The Emotional Alchemy Podcast
Welcome to the Emotional Alchemy Podcast where safety is medicine, connection is never automated and everything is relational.
The Emotional Alchemy Podcast
143. Unpacking the Ethics of Marketing Nervous System Work with Lindsey Lockett
We're coming in with a SPICY episode of Webs of Truth. In case you're new here, Webs of Truth is a sub-podcast collaboration between myself and Lindsey Lockett from the Holistic Trauma Healing Podcast.
Today, we are unpacking the questionable marketing choices that many nervous system and somatic coaches are making. We'd love to advocate for nervous system tools to be woven into every part of how your community interacts with you, beginning at the level of marketing.
In our candid conversation, we tackle the commodification of healing in the age of social media, where somatic practices are marketed as quick fixes. We dissect the troubling trend of needing to fix 'functional freezes' and argue for the importance of acknowledging and integrating the full spectrum of human emotions in the healing journey.
Navigating the nuances of marketing somatic practices, we discuss how to stay ethical in a space that often blurs the lines. The integrity of healing work lies in respecting each person's unique journey rather than succumbing to the pressures of quick results. Join Lindsey and myself as we shine the light on a path toward a more genuine, ethical approach to marketing nervous system work, where transparency and trust lead the way to a deeper connection with ourselves and our communities.
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.
This podcast is made possible with sound production by Andre Lagace.
hello, and it's been a minute since we've had a chance to hang out with lindsey. Hello, good to be back yeah, we're here. We have this series lindsey and I have created called webs of truth. You can find it on both of our podcasts. I have renamed my podcast, so I'm no longer the rooted business podcast, I'm the emotional alchemy podcast. Thank you. It feels really good and cozy to to put on that coat. Um, and then Lindsay's got the holistic trauma healing podcast and um, yeah, we've got. We are fired up.
Speaker 2:Indeed, I'd have a B in my bonus. I'm like bouncing around and moving around. I'm on it, you can see. I'm like bouncing around and moving around.
Speaker 1:You are bouncing. She's ready, yeah, so big umbrella. We want to talk about nervous system work and some of the problematic things that we're seeing in the social media world in terms of how nervous system work is being utilized and marketed. Nervous system work is being utilized and marketed, and then we also want to like give you tools on how to create discernment around what you're seeing I feel like that's a really, really big piece is like we don't just want to sit here and complain about the things that we're seeing out there. Like we want you to be able to like, digest and really integrate this information in such a way that, like you as a consumer, you as a practitioner, can start to feel into what it feels like in your body when you're seeing this kind of information and, um, what you can do differently, both as consumer and practitioner.
Speaker 2:So that's that's going to be our, our big topic topic of the day I think we should also just to like dangle a carrot in front of our listeners is that we're going to talk about the functional freeze.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Right now.
Speaker 1:That is a huge hot button term and a thing that I have lots of issues with. So, before we get into all this, I would like us to both sort of frame what our experience is around nervous system work. Both of us have come up. We've been talking about the nervous system for a very long time. We were talking about it before. It was like this, like hashtag worthy thing. And so, lindsay, can you just share a little bit about your experience with nervous systems, what your frameworks are, what your sort of philosophies are around nervous systems and why it's so important.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. This will come as no surprise to you, but I think that the body is a fucking genius way, smarter than we will ever be in our minds, and that is because of the nervous system. Like, the nervous system is the genius of our bodies and her regulation, her dysregulation, all the ways that she's speaking to you through sensations and symptoms and feelings, and all of that are her way of communicating and just being like I'm giving you the answers in the back of the book. Like I'm really giving you the answers in the back of the book. But we in our like you know human minds and egos and stories and all of that, have to be willing to be with those feelings and sensations long enough that we develop a relationship of trust with our bodies so that then we can interpret those messages. And the longer I work with nervous systems, the more clients I work with, the more my approach has, like I feel like it has gotten a lot bigger. It has gotten more spacious in a way that you know, four years ago when I was first starting out with this, or three years ago when I was first starting out with this, I was very much into like teaching nervous system regulating tools, and I still think it's important for people to have tools, especially when you get outside your window of tolerance.
Speaker 2:But it wasn't until I had my own embodied experience of being in a moment of processing some really big anger, and I had gotten so good at using nervous system tools that my body automatically, or I, went into my tools of like, breathing and, you know, trying to calm myself down, and it was counterproductive to the work that I needed to do. I needed to have this big anger thing. I needed to let that energy move up and out and go through my body and metabolize that, and instead I was like fighting myself with breath work and I had to surrender the tools and have that embodied experience of like. Okay, the more I'm willing to feel my feelings and whatever is happening in my body, the less I need nervous system regulating tools, and using nervous system regulating tools can become a really sneaky way to avoid feelings. So we can use nervous system tools in the same way that we use scrolling or Netflix or food or alcohol or whatever our other coping tools are. We can use nervous system tools in the same way, and so I learned that very hard lesson that I now implement with myself and my clients, and so there's so much more space around feelings and less need to sort of control the experience and just trust like your nervous system knows what to do.
Speaker 2:My nervous system knows what to do. She just needs some time and some space and she definitely doesn't need to be pathologized. Um, and there's nothing to fix, there's nothing wrong, you're not broken. Um, and so, yeah, my, my perspective on the nervous system is like deeply, deeply honoring every single client's experience, every person's bodily responses, and being able to hear their stories in line with or laid over the top of the state of their nervous system.
Speaker 2:And instead of being like, oh my God, how are we going to fix this? How are we going to shift this? Like here's this tool and this homework and this thing and this thing. Instead of being like that, which is very much how I was when I first started coaching Now I'm just like, oh, your stories laid over the context of the state of your nervous system. It makes so much sense Like yes, yes to whatever you're feeling, and like when you feel that safety and that trust within yourself, then we can start to do some things that are not nervous system tools that actually amplify your ability to feel, to process, digest, metabolize and integrate those experiences. So yes, that was my long answer. What is your perspective on the nervous system, kat?
Speaker 1:I mean, I think that the reason why we get along so well is because there's so much overlap. You know, I came through the Eastern medicine world and I was an acupuncturist for the first 12 years of my work as a space holder and I remember, even in Eastern medicine school, like they did not get into the nervous system in the ways that I like, fully like it. They did it a disservice. It was just sort of this like passing thing of like here are your cranial nerves, here are your peripheral nerves, and like, you know, go figure stuff out. It wasn't until I graduated and started, you know, taking courses and workshops and reading tons of books about the nervous system, where I was like, oh, like, this is where the intersectionality of our emotions and our physical bodies comes to play and the things that we experience through our emotional landscape shows up in our physical landscape and vice versa. And so like, if we are to discount this entire incredibly wise system and I know that you think of the nervous system work as like being sacred medicine, which is what I also think of it as, and I don't know that you know traditional medicines would be thinking of it in this particular way, but I do know that, in acupuncture in particular, we're working directly with the nervous system, even if they didn't know what that was in physical form. And so for me, the way that I think about the body is it's always trying to communicate with us very similar to what you said and the language that it knows how to communicate through is through signs and symptoms and discomfort. And so when we do the modern medicine thing of oh, there's a pain there, let's just cover it up. Oh, there's a feeling there, let's just breathe through it. Oh, there's something that's coming up that feels uncomfortable to you. We have to figure out a way to fix that.
Speaker 1:And instead I started looking at the nervous system as being communicators of our life experiences, like can we look at the thing that our body is feeling threatened by, which is oftentimes an external state? And so sometimes I'll have clients who come through and they're like I'm in a like toxic relationship with my partner and I don't know why I can't go to sleep. It's like well, the obvious. You just said the obvious thing there, right? So instead of being like, oh, we need to fix the insomnia which is a sign and symptom of your nervous system being dysregulated, let's look at what is environmentally going on and focus on some of those things and see if we can work on integrating your story. There might be a story there working on removing or inviting things in that are, you know, going to be helpful for you.
Speaker 1:Take a more macro view of what is going on in your life and, like you're saying, you know these things are totally understandable. You know it's totally understandable that you know when your partner says something about you not putting the dishes away, you might go back to an early childhood memory of being punished for being messy. And so then your nervous system goes into a state where it feels really threatened. And so you know, even if your partner's not doing that, out of a state of like, like wanting to be critical and toxic, like it might be coming from an internal state of like, hey, like let's go hang out with that little kid who was criticized for being messy. And like it might be coming from an internal state of like, hey, like, let's go hang out with that little kid who was criticized for being messy. And like, help that person within you feel a little bit safer, a little bit more comfortable and you know, figure out what the next actions are going to be. I think that through this work with nervous systems, what I've learned is that oh my gosh, how long is this conversation going to be? Lindsay, like, I think that as practitioners, we are trained to prescribe things for people I know I certainly was trained how to do that like these are the herbs that you need to take.
Speaker 1:These are the points that you need to. You know needle. These are the herbs that you need to take. These are the points that you need to. You know needle. These are the things that you need to do in your own life.
Speaker 1:You know whether they're like lifestyle recommendations or not, and doing this work around nervous systems has, again, similar to you, helped me surrender and put that power and that empowerment, like back into the hands of the client, because what my job actually is is to create a safe place so that where a client only sees two options, they can now see three, four or five options, and they're creating those options for themselves.
Speaker 1:I don't like and when I do offer suggestions, I am very, very explicit and clear about this is advice. It is up to you and it is your sovereign decision to take this advice or not, but these are the things that I'm seeing in your life that might, you know, be better if we sort of shifted these things. But ultimately, I find that the most powerful shifts happen when a client is able to feel safe, and then they come up with those options themselves and they feel empowered to take those choices themselves. And you know, I think that as practitioners, we can all or we, maybe we should all go back to the way that our you know grandmother, which is, uh, used to practice, which is hold safe space and allow people to be their own people. And the nervous system guides all of that yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:Couldn't agree with you more yay and which is why we do this work, and yeah, I think we're on the same page, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:so I think that that is a great spot to segue into a big topic of our conversation today, which is, um, you know, when you and I first started out in the world of the nervous system, like four or five years ago, uh, we were. There weren't very many people talking about the nervous system at that point, like it was not mainstream, like it is today. I mean, I would still argue it's still not totally mainstream, but it's gotten a lot more attention and popularity and it's kind of become trendy, which is fortunate because it needs to be talked about People need to understand that they have a nervous system and how it works and how it's impacted by trauma and how that informs the rest of their lives, of course.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, when something becomes trendy we and we're seeing this with the nervous system it becomes oversimplified, it becomes a hot commodity, it becomes something that people can learn how to push pain points in order to market whatever it is that they're selling. Um, it becomes, uh, like mechanical, versus being sacred. I feel like it's become like mechanical, like oh, if I can just identify the state that I'm in and do this thing, then I can shift, you know, and I find it so ironic because it's like the work of the nervous system is such it's literally not happening in your head, like it's not a logical, analytical, cognitive process, it is an embodied process. And yet a lot of the marketing that I'm seeing from new creators on Instagram who are marketing courses and programs and things like that, in my opinion, they are treating the nervous system like it's this mechanical, like plug in these variables and you will get the answer that you need. And here is my somatic workout program that's going to shift you out of functional freeze in 60 days and like all of these promises and I feel so conflicted within myself because I'm like, yes, nervous system information is getting out there, yay. And then the other part of me is like shit, this is not what it was supposed to be. This is taking the sacredness out of it. This is taking the slowness out of it. When we start putting timelines on the nervous system by offering a program that promises X result in 30 days, 60 days, something like that, we're applying the same sense of urgency that has dysregulated us to begin with.
Speaker 2:It reminds me of like whenever I first got into the world of like healthy, eating healthy, and like realizing that processed foods were not healthy for me, and like trying to shift my diet into something that was much more whole foods, real foods, things like that. Like when I was in the processed food era of my life, I had a lot of anxiety. I was extremely perfectionistic with my life. I had like hypervigilance and catastrophization already happening in my life, and so then, whenever I got into the world of like healthy food, I brought those same patterns with me. So then the way I was approaching my eating and my diet was through the lens of like oh my gosh, if I don't eat perfectly, then I'm going to get cancer and I'm going to die. So perfectionism, catastrophization, hypervigilance about symptoms, anxiety about food, about symptoms, about health it's like it was the exact same patterns I already had, manifesting in a new container.
Speaker 2:And I see some of these practitioners that I'm sure they're well-meaning, I'm sure they're gifted at what they do, but the way that they're presenting it to the consumer, to the potential client, or at least my interpretation of it, is like these people are already dysregulated, so you're just using their own dysregulation to lure them into a program. So they'll pull out their credit card, they'll hit the buy now button and they'll do your program that's guaranteed in 30 days or 60 days, and then, whenever it doesn't work, somehow it's their fault and they need to buy the next program. It's like, oh well, you just did the first one, so now you need to buy the follow-up program. That's the complete package, and it just keeps us on that hamster wheel of constantly chasing versus honoring where our bodies are at, not putting a timeline on our nervous systems, not putting any sense of urgency to heal or whatever, and really following the wisdom of our bodies.
Speaker 1:There's several things that I want to pick out there, um, and I think one of the the pieces that I want to start out with is that intention matters so much.
Speaker 1:You know we're not sitting here being like don't ever do breath work or don't ever do shaking, like. I use shaking and breath work all the time, both in myself and with my clients. I think think the intention of the tool is so, so important. So, if you are shaking to actually feel the feeling and allow that to be a part of your human and somatic experience, then you are using the tool in the way that it was intended. If you are shaking to get rid of that feeling because you are using the tool in the way that it was intended. If you are shaking to get rid of that feeling because you are using it as another way to like get yourself out of the uncomfortable feeling, because a lot of times I was just talking about this with a client yesterday where she was, like you know, when I first started working with you, like in a way it was easier because I was numb and now, like, I'm feeling all these things and it feels really hard and it feels really painful.
Speaker 1:Is it supposed to feel like this? And like, the thing that I can say to her in that moment is, yes, like you were meant to feel all of this. You were meant to feel the anger, you're meant to feel the sadness and the grief and all of that, and so you know, we don't want to like blow people out of the water with their feelings, and so it's really about like, how can we help titrate? But it's never about like, hey, here's anger, let's give you a prescription so you don't feel anger anymore. So I think that intentionality is so, so important.
Speaker 1:Um, I think that the problem with the way that we're seeing nervous system tools being marketed right now is, again, it's like what is the intentionality behind it? And I look behind, just because I can't not anymore like, sort of like I can see the wizard behind the curtain. Sure, I think you're being generous honestly, like when you're saying that, like their intentions are good and you know, I'm sure they know what they're doing. I'm like I don't know. If that's true. I think that they learned a thing and they figured out how to market it well, because they put it under the framework of pain point marketing, which works incredibly well. I mean, if we all did pain point marketing, like if you and I did pain point marketing, with the tools that we have, with the like methodologies that we practice, with the experience that we have, like I don't know, like we would probably be in much more lucrative businesses, we'd probably be millionaires, honestly.
Speaker 1:But like, to me it's like, if I want to create a sense of safety with my clients from the very beginning, I'm not going to use that pain point marketing tool Because, like, like, it is unethical, it's manipulative, and that's really what I have a problem with out in the world right now is we are taking this sacred, depthful medicine and then we are applying plain point marketing to it, marketing it to the masses in a way that, like you, don't offer connection, like that's. The other piece around this is that nervous system work requires connection to like, help you as you're moving through this, because what happens inevitably is that, as you do nervous system work, there's going to be stuff that's unlocked, and then what do you like? And then you're left with no support in those kinds of programs. Yeah, you're on the video, you're watching the video, and then something gets unlocked and you're left with no support in those kinds of programs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you're on the video, you're watching the video and then something gets unlocked and you're like but there's no person there to hold space for me to tell me what to do with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or even normalize the experience. Yeah, you know, like that's, the conversation that I had with my client yesterday is like. She was like is this normal? And I was like, yes, it is this normal. And it's like, yes, it is absolutely normal. It means that your body is working in the way it's intended to, and it's hard and it's painful, you know, and it's going to get better, like you know. Think about when your foot falls asleep and you know you're trying to like walk to the kitchen again. It's really painful in those like few minutes that your blood is coming back to your, to your limb, but eventually you're able to walk to the kitchen again, you know. And so it's the same thing like when our emotions are shut down and we're disconnected from our bodies. When we come back into our bodily experiences and our emotional experiences, it is kind of painful and it's actually meant to be that way, because you should have been feeling all that all the way through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the pain has always been there. You just weren't aware of it because of all the ways that you've learned to cope, to turn the pain off, to ignore it, to repress it, whatever. I'm curious for people who may not understand or really grasp, like could you just briefly explain, like what pain point marketing is? Yeah, we can tell that together, just so people know what we're coming from.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So pain point marketing, I A, it is all around us, and so as soon as we sort of start talking about it and you sort of have that in your life filter system, now you can look around you. And this is part of the discernment that I really want to talk about is, like, as consumers, as practitioners, how do we not fall prey to and how do we not utilize pain point marketing, because it's essentially unethical. But what, what it looks like is, oftentimes there's a list of you know, things that somebody is struggling with, and in that process of like listing those things out, there's this inherent twisting of the story of like there's something wrong with you, like there's something going on with you that you need to fix, and they'll twist the knife on that story. And then they'll come in with a hey, here's a magical program, here I am the hero of your story, all you need to do is work with me.
Speaker 1:And so you know, I and I invite people to feel into their bodies when they experience that kind of marketing, because oftentimes for me, when I feel into like because I still like, I'm scrolling on Instagram and seeing all this shit all the time too it's like oh, you're trying to bring on this feeling of like FOMO, like fear of missing out, or you are putting this person or putting this audience member into a state where they feel victimized.
Speaker 1:And so it's like, in this state of victimhood, somebody please come help me out of this pain, right? And so I think it's really important to really understand the distinction between pain point marketing, which is twisting the knife on the most painful thing and the most tender thing that's in that person's life, versus going down into the same level and empathizing with that person and understanding that person's experience and saying like, hey, I understand what you're going through and I understand that it's really painful, and let's support you from the bottom up and let's move through this together and there is actually nothing wrong with you. And so that's kind of my long. I wish there was a shorter way to explain that.
Speaker 2:I don't think there is, though I mean, that's like saying that there could be a shorter way to explain it, as like saying there's a shorter way to heal the nervous system.
Speaker 2:You know, like there's not. There's just not, but I think that this is a great time for me to kind of share that. Um, you know, for about six or eight months now, maybe longer, I've been in what I would call a state of burnout, just feeling really depleted. Sleep has been suffering, having some random mystery symptoms pop up that I know are just related to my nervous system, like struggling and being like help, and so I can identify that as a state of burnout. Identify that as a state of burnout. And if I did not, if I was not where I am in my life right now, with the understanding of the nervous system that I have and the understanding of the spaciousness and the slowness required to get back into a state of safety and more nourishment, so that you're not feeling so burned out Like I totally, you know three years ago, would have fallen victim if somebody on Instagram had been like oh, are you experiencing burnout? You know, do you feel this, this, this and this?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, because I took screenshots. I'm not going to share the names of these accounts but, like, I took screenshots of like some of these examples that we were talking about. So like pain point marketing. When I finally realized that my restless nights and chronic neck tension were symptoms of ADHD, I switched from HIIT workouts to somatic exercises and it transformed my life. These exercises work with emotions, help to reduce ADHD symptoms. One year later, I have regulated my cortisol levels, lost 27 pounds, I no longer feel neck tension and other symptoms.
Speaker 1:Things like when you start using hypnotherapy to heal your procrastination trauma, but then your procrastination disappeared. You're promoted at work, you fixed your relationship, the house is clean and tidy, you're productive like never before, feeling organized and happy, no stress, no anxiety, reaching your goals and living the life people always dreamed of. So it's like amazing, like if you're in that state of like, deep burnout, like you were talking about. You know you see something like this on your instagram feed and you're like oh, yeah, give me, give me, give me, give me, yeah, this is what I need.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so if I didn't have the understanding of my nervous system that I have, I would fall prey to that type of marketing. I would be like, oh my gosh, you have a 10, a free 10 point PDF. It's going to give me your burnout protocol, like sign me up, right, but what part of the discernment that you're talking about that I want to share with our listeners is that if you're just taking this information off of social media and it is checking all the boxes for you, the question that you have to ask yourself through that discernment is like okay, but in the context of my own situation, in the context of my life, does this thing that I'm experiencing make sense?
Speaker 2:And so, if I think back, you know I've been burned out for six, eight months, something like that. Well, if I think back to the you know, two years before the burnout started, like I was balls deep in building a business from the ground up, like I was creating, I was coaching, I was posting on social media, I was building a following, I was trying out a membership, and then I pivoted and tried a different membership, like I was doing all of these different, very productive things. And that's just in my business life. If you look at my life from a holistic standpoint, I also live in the woods and eight months of the year is winter and that's very stressful because there's moving snow and moving firewood and keeping the fire going all the time and taking care of all the things outside so that nothing freezes and gets damaged. And then I also was parenting two older teenagers and that comes with stressors of its own.
Speaker 2:My relationship was going through many different transformations which can be stressful and requires a lot of resources within myself. So like, if I look at the oh, I've been burned out for six or eight months. Well, given the context of the last two years of my life, that makes sense, and so it is the wisdom of my body to shift me into a state of what I would call burnout, but which you and I know is more of a ventral or dorsal vagal state, because the body's like, hey, we don't have a whole lot of gas left yeah it's time to put the brakes on.
Speaker 2:It's time to refuel. We don't have a lot of gas left. It's time to rest and nourish and support, because we can't sustain that high productivity, high output. You know space all the time, Like nobody can sustain that state indefinitely.
Speaker 2:And are there things that I could have done during those two years to maybe have prevented the burnout as being as severe or that could have mitigated it or lessened it or something? Sure, of course, but it doesn't serve me to be like, oh, two years ago, I should have done this. Two years ago I should have done that. It's just like. This is what's happening.
Speaker 2:I'm in this state and, given the context of my situation, in my body which my body no matter how much nervous system work I do, no matter how much trauma processing I do, my body is still less resilient than a lot of people.
Speaker 2:I say a lot that my husband is more resilient on a bad day than I am on a good day, and he just has a more resilient nervous system than I do. But in the context of my situation, that makes sense. So if I were to hit the buy now button on a program that promises all the things that you just listed high productivity and no more procrastination, and like perfect sleep and weight loss and like all this stuff like I would have been overriding my body's innate wisdom to put the brakes on, to give me an extended period of time to rest, nourish and support, and I feel like, as people who are buying programs like this or are being marketed programs like this, like before you hit the buy now button, like ask yourself, but is what I'm feeling appropriate in the context of what I've been living in? Because if it is, if it is appropriate, then it is anti your body's wisdom to buy a program or a whatever, to air quotes, get you out of it.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that I hold on Ruby is digging a hole to China through the carpet. Can, can you get yourself cozy on that pillow? Good job, good job, job. Yeah, that's a good girl.
Speaker 1:So one of the when I talked about this on my Instagram page, um, one of the questions that I got a couple times is what is appropriate? I think people struggle with understanding what is an appropriate response, because I hear your story and I'm like, yeah, that's totally understandable, that is totally appropriate that your body needed to slow down and, in fact, another way to sort of say that is your body is asking you to just be instead of do, and by going out and getting a 30-day somatic exercise program to heal your trauma, you are trying to then do your way out of a thing that your body is asking you to just be in. But just to circle back to the question that I've heard on Instagram multiple times now is what it like? How can you tell what is an appropriate nervous system response to what is going on in your, in the context of your life?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think it requires knowing something about the nervous system first. So you know, I can pretty much like rattle off polyvagal theory in my sleep at this point. So, knowing what I know about the nervous system and like people have to look at three things right, the nervous system needs capacity, it needs flexibility and it needs resiliency. So if you have a million things on your plate and you feel scattered and like you're giving, giving, giving, and there's all this output happening and there's very little rest, there's very little downtime to just be, to experience pleasure, to sleep extra, to eat nourishing foods, like all of that, then your nervous systems capacity, resiliency and flexibility are going to diminish.
Speaker 2:And the way that I the analogy that I like for the nervous system is that the nervous system is like a bucket and it has to hold the leak that's coming from the ceiling. And the leak is life. Like that leak in the ceiling that's, that's, uh, you know, going to flood the house or whatever, if the, if the roof doesn't get fixed, is life. It's all the stressors that you have to handle throughout your life. Um, trauma throughout your life, trauma, childhood, a bad night of sleep, the loss of your job, like a child's sickness, your own sickness, whatever the stressor is, that's the leak in the ceiling and your nervous system is the bucket sitting underneath that leak and it has to hold all of that stress. And without the ability to remove some of that stress, either by trying to patch the leak in the ceiling as much as you can which nobody can perfectly patch the leak in the ceiling there's always going to be a leak in the ceiling as long as you're alive, right, like stress is always going to happen.
Speaker 2:It's a natural part of life. But there are some stressors that we can unchoose, like there's some stressors that we are like willingly living with that we don't have to live with. And that's what I mean by sort of like patching some of the leak in the ceiling so that it's not just flooding down but as stress fills up the nervous system, like you have less capacity. So when it starts getting near the top and I think it's important to state that, like, everybody's bucket is a different size, so some people are naturally going to have more capacity than others but as your nervous system reaches its capacity for what it can handle, then we start noticing like symptoms and signs and that's the body being like hey.
Speaker 2:Hey, it's becoming a little much Like I really need you to change some things. I really need you to slow down, I really need you to offload some stuff. I need you to unchoose some stress. I need you to figure out this lifestyle thing over here, like whatever it is, because when you hit capacity and the water spills out of your bucket, then that's when you're in crisis, that's when you're in burnout, that's when you're in like these really acute, sometimes, stages that you know.
Speaker 2:For me, like the biggest episode that I ever had was a psychotic or not psychotic, but I ended up in the psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt Because my nervous system, the bucket, was just so full I had no capacity left. And so I think that, taking your own individual state into account and that requires being aware of your stories, your history, your patterns, what your childhood was like, the kind of attachment style you have, like there's all these different factors to consider, and when you consider those factors, then you can have more understanding of yourself to be like oh okay, like I do have less capacity, so I may not be able to handle as much stress as this person over here, and that can be okay. That doesn't mean there's something wrong with me because I'm allowed to be a unique individual. Um, I don't even remember your original question. I just started talking about buckets.
Speaker 1:Um, how can somebody tell if they're having an appropriate nervous system? Response.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so like if you're, if your bucket's full, if you're at capacity, if you're like easily overwhelmed right, like if you're easily overwhelmed, that is a huge sign.
Speaker 2:Huge sign like the overwhelm that you're feeling. Or the overachieving kid on your bus or the you know type, a high strung firstborn daughter kid on your bus like wants to come along and be like, oh, but I can handle more, it's nothing Right, but the body is saying it's telling a different story and so, um, a lot of the stuff that I do in my work is helping people discern the difference between the stories of the voices in their head, and the stuff that I do in my work is helping people discern the difference between the stories of the voices in their head and the story that their body is telling, because often the voice in the head is telling a different story than the body and we can always trust the story that the body is telling. So when you, I think the short answer, what I want to say is that if you have a deep level of trust with your body, then it's pretty easy to understand when you're having an appropriate response.
Speaker 2:And if you have a deep level of trust with your body and you can be real and honest with yourself. It's also easy to see when you're having an inappropriate response, which might be like an overreaction to a trigger that doesn't deserve that big of a reaction. Yeah, so yeah, I think that's the short way of saying that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what about you? I think I have a simpler way of looking at it, just because I know that we as humans hold ourselves to most of us hold ourselves to a much higher standard than we hold the rest of the world, and so sometimes I will have my clients like list out all the things that are stressing them out. Like what are you? Like? Just link page right for like five minutes, all the things that are stressing you out right now, and then I have them read it back and think about their best friend sharing all this with them.
Speaker 1:And isn't it understandable, isn't it appropriate that your best friend is feeling whatever it is, that they're feeling Angry, guilty, sad, frustrated, shut down, like way too busy, like all of that is understandable.
Speaker 1:And I think that we can do so much work, even in just like helping people get to a place where they're able to say that's understandable.
Speaker 1:You know, once we can start normalizing these things that are happening like inside our bodies and stop shaming ourselves for having these reactions, stop shaming ourselves for feeling shut down, or, you know, similar to you, like I feel like I'm just coming out of this like thaw state, or coming into this thaw state after a big freeze because for the last two years we've been saving up, you know, we've been saving every penny that we could save so that we could buy our property and buy our condo, and then we've been living with friends and we've been pet sitting and so, like you know, when your space is not your own, it becomes really difficult to feel creative, to feel like you know I have capacity to, you know, hold space for my clients, be, you know, the wife that I want to be, be the friend that I want to be, be the horse mom and the dog mom and the cat mom that I want to be.
Speaker 1:Like you know, there's not a lot of capacity and so you know, I did this recently, actually, because I found myself in a state where I was like I just want to binge watch like Schitt's Creek all day long and I don't want to do anything else, like that's the only thing that's going to make me feel better. And so, you know, sat down, um, this is now maybe like two or three months ago I sat down and it was like at the like climax and the peak of like being frustrated with these dogs that I was pet sitting and um, just like sat down and like wrote down all the things that were stressing me out and, like you know, read it back to myself and was like, hey, like if Lindsay were sitting here in front of me talking to me about all these things that are stressing her out, wouldn't it make sense that all she wants to do is binge watch Schitt's Creek all day long?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, that's a. That's a much simpler way of I'm gonna borrow that. I'm gonna borrow that. That's a much simpler way of looking at it. Um, I love that so much so hopefully our listeners like can take that tip of like write down everything in your life that's stressing you out and then look at it through the lens of like if this was your child or if this was your best friend or someone you really care about like, yeah, wouldn't you be?
Speaker 2:like, of course you're stressed out, yeah, of course, yeah, you know, and your body is just responding to that stress because that's what the nervous system does. And like, again, I don't think I can emphasize enough how important it is to not even if these states are uncomfortable like burnout is uncomfortable as fuck, especially for me, because I don't know why my body does this. I really, really don't. But when I am sick, when I'm in burnout, when I have had like multiple days of not sleeping well or something like that, for whatever reason, the thing that my body needs the most is like deep rest and deep sleep no-transcript, and I like I trust them and I know how to dose them for myself and all of that. But like I love that.
Speaker 2:Like make the list and then imagine it's your kid or your best friend or somebody, and then validating that of you're stressed out, of course, you're tired and you're overwhelmed, and so, if it makes sense, right, if you make that list and you're like, oh, okay, yeah, there is a lot on my plate, it does make sense, I am, I am stressed out, I am overwhelmed like if it makes sense, if you're like, yes, this is an appropriate response then. Does it make sense to buy the 30 day program that promises to get you out of that state? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like so my question then is what would make sense in that state? Like what would you advise somebody to do once they've made the list? Advise somebody to do once they've made the list and they're like okay, sweet, like I can understand and I can validate that, like this is like an understanding and appropriate response, like what can you offer to help people integrate and digest and move through those experiences?
Speaker 2:Okay, so this brings up something that I did with a client several years ago one of my first clients ever, actually. She was experiencing this and I did have her make a list, which is so interesting. I did have her make a list of all of her responsibilities, like everything that you're responsible for. So she was like a stay-at-home mom. She had a daughter that she had to drive the daughter. The daughter went to a private school that was like 30 minutes away or something. So she was like driving the daughter 30 minutes to school and then driving 30 minutes home, and then going back and driving 30 minutes to pick her up from school and then drive. So she was in the car commuting the daughter for two hours a day. She also was like trying to start her own business because she wanted to feel like she was contributing to the family's income. She also had some health issues that she was working on. She also had some health issues that she was working on. She also had some relationship difficulties in her marriage with her husband. So she had all of these things and I was like I want you to make a list of everything that you're responsible for.
Speaker 2:And what she ended up doing was a really creative thing. She used Post-it notes and she color coded the Post-it notes because I said I want you to note which ones of these are negotiable, which ones are non-negotiable, which ones can you delegate and which ones you have to take on for yourself. And so when she color coded it the like non-negotiable list she had more post-its for that than any other category, or, I'm sorry, the negotiable ones, like the ones that could be delegated out, the ones that she could not do, like she can let them go, things like that, and that really helped to give her that visual of like. Not only, of course, I'm overwhelmed, but also I have the responsibility to myself to make the choice to offload as much of the stress as I possibly can.
Speaker 2:So for myself and for my clients when they're like this, I possibly can so for myself and for my clients. When they're like this, I'm like what can we get rid of?
Speaker 1:What can we say no to? What can go away?
Speaker 2:And like for my own self, like I pulled way back, I wasn't taking on new clients, I wasn't creating anything new. No new workshops, no new programs, no new. Nothing Like my creativity was shut off. I was saying no to social engagements because I knew that being home and going to bed at a certain time was going to be more supportive. Um, I've said no to all alcohol in the past few months and I'm not I've never been a big drinker, anyway, it doesn't agree with me but every once in a while I like to have a cocktail. Um, I love a good margarita, but, like I knew innately that during this time of stress, alcohol is an additional stressor. Yeah, even if it tastes good, even if I like the experience, even if the buzz feels nice, like whatever, I still know that that is a physiological stressor on my body. That is optional.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 2:I can say no to that. Um, I I get really like doubled down on like eating clean food because I know that that's going to be really supportive for me. And I'm not coming at it from like a restrictive, healing diet kind of energy. It's just more of like there are certain foods that objectively support the body and certain foods that objectively do not support the body, and my body needs a lot of support. So I don't want to have the stressor of a bunch of processed crap in my diet or a bunch of restaurant food or you know whatever. So I start looking at it of like where can we pull out stress? Like where can we pull that out? What can we offload? What can we delegate? What can we unchoose? Right, what about you? Where do you start?
Speaker 1:I think the pruning is important. Typically, that's where I need support, is like like you've got too many things on your on your board, kat, like your to do list is quite impressive and like what needs to be taken off the list is is oftentimes a really good place to start. I think that there's pruning and then nourishment, like I think of the two categories of what it is that we need in these moments, and you know, I love my inner circle, like Lindsay's part of my inner circle. I also have Andre, and I've got Christina, and you know these are the people that I like lean on when I need both help with the pruning and the nourishment, to be honest, because oftentimes when we're in that state, we need both.
Speaker 1:I say the nourishment piece because sometimes I get clients who are like I have so little responsibilities and I don't know why I'm struggling with this, and then I have to start wondering about okay, so where are you feeling depleted, you know? And so then, in order to help them move into a state where they can mobilize in a healthy way I don't want to send them out without enough gas in their tank, right? And so it's about like how can we create this like nourishing space so that we can, you know, set you up for success. And oftentimes I am asking them to like look within their own sort of life circle and being like okay, so who are your co-regulatory partners? You know, I think that that's a really, really big one and an important one to name, because when we're in these states, we have a tendency to isolate ourselves, we have a tendency to hermit ourselves, we have a tendency to think I've got to just do this by ourself and by myself. It's a fucking, I'm going to say it's a disease of the modern culture that we are so independent culture, that we are so independent.
Speaker 1:And when we lean into the fact that our nervous systems need other nervous systems, absolutely, and that's not a thing that's wrong about you, like, that's not a thing that is bad about you, that's not something that we need to fix about you. Like, I love that. One of the like cues between me and my husband right now is like can I borrow your nervous system for a moment? And then I get to just like, like melt into his big man body and like, just breathe right.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm also feeling into the nervous system of my land lately, my friend Shannon Ban, who is my horse trainer, like she talks about the nervous system of the land and how that is such a fundamental part of one of the bodies that she's in interaction with every single day. And it's the same for me is like my land has a nervous system that is incredibly forgiving, incredibly patient, incredibly wise. And so, in these moments where I don't feel nourished, the reason why I spend so much time on my land is because I just just by being out there just doing manual I'm a witty person and so I like, I need the manual labor to help me stay in balance. It's nourishing for me actually to like move wood around and move horse poo around and like, like, create things on the property. Um, but, like, like, I think that there's something about pruning and nourishment, pruning and nourishment, pruning and nourishment that is, um, is really, really important in those, in those times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for touching on the nourishment piece. Um, I totally agree with you and I'm going to also add like, uh, I think this is both pruning and nourishment actually is. Um, you know, whenever I was in in the throes of the burnout, um, I was resting a lot, like I was spending a lot of time in bed. I was, the weather wasn't warm, so I wasn't going outside a whole lot, and I know that that had something to do with it. Like, I think it went on longer because I don't like being outside in the cold, like it's just, it doesn't feel great for me. Um, laying on a blanket in the grass and the sun is a fuck, yes, but, like you know, snowshoeing through the woods is a fuck, no, like I don't like it. So, but, yes, being outside, being in the mycelium of my own land, in the woods, talking to trees, talking to plants, like that is absolutely nourishing for me too. Trees, talking to plants, like that is absolutely nourishing for me too.
Speaker 2:But something else that I learned was such a hard lesson too, and it took me having to go to Canada to a practitioner that I work with Her name is Kirby Crittle to realize that a huge part of my burnout was that my energetic hygiene had not been as great as it should have been. Um, meaning, like as a space holder, like there's a lot of energetic transfer that happens between clients and me, and I don't just hold space for individuals, I also hold space for groups, and so there's a lot of energy in groups as well. There's a lot of emotional experiences. Emotionsotions are energy, and so a lot of my burnout, despite the fact that I was staying in bed more, I was resting more, I was eating a lot of nourishing foods, I was avoiding alcohol, I was delegating things, I was saying no to things, but I still wasn't feeling better.
Speaker 2:And when I went to see her she was like your energy looks like it's hanging off of you, like a drunk person who can't stand up, and I was like, well, that's exactly how I feel, but I've had no alcohol. And so we did a bunch of energetic clearing and like got my energy back up to where it was, feeling bright and shiny again, and that helped a lot too. So I think like ever since then I've been really diligent about like after client sessions, like I have a selenite wand and I go over my whole body with a selenite wand or like I have a spray like Apollo Santo spray, and I'll like spray it around me with the intention that, like it's clearing everything out of my field that doesn't belong to me. So that is both pruning and nourishing and something that, yeah, I had to learn the hard way.
Speaker 1:Thanks for sharing that. I think that to me that really speaks to so many of us as space holders. Like this work is hard. Like can we just fucking acknowledge that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you mean it's not as easy as a 30-day somatic workout program. Wait what?
Speaker 1:I know it takes. It takes a lot to hold space for people and so if you're listening to this and you're a space holder, like a, I love that. This is the work that I do, you know, and it's incredibly draining. Both can be true. It doesn't mean that I'm not grateful for my clients. It doesn't mean that I need them to be less you know themselves or be smaller, like no. I want my clients to all show up as themselves, with all the feelings and all the emotions and all that stuff, because there's not a lot of places where people feel like they are safe enough to do that. And as a space holder, I have to take responsibility for, you know, holding myself and pruning and nourishing and you know all the. I don't have as many rituals as you do. For me, it really just comes down to like being on the land and farming, Like it's my responsibility to do all of that so that I can hold space.
Speaker 2:Totally. I think the difference between us is you're a mani gen and I'm a projector. So, like I'm not capable of regenerating my own energy, so I need like rituals and different practices.
Speaker 2:Like I've got fucking crystals all over the place and you know like and I've even gotten to the point of like, when a client is having like a big energetic release, like I stay totally present. I'm not absent in any way, but I've learned to kind of imagine that there's like a glass window between the two of us, that's just like an energetic boundary where it's like I'm fully here to witness and hold space for this, but I'm not taking on any of it as my own and so just like visualizing that and having the intention that that's there, I've noticed just in the last few weeks has like made a huge difference in me not feeling totally wiped out at the end of the day or you know, like going to david and being like fuck, I had some hard clients today like I'm not doing that you know, um.
Speaker 2:so for me the energetic hygiene has been a really a big deal and a big help, and it's like pruning others energy off of me and that is also nourishing me so that I'm a better space holder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and we talk about functional freeze.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Yes, yes, I'm even going to pull up my Instagram post that I made about it.
Speaker 1:Ooh, maybe that's a good jumping off point then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll pull up my Instagram post about it. Um, when did I make that? Oh, here we go. We need to talk about functional freeze. Um, so I said I've reflected a lot on this term lately as I find myself in what many would call a functional freeze. I want to focus specifically on the functional part of this term.
Speaker 2:Our culture views functionality as good. It's good if we can function through difficulty, sickness, grief, anxiety, etc. I dare say we'd call it a flex to be able to be functional during hard times. But is it really? I feel awful, but look at me, I'm still functioning. Is this a flex? Or is it extractive capitalism that demands we keep functioning, pushing, forcing, despite our body's wisdom, to retreat, slow down and rest? The word functional, when applied to the freeze state, does not sit well with me. It feels like a young, wounded, masculine pushing energy. Yet in freeze, our bodies are asking us to embody more of a yin, receiving slow, restful energy.
Speaker 2:There are certainly plenty of practitioners marketing shiny programs that promise to get you out of functional freeze. Without discernment and a deep understanding of the body, it's so easy to hit the buy now button. What if these programs and promises aren't honoring your body's natural rhythm to slow down, but are instead forcing you to override that wisdom. What if your body's sensations and symptoms of what is labeled functional freeze are actually begging you to stop forcing yourself to function and allow the slowness, the rest, the contraction?
Speaker 2:If you trusted this cycle, would you keep trying to function as usual? Would you buy a program that promised to get you out of it? Could you instead surrender to the freeze Anything, any program, structure, workplace, lifestyle, person or practitioner that isn't first honoring the state of your nervous system and asking if your freeze is an appropriate response within the context of your experience, is extracting your life force for their benefit? I propose we remove the word functional from the freeze state. I propose that we say no to extracting from ourselves and allowing ourselves to be extracted from in the name of functionality. Sure, you may be functioning, but at what cost? And can you afford to pay that cost?
Speaker 1:Love it. Functional freeze. I was going to try to read off some of the signs and symptoms that some of these accounts are saying.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, the result of a functional freeze.
Speaker 1:You're exhausted but you stay up late. You appear motivated, but you're emotionally hanging on by a thread. You're successful but feel empty inside. You can make a vet appointment for your dog but haven't been to a doctor in years. You brush your teeth in the morning but rarely at night. You respond to messages from coworkers but not from friends. You smile in public but fall apart at night. You want to eat healthy, but order delivery every night. You're high, achieving, but emotionally numb. You're social at work but turned on every invite from friends. You show up to events but never feel genuinely present. You binge tv shows but have no idea what's really happening.
Speaker 1:You can get your energy back and get out of functional freeze by healing your nervous system. And then, of course, there's a a link to a somatic the 30 day somatic exercise program. Truly, um, I think that I agree with everything that you just said, and I think in particular it's that piece around. We are trying to young our way through something that our body is trying to get in our way through, and when we do that, we're giving our body and our emotions and our souls and our spirits and all the things like inside out. We're giving ourselves very conflicting information, and something that I'm learning from working with horses is when we're in a state of confusion, when we're in a state where there's overwhelm and perhaps there's some shutdown happening, there's some freeze happening, there's some flight happening, whatever it is that your nervous system state is in, if you give it two conflicting pieces of information like that does not help. What helps is when you can give that body one incredibly clear message. And for our bodies, when we're in that functional freeze, again it's like I think you've talked about anxiety as having the, you know, gas and brakes being stepped on at the same time. I feel like it's the same thing. And when your body is actually asking for a yin state, when it's asking for like hey, that was kind of a scary thing and I might need to digest that, or I've been in this state of unhappiness in my life and feeling disconnected from my life for a while, and I need to actually pause and slow down and take assessment of what's going on. And you're trying to young your way through it like there's no possible, like you are just setting yourself up for failure. Um, I think another thing that I struggle with with these programs is that you know we sort of talked about how there's no support on the other end. Like the reality is that our bodies really do hang on to a lot of things. That is true.
Speaker 1:And a lot of these practices. I see them lots of hip openers, lots of stuff, like with pelvic floor exercises and as an ethical practitioner, if I am going to ask somebody to get into their hips because I don't know what's in there, like I've worked with women my entire career. I've worked with women as a fertility acupuncturist. I've worked with women, you know, just as a generalist acupuncturist. Like there are times when we put things into our hips because it's too scary to access and process right now.
Speaker 1:And when you ask somebody to get into their hips, you have to be prepared as a space holder. We don't know what's in there. Like we are opening up this deep cavern without understanding on a conscious level what they packed away. And so the like mama bear part of me that gets really upset at these. You know practitioners who are are, um, really pushing these programs is like you don't know what you just opened up. Yeah, you know, like there can be some real trauma in there. And if you're not trauma informed and you're not offering support and you're just, you know, sending people a video and then being like you figure your shit out by yourself.
Speaker 2:You're actually going to do more harm for some of the people who are accessing that video yeah, I 100 could not agree more and I actually have a personal experience with this very thing. So four years ago my husband like the details of this are not important, but the way that it's stored in my body is what's important. So my husband kind of gave me an ultimatum four years ago and it was like an earthquake in my nervous system. It was like an earthquake like 9.0 on the Richter scale, earthquake in my nervous system, and ever since that time I've had chronic pain in my hips and low back my psoas muscle, my hip flexor, my iliacus muscle, si low back.
Speaker 2:Just a lot of shit happening in my hips and in my pelvis. But specifically, one really interesting thing that would happen is if I was receiving energy work or if I was getting a massage or doing some type of movement that activated it. I had this spot in the left side of my pelvis that was deep, deep, deep in my pelvis and the only way that I know how to describe it was like a buzzing ball of yarn. It was like a very irritated, annoyed kind of feeling and I saw it as like a buzzing ball of yarn in my pelvis and sometimes I would have to tell my massage like he would be working on my shoulders and it would light up in my pelvis. He would be working on the back of my head and it would light up in my pelvis and I'd be like you have to move because I can't stand this feeling. It wasn't painful, it was just the most annoying feeling ever.
Speaker 2:And when I went to Kirby she's a very gifted energy worker, she's also a holistic pelvic care body worker and she did a pelvic session with me and she found literally in my tissues, in my left obturator internus muscle, she found the spot where the buzzing ball of yarn is and nobody had ever been able to reach it before. And the stories and the trauma that were contained in that ball of yarn, hmm, if that had opened up and I had been by myself, I would not have known what to do with it. Yeah, even as like a trauma informed, like nervous system worker myself, like the stories and the pain and the abandonment and the resentment that was in that spot in my pelvis was huge.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I can't imagine doing a hip opener exercise or something like that that might activate that and then not knowing what to do with it, Like so yes, what you're saying is true, Like that would have been unethical for someone to open that can of worms and essentially just like leave me alone with it, not knowing what to do with it. So like that personally strikes a chord in me.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think it gets even worse than that, because when I go through that thread of that reel that I just read out loud to you, I see so many comments from people saying like, hey, like I did the 30 day thing and I still feel some of my symptoms. Or I did the 30 day thing and there's something coming up for me, and this person's response is, oh, you need to buy part two. Yeah, part two is the thing that's going to heal you, yeah, and so like we have to be like, if you're going to say that you're doing trauma work, part of that, trauma work needs to be support 100%.
Speaker 1:Otherwise, you are opening people up in unethical ways and leaving them in a situation that they can't navigate themselves, or might not have the tools to navigate themselves, or might not have the community to navigate themselves. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And exactly what you're talking about. You know, there's nothing wrong with your body hanging onto that. Sorry, you had a delay for a second, so I was talking over you. That's okay. Continue what you're saying, please.
Speaker 1:I was going to say that, like. So, there was nothing wrong with your body for hanging onto that story, right, that's understandable. There was nothing wrong with your body saying I'm not ready to process this right now Also understandable. There was nothing wrong with you holding a boundary with your massage therapist and being like hey, like you have to get off of my shoulder because that buzzing sensation is there and I can't really like it. It's not painful, but like I don't want to, yeah, I can't.
Speaker 1:And being able to surrender in the presence of somebody who is a skilled space holder is medicine. And when we I think you use the word mechanicalized or something like that, like when we, I think you used the word mechanicalized or something like that, like when we, like make these tools mechanical, yeah, we are not honoring the depth of the work that can happen in these spaces. We're not honoring the tradition that comes from working with nervous systems and emotions. We are saying that we are no different from a car or a machine and you just need this thing to fix you. And that is one of the most harmful stories that's come out of the last 50 years of medicine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I couldn't agree more years of medicine. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And this is why my, my program, feel without fear will never be packaged up as prerecorded videos and put out into the world as like. Here's the self-paced course that you can take because, yeah, if I packaged it that way, would it be more affordable? Sure, I could sell it for, you know, three, 99 instead of. I could sell it for, you know, $3.99 instead of $8.88, you know like sure.
Speaker 2:But it would be so irresponsible of me to package that up, to cheapen it and put it out as like a mass produced you know, made in China product that's going to go on the shelf at Walmart.
Speaker 2:Like I can't do that, to not only to feel without fear as an entity in and of itself, like it's consciousness, like won't allow me to do that, but as a person with ethics, I can't do that because it is such a powerful program that unlocks so much and people need to be held in a I mean obviously over zoom or whatever isn't a physical holding, but they need at least the energetic holding and the person on the other side to validate and hold space for that experience and to just turn people loose for the sake of making more money, because, yeah, that would make my life easier. I could make more money that way, right. But I value people's nervous systems and people's sovereignty and their safety over packaging something up and cheapening, you know, slashing the price to make it mass available, like because the medicine's too strong for it to be administered without supervision. You know what I'm saying. Like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, jumping off of that, how can we as practitioners have discernment in how we do nervous system work, how we market nervous system work, how we administer nervous system work? I know that's kind of a big question. It is a big question.
Speaker 2:But that's a really big question. I'm curious about myself and my motives and my intentions whenever I'm writing or sharing anything about something that I'm going to make money off of. Like to be very transparent, that I'm not trying to fix you, I'm not going to make any kind of guarantees or promises because we don't have control over that, to honor the sovereignty of each person. That's why, like when I market, feel Without Fear, like I yeah, I can tell you a bullet point list of, like what I teach in the workshops, but I can't tell you how that's going to land in your body, and like what transformations may or may not take place. But the way that I honor people in that, as I say, like if you feel a pulling, like if you feel that, then you can trust that and if you don't feel that, then it's not for you and that's okay. Is there a natural curiosity? Is there desire there? Right, like not fear not. Oh, fuck this better, fix me. But like, ooh, this feels juicy, I want to know more. You know, like discerning the difference between those two energies in your body is so, so, so important. Um, and it's very difficult to do that when people use pain point marketing, when they give you a list of all these symptoms and you can check all of them off, and then they're like here's my program. Like it's very easy to be like, oh, this is what I need. This is going to solve all these problems for me.
Speaker 2:I have to put myself in check because I know I can make a shit ton of money off of people doing that kind of marketing, but it feels so gross in my system to do that that like I can't like. It just feels gross to do that, and so I have to be very, very aware of what I feel in my body when I'm putting something out there. And so they're like honoring the other person's sovereignty starts with me honoring my own and being in a space of like. It is counter to my authenticity to market this in a way that I would not want to be marketed to myself. It is not congruent with what I believe about the nervous system to market this thing in a way that doesn't honor the nervous system and that mechanizes it.
Speaker 2:So it's like it's about being deeply rooted in my own authenticity and in my own values and being regulated in my nervous system, which is why I hold the boundary of not posting anything when I'm in dysregulation about it, which you do too it's that same thing, because energy doesn't lie, right? Energy fucking does not lie, and even if somebody can't name with words why they're turned off by something or why they're like oh, that's not for me, even if they can't name it with words, it's because it's in the energy, and that energy comes through. Whether it's on a website, whether it's on Instagram stories, a video, a post, podcast like that, energy is always there and it doesn't lie. Even if people can't name it as that, it still doesn't lie, and so yeah.
Speaker 2:I have to be rooted in my own authenticity, in my own values, in my own nervous system, and that requires that I honor the sovereignty, the authenticity, the values and the nervous systems of everyone else. Yeah, that's my answer to that. What's yours?
Speaker 1:I think, very similar, I think for me. I've had to have a lot of forgiveness around the different stages of my own ways of running business. Oh, of course, we are always on this evolutionary path and I have used pain point marketing because that's what I was taught. I have used a lot of these unethical business practices that I speak out against now because that's what I was taught and I didn't know any different. And the more and more I do nervous system work, the more I deepen into my own sort of I don't even know what kind of practice to call it, it's just like deepening into becoming more me. I guess I can't unsee the ways in which these things are done. You know, kind of like I was saying earlier, like I can kind of see the wizard behind the screen now, and so I have a lot of forgiveness.
Speaker 1:And so if you have used these pain point like I, I get it Like I've been there, like I don't want somebody to like listen to this and be like oh my gosh, like I'm doing everything wrong, like you are doing things to the best of your ability at this stage of where you're at right now and the fact that you're listening to this is an invitation to like deepen into that practice, right? So I think forgiveness for where we've all been. Um, when it comes to marketing, an easy way for me to discern if I am rooted and grounded in what I'm saying is if I imagine I think that a lot of, uh, business coaches are like imagine your ideal client sitting in front of you. What would you say to them? Right, I don't just imagine my ideal client, I imagine the wisest part of my ideal client and what would I say to them? Because I don't want to be marketing to somebody's like most vulnerable tender, like imposter syndrome part of them. I want to be marketing to the person that is like that, like wise little kernel that's inside that we all have, and I want to be speaking to that part, which means that I'm actually like niching down pretty fucking hard, because that part is for many of us. It's like buried under all these different layers of these tantruming little kids and these, you know, imposter parts and the parts that feel insecure and the parts that don't feel like they're valued. And so if I am speaking to that part, I know that my marketing is ethical, because I'm not speaking to pain, I'm speaking to understanding.
Speaker 1:Um, and then, very similar to you, I came to the same sort of conclusion with with my own program, business Southwest mentorship that I cannot be sharing this as like prerecrecorded videos. I used to show them as pre-recorded videos and now I don't. Um, because exactly what you said, like we're opening stuff up and um and leaving people to sort of deal with it on their own, like I. I, my program wasn't a fully self-led program, it was like video curriculum and you come on group coaching calls, but what I found is that a lot of people get through the first module and then they kind of get stuck and then they aren't being given the like, right tools to move themselves forward, to mobilize in healthy ways. And so if that's the case, I need to take responsibility for my own program and change that and shift that, because there's so much more juice that comes in the next four modules and if people are getting stuck in the first module like, that's not doing them a service either.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And when people get stuck in the first module, like without awareness of their story around that and their nervous system and how that's being processed in their body, like I can imagine that that creates kind of a resistance in people to continue with modules two, three, four and five, because they're like so stuck on one that they like don't even know how to continue without maybe feeling behind or you know something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. How about as clients? How can we have discernment as clients when we are making decisions about programs and courses that we want to buy? You know, some of the things that just show up on our Instagram feed, Even just like following people.
Speaker 2:My first and probably only answer is to be in your body. When you are following these people, consuming this content, choosing a program or a coach or a course or something like that is like be in your body and notice how your nervous system is responding. Like, as you scroll through this person's videos, how's your nervous system responding as you're reading the copy on their sales page for that course, how is your body responding? And if your response in your body is one of fear, anxiety, contraction, wanting to fix yourself, feeling like whatever's happening with you is pathological in some way and like it's a problem that needs to be solved? Like I'm not saying don't hit the buy now button or don't follow them, but like let that be something that you notice and let that inform your next step. Um, you know I have a video on my Instagram that's. Like you know, a simple exercise is to go through everyone that you follow on social media, one account at a time, and notice how you feel in your body whenever you see their stuff. And if it brings up unworthiness, comparison, jealousy, uh, dysregulation, disappointment, your fight response because you think they're wrong and you want to tell them what you think is right or, like you know, whatever that brings up for you, um, is that authentically nourishing? You right, and I and I also think that I guess maybe an addendum to this, because I think it is related is like discerning the difference between what's nourishing and what's just stuff like.
Speaker 2:What's just stuff, like what's just filling the void, what's taking up the space but is empty. You know it's not nourishing to you, it's not supportive to you, it's just something you're consuming. You know it's like junk food on social media versus like really nourishing content that is actually supportive, that honors you as a whole person, in your sovereignty and in your authenticity, that welcomes your expression and like doesn't shame you for that or whatever. Like just being really in tune with your body. I mean, I have over 90,000 followers and I follow fewer than 40 people like that's on purpose. You know and sure there's an element of like. I don't want to spend tons of time on social media so I follow fewer people. But there's also an element of like. Once I follow these nourishing people, the desire to follow fluff and unfulfilling stuff is just not there. It's like once you've tasted a really amazing grass-fed steak with grass-fed butter, like getting a steak from a fast food restaurant is like you're like. No, why would I do that?
Speaker 1:You know, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what about you? I think it's very similar like advice to be in your body and, and you know, check in and see how your body feels when you're consuming their content. I'll also put in a little asterisk that whatever you're feeling is designed that way. So if you are feeling FOMO, scarcity, comparison, all those things, it is designed. Their content is specifically designed to make you feel that way, because that is what traditional pain point marketing teaches people how to do. They might not fully be aware of it, but if they're using the same templates that I was taught, if they're using the same strategies that I was taught, it is absolutely by design. Also, it's by design when you read someone's content or you're going through their content and you feel understood and like, oh my gosh, like that's exactly what I need to hear today, and you know how can this person be inside my brain and this person makes me feel safe and this person makes me feel nourished, like also know that that is by design and it takes conscious effort to create content like that. Yeah, and so like I think a. I totally agree with you in just choosing who you follow.
Speaker 1:I also have a very uh, low follower count.
Speaker 1:Um, because the people that I follow are essentially like my friends, people who have been on my podcast, and like my clients, because I want to see what they're doing, and so I think I follow like 140 people right now.
Speaker 1:And I will say, though, that I have two people that I follow very intentionally, and this is because I'm a mani-gen. My strategy is to respond, and so there's two ethical business people I'm going to put ethics in in a quotation marks that I follow off and on depending on the nervous system state that I'm in right now, because I see their stuff and I'm like, ooh, that's wrong and I want to respond. I see their stuff and I'm like, oh, that's wrong, and I want to respond, and they say that they're ethical, and then I look at their actions behind their words and I'm like how is that ethical? And so, sometimes, my content is responding to something that feels really triggering to me, but that is because it's like one of the things that works for my nervous system and for my human design type, because I get kind of fired up when I'm like don't, don't do that. Yeah, yeah, I think that's great, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I think that's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. And again, like for someone who is in a different nervous system state than you, like I've had people tell me that they purposefully follow people who trigger them and I'm like okay, that's fine. Like good for you, you know great, that seems expansive. And like if that gives you an opportunity to be curious and be faced with your triggers and like work them out in a safe way, cause you have a distance from this person, you don't know them personally, whatever. Like awesome, Um, but also whenever your leak in your ceiling is like crazy you know, there's a lot coming in, you don't have a lot of capacity.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's not the time to follow people who trigger you on purpose, you know. So like allowing yourself to be fluid with that and not rigid in any way is also really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, agreed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so I shared with you the other day and you said you had a longer response and then you never texted me back. But I shared with you about that Instagram conversation that I had with someone, so I had an Instagram conversation with a projector.
Speaker 2:She messaged me and she's like I'm a projector, you're a projector, oh my gosh. And then she starts telling me about this coach that she's been working with. And the more she's telling me about this coach, I'm like red flag, red flag, red flag, red flag. But I tried to stay curious and I tried to be like well, how do you feel about that? And I was driving in the car. Normally I don't have the time to have these long conversations in the DMS, but David was driving, I was writing in the car, so I had time to be on my phone and it was fine. But we had this this pretty, you know, 20 minute conversation probably. And I found out some stuff about this coach that I was like Jesus, like. So one of the things was is this coach was telling this woman not to put her prices anywhere publicly but to tell people the price when they were on the discovery call? And so she was like that's initially why she reached out. She was like I noticed that you have your prices everywhere.
Speaker 2:My coach has told me not to disclose my prices until I'm on the discovery call. Can you tell me why you post your prices? And I was like yeah, because I'm going to be transparent about that, because I know that money is a huge factor in people's decision-making and I don't want to keep the price hidden behind a discovery call. And then people get really excited to work with me and they feel really aligned and it feels great for them and they're so looking forward to it. And then I drop this number on them. That like makes them panic or like makes them have this huge wave of disappointment or grief or hopelessness or whatever. Like I just want to be transparent about it, you know from the get-go, because if they can't afford it, they're not going to schedule a discovery call with me. So like they're saving time, I'm saving time, it's not a fit whatever.
Speaker 2:And I was like and also I'm not ashamed of my prices Like there's no reason for me to hide them because I don't feel ashamed of them. Like I believe that that they are reflective of the value that I offer and the space that I hold and certainly I've been flexible about that with people and that feels good too. But like there's no reason for me to hide it because I'm not ashamed of it. Like it's not a secret that I feel like I need to keep. And she was just like, oh my gosh, I never thought of it that way.
Speaker 2:And I was like, well, why did your coach tell you not to put the prices and to wait until the discovery call? And she said that her coach's response was one, that's how she was taught in marketing class. And then two, because by the time people get on the call with her and she tells them the price, they already like her so much and want to work with her that the price doesn't matter. And I was like, or people are like in people pleasing and fawning states and they don't know how to say no, I can't afford that to her face on the call. So then they people please to the tune of several thousand dollars because they don't know how to say no to someone's face. They're not resourced in that way. And she was like, oh my gosh, I've done that exact thing. I have fond for thousands of dollars with coaches before.
Speaker 2:So it just started this interesting conversation. And then she shared more that, like this coach does air quotes, nervous system work, and I was like, oh interesting, she goes. Well, I think the kind of nervous system she does, nervous system work she does, is different from what you do, and I was like, well, what does she do? She was like, um, like infrared lights and plunging your face in ice cold water, and I was like, okay, well, the nervous system is way more complex than that. So we just had this really interesting exchange that let me know how freaking common it is for practitioners like this to be around with the whole like hiding the price, and they're just regurgitating what they learned in their marketing course and they're not actually trauma-informed, even if they say they are and like all that.
Speaker 2:So I am curious on your feedback about that, because we may have some practitioners and or clients listening who've had that experience yeah, well, I've had that direct experience and I've asked.
Speaker 1:It's so funny because one of the two practitioners that I was telling you about that I follow sometimes when my nervous system feels regulated enough to handle the minor triggers that come through. So one of them is a male nervous system coach and I signed up for signed up for some sort of like raffle and won like a group coaching call with him and was in this like group coaching call with, like I think, 25 other people. And my question was actually this exact question is I feel weird about not posting my prices on my page when you know for all my offers? And his response was well, if somebody is triggered by your price, then you have an opportunity in that moment to coach them on a sales call, and so why would you not take that opportunity? And for me, I list my prices for exactly the same reasons that you list your prices, which is transparency.
Speaker 1:I, like I'm a fairly busy woman and I want to make sure that, like, if I'm hopping on a connection call with somebody, it's more about fit and less about like, can you afford my work, um, and and so you know, like, listening to him, I was kind the like get a yes by the end of the sales call. It feels like very convincing energy. It feels like this person didn't actually jump on a call with me to be coached on their money ones, and so that's not the conversation that was set up. Like, I call my sales calls connection calls for a reason the connection calls there so that we can see if there's a connection and there's a fit. It's not a coaching call.
Speaker 1:I have had two instances where, um, I've had potential clients come on and they knew the price. Coming on, we established that, like you know, work wise and fit wise, it's a good fit. But they were feeling a bit of a money block around it, and so I have offered like a 30 minute coaching call to them for free to allow us to actually move through that and see if it's a sovereign yes or no at the end of a, an actual coaching call. And so I very purposely set that up as like a separate call, because I want there to be a distinction between hey, this is a call that we've set up to like connect and this is a call that we've set up to like connect and this is a call that we've set up to coach.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And they consented to the second call versus they're not. Just because they're hopping on a call with you for connection doesn't necessarily mean they're consenting to be coached as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So that's sort of my take on like pricing. I also noticed that, like when I am scrolling through people's offers, like when I have considered hiring coaches, quite frankly, like I get kind of annoyed when their price isn't listed because I know that most likely it's going to be at least a couple thousand dollars, likely it's going to be at least a couple thousand dollars. I don't have just like the ability to throw around $3,000 to $5,000 around like at any given moment in my life. I need time to be able to save up for that, for a purchase like that. And so you know, if they're doing a launch and they're like launch has like an open and shut date and it creates all this like, oh shit, like I need to come up with $5,000 now. Like that doesn't feel good to my nervous system.
Speaker 1:Versus, hey, this person's communicating with me that they're opening doors in four months or five months and I'm really interested in that program, so I would like to spend the next four or five months scrolling away a couple hundred dollars every month or a thousand dollars every month, so that I can then do that in a way that I feel safe in my nervous system. So I know that, even with my programs and my one-on-ones, like it's an investment, like it's pricey, like I get that, and so in that situation, like I want people to feel safe when they're saying yes to me, that they're not saying yes because they are getting this like feeling of like FOMO, or like like your your um conversation was saying, your person in the DMs was saying like oh, I'm fawning to this person.
Speaker 1:now I totally get that too. Like I once bought a scooter because I thought that the salesperson was doing such a good job and I wanted a scooter and I couldn't afford it. So I put it on my credit card and like fully regretted it later and it was like looking back on it like that was in my I don't know like mid twenties. It's like a total fawn response, you know. And so like I've been in those situations where it's like, oh, there's like this, like pressurized moment, like launches are hard, you guys, like launches are just innately going to be pressurized, like we don't need to create even more pressure on top of the like already pressurized system for both you as a practitioner and for the client. Like yeah, like why, why are we doing this to ourselves again? It's like we can unchoose some of that stress, and one of the ways that I unchoose that stress is by giving people as much information as they need to make a sovereign decision.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah. Making informed choices is making sovereign choices, and price is a big piece of that. Yeah, huge piece of that.
Speaker 2:Right that would be like can you imagine going through the real estate listings, since you just had this experience of buying condo and then buying land before that. Can you imagine going through all these real estate listings and like seeing a bunch of listings that you love and then actually going out to the property, touring the property and not knowing the whole time what the cost would be, and then at the end the realtor's like that's going to be a million dollars and you're like fuck, you know, like it was a waste of her time, it was a waste of your time, it was a waste of everyone's energy. And like I don't understand why it's okay to like post the prices of houses or, you know, trips or groceries or whatever, but when it comes to coaching, like for some reason we're not supposed to make that like obvious public information. I don't get it.
Speaker 1:Well it well. I mean, I think the obvious answer there is. Like you're, if you post a price, like in an open way, then you are taking out an opportunity to manipulate somebody only why it's never felt good to me to not post my prices yeah, yeah. I mean yeah, I think I had something else to say about that. Now I don't remember that's okay that's okay we cover it all.
Speaker 2:I covered yeah, context and burnout and listening to the body and the body's wisdom. We covered functional freeze. We covered ethical stuff, discernment, anything else that you wanted to say.
Speaker 1:There was one more thing about pricing. It's going to drive me crazy. Now I'm seeing sovereignty. It's gone. It'll be something else.
Speaker 2:Another conversation then. Yeah, oh, this is lovely. I feel like I got to expel some energy about this. I've been feeling like quite fight response about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I've noticed myself, the more I see this kind of marketing now that the nervous system is trendy and you know there's a dime, a dozen for, like practitioners who do somatic things and whatever like I've noticed myself feeling like very protective of, of like the collective, very protective of of like the collective, like of my followers, or like, like, like people in the in the space that are like seeking help.
Speaker 2:I've noticed myself like and obviously I can't save them, you know, but I'm just like, oh, I feel so like protective of you because, like I have enough experience to know that like this kind of timeline guarantee, you know, opening this can of worms with no space holding, like dysregulated pain point marketing, like I know that that's just going to if you buy into it, if you don't have discernment, and you buy into it, like it's just another time around the mountain for you and like maybe that's part of your journey and I don't have control over that. You are a sovereign human being and you are allowed to make that choice for yourself. But like, oh, I want you to not do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean like I think you know we, we can't protect people, we can't save people, but we can educate people and we can ask people like, hey, like what does that feel like in your body?
Speaker 1:One of the things, like on the concept around discernment that we've been talking about here is like one of the red flags is like when somebody says we can heal your nervous system in a month, yeah, absolutely, when we put a timeline on our nervous system. The reason why my program is a year long is because we are working through your at the pace of your nervous system and nervous systems, because we've been like pushed and hustled and like pressured. It takes a minute for us to take, take the pressure off, and then the nervous system is like, oh, you're actually gonna listen to me. Like what, you're gonna actually listen to me. Like it takes a minute for your nervous system to actually understand that we're trying to listen. And so like if somebody is promising that they're going to push you through a program in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days and they're going to heal like all of your childhood wounds in that time, like big fucking red flag.
Speaker 2:So like please have discernment around that yeah, I mean, and like, I echo that completely and I like I'll just say my own experience that I talked about with the buzzing ball of yarn in my pelvis is like I know all the things that I know, I do all the work that I do, I hold the space I hold, I do this with myself and I still had something that I didn't know how to face on my own and I didn't know how to get to it. And so you can know all the things and still need that co-regulatory, like trauma-informed, slow, spacious space holder. And so, yeah, like I can't even imagine if somebody had been like, oh yeah, we're going to get that buzzing ball of yarn out of your pelvis in 30 days, you know, like to me that would have set me up to be disappointed when it didn't happen. Yeah, you know, cause what if my body wasn't ready to let that go after 30 days? You know, I worked with a client yesterday and she had some big somatic movements and we processed a lot and one of the sensations that she had when we first started the call was she felt like a, like a suit of armor, like the the torso part of a suit of armor was like around her torso but it had like rose thorns on the inside.
Speaker 2:That was like poking at her yeah, super uncomfortable. And she also had like the feeling that there was like a, a cleaver like slicing through her neck. And she also had like the feeling that there was like a cleaver like slicing through her neck and she had a sensation that like a bag was over her head and we worked with each sensation individually and by the end of the call the bag sensation was gone, the cleaver sensation was gone, but the suit of armor wasn't ready to release yet. But we were able to create some space between her and the suit of armor. So it's still there, but she's not physically in that discomfort anymore and like that was all her nervous system could tolerate yesterday.
Speaker 2:And so yeah, it was a fuck ton of work yesterday, so like that that's. Another thing, too is letting the client's nervous system decide the pace that you work at. And then, being conservative as a practitioner, that even if you're still, there was still 30 minutes left in our call. After we got the meat cleaver in the bag off of her head, we still had 30 minutes left in our call and I asked her like do you feel like you are ready to process the suit of armor around you or do you feel like that's enough for the day? And she's like I think I feel like that's enough for the day. And I was like, yeah, me too.
Speaker 2:Like that's a lot to integrate and to have just gone through and you know. So like again, we have to check our egos as practitioners and when we start trying to push so that we can prove what a great coach we are or we can, you know we got to check our egos at the door because it just doesn't have a place in this work with people. Like we have to learn to be unattached to pace timelines. Be unattached to pace timelines, progress, et cetera. We have to be unattached.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Well, my dear thank you for spending this time getting fired up with me about this. I have a feeling that we're going to keep talking about it.
Speaker 2:Probably so.
Speaker 1:So stay, folks, we'll see you next time we get to record. Actually, the next time I think I get to see you is here, lindsay's coming to visit.
Speaker 2:I'm going to be in your physical presence. It's going to be amazing. I'm going to be on your land. I'm going to be petting your horses and your dog. I'm so excited, me too. I'm really excited, me too. I'm really excited. Yeah, see you soon. All right, bye-bye.