounts and looking at some of
(34:17):
this content that's being putout there, and saying I would
like to make my own sovereigndecisions about, talk about in
my stories and in my content, isbecause it really all points to
bigger patterns.
It points to patterns of yourown intuition.
(34:50):
Okay, so I want to bringattention to Nicole's work here.
I'll tag her and I'm just goingto read her comments straight
off of the page here.
I'm looking at them right nowbecause it's just, oh my God, so
juicy.
So Nicole says we're talkingspecifically about that pause,
(35:12):
that quote unquote functionalfreeze.
So she says it's like thesacred pause we see in
physiological birth, but themainstream maternal system sees
as something wrong anddangerously intervenes.
Society can't hold space forslowing down, pausing and
resting.
And I replied and said, oh mygosh, please tell me more.
And she replied back oh gosh, Idon't even know where to start.
(35:36):
So first thoughts arereorienting to the truth that we
are nature and like nature,specifically other mammals that
give birth, we generally givethem space to do so.
They birth somewhere safe,quiet and dark.
Humans are told to birth in abright, loud, unfamiliar
hospital setting full ofinterventions, because you're
put on a clock.
In a natural birth, after awoman slash mammal goes through
(35:57):
what's called transition, shegets a sudden burst of energy,
comes back to reality out oflabor land and contractions slow
down.
This is intentional, purposefuland by nature's design.
Mainstream medicine intervenesat this slow down and disrupts
the process when actually it's asacred pause that's been
pathologized, obviously loads ofnuance.
Here I'm talking about a lowrisk, slash, healthy pregnancy,
(36:19):
but I see this closely relatedto the pathogen pathology.
I can say this word.
I promise Pathologization.
We see around the freezeresponse and oh my gosh, as
somebody who has not given birthbefore and I've been present at
several births.
But to me the place that I'mmore familiar with is the death
(36:42):
process.
I was a vet tech for severalyears and I have witnessed many,
many deaths, and this is thesame exact thing that happens in
natural death.
There is a natural slowing downand then we see a big burst of
energy where the animal seems torewind that clock back several
years and that lasts for a dayor a few hours, and then death
(37:05):
settles in Our bodies, whetherit is through the birth process
or through the death process.
They transition through theseyin-yang phases and to me
there's this like obviouscorrelation of you know, death
and birth feel like really,really obvious transitions.
But we have so many transitionsin life between birth and death
(37:28):
that require that same sort ofenergetic fluidity of being able
to shift between yin and yang.
And I think, in this world ofmodern fluidity of being able to
shift between yin and yang, andI think, in this world of
modern day hustle, in this worldof modern day go, go, go, and
you always have to be makinglinear progress.
We don't allow for that yinslowdown to happen.
And so thank you so much,nicole, for bringing in this
(37:53):
beautiful example of how thingsare not actually a freeze state,
it's actually a healthyexpression of yin, it's a
healthy expression of a sacredpause.
And by labeling something asbeing a functional freeze,
instead of being able to likesink into the feelings that come
(38:15):
up in that sacred pause, weresist it, and by resisting it
we then throw interventions inthat actually are not helpful to
this whole concept of a cycle.
Now, this next comment comesfrom Emma, who is a play coach,
and she said that she's sharedthis concept so many times to
clients.
(38:36):
Again, reading straight off ofthe page here, that makes sense
that you are and insert one ofthose activities you were listed
, and one of those activitiesmight be some of these things
that people are labeling asbeing a functional freeze,
because you're feeling X, y andZ, so of course you're going to
lean into those activities.
That doesn't mean something hasgone wrong and I love that we
(39:00):
are able to, as coaches, grantthis permission to our clients,
to our family members, andoftentimes and I can just sort
of speak to myself in thismoment of like it's so hard to
have that compassion reflectedback in words.
Right, and so when we allow forthat sacred pause, for that
(39:20):
quote unquote functional freezefor yin states to be just a
natural part of the cycle, weare able to hold deeper capacity
.
When somebody else comes intoour space and says, hey, I've
been binge watching Netflix, andinstead of you being like, oh,
we need to fix that, you canstart asking questions around
hey, does this make sense?
(39:41):
Is this an appropriate?
That's one of the questionsthat came up is this an
appropriate response to what itis that you're experiencing in
this moment?
So I had somebody ask aquestion about the
appropriateness of responses,and how do we know when we're
doing something that'sappropriate to the situation or
(40:03):
something that feels like it'sinappropriate?
And I think that this is where alot of nervous system, nuance
and, um, I want to say likeskill comes into play here.
So the first thing I want tosay is, when I talk about
appropriateness, it's not about,hey, you're never going to feel
(40:25):
triggered, you're never goingto feel activated again, you're
never going to feel collapsedagain.
It's really about looking atthe situation, for what's
happening right now, in thispresent moment, and when you are
looking at the story of what'shappening in now, in this
present moment, and when you arelooking at the story of what's
happening in this moment,doesn't make sense.
The reaction or the responsethat you're having right now.
So, um, you know, versussomething is happening and it is
(40:52):
triggering something thathappened in your history.
A inner child is rebelling, ainner child is feeling shut down
, it is rubbing up against anold story or a narrative that
your family might have placedupon you.
It's rubbing up against acondition that society has
placed on you, and in that caseI would say that that is likely
(41:15):
a situation where you might behaving an inappropriate response
.
You know, we've all had thosesituations happen where you know
somebody might say somethingthat feels really triggering and
instead of being able to likehear those words in that moment
as just something that thatperson is saying, as just
(41:38):
something that that person issaying, you are suddenly
overlaying your aunt's face, whohas judged you for your whole
life, onto that person's words,or you are overlaying, you know,
an old teacher's voice or yourparents, and you know, in those
situations it's really importantto lean on your nervous system
tools and to say, hey, thismight not be the most
appropriate response to what'shappening right here.
(42:00):
How can I get closer to thetruth?
And to me, that's where thatdeep, underlying work happens.
I'll say that this is so mucheasier when you have other
people in your corner who arewell versed in being able to do
this, and Oftentimes this iswhen I personally will go to a
(42:21):
mentor, if there's a coach thatI'm working with at the moment,
but most reliably those peopleare gonna be my husband, my
besties and a Few of my trustedcolleagues who I work with
regularly.
And so, you know, if I'm ableto share this outside of my own
experience and bring it to athird party who has an unbiased
(42:44):
opinion about what's going on,they're able to reflect back to
me and say, like, oh, thatactually seems pretty
understandable.
Or, hey, like, have youconsidered that maybe this is a
story that is persisting becauseit's your father's voice or
it's your mother's voice?
And you know, all these peoplethat I just outlined have a
(43:05):
concept of what my history isand what I get triggered by,
right, and so they have a littlebit of a roadmap to until what,
where my you know owninappropriate responses might be
coming from.
Um, I'll say, too, that bysharing it outside of myself um,
I think it's Brene Brown whotalks about shame gremlins, but
(43:26):
it really helps me reinforcethat, that messaging of I don't
have to be ashamed by this, youknow, by by me talking about hey
, I binge watched a bunch ofNetflix shows in a moment where
I was in a functional freeze.
I have no shame about that,versus, you know, if I were to
keep that inside, there's apotential that that shame might
(43:49):
mutate into something that Ifeel really like.
It feels like it needs to behidden.
So hopefully that helps interms of like being able to
gauge what an appropriate versusinappropriate response is.
And then, the last littleobservation that I want to bring
into this conversation is fromNadine.
I absolutely love Nadine.
If you don't know her, um, youdefinitely need to check her out
(44:11):
.
She has been on this podcast aton.
She is a BAM alumni.
She's also been a coach for BAM, and so she's somebody that I
just I absolutely adore her, andher observation is that, as a
manifesting generator andthere's a lot of us out there
(44:32):
she's a manifesting generator.
I'm a manifesting generator aswell.
She was just sharing with methat, like a bunch of her
clients, a manifesting generator, I'm a manifesting generator as
well.
She was just sharing with methat, like, a bunch of her
clients are manifestinggenerators and she was positing
this, this theory, that you know, perhaps this is just part of
our mani-gen cycle.
You know, if we are in thatgenerative mode, it's so easy to
be in that space because we'vebeen validated for being
(44:53):
generators, for getting shit,for being able to, like, look at
a to-do list and say boom, boom, boom I know how to do this
versus when we're in ourmanifesting phase, which is a
lot more yin, which is slow,which is about holding
intentions.
We have a tendency to resistthat, and so for some of us,
that might be.
Our natural design is to floatin and out of these yin states,
(45:16):
not just because we are part ofnature and this is what nature
does, but I would say that myown personal observations about
who I am and how my sort of workcycles are like is I am less
consistent and I am a lot moreup and down when it comes to
creating and um being in thelike generative versus the
(45:39):
manifesting phase, and so I loveall these observations.
Thank you so much for havingthis conversation with me.
I love being able to have theseconversations and, you know, one
of the things that I reallyjust want to like finish out
this conversation with is oh mygosh, how many times can I say
conversation in a row?
But anyways, um.
(46:01):
So instagram everyone saysinstagram is about short form
content.
Everyone says that it is aboutholding someone's attention for
like one minute at a time.
Holding someone's attention forlike one minute at a time.
(46:22):
I posted a 30 minute video onmy stories and was like hey,
like I kind of don't care if anylike nobody sees this.
I just feel like I need to getthis off of my chest and I just
need to like say this thing outloud, otherwise I might go a
little bit crazy.
And so I did that thing, and Ihad so many of you watch this 30
minute video on Instagram allthe way through, and now, if you
(46:44):
are listening to this secondpart of this conversation, we
are probably, I want to say,like 45-50 minutes into a
conversation that, um, you know,other business coaches, um,
other folks who advise about howto promote yourself on
(47:06):
Instagram, would say this is theopposite of what you should be
doing to me.
It's always come back torelationships and my own sort of
way of being is that, like Idon't know how to just like
dance on a reel and create likea one minute thing.
I always have these like long,deep conversations with people,
(47:27):
whether you are meeting me inperson, um, or even if we're
just like running, like I don'tknow how to do the small talk
thing you guys like, even when Iwas a bartender, um, I would
have these like long, in-depthconversations with people, and
so I don't know how to beshort-winded and I thank you for
(47:50):
being here and thank you forreally just being in
relationship with me and beingin relationship in the ways that
feels really good to me, and tome it's like you know what?
Fuck the algorithm, fuck theways that um people say you need
to promote yourself oninstagram, fuck the short form
content.
Guys.
Um, do what feels good.
(48:11):
That is like the if.
If you need any sort of likemarketing advice, like, do what
feels good, because when, likethe if, if you need any sort of
like marketing advice, like, dowhat feels good, because when
you're speaking from your heart,when you're speaking from this
place of authenticity and fromthis place of, like, genuine
care for the world, the peoplewho want to listen are going to
listen all the way to the end.
So, again, thanks for beinghere.
Uh, love the crap out of youguys and we'll chat soon.
(48:36):
This part of the conversationcomes from lauren.
Um, her instagram handle isnest and nourish and she
responded by saying I'm playingwith the idea that maybe my
functional freeze is part of mycreation cycle, and I just was
like oh my gosh, tell me more.
(48:57):
I'm so curious and, um, my owncuriosity stems from me wanting
to work on my own relationshipwith creativity.
And so she says I guess I'vejust realized that maybe my
cycle of procrastination andwhat feels like functional
freeze and maybe it's notactually and I only think that
(49:19):
and I only think it is becauseof unethical marketing, and then
the thought and creation is allpart of my creation cycle.
I love that concept.
I just want to like go throughthat again.
What she's saying is there is acycle of what she has previously
called procrastination andthere's a thought and a creation
(49:41):
and an unfreezing.
That's all part of thiscreation cycle.
And I think it goes right inline with what we were just
talking about with um, this uh,sacred pause, right.
And she continues and says it'salmost like I need that slowing
down to let things percolate inmy mind and body before I
really let something be fullycreated.
(50:02):
And I responded with all the umexclamation marks because yes,
yes, yes, it's almost like weneed an autumn and a winter
cycle for spring to come.
And the pause and the slowdownallows for the intention to
crystallize so you can takealigned action on the thing.
And she continues and says andwhen I don't shame myself or
(50:24):
attach to labels to it likeprocrastination and freeze, it
moves through with so much moreease.
And it's definitely a delicatebalance and I have to be very
aware of my own internalthoughts, my inner critic, the
somatic experience of itthroughout, or it can really
turn into almost using it as anexcuse to not take action.
And I think that this is such abeautiful, insightful way of
(50:47):
like the self-awareness thatit's that's needed in order to
do this nervous system work.
And so, uh, the first thing Iwant to just like highlight,
underline asterisk the less youshame yourself, the less you
attach labels to things and callit procrastination and you call
it freeze, and the more you'reable to sort of like accept this
(51:09):
part of the cycle, the easierit actually becomes to move to
the next part of the cycle.
It's almost by saying, hey, likeI'm fully into this yin mode
and I'm gonna just really acceptit and be in it for as long as
it needs to be.
That's when the spring comes alittle bit sooner and, of course
, um, to me the body alwaysleads the way right.
(51:33):
And so what is that somaticfeeling of a sacred pause versus
what is the somatic feeling oftrue freeze, and that's going to
look really, really differentfor different people.
It's also going to look reallydifferent in terms of, perhaps,
the stories and the narrativesthat come up around these two
(51:55):
things.
And so, instead of just lookingat the external thing and being
like, oh, that person is bingewatching a bunch of Netflix
shows, you can be like, okay, sowhat does that feel like in
your body when you are bingewatching?
What does that feel like andhow is it different from when
you have binge watched Netflixshows in the past?
And to me, that's where westart really threading through a
(52:23):
lot of this self-awareness andstop labeling and demonizing and
shaming these aspects of usthat are actually just
incredibly wise.
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