August 12, 2025 • 37 mins
Meet Patrick Murphy—Coach, Speaker, and Founder of Seeing Human
Patrick Murphy isn’t just helping people navigate change—he’s guiding them home to themselves.
As the founder of Seeing Human, Patrick brings a unique approach to transformation rooted in presence, somatic awareness, and nervous system intelligence. After a powerful personal awakening, he committed his life to helping others slow down, reconnect, and remember who they truly are—especially during life’s hardest transitions.
In this episode of The Rewrite, Patrick shares how regulating the nervous system can support deep healing during and after divorce, why presence is the most powerful tool we have, and what it really means to “see” yourself again after loss or change.
Whether you’re unraveling an old identity or stepping into the unknown, this conversation will meet you where you are—with compassion, honesty, and hope.
Follow Patrick on Instagram: @murph.live
Patrick Murphy isn’t just helping people navigate change—he’s guiding them home to themselves.
As the founder of Seeing Human, Patrick brings a unique approach to transformation rooted in presence, somatic awareness, and nervous system intelligence. After a powerful personal awakening, he committed his life to helping others slow down, reconnect, and remember who they truly are—especially during life’s hardest transitions.
In this episode of The Rewrite, Patrick shares how regulating the nervous system can support deep healing during and after divorce, why presence is the most powerful tool we have, and what it really means to “see” yourself again after loss or change.
Whether you’re unraveling an old identity or stepping into the unknown, this conversation will meet you where you are—with compassion, honesty, and hope.
Follow Patrick on Instagram: @murph.live
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to The Rewrite, a podcast about divorce, choice and
new beginnings. I'm your host Wendy Sloan, former TV producer,
mom of two and one sweet golden retriever. This is
a space for real talk about the moments that break us,
the choices that define us, and the power we have
to begin again. You'll hear personal stories, heartfelt insights, and
(00:22):
honest conversations about healing relationships and reclaiming your life one
choice at a time. I'll be joined by experts in divorce, finance,
mental health, wellness and more and everything you need to
support your next chapter. The most powerful chapters might be
the ones you write next. Let's begin your rewrite together.
This episode is brought to in part by the Needle
(00:44):
Kuda Law Firm guidance that moves lives forward.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Welcome back to the Rewrite. I'm your host, Lady Sloan.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Today I'm joined by Patrick Murphy, former entrepreneur, turn so
matic coach, nervous system expert, keynote speaker, writer founder. He
helps you level up success without the internal self doubt
and pressure. He is also the host of Successful and
Stuck podcast. He works with you to break free of
the protective patterns that are holding you back without sacrifice.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm so excited to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Welcome Patrick, Thanks, I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Oh I've been looking forward to this so much I
can't even tell you.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So let's start by first talking to you about You're
the founder of two You've founded two companies, exhausted everything
you realize real change does it come from pushing harder,
but from rewriting the patterns that held us deep in
our own bodies.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Talk to me about all that and tell us all
about you.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah. So I'm a little bit of an anomaly because
I'm a I just call myself a trauma trained business coach.
But people are like, what does that mean? Like why
does somebody need a trauma trained business coach? And so
I've got a corporate background primarily. I started my career
doing digital advertising sales, and I started with I worked
for the Wall Street Journal, and then I moved to
(01:59):
work for Pandora and then a couple other smaller companies
that most people probably haven't heard of unless they're in
the industry, and really enjoyed that. But through my own
mental health journey of you know, I grew up in Atlanta.
I lived in New York for five years. Now I
live in Denver. Having to find a therapist and change
therapists and just go through that process is pretty miserable,
(02:22):
even when it goes pretty well. And I had this
idea for let's make this process easier. And that's when
I left my ad sales career to launch a mental
health startup that was focused on digitizing the word of
mouth ways in which we generally find the best practitioners,
whether it's a therapist, a coach, you know, just whoever
(02:44):
is going to help support you on your journey. And
then my mental health company took a toll on my
mental health because, yeah, because I had just unresolved past trauma.
And this is after I had been in therapy for
a decade. I had, and I had also been doing
(03:06):
trauma therapy. But the modality that I was, you know,
working with with my therapist just it. It definitely helped,
don't get me wrong, but it wasn't addressing things on
the core level of the nervous system. And it's kind
of you know, somatic and nervous system and whatnot. It's
(03:26):
everybody's favorite buzzwords these days, but a lot of folks,
you know, kind of aren't really sure what it fully means,
but I'm gonna just rewind a little bit. And so
so these patterns right that, you know, you mentioned kind
of the rewiring of the patterns and whatnot. There were
patterns that my nervous system was driving that no cognitive
(03:50):
or no amount of like cognitive thinking or mindset work
or you know, just kind of you know, pushed through it.
That wasn't that wasn't going to work. It was very
much my nervous system in the driver's seat of these
patterns that we will colloquially colloquially refer to as like perfectionism,
(04:12):
you know, anxiety, overthinking, procrastination, you know, all these things
that people will sometimes just wear is identities, right of,
like oh I just have anxiety, or oh I you
know I've got I'm a perfectionist. Right Well, the nervous
system drives those patterns. And even while I was still
running my startup, I had stepped into doing some coaching
(04:34):
on the side part time, and what I realized was, Oh,
all of these people they're not stuck because they need
another mindset or they need another productivity hack or like
the latest fancy planner system that's going to you know,
help move them forward. Right, Yeah, they're stuck because of
past trauma. And I myself as somebody who grew up
(04:58):
with an alcoholic parent and I was also sexually abused
when I was younger, my body still hadn't fully processed
those things and that's what was driving the show for me,
which led to the you know, the like I said,
take a toll on my mental health while I was
running my mental health company, and I'm somebody who is
(05:21):
you know, now now trained, but like at least then
very knowledgeable about these things, and it's just like, well,
if it could happen to me, then it can happen
to anyone. And so I didn't. I just felt it
in my like really in my bones, of like I
really want to be able to help these people. How
can I, you know, help move them forward without having
(05:41):
to refer them out while staying in integrity with the work.
And that's when I found uh A, right, Sorry, I
had already been practicing or the recipient of somatic experiencing
that modality and then went on to get trained in it.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
So interesting and.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
As you're talking about it, I can understand it so completely,
like makes so much sense.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
All right.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So when we talked about you throughout that word a
couple of times, somatic, sodic, somatic, so feedback our body
is giving us, tell us, tell us what somatic coaching
and somatic is.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, so I just referred to somatic as the language
of your nervous system, is it? Okay? If I get
a little nerdy brain science for a second here, Yeah,
the nerdy or the better, okay, cool. So our brain
develops in three stages. You've got your brain stem that
is two sorry, a five hundred million year old mechanism
(06:43):
in mammals and animals. And you know, the brain stem
is the part of us. It's responsible for like digestion, breathing,
just all the stuff that we don't have to think about.
It's very often referred to as the reptilian brain. So
it's the oldest part of our you know, of our system,
of our nervous systems. And then the next part that
(07:05):
develops is the limbic system. This is a two hundred
million year old system. This is your threat detector. It
is responsible for fight flight, freeze, and shut down, and
it is only concerned with survival. And then the last
part of our brain, and I'll tie this all together
at the end. I promised. The last part of our
brain that develops is our prefrontal cortex, and that is
(07:31):
this is why we can't rent a car into what
twenty five years old, because the prefrontal cortex doesn't fully
develop until we're around twenty five years old. And that's
the part of our brain that is responsible for rational thought,
executive decision making, you know, just timelines, just kind of
all the things that we're like thinking about. So when
we're in let's say a traditional coaching modality or traditional
(07:54):
therapy and we're just talking through stuff, right, the mindset
things we are in the prefrontal cortex. The thing is
is that past trauma, past stress, all of these things,
they actually live on the level below our prefrontal cortex.
So for example, if you're having a moment of really
heightened anxiety and you're like, oh my gosh, like I'm
(08:16):
so anxious, I can't think straight, well there's a reason
for that, because your threat detector actually has the power
to shut down that prefrontal cortex, that thinking part of
our brain. Because in the moment, in a moment where
like we're being chased by a bear. It doesn't want
us sitting there being like, well, I don't know, I
(08:36):
think I could maybe take that bear, like is how
big is it? You know, et cetera. But the thing is,
you know, we're not being chased by lions or tigers
or bears these days, but our limbic system, our threat detector,
still perceives things like, let's say, you know, obviously, you
know you have talked quite a bit about change and
(08:57):
divorce and whatnot on this podcast. It internalizes separation, It
internalizes those things as a threat to our to our lives, essentially,
because we need human connection, we need our group, we
need our tribe in order to survive. And so our
(09:21):
threat detector actually works in what I call just flavorings.
It doesn't have to like this, The current situation doesn't
have to be in apples to apples comparison to something
in the past. In order for that switch to flip
on anxiety, perfectionism, any of these protective adaptations that our
(09:42):
nervous system uses, it just has to have I just
call it the Lacroix flavoring, right, just has to have
a little bit of that flavor of something that felt
threatening in the past in order to flip that switch,
and then those protection mechanisms go into place, and that's
(10:04):
what drives our behavior.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
It's interesting that you say it because I was talking
the other day.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So if there's something that's traumatic in our life, like
me losing my parents, and I was just talking about
that the other day, it's like, I can't really see
that moment anymore because I guess I'm protecting myself. Is
that what you mean by some of that, Like I'm
protecting myself so I can't see the last moments anymore.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Is protecting my body?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, that's a really great example of your nervous system
potentially protecting you from something that was overwhelming, something that
was too painful. And when we do somatic work, when
we work directly with the nervous system, we really focus
on building capacity and so in you know, when somebody's
(10:53):
going through something traumatic, our nervous system has these brilliant
adaptations of fight, flight, free and shut down. And you know,
kind of what you're talking about is like you don't
have kind of this this cognitive memory or maybe even
the sensations of experiencing that, and that could very well
(11:15):
be your nervous system protecting you from something that was
so deeply painful. You know, we talked about separation. I
mean obviously losing parents. I mean that is you know,
the ultimate separation, right, and it is intensely painful, and
so you know, over time, what we do is to
work with your nervous system to build that capacity over time.
(11:37):
It's like instead of blowing up a balloon really quickly,
because when we do that, the balloon gets too stressed
and it could pop. We blow it up really slowly
and allow it to stretch and then maybe sit there
for a bit and then you know, blow it up
a little bit more so that you have capacity and
your nervous system works the exact same way.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
It's really quite fast. We're going to take a quick
break for one of our sponsors. We write back with
Patrick Murphy, a former entrepreneur turns somaticcoach, nervous system expert,
kenot Speak, a writer founders so much more. I'm going
to ask him when we come back in what ways
he helps his clients reconnect their bodies after emotional trauma.
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Speaker 2 (13:32):
We're back with Patrick Murphy.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
So all this I find to be so fascinating and
makes so much sense when you explain it.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Yeah, So I'm curious, do you have any questions? Did
I explain that in a way where you're kind of
understanding you did.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
It's so so fuzzy, but you did.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
So, when you work with your clients, how do you
help them reconnect with their bodies.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
After emotional trauma? Like, how does that work?
Speaker 3 (14:02):
So here's the I mean, the broad answer is it
depends because everybody responds to trauma differently. Right, some people
they're able to fight or flee or you know, kind
of move away from it. Some people shut down. A
lot of people, I would say the majority of the
folks that I see, they're in some sort of free state.
(14:25):
And free state is it's like having one foot on
the gas and one foot on the brake at the
same time, because it is your fight or flight, that
sympathetic system wanting to actually fight or flee the threat
at the same time. If that's not working, if our
(14:46):
nervous system perceives that that we've done that for too long.
And this doesn't necessarily have to be just trauma. This
could be just like overwork.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Or it felt stuck with greed for fear after divorce,
or you know, like what helps you shift.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Them exactly exactly. And so we're going from this mobilization
of fight or flight to shutdown. And that's when we
call it our dorsal Vagel system. It wants to come
in and shut down because it's just saying, look, this isn't working.
We just have to let go and kind of resign
ourselves to this. And you know, very often we will
(15:25):
label that as depression, and you know, kind of anything
in that realm, it's a very much it's an I
can't energy. It's kind of a downward you know, kind
of like helplessness, despair and in that realm, but when
those two meet, it's it's a tremendous amount of energy
(15:47):
of fight or flight and shut down. And it's like
if you take your hands and try to press them
together really hard, that's what being in freezes like. Because
like I said, it's like having one foot on the
break and one foot on the game ask at the
same time. And like I said, this is just for me.
The vast majority of the folks I see, they're in
some sort of free state. But free state doesn't necessarily
(16:10):
look like being completely frozen. There's a lot of very
productive people out there that are in free states and
they're just going, going, going, But they're overriding that free
state by continuing to you know, stay in motion and
stay busy, and you know kind of whether it be
like distract themselves or you know, focus on something different,
(16:32):
and so they're.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Not themselves inside.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
They just keep going around in like a circle and
like a like a hamster, around and around and around.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yes, exactly exactly. And I'm getting so in the weeds
on this just to kind of explain how the nervous
system works, because really getting back to your core question,
the way that we work with it is first we
have to find the person's baseline. Are they stuck in?
You know, what form of dysregulation are they stuck in?
(17:04):
And that's where because what we really want to be
in most of the time is what we call ventral vagel.
It's it's our just rest and digest. That's a state
of curiosity, connection creativity. That's where joy and you know,
just all the things that we really want in life are.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
I've never heard before.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Yeah, so what I'm I'm getting, Like I said, I'm
getting a little. I'm learning.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I want to learn, and I want I want my
audience to learn too, the listener.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Yeah, yeah, so this is what I'm the framework I'm
using here, I'm not saying it, but it's called poly
bagel theory. And if you look up deb Dana, she's
a brilliant clinician. She does a lot of really great
work in explaining poly bagel theory that was developed by
(17:53):
doctor Stephen Porgies. But if you go to to you know,
kind of his route, it's like you're gonna get the
real in the weeds, nerdy kind of brain science that's
like way over our heads. You know. I'm trying to
do as good a job as I can of like
balancing explaining it and play in English with you know,
while kind of keeping the nerdy brain science. Because the
(18:15):
thing is, when we understand the structure of our nervous systems,
so much of the rest of our lives makes sense
because whether it's you know, whether I have a client
or somebody's listening to my podcasts or whatnot. I get
messages all the time where you're like, oh my gosh, like,
thank you so much for explaining this, because and that's
(18:37):
really my like, if I do nothing else in this world,
helping people make sense of themselves, helping people understand themselves
on a deeper level, because a lot of the folks
that I work with I just called there. You know,
they're called successful and stuck right, And this happens a
lot in these big life transitions because you know, I
(18:58):
mean just kind of the common path is like all right,
we go to school, we graduate, and you know, we
get into the working well it's like okay, like we're
adults now, and then all of a sudden, these big
ruptures and these big transitions.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
No one gives us books and the hells us how
to do this, Like or you become a mother and
no one tells you how to like, you know, be
a mother and what and then be your own person
still and it's like a continuous ride that you're just
you know, here we go. What does it mean to
see yourself and others during times of transition?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Oh? Good question? Wow, all right, I love this question.
What does it mean to see yourself and others in
times of transition? The biggest thing, the shortest way I
can answer that is just transition is part of being human.
And when we are in some sort of transition, there's
very often a shift in identity that's that's taking place.
(19:54):
Whether it's career, whether it's relationships, it doesn't matter. There's
generally a shift in identity. And whatever identity we have
formed that has been the thing that got us to
this point in life, right, and which that also equals safety.
(20:16):
And so going back to you know, kind of the
brain science piece, your threat detector is always looking for safety.
And so if you have the identity as the high achiever,
the one that always gets the job done, you know,
the person at work that is the reliable person who
you know, anybody can come to for help, that becomes
(20:39):
this core identity and you know, and a lot of
the folks I work with, it's like, oh, well then
they're all the stress and all the you know, nervous
system stuff and trauma and whatnot is catching up with them. Well,
then like these cracks start to form inside and it's
like we start scrambling to try to hold everything to
(20:59):
get And this is absolutely true with you know, with
divorce and separation and whatever.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
You become, you get married, you become a wife, and
you become a mother, and then you skep separator to
get divorced for some reason. And then here we are, right.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, and there's and there's also there's an identity with
this other person. Right, It's like, oh, people know us
as a couple, right, And then all of a sudden
it's like, well, what does this mean for me to
just be on my own? Now? Who am I without
this person? Who am I as a single parent? And
(21:37):
so and and bottom line is change creates stress, period
And you know we're talking of different degrees of stress here.
You know, at the very least, let's say you take
a new route to work in the morning, right, well,
you're having to pay a lot more attention on that
new route to work. You can't just kind of like
(21:58):
zone out, phone and in because we've all been there
where it's like okay, we've you know, you're like suddenly
you're like, I don't remember the last like half mile
that I was driving. Well, that's because your brain has
the neural pathways. It knows that way and it can
you know, kind of zone out a little bit. It's
it's unbelievably common for that to happen, but when it
happens to us, you're like, wait, hold on, you know
(22:19):
where It's like, what if something did happen right, what
if a car pulled out in front of it? It's like, well,
you your system would have reacted. So that's you know,
I'm just talking like low level stress. There any of
these bigger life transitions that is so much. I mean,
it's it's not it is stressful all the way up
(22:40):
to being potentially traumatic. And I don't want to just
kind of throw around the word trauma because it you know,
different events affect different people in various ways. Two people
can go through the exact same thing. One person it
becomes trauma and the other person, you know, kind of
(23:01):
comes out seemingly unscathed. And because trauma isn't necessarily what
happened to us, what happened, it's what happens inside of
us as a result of the event, And it's anything
that overwhelms the system in a given moment, It overwhelms
our capacity to process that event in any given moment.
(23:25):
And when that overwhelmed happens. It's sort of like a
like the part that our system wasn't able to handle.
It kind of goes into like an overflow reservoir, but
it keeps looping. It just keeps looping, and our system
doesn't know that that event has passed, and so we
(23:46):
continue to act out. You see this all the time
in relationships, all the time in relationships where somebody, let's say,
grew up. I mean, I'll just use myself as an example.
I grew up with a piss poor exam a relationship
my parents fought all the time. I thought yelling and
screaming was just how anybody got anything done. And I,
(24:11):
as a result, I developed a very insecure attachment style.
So I have an anxious attachment style. And you know
that causes me to like not necessarily trust people fully
and it causes me to overfunction in relationships. And so
when I when I'm in relationships, I whether it's friendships, romantic,
(24:34):
et cetera, I will notice somebody just pulling away a
little bit. And that's that flavoring that I was talking
about earlier. If my system perceives somebody just pulling away
just a little bit, well then I try to overcorrect
for that, and and so I will, you know, start
to we call overfunctioning and make up that emotional distance
(24:57):
because my system perceives, oh my god, if I separate
from this person, then I'm not going to make it
because it's the five year old self in me. It's
that younger part that literally couldn't survive without my parents.
And so I've done a lot of work to be
(25:17):
able to heal that, and you know, kind of bringing
this back full circle, that five year old self now
knows that, hey, this this threat has passed. There's an
adult in the room. There's my adult self in the room,
who can you know, who can take care of him?
And he doesn't have to make up that emotional distance anymore.
(25:39):
He doesn't have to overfunction. And so that that reservoir,
you know, that overwhelmed, overwhelmed reservoir has now been connected
back with the whole and bringing my system back into
just a deeper sense of coherence.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
So you've done lots of work for this, lots of work.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
So what are the tools and practices that you offer
to help people ground themselves and compassion for themselves, compassion
for their past trauma.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Do you want to call it trauma or.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Who felt stuck, whether it's grief, divorce, you know, you know,
changing careers or however, how do you help people like
how do you bring them back to be able to
be whole again?
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Yeah, So it's it's a whole process that really varies,
and it's really tailored to the individual because you know,
if somebody is stuck in let's say, fight or flight,
or they're stuck in freeze, there's a whole different set
of you know, kind of tools and exercises that I
would use, let's say for fight or flight of like
processing anger, right, you know, I mean, I'm sure so
(26:49):
many people have brought up anger on your show because
that can I mean, that's going to be a natural
part very often of you know, people separating and what
and so, so you know, there's a whole set of
exercises you know, I use for that versus a different
one for freeze. But to overly simplify it here, I
(27:11):
love that you use the word compassion, because that is
this is something that I actually teach every single one
of my clients. Is this very simple self compassion exercise
and it's four steps, and the first step is and
I will encourage people to just pause and you know,
(27:34):
put a hand on their heart, hand on the chest,
just whatever, anything that feels good, anything that feels supportive,
maybe noticing your feet, noticing where you're sitting, and whether
it's a thought, whether it's a difficult sensation that's coming up,
a difficult emotion. Step one is just acknowledgment it's, okay,
(27:55):
this doesn't feel good. Something about this, and you don't
even have to name you don't even have to necessarily
name it, but okay, like I'm just I'm feeling off
right now. There's step one. Step two is just normalizing it.
Everybody feels off sometimes, everybody feels anger. Sometimes, everybody feels sadness.
(28:18):
Sometimes everybody feels helpless sometimes. So that's step two is
just the normalization of it. Step three is I'm going
to be kind to myself in this moment. And then
step four is in bringing in the compassion piece and
I'm going to be compassionate. And the thing is step four.
(28:40):
You know a lot of people will say, like, what
does it mean to be compassionate? You've already done it
with steps one, two, and three. I don't actually have
to be like, you know, figure out how to be compassionate.
It's just you've already done it. And so for me,
let's say, because like one of my patterns is like
(29:02):
I will just like overwork and you know, kind of
work myself into a little bit of a little bit
of a tizzy. And I actually had to do this
earlier this week and I just paused and I said, oh, okay,
I'm feeling some intensity right now, and I'm feeling like
I want to shut down. Oh I know this feeling. Yeah,
everybody overworks. Sometimes I'm going to be very kind to
(29:26):
myself in this moment, and I'm going to treat myself
with compassion because old me and I like into exercise,
into exercise. But but old me would and this still
comes up. It wants to beat myself up because I
quote unquote know better.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Right.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
It's like, okay, my mental health company took a toll
on my mental health, Like what the heck? How did
I go into a full blown, you know, depressive state
running my mental health company when I know better?
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Right?
Speaker 3 (29:56):
And it's like, oh well, it's like yeah, well I
start during the pandemic, and you know, and I was
just solely focused on that also with relating to divorce
and starting over on new relationships.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
It's like, why did I go back to the same
kind of person, the same pattern of a person.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
When I know that's helpful for me?
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Or why am I staying in this marriage when I
know it's not making me happy? Why am I staying
this relationship when it's not fulfilling me?
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Exactly? Yes, sorry, stuck and.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
I don't want to, like I'm afraid to move on,
and this is what I know. So this is what
I do kind of thing, right.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, absolutely, so I'll just double down on that example.
So apologies if I have maybe not used some of
the better examples on your.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Really help me explain it. This is a lot. I mean,
you're gonna have to come back again.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
And again I would love to. I would love to.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
But you know these these tools, and I love that.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I love how you use the nerve system and you
use inside to get to the healing part.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
You're getting to the root of things.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Yeah, and and so just like let's just use that
example that that you you know mentioned of, like why
do I keep going back to the same type of person?
So that's that flavoring that we're talking about. Because our
nervous systems get shaped in adolescence, in early childhood definitely
(31:28):
based on the the examples that we have seen of relationships,
right of whether it's single parent or you know, dual
parent household or whatnot, our nervous systems get shaped in
certain ways. And so you know, mine got shaped because
there was so much conflict in my house. Mine got
shaped around conflict. And so my pattern in relationships would
(31:56):
essentially be to not necessarily not create conflict, although that
was part of it, but just create this heightened state
because conflict is a sympathetic state, it's a fighter, it's
a mobilization state.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
And so my nervous system was so used to being
in this heightened state that when things would calm down,
when things.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Would like what's not right, right, you would be because
you'd be like, wait, it's supposed to be like this.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yourself inside.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Yeah. So yeah, So my my system when it settles
it actually it perceives that as oh, this is unsafe,
I'm losing connection with this person. So it's like, well,
let's go stir some stuff up.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
And makes sense.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Yeah, And it's a really common it's a really common pattern.
And then on the flip side. I was also very
conflict of verse in terms of and it's this weird
kind of duality of Okay, yeah, let me go kind
of find that heightened state. But I wouldn't necessarily do
that by like picking a fight or something like that,
(33:10):
because I also learned to not ask for what I want. Yeah,
I also learned to just not ask for what I want.
And so so yeah, landing this plane. What we're talking
about here is those flavorings, is those flavorings, And so
just when your system perceives something that was similar to
(33:32):
the past, it might actually perceive the dysfunction as safety.
And so going back to the same type of person
over and over again, well, your system is like, well,
even though this doesn't feel great, I still know how
to navigate this. I know how to navigate this dysfunction.
But what it doesn't necessarily you know, know how to
(33:52):
navigate is like the healthy, peaceful relationship, because it might
actually see that as a as a wrecked and I'm
you know, I'm over generalizing here.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
And in your work, you help people see that.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
You help people get that get to that place, yes,
compassion and happiness and not flight or flight or freeze
those states to help people move past.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Those you give them. Yeah, I think the.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Work that you're doing is absolutely, like incredible. I'm a believer.
I've seen it.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
I've seen some of the work you've done and people
that I know that you work with, and I just
find it to be so amazing. And the fact that
your trauma trained also is huge. So Patrick, the show
is called the Rewrite because we all get to rewrite
our stories. Maybe it's once, maybe it's twice, maybe it's
three times, or however many it is. And you get
(34:52):
to rewrite your story by the work that you do.
What would you say to.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
That, I've been through a lot of rewrites in my life,
you know. I mean you you heard me kind of
introduce myself and you know, talk about changing careers a
couple of times, and I'm I would say, I'm still
in the process of rewrite. I mean, I'm actually in
the deepest part of rewriting my story that I've ever
(35:18):
been in. And it's it's interesting because a lot of
people would kind of refer to it as like midlife crisis, right,
but I have the tools, I have the awareness to
actually navigate this, and which isn't to say that it's
easy because there's a whole identity shift and there's it
really is just me coming back to like the core
(35:40):
of who I am. And that's the work that I
get to do every day with people, is bring them
back to the core of who they are. But I'm
right there in it with them. I you know, I'm
very public about you know what I'm going through, and
you know kind of the transitions that are happening and
and how I'm navigating it. So yeah, I'm in, hands down,
(36:03):
like the deepest rewrite that I've ever been in.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
And that's the beauty of life.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
We do get to rewrite our story as many times
as we want to rewrite it, and however we want
to rewrite it, and you're teaching us how to do
it in a healthy, compassionate, mindful way.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Go on and on for hours and hours and talk
about this.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
He's a former entrepreneur turned somatic coach, nervous system expert,
cannot speaker, writer founder. His podcast is successful and stuck podcast.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
But We're not going to be stuck anymore when we
work with Patrick so much more.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Uncover Please come back again and thank you for sharing
all this and helping us understand.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Our insights better and why we do what we do.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Absolutely Thanks Wendy Nito.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
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(37:29):
two O three five five seven nine five zero zero
Welcome to The Rewrite, a podcast about divorce, choice and
new beginnings. I'm your host Wendy Sloan, former TV producer,
mom of two and one sweet golden retriever. This is
a space for real talk about the moments that break us,
the choices that define us, and the power we have
to begin again. You'll hear personal stories, heartfelt insights, and
(00:22):
honest conversations about healing relationships and reclaiming your life one
choice at a time. I'll be joined by experts in divorce, finance,
mental health, wellness and more and everything you need to
support your next chapter. The most powerful chapters might be
the ones you write next. Let's begin your rewrite together.
This episode is brought to in part by the Needle
(00:44):
Kuda Law Firm guidance that moves lives forward.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Welcome back to the Rewrite. I'm your host, Lady Sloan.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Today I'm joined by Patrick Murphy, former entrepreneur, turn so
matic coach, nervous system expert, keynote speaker, writer founder. He
helps you level up success without the internal self doubt
and pressure. He is also the host of Successful and
Stuck podcast. He works with you to break free of
the protective patterns that are holding you back without sacrifice.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm so excited to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Welcome Patrick, Thanks, I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Oh I've been looking forward to this so much I
can't even tell you.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So let's start by first talking to you about You're
the founder of two You've founded two companies, exhausted everything
you realize real change does it come from pushing harder,
but from rewriting the patterns that held us deep in
our own bodies.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Talk to me about all that and tell us all
about you.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah. So I'm a little bit of an anomaly because
I'm a I just call myself a trauma trained business coach.
But people are like, what does that mean? Like why
does somebody need a trauma trained business coach? And so
I've got a corporate background primarily. I started my career
doing digital advertising sales, and I started with I worked
for the Wall Street Journal, and then I moved to
(01:59):
work for Pandora and then a couple other smaller companies
that most people probably haven't heard of unless they're in
the industry, and really enjoyed that. But through my own
mental health journey of you know, I grew up in Atlanta.
I lived in New York for five years. Now I
live in Denver. Having to find a therapist and change
therapists and just go through that process is pretty miserable,
(02:22):
even when it goes pretty well. And I had this
idea for let's make this process easier. And that's when
I left my ad sales career to launch a mental
health startup that was focused on digitizing the word of
mouth ways in which we generally find the best practitioners,
whether it's a therapist, a coach, you know, just whoever
(02:44):
is going to help support you on your journey. And
then my mental health company took a toll on my
mental health because, yeah, because I had just unresolved past trauma.
And this is after I had been in therapy for
a decade. I had, and I had also been doing
(03:06):
trauma therapy. But the modality that I was, you know,
working with with my therapist just it. It definitely helped,
don't get me wrong, but it wasn't addressing things on
the core level of the nervous system. And it's kind
of you know, somatic and nervous system and whatnot. It's
(03:26):
everybody's favorite buzzwords these days, but a lot of folks,
you know, kind of aren't really sure what it fully means,
but I'm gonna just rewind a little bit. And so
so these patterns right that, you know, you mentioned kind
of the rewiring of the patterns and whatnot. There were
patterns that my nervous system was driving that no cognitive
(03:50):
or no amount of like cognitive thinking or mindset work
or you know, just kind of you know, pushed through it.
That wasn't that wasn't going to work. It was very
much my nervous system in the driver's seat of these
patterns that we will colloquially colloquially refer to as like perfectionism,
(04:12):
you know, anxiety, overthinking, procrastination, you know, all these things
that people will sometimes just wear is identities, right of,
like oh I just have anxiety, or oh I you
know I've got I'm a perfectionist. Right Well, the nervous
system drives those patterns. And even while I was still
running my startup, I had stepped into doing some coaching
(04:34):
on the side part time, and what I realized was, Oh,
all of these people they're not stuck because they need
another mindset or they need another productivity hack or like
the latest fancy planner system that's going to you know,
help move them forward. Right, Yeah, they're stuck because of
past trauma. And I myself as somebody who grew up
(04:58):
with an alcoholic parent and I was also sexually abused
when I was younger, my body still hadn't fully processed
those things and that's what was driving the show for me,
which led to the you know, the like I said,
take a toll on my mental health while I was
running my mental health company, and I'm somebody who is
(05:21):
you know, now now trained, but like at least then
very knowledgeable about these things, and it's just like, well,
if it could happen to me, then it can happen
to anyone. And so I didn't. I just felt it
in my like really in my bones, of like I
really want to be able to help these people. How
can I, you know, help move them forward without having
(05:41):
to refer them out while staying in integrity with the work.
And that's when I found uh A, right, Sorry, I
had already been practicing or the recipient of somatic experiencing
that modality and then went on to get trained in it.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
So interesting and.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
As you're talking about it, I can understand it so completely,
like makes so much sense.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
All right.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So when we talked about you throughout that word a
couple of times, somatic, sodic, somatic, so feedback our body
is giving us, tell us, tell us what somatic coaching
and somatic is.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, so I just referred to somatic as the language
of your nervous system, is it? Okay? If I get
a little nerdy brain science for a second here, Yeah,
the nerdy or the better, okay, cool. So our brain
develops in three stages. You've got your brain stem that
is two sorry, a five hundred million year old mechanism
(06:43):
in mammals and animals. And you know, the brain stem
is the part of us. It's responsible for like digestion, breathing,
just all the stuff that we don't have to think about.
It's very often referred to as the reptilian brain. So
it's the oldest part of our you know, of our system,
of our nervous systems. And then the next part that
(07:05):
develops is the limbic system. This is a two hundred
million year old system. This is your threat detector. It
is responsible for fight flight, freeze, and shut down, and
it is only concerned with survival. And then the last
part of our brain, and I'll tie this all together
at the end. I promised. The last part of our
brain that develops is our prefrontal cortex, and that is
(07:31):
this is why we can't rent a car into what
twenty five years old, because the prefrontal cortex doesn't fully
develop until we're around twenty five years old. And that's
the part of our brain that is responsible for rational thought,
executive decision making, you know, just timelines, just kind of
all the things that we're like thinking about. So when
we're in let's say a traditional coaching modality or traditional
(07:54):
therapy and we're just talking through stuff, right, the mindset
things we are in the prefrontal cortex. The thing is
is that past trauma, past stress, all of these things,
they actually live on the level below our prefrontal cortex.
So for example, if you're having a moment of really
heightened anxiety and you're like, oh my gosh, like I'm
(08:16):
so anxious, I can't think straight, well there's a reason
for that, because your threat detector actually has the power
to shut down that prefrontal cortex, that thinking part of
our brain. Because in the moment, in a moment where
like we're being chased by a bear. It doesn't want
us sitting there being like, well, I don't know, I
(08:36):
think I could maybe take that bear, like is how
big is it? You know, et cetera. But the thing is,
you know, we're not being chased by lions or tigers
or bears these days, but our limbic system, our threat detector,
still perceives things like, let's say, you know, obviously, you
know you have talked quite a bit about change and
(08:57):
divorce and whatnot on this podcast. It internalizes separation, It
internalizes those things as a threat to our to our lives, essentially,
because we need human connection, we need our group, we
need our tribe in order to survive. And so our
(09:21):
threat detector actually works in what I call just flavorings.
It doesn't have to like this, The current situation doesn't
have to be in apples to apples comparison to something
in the past. In order for that switch to flip
on anxiety, perfectionism, any of these protective adaptations that our
(09:42):
nervous system uses, it just has to have I just
call it the Lacroix flavoring, right, just has to have
a little bit of that flavor of something that felt
threatening in the past in order to flip that switch,
and then those protection mechanisms go into place, and that's
(10:04):
what drives our behavior.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
It's interesting that you say it because I was talking
the other day.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So if there's something that's traumatic in our life, like
me losing my parents, and I was just talking about
that the other day, it's like, I can't really see
that moment anymore because I guess I'm protecting myself. Is
that what you mean by some of that, Like I'm
protecting myself so I can't see the last moments anymore.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Is protecting my body?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, that's a really great example of your nervous system
potentially protecting you from something that was overwhelming, something that
was too painful. And when we do somatic work, when
we work directly with the nervous system, we really focus
on building capacity and so in you know, when somebody's
(10:53):
going through something traumatic, our nervous system has these brilliant
adaptations of fight, flight, free and shut down. And you know,
kind of what you're talking about is like you don't
have kind of this this cognitive memory or maybe even
the sensations of experiencing that, and that could very well
(11:15):
be your nervous system protecting you from something that was
so deeply painful. You know, we talked about separation. I
mean obviously losing parents. I mean that is you know,
the ultimate separation, right, and it is intensely painful, and
so you know, over time, what we do is to
work with your nervous system to build that capacity over time.
(11:37):
It's like instead of blowing up a balloon really quickly,
because when we do that, the balloon gets too stressed
and it could pop. We blow it up really slowly
and allow it to stretch and then maybe sit there
for a bit and then you know, blow it up
a little bit more so that you have capacity and
your nervous system works the exact same way.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
It's really quite fast. We're going to take a quick
break for one of our sponsors. We write back with
Patrick Murphy, a former entrepreneur turns somaticcoach, nervous system expert,
kenot Speak, a writer founders so much more. I'm going
to ask him when we come back in what ways
he helps his clients reconnect their bodies after emotional trauma.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
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Speaker 2 (13:32):
We're back with Patrick Murphy.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
So all this I find to be so fascinating and
makes so much sense when you explain it.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Yeah, So I'm curious, do you have any questions? Did
I explain that in a way where you're kind of
understanding you did.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
It's so so fuzzy, but you did.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
So, when you work with your clients, how do you
help them reconnect with their bodies.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
After emotional trauma? Like, how does that work?
Speaker 3 (14:02):
So here's the I mean, the broad answer is it
depends because everybody responds to trauma differently. Right, some people
they're able to fight or flee or you know, kind
of move away from it. Some people shut down. A
lot of people, I would say the majority of the
folks that I see, they're in some sort of free state.
(14:25):
And free state is it's like having one foot on
the gas and one foot on the brake at the
same time, because it is your fight or flight, that
sympathetic system wanting to actually fight or flee the threat
at the same time. If that's not working, if our
(14:46):
nervous system perceives that that we've done that for too long.
And this doesn't necessarily have to be just trauma. This
could be just like overwork.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Or it felt stuck with greed for fear after divorce,
or you know, like what helps you shift.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Them exactly exactly. And so we're going from this mobilization
of fight or flight to shutdown. And that's when we
call it our dorsal Vagel system. It wants to come
in and shut down because it's just saying, look, this isn't working.
We just have to let go and kind of resign
ourselves to this. And you know, very often we will
(15:25):
label that as depression, and you know, kind of anything
in that realm, it's a very much it's an I
can't energy. It's kind of a downward you know, kind
of like helplessness, despair and in that realm, but when
those two meet, it's it's a tremendous amount of energy
(15:47):
of fight or flight and shut down. And it's like
if you take your hands and try to press them
together really hard, that's what being in freezes like. Because
like I said, it's like having one foot on the
break and one foot on the game ask at the
same time. And like I said, this is just for me.
The vast majority of the folks I see, they're in
some sort of free state. But free state doesn't necessarily
(16:10):
look like being completely frozen. There's a lot of very
productive people out there that are in free states and
they're just going, going, going, But they're overriding that free
state by continuing to you know, stay in motion and
stay busy, and you know kind of whether it be
like distract themselves or you know, focus on something different,
(16:32):
and so they're.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Not themselves inside.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
They just keep going around in like a circle and
like a like a hamster, around and around and around.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yes, exactly exactly. And I'm getting so in the weeds
on this just to kind of explain how the nervous
system works, because really getting back to your core question,
the way that we work with it is first we
have to find the person's baseline. Are they stuck in?
You know, what form of dysregulation are they stuck in?
(17:04):
And that's where because what we really want to be
in most of the time is what we call ventral vagel.
It's it's our just rest and digest. That's a state
of curiosity, connection creativity. That's where joy and you know,
just all the things that we really want in life are.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
I've never heard before.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Yeah, so what I'm I'm getting, Like I said, I'm
getting a little. I'm learning.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I want to learn, and I want I want my
audience to learn too, the listener.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Yeah, yeah, so this is what I'm the framework I'm
using here, I'm not saying it, but it's called poly
bagel theory. And if you look up deb Dana, she's
a brilliant clinician. She does a lot of really great
work in explaining poly bagel theory that was developed by
(17:53):
doctor Stephen Porgies. But if you go to to you know,
kind of his route, it's like you're gonna get the
real in the weeds, nerdy kind of brain science that's
like way over our heads. You know. I'm trying to
do as good a job as I can of like
balancing explaining it and play in English with you know,
while kind of keeping the nerdy brain science. Because the
(18:15):
thing is, when we understand the structure of our nervous systems,
so much of the rest of our lives makes sense
because whether it's you know, whether I have a client
or somebody's listening to my podcasts or whatnot. I get
messages all the time where you're like, oh my gosh, like,
thank you so much for explaining this, because and that's
(18:37):
really my like, if I do nothing else in this world,
helping people make sense of themselves, helping people understand themselves
on a deeper level, because a lot of the folks
that I work with I just called there. You know,
they're called successful and stuck right, And this happens a
lot in these big life transitions because you know, I
(18:58):
mean just kind of the common path is like all right,
we go to school, we graduate, and you know, we
get into the working well it's like okay, like we're
adults now, and then all of a sudden, these big
ruptures and these big transitions.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
No one gives us books and the hells us how
to do this, Like or you become a mother and
no one tells you how to like, you know, be
a mother and what and then be your own person
still and it's like a continuous ride that you're just
you know, here we go. What does it mean to
see yourself and others during times of transition?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Oh? Good question? Wow, all right, I love this question.
What does it mean to see yourself and others in
times of transition? The biggest thing, the shortest way I
can answer that is just transition is part of being human.
And when we are in some sort of transition, there's
very often a shift in identity that's that's taking place.
(19:54):
Whether it's career, whether it's relationships, it doesn't matter. There's
generally a shift in identity. And whatever identity we have
formed that has been the thing that got us to
this point in life, right, and which that also equals safety.
(20:16):
And so going back to you know, kind of the
brain science piece, your threat detector is always looking for safety.
And so if you have the identity as the high achiever,
the one that always gets the job done, you know,
the person at work that is the reliable person who
you know, anybody can come to for help, that becomes
(20:39):
this core identity and you know, and a lot of
the folks I work with, it's like, oh, well then
they're all the stress and all the you know, nervous
system stuff and trauma and whatnot is catching up with them. Well,
then like these cracks start to form inside and it's
like we start scrambling to try to hold everything to
(20:59):
get And this is absolutely true with you know, with
divorce and separation and whatever.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
You become, you get married, you become a wife, and
you become a mother, and then you skep separator to
get divorced for some reason. And then here we are, right.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, and there's and there's also there's an identity with
this other person. Right, It's like, oh, people know us
as a couple, right, And then all of a sudden
it's like, well, what does this mean for me to
just be on my own? Now? Who am I without
this person? Who am I as a single parent? And
(21:37):
so and and bottom line is change creates stress, period
And you know we're talking of different degrees of stress here.
You know, at the very least, let's say you take
a new route to work in the morning, right, well,
you're having to pay a lot more attention on that
new route to work. You can't just kind of like
(21:58):
zone out, phone and in because we've all been there
where it's like okay, we've you know, you're like suddenly
you're like, I don't remember the last like half mile
that I was driving. Well, that's because your brain has
the neural pathways. It knows that way and it can
you know, kind of zone out a little bit. It's
it's unbelievably common for that to happen, but when it
happens to us, you're like, wait, hold on, you know
(22:19):
where It's like, what if something did happen right, what
if a car pulled out in front of it? It's like, well,
you your system would have reacted. So that's you know,
I'm just talking like low level stress. There any of
these bigger life transitions that is so much. I mean,
it's it's not it is stressful all the way up
(22:40):
to being potentially traumatic. And I don't want to just
kind of throw around the word trauma because it you know,
different events affect different people in various ways. Two people
can go through the exact same thing. One person it
becomes trauma and the other person, you know, kind of
(23:01):
comes out seemingly unscathed. And because trauma isn't necessarily what
happened to us, what happened, it's what happens inside of
us as a result of the event, And it's anything
that overwhelms the system in a given moment, It overwhelms
our capacity to process that event in any given moment.
(23:25):
And when that overwhelmed happens. It's sort of like a
like the part that our system wasn't able to handle.
It kind of goes into like an overflow reservoir, but
it keeps looping. It just keeps looping, and our system
doesn't know that that event has passed, and so we
(23:46):
continue to act out. You see this all the time
in relationships, all the time in relationships where somebody, let's say,
grew up. I mean, I'll just use myself as an example.
I grew up with a piss poor exam a relationship
my parents fought all the time. I thought yelling and
screaming was just how anybody got anything done. And I,
(24:11):
as a result, I developed a very insecure attachment style.
So I have an anxious attachment style. And you know
that causes me to like not necessarily trust people fully
and it causes me to overfunction in relationships. And so
when I when I'm in relationships, I whether it's friendships, romantic,
(24:34):
et cetera, I will notice somebody just pulling away a
little bit. And that's that flavoring that I was talking
about earlier. If my system perceives somebody just pulling away
just a little bit, well then I try to overcorrect
for that, and and so I will, you know, start
to we call overfunctioning and make up that emotional distance
(24:57):
because my system perceives, oh my god, if I separate
from this person, then I'm not going to make it
because it's the five year old self in me. It's
that younger part that literally couldn't survive without my parents.
And so I've done a lot of work to be
(25:17):
able to heal that, and you know, kind of bringing
this back full circle, that five year old self now
knows that, hey, this this threat has passed. There's an
adult in the room. There's my adult self in the room,
who can you know, who can take care of him?
And he doesn't have to make up that emotional distance anymore.
(25:39):
He doesn't have to overfunction. And so that that reservoir,
you know, that overwhelmed, overwhelmed reservoir has now been connected
back with the whole and bringing my system back into
just a deeper sense of coherence.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
So you've done lots of work for this, lots of work.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
So what are the tools and practices that you offer
to help people ground themselves and compassion for themselves, compassion
for their past trauma.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Do you want to call it trauma or.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Who felt stuck, whether it's grief, divorce, you know, you know,
changing careers or however, how do you help people like
how do you bring them back to be able to
be whole again?
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Yeah, So it's it's a whole process that really varies,
and it's really tailored to the individual because you know,
if somebody is stuck in let's say, fight or flight,
or they're stuck in freeze, there's a whole different set
of you know, kind of tools and exercises that I
would use, let's say for fight or flight of like
processing anger, right, you know, I mean, I'm sure so
(26:49):
many people have brought up anger on your show because
that can I mean, that's going to be a natural
part very often of you know, people separating and what
and so, so you know, there's a whole set of
exercises you know, I use for that versus a different
one for freeze. But to overly simplify it here, I
(27:11):
love that you use the word compassion, because that is
this is something that I actually teach every single one
of my clients. Is this very simple self compassion exercise
and it's four steps, and the first step is and
I will encourage people to just pause and you know,
(27:34):
put a hand on their heart, hand on the chest,
just whatever, anything that feels good, anything that feels supportive,
maybe noticing your feet, noticing where you're sitting, and whether
it's a thought, whether it's a difficult sensation that's coming up,
a difficult emotion. Step one is just acknowledgment it's, okay,
(27:55):
this doesn't feel good. Something about this, and you don't
even have to name you don't even have to necessarily
name it, but okay, like I'm just I'm feeling off
right now. There's step one. Step two is just normalizing it.
Everybody feels off sometimes, everybody feels anger. Sometimes, everybody feels sadness.
(28:18):
Sometimes everybody feels helpless sometimes. So that's step two is
just the normalization of it. Step three is I'm going
to be kind to myself in this moment. And then
step four is in bringing in the compassion piece and
I'm going to be compassionate. And the thing is step four.
(28:40):
You know a lot of people will say, like, what
does it mean to be compassionate? You've already done it
with steps one, two, and three. I don't actually have
to be like, you know, figure out how to be compassionate.
It's just you've already done it. And so for me,
let's say, because like one of my patterns is like
(29:02):
I will just like overwork and you know, kind of
work myself into a little bit of a little bit
of a tizzy. And I actually had to do this
earlier this week and I just paused and I said, oh, okay,
I'm feeling some intensity right now, and I'm feeling like
I want to shut down. Oh I know this feeling. Yeah,
everybody overworks. Sometimes I'm going to be very kind to
(29:26):
myself in this moment, and I'm going to treat myself
with compassion because old me and I like into exercise,
into exercise. But but old me would and this still
comes up. It wants to beat myself up because I
quote unquote know better.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Right.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
It's like, okay, my mental health company took a toll
on my mental health, Like what the heck? How did
I go into a full blown, you know, depressive state
running my mental health company when I know better?
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Right?
Speaker 3 (29:56):
And it's like, oh well, it's like yeah, well I
start during the pandemic, and you know, and I was
just solely focused on that also with relating to divorce
and starting over on new relationships.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
It's like, why did I go back to the same
kind of person, the same pattern of a person.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
When I know that's helpful for me?
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Or why am I staying in this marriage when I
know it's not making me happy? Why am I staying
this relationship when it's not fulfilling me?
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Exactly? Yes, sorry, stuck and.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
I don't want to, like I'm afraid to move on,
and this is what I know. So this is what
I do kind of thing, right.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, absolutely, so I'll just double down on that example.
So apologies if I have maybe not used some of
the better examples on your.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Really help me explain it. This is a lot. I mean,
you're gonna have to come back again.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
And again I would love to. I would love to.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
But you know these these tools, and I love that.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I love how you use the nerve system and you
use inside to get to the healing part.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
You're getting to the root of things.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Yeah, and and so just like let's just use that
example that that you you know mentioned of, like why
do I keep going back to the same type of person?
So that's that flavoring that we're talking about. Because our
nervous systems get shaped in adolescence, in early childhood definitely
(31:28):
based on the the examples that we have seen of relationships,
right of whether it's single parent or you know, dual
parent household or whatnot, our nervous systems get shaped in
certain ways. And so you know, mine got shaped because
there was so much conflict in my house. Mine got
shaped around conflict. And so my pattern in relationships would
(31:56):
essentially be to not necessarily not create conflict, although that
was part of it, but just create this heightened state
because conflict is a sympathetic state, it's a fighter, it's
a mobilization state.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
And so my nervous system was so used to being
in this heightened state that when things would calm down,
when things.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Would like what's not right, right, you would be because
you'd be like, wait, it's supposed to be like this.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yourself inside.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Yeah. So yeah, So my my system when it settles
it actually it perceives that as oh, this is unsafe,
I'm losing connection with this person. So it's like, well,
let's go stir some stuff up.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
And makes sense.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Yeah, And it's a really common it's a really common pattern.
And then on the flip side. I was also very
conflict of verse in terms of and it's this weird
kind of duality of Okay, yeah, let me go kind
of find that heightened state. But I wouldn't necessarily do
that by like picking a fight or something like that,
(33:10):
because I also learned to not ask for what I want. Yeah,
I also learned to just not ask for what I want.
And so so yeah, landing this plane. What we're talking
about here is those flavorings, is those flavorings, And so
just when your system perceives something that was similar to
(33:32):
the past, it might actually perceive the dysfunction as safety.
And so going back to the same type of person
over and over again, well, your system is like, well,
even though this doesn't feel great, I still know how
to navigate this. I know how to navigate this dysfunction.
But what it doesn't necessarily you know, know how to
(33:52):
navigate is like the healthy, peaceful relationship, because it might
actually see that as a as a wrecked and I'm
you know, I'm over generalizing here.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
And in your work, you help people see that.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
You help people get that get to that place, yes,
compassion and happiness and not flight or flight or freeze
those states to help people move past.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Those you give them. Yeah, I think the.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Work that you're doing is absolutely, like incredible. I'm a believer.
I've seen it.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
I've seen some of the work you've done and people
that I know that you work with, and I just
find it to be so amazing. And the fact that
your trauma trained also is huge. So Patrick, the show
is called the Rewrite because we all get to rewrite
our stories. Maybe it's once, maybe it's twice, maybe it's
three times, or however many it is. And you get
(34:52):
to rewrite your story by the work that you do.
What would you say to.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
That, I've been through a lot of rewrites in my life,
you know. I mean you you heard me kind of
introduce myself and you know, talk about changing careers a
couple of times, and I'm I would say, I'm still
in the process of rewrite. I mean, I'm actually in
the deepest part of rewriting my story that I've ever
(35:18):
been in. And it's it's interesting because a lot of
people would kind of refer to it as like midlife crisis, right,
but I have the tools, I have the awareness to
actually navigate this, and which isn't to say that it's
easy because there's a whole identity shift and there's it
really is just me coming back to like the core
(35:40):
of who I am. And that's the work that I
get to do every day with people, is bring them
back to the core of who they are. But I'm
right there in it with them. I you know, I'm
very public about you know what I'm going through, and
you know kind of the transitions that are happening and
and how I'm navigating it. So yeah, I'm in, hands down,
(36:03):
like the deepest rewrite that I've ever been in.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
And that's the beauty of life.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
We do get to rewrite our story as many times
as we want to rewrite it, and however we want
to rewrite it, and you're teaching us how to do
it in a healthy, compassionate, mindful way.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Go on and on for hours and hours and talk
about this.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
He's a former entrepreneur turned somatic coach, nervous system expert,
cannot speaker, writer founder. His podcast is successful and stuck podcast.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
But We're not going to be stuck anymore when we
work with Patrick so much more.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Uncover Please come back again and thank you for sharing
all this and helping us understand.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Our insights better and why we do what we do.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Absolutely Thanks Wendy Nito.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Kuda Divorce and Family Laws attorneys have guided Connecticut and
New York families through complex divorce actions, contested child custody,
and alimony disputes for over thirty years. Their Connecticut and
New York attorneys have extensive experience in family matters involving
substance abuse, domestic violence, mental illness, and many other X
factors that can complicate a divorce. Their attorneys adeptly manage
(37:06):
privacy and reputation concerns inherit to public divorce proceedings and
the related exposure for their ultra high net worth clients.
Find your new path forward, define your post divorce family,
and secure an enforceable agreement to protect your future with
Needle Cuda Act Now put the strength of their team
behind you. Visit them at Needlecuda dot com or call
(37:29):
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