Discover how to harness the power of your breath with Lauren, an embodiment coach and breathwork facilitator, who joins us in a conversation that might just change the way you handle life's stressors. Through our discussion, you'll learn about the transformative effects of breathwork on anxiety, depression, and stress management. Lauren leads us through the importance of intentional breathing in creating an inner sanctuary and offers practical advice for weaving breathwork into your daily life to maintain a balanced and controlled nervous system.
Feel the weight of the world lift off your shoulders as we delve into the necessity of play and the art of checking in with ourselves each morning. Together with Lauren, we examine the physical implications of our culture's relentless pace and the power we wield to alter the state of chronic stress that plagues so many of us. By embracing both the energy and tranquility provided by play, we open up a discussion on the essential role a balanced nervous system plays in welcoming both motivation and calm into our lives.
Wrap up this enlightening experience as we navigate the dance of emotional processing, confronting the highs and lows with grace and resilience. Lauren shares her insights on the significance of movement in releasing pent-up emotions, and we offer strategies for listeners eager to embark on a journey of emotional release. The episode culminates with a focus on fostering a healthy nervous system, sprinkled with joy and gratitude, leaving you with the tools to ride the waves of life with newfound strength and composure.
Connect with us here: https://purepossibilities.net for information about Mindset Magic, FREE monthly group coaching and information regarding 1:1 personalized coaching!
......... While I'm here to share suggestions and insights to educate, inspire, and support you on your journey, it's crucial to note that I'm not a psychologist or a medical doctor. I don't provide professional health or medical advice. If you're dealing with a psychological or medical condition, it's important to seek help from a qualified health professional. Your well-being is the top priority, so make sure to connect with the right experts if you need that extra support.
Discover how to harness the power of your breath with Lauren, an embodiment coach and breathwork facilitator, who joins us in a conversation that might just change the way you handle life's stressors. Through our discussion, you'll learn about the transformative effects of breathwork on anxiety, depression, and stress management. Lauren leads us through the importance of intentional breathing in creating an inner sanctuary and offers practical advice for weaving breathwork into your daily life to maintain a balanced and controlled nervous system.
Feel the weight of the world lift off your shoulders as we delve into the necessity of play and the art of checking in with ourselves each morning. Together with Lauren, we examine the physical implications of our culture's relentless pace and the power we wield to alter the state of chronic stress that plagues so many of us. By embracing both the energy and tranquility provided by play, we open up a discussion on the essential role a balanced nervous system plays in welcoming both motivation and calm into our lives.
Wrap up this enlightening experience as we navigate the dance of emotional processing, confronting the highs and lows with grace and resilience. Lauren shares her insights on the significance of movement in releasing pent-up emotions, and we offer strategies for listeners eager to embark on a journey of emotional release. The episode culminates with a focus on fostering a healthy nervous system, sprinkled with joy and gratitude, leaving you with the tools to ride the waves of life with newfound strength and composure.
Connect with us here: https://purepossibilities.net for information about Mindset Magic, FREE monthly group coaching and information regarding 1:1 personalized coaching!
......... While I'm here to share suggestions and insights to educate, inspire, and support you on your journey, it's crucial to note that I'm not a psychologist or a medical doctor. I don't provide professional health or medical advice. If you're dealing with a psychological or medical condition, it's important to seek help from a qualified health professional. Your well-being is the top priority, so make sure to connect with the right experts if you need that extra support.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the show, lauren. I'm so excited that you're here and I am excited about all of the goodness that I believe you're going to share with us, because, an embodiment coach, therapeutic breathwork facilitator, nervous system trainer and clinical therapist, how can you not have loads of goodness for us?
Speaker 2:
Well, I am excited to be here. Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, absolutely so. Would you mind sharing? Obviously, I just shared some of your credentials, but how did you get involved in this line of work?
Speaker 2:
Oh, it has been a journey.
Speaker 2:
So I think I got into therapy and to mental health years ago because, you know, I'm not sure why exactly that started, but I just couldn't really think of anything else that I would do, and so I went the route of clinical social work and over the last decade, plus being a licensed therapist, have really just been finding over and over again that talk therapy only gets people so far, and so over the years started pulling in more like somatic therapy kind of options, and that led me directly to breathwork and through my own practice of breathwork and working with other people just finding a home, finding safety in their bodies, and watching anxiety and depression and like significantly reduced for people in somewhat like like really rapid time frame sometimes.
Speaker 2:
And I was like, wow, this is just like absolutely amazing. And even for myself just watching my stress level go from 100, like, and just kind of notching down and down and down until like okay, like you know, I'm still stressed. Nobody's going to get rid of stress, nobody's going to get rid of anxiety or depression, because those are like normal things too, but you just deal with them a lot better. And so I just keep coming back to embodiment, like, oh, it's embodiment, it's embodiment, get in your body. So here I am, merging all of them and like just wanting to share it with everybody.
Speaker 1:
So people are unfamiliar with breathwork. Could you describe how it works?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so there's different kinds of breathwork. There's a lot of different styles, there's different intensities, various schools of thought when it comes to what breathwork should be or could be or is. But breathwork itself in general is just a way to take this thing we do every day, which is breathe, and make it conscious. So where we're being mindful, we're being very intentional with our breath and with our intention we're getting to direct where our breath goes and how our breath goes and how we connect with our body using our breath. So our breath becomes this vehicle, this bridge to get at the root of what's going on in the body, various like emotional spaces, emotional blocks. It's, yeah, what is breathwork?
Speaker 1:
It's conscious, intentional work with the breath, but not just like stopping and taking a deep breath. It's a real intentional, like starting from the diaphragm and going up or how like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
So definitely not just taking a deep breath. There are lots of deep breaths in breathwork practice, most definitely. But yes, breathwork is like it's work.
Speaker 1:
Right, it says work right, it's right in the name there.
Speaker 2:
Right, so it can be hard. It doesn't have to be hard, though I think with the training that I had. It is very trauma informed. It's very tight rated, like we're not here to hit you with hours of intense breathing and activating the body. So breathwork sessions look different just depending on what somebody's wanting. It can be more activating, it can be really energizing. We can also tailor it to be just very soothing, very relaxed, very calm, very meditative. Either way, you're getting taken somewhere else, mentally and emotionally. It's an experience.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it sounds like it. So how frequently do you recommend that people have a breathwork?
Speaker 2:
session so you don't need to do breathwork, intense breathwork, every day. I wouldn't really recommend that, especially if you're really working to address a lot of emotional stuck points Like that can be a lot. It's really overwhelming. Potentially I would recommend daily having some kind of shorter practice, just because it gets us in our body, it gets us connected to who we are.
Speaker 2:
For longer breathwork sessions where you're going to be breathing for an extended amount of time. I mean you can do it every couple of days, once a week, and you're going to get benefit from it. You're going to get benefit from it if you do it once a month. You're going to get benefit from it if you do it once a year. I definitely recommend more than that to keep the benefits going because in this embodiment work in emotional processing, de-stressing, energizing, whatever your goal is, using breathwork to be embodied, it's a journey, right, it's not a destination. We're never going to hit a point where we're like, oh, I don't get stressed anymore. Wouldn't that be nice? Yeah, not in this world, that's for sure. It's not going to happen.
Speaker 1:
Some of the information that you had sent to me before we met you had mentioned actually no. A question that I have is how do we know if we have a dysregulated nervous system, because you talked about doing work with a dysregulated nervous system. How do we know if we're out of alignment and we're dysregulated?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, well, one, you can probably just assume that you do.
Speaker 2:
Most people are dysregulated Most people are pretty dysregulated emotionally and that's definitely not a judgment. We just get dysregulated Signs that we're dysregulated, that our nervous system. We'll bring it back to our nervous system because it's not that you're dysregulated, your nervous system is. Are we irritable? Are we anxious, depressed? That's more than just a normal fluctuation of anxiety or depression again, because those things can be normal, but it's more chronic states. Do I always feel on edge? Do I just tend to be irritable all of the time? Digestive issues are actually a sign of dysregulation nervous system.
Speaker 2:
Wise Feeling, I mean literally out of alignment. Your body can be out of alignment and we can have different pains. If we get sick a lot, we can have an out of alignment nervous system because our immune system is also involved in all of that. I like to think when we are regulated, when we're in alignment more with our highest self, we're fairly calm, we're fairly curious about things, so we don't really make a lot of snap judgments or if we do, it's passing Our brains just do that. Knowing you're dysregulated is actually hard to tell.
Speaker 2:
Even with those signs, we in this culture and the society we are accustomed to feeling bad. We walk, almost addicted to it. That's not our fault. This world we live in has set us up to be very like go, go, go, go, go, go go. We don't stop. You mentioned earlier, is breath work, just taking a deep breath? Yes, at its foundation, because we don't stop to do that either.
Speaker 2:
It's often not until we get really sick or something major happens that we really even take stock of. How am I actually okay, how am I really? Because we wake up and we're already tired. We feel stress immediately because we have a to-do list 20 miles long. Some of that's just really real. We have a lot to do, I've got kids, I've got a job, I've got things to do. I wake up and I'm like, oh, here we go. We're not taught to take stock of that. It's those big things like big accidents or big illnesses, big things that make us finally say, okay, how am I really? We feel so stressed we end up. I don't know the exact statistics, but a lot of people go to the hospital with anxiety or chronic stress because it's impacting their body so much. It's easy to tell if we're looking for it, but we're not looking for it because we're so used to just being uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:
And in that high stress mode all the time.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
And how many people walk around with back pain, shoulder pain, and we just say, ugh, this is just how it is.
Speaker 1:
And to know that we actually have the power to change some of those things. And yeah, I mean, one of the things I talk to my listeners a lot about is finding the things that feel good to really lift your spirit, lift your energy and focus on that. So how do you go about connecting to yourself on a daily basis?
Speaker 2:
So I mentioned, right, we get up in the morning and we're like what do I got to do? I'm already stressed because I'm already behind, because I already have so much to do and I should have gotten up an hour ago. But I'm tired, I don't want to. So I like to start my morning really intentional and before I get out of bed, if I can right. We're not perfect. Mornings aren't always perfect, but mornings are never perfect, I should say. If you have kids, it's always fun.
Speaker 1:
That is so true.
Speaker 2:
So, just being really intentional, as intentional as I can be in the morning, I try to, before I get out of bed, give myself a moment to check in. How am I Like, did I have stressful dreams? Like sometimes, right, and we wake up and we're like just in a state already. And so just to check in in the morning and let myself breathe a little bit and actually like land back in my body, before I like deliriously jump out of bed and try to start my day. And I do find things go so much smoother when I don't make myself rush.
Speaker 1:
When you take just that few minutes even to really just connect. It's interesting that you talk about asking yourself like, how am I really? That's something that I've kind of been doing lately. Really, how am I? How am I doing today? How am I feeling? How am I? You know and I think it's important that people do that check in, because there is always so much going on around us and chaos and go, go, go, go, go, and but it's like just stopping and really taking a second or a minute to check in and connect.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah it's. I tell people I work with all the time and like it's that simple and it's that hard. Yeah, like it is so hard to do those simple things and to make that a habit. And you know, again, it's our culture, where we are often just taught that that's the way to go. Like we have to be stressed, so we keep going, which that is actually like true, we do need some stress. It's actually beneficial to have some stress. It helps us, it's motivation, it's energy. Yeah, we need our stress system in our body. So it's not as simple as I need to be in my calm nervous system and not my stressed out nervous system. No, we need both. Like there's actually combinations of both. It can be quite lovely. So that's interesting.
Speaker 1:
I don't know that I've ever heard anybody say that we need to have healthy levels of stress. So why is that?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so our sympathetic nervous system gets us going right. We think of it mostly as our fight or flight, and so we think of it as anxiety and stress and like, ooh, that's bad, I shouldn't be there, I need to be in my parasympathetic or sometimes it's called the ventral vagal part of our nervous system. But stress is motivating and so if we think of like having deadlines and things right, like we need to get things done, we need to pay attention while the baby's eating so the baby doesn't choke on something we gave Right, stress helps us like stay on top of things and it keeps us going, and part of our nervous system is actually responsible for how we socialize. So that's really important. As a human, none of us live in a bubble, right? Sometimes we might wish we did.
Speaker 1:
We don't.
Speaker 2:
So play is just a huge example of a mix of your nervous system states. So when you're in a play activity and again I'll just use kids as an example, because it's just relevant in my life right now when we play with our kids or play with anybody, I suppose, have fun. We need to always call it play. But we are energized, right, and that is our sympathetic nervous system. That gives us the energy to move around and just be active. But we are also in that ventral vagal because we're calm, we're connecting and that's how our social interactions are using our nervous system or our nervous system is used.
Speaker 2:
I don't know what came first, but so our sympathetic nervous system is important, it is necessary, it gets things going, it gives us energy. I'm not certain we could get out of bed in the morning if we didn't have that sympathetic energy. And, yeah, when it's mixed with that ventral vagal, calm, love, we get our play state. So we can just have fun. Because if we were only in the sympathetic and active, in that, there's kind of this anxiety and fear that's there when we mix in that ventral vagal, parasympathetic, like some people call it, the rest and digest. But when that's mixed with our sympathetic. We have this relaxed energy so we can actually let our guard down, have fun, laugh a little, be silly.
Speaker 1:
And really as often as we can get into that playful fun state. Sometimes I go to the park and I swing on the swings and I mean I don't have young children but I do things that you know when I'm by myself to just find that play and fun and find that balance.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I love that for you. I would love that for everybody. We don't play a lot as adults. We don't give ourselves permission to go to the park and have fun, like most of us grow up like only wanting to go to the park and have fun. Right. Priority number one. Like I want fun in my life and then it switches somewhere where we're like I don't have fun anymore.
Speaker 1:
Well, I think some of that comes from being afraid that people are going to judge us. You know, like there's some like I'm almost 50 years old and I'm at the park swinging on the swings you know, and I don't have any young kids, but I'm having a good time, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
There are judgments, unfortunately, but it's like only from people not having fun.
Speaker 1:
Exactly, exactly. And then I got to the point where I'm like I just don't care. You know I'm having a good time and it's fine with me, so yeah.
Speaker 2:
Well, and as you said earlier, you know talking to your listeners about like connecting with what feels good. Like if it feels good and it's not hurting anybody, I'll say like it's wonderful.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's funny, like I don't remember a lot about my childhood but I definitely have been reconnecting back to some of those things that are fun and playful. And you know, when we do look at children and they're having fun because there's no beliefs and all of this stuff that's been put on them, that we have as adults, that have come on to us over all these years, and you know it's such a great way to just reconnect, I guess, with your inner child or whatever.
Speaker 2:
So yeah, yeah, reconnect to that. Like I don't care, this feels good, it's fun. I have this. I don't remember a lot about my childhood necessarily either, but like bits and pieces it comes back. But I have this one memory of like walking home from school in like fifth or sixth grade, and it must have been like almost summer because it was pretty warm outside and I remember like I was wearing jeans and a shirt and I just, like my sister and I like threw our bags down, like got the hose out, like plugged the sprinkler in, and we're like playing in the front yard in the sprinkler in our jeans, like didn't even bother going in the house and changing. I'm like like would I do that right now? I mean I could, but there would be a lot more work involved in my process. Like okay, is that really what I wanted? Like just let go right, plug the sprinkler in.
Speaker 1:
I totally get that because, even like with the park and the swings, it took me a few times going on walks to decide that I was going to do that and not care what anybody thought. Yeah. Yeah, and then our little voice that's like go play, yeah, go play, go play, go have some time yeah.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. And then our, you know, nay say our voice like ooh yeah. What would people think?
Speaker 1:
Right, yeah, I actually ran into it. There was a guy there with his daughter and I was like don't mind me, I'm just swinging on this way, and I said just trying to remember what it's like to be a kid, and he's like, and I was leaving and he was like I really admire that, like yeah, so sometimes when we find the play and the fun, we inspire other people to do the same.
Speaker 1:
So I mean, and he was even there with the kids, so he could have easily gotten on the swings and not look like a crazy person.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, no one's judging there? Yeah, nobody's judging you when you're there with your kids, yeah Well, and that's a good point too that I want To. When we're in our joy, in our authenticity, just like letting ourselves be, that's a contagious thing for other people. So when you're in that play state, when you're in like a ventral, vagal nervous system state, other people respond to that and they see that and admire it, right. I appreciate that. He was just able to even connect with that truth for himself. Yeah, it seems like it feels good.
Speaker 1:
Well, yeah, and then we're giving other people permission that they might feel like they need to do that on their own because they might not feel safe enough to do that you know bold enough.
Speaker 2:
Right. Yeah, it's like at a party nobody goes to get food until the one person Right To get food first Like okay, it's safe, I can go. Why would you do?
Speaker 1:
that I would do that.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think there's such fear of judgment and it's part of our stress response. It's natural also. The longing being accepted is a basic human need. Essentially, we need other people to care for us and so growing up, we often get little messages as kids and a lot of this is totally not like malintentioned by our parents and caregivers. But we get praised for not being our authentic self, for not expressing our emotions, for not doing something that seems out of line, and these are all like societal judgments, right Of like, don't take too much, like, be quiet, sit still. We get praised for those things that aren't even natural, necessarily for adults. We've all just programmed ourselves to fit in, but oftentimes when we are fitting in, we are not being our authentic self Right. So you could be starving at this party and like just keep looking Like waiting for that person to go.
Speaker 2:
Like can I go over there? It doesn't feel safe yet. And what doesn't feel safe? Because obviously it's out, it's safe, right Go eat it.
Speaker 2:
That's what it's there for. What would it be there if you couldn't have any? But what doesn't feel safe is that like it feels wrong because that's in our programming to need permission, explicit permission. Essentially, that's not fair. And yeah, there's like etiquette right, we've got some rules we need to follow, right. Like, certainly a lot of the things that our nervous system has been conditioned to fear is not something we actually need to worry about. Yeah, so like how?
Speaker 1:
do we? How do we move through that and work past that and change? I mean, I guess it's just each of us living in our authenticity and giving people permission to do the same that starts to change that.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and we often have to. We have to heal that emotional space, we have to heal that wound in our bodies. So, like, come back to the embodiment, right, we can't really talk our way through that one. I mean, we could, in a way, be like I'm going to challenge myself to share first at this women's circle, or I'm going to be the first one to go get a hamburger at the barbecue or whatever. We can cognitively tell ourselves these things, but like, when the time comes to go do it, and we're just in our head going like, okay, you got to do this, and like we're paralyzed, like I've had this experience in different situations in which, like, like, I want to talk but I'm not opening my mouth. What is happening? It's because there is, there is an emotional stack, point, there's a trauma of sorts, and we store that in our body and so we can't most of the time, we're not going to get through it until we've moved that through our bodies and moved on from it, because it's paralyzing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, because if something for our nervous system has gotten to the point where it's like that's not safe to do, that, it's not safe to speak up, right, how many of us don't ask for what we want in so many areas of our lives, because I don't want to upset people, I don't want to be wrong. So many reasons to not say anything, even when, cognitively, like it's okay, I can say that, like nope, my mouth's not opening. So, being intentional, being conscious of it and being really open to working with that and establishing this sense of safety in our own bodies that it's okay to feel the fear associated with it, it's okay to feel the potential pain of somebody disagreeing with you or of saying not the right thing when you know just like a simple example of like you know, someone asks you what that actor's name is or something and you don't say anything because you're afraid you'll be wrong. Like what's going to happen if you're wrong?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, what's the worst that could happen, right?
Speaker 2:
There's not always a lot of consequences, but the fear there is still, like I don't want to look dumb or stupid, or we have all of these stories associated with things, and so when we can be aware of all of that, so it does take a good deal of awareness and that willingness and openness to be with yourself, to find those fears, and you can use breathwork right. Breathwork is a great way to target those things, to breathe into them, to make space for them and honestly I'll say like a huge key factor is you have to have acceptance for that part of you.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
You're never going to hate away or shame away part of your behavior because it's your nervous system responding like hating yourself, judging yourself. That's not really going to be helpful. So learning that piece of acceptance and understanding like then we get through it.
Speaker 1:
Right, and then really learning how to sit in that discomfort and how it feels in your body, right, yeah, yeah, and move through it. I mean I know that when I do that and the next time it's a little bit easier, the next time it's a little bit easier and just really learning how to sit through that and let it be uncomfortable, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
One of the biggest motivators for us as humans is avoidance of aversive stimuli. So we don't like to be uncomfortable, it's not a thing that our mind sits well with, so we will do whatever it takes, and unconsciously right. This is where we have that like retraining kind of of our unconscious. Some people call it like reprogramming, but I kind of like to think of it as like once we like heal the wounds we've collected over our lifetime. We're not really reprogramming because we're just coming back to our actual like open state, I suppose, of that curiosity, that calm, that sense of like I'm okay and so it's always that journey again, right? So, as you're saying, it gets easier maybe every time and it's probably never going to get to a point where we don't think about that or we're not re-triggered into that way of being or thinking or that pattern because it's in there. So it's just that constant daily. What am I willing to face and sit in? Can I be uncomfortable just for moments? Because that's the thing, right, it's not actually for that long.
Speaker 1:
No, you're right, it's literally just moments. It's moments.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, like when we actually allow ourselves to go with the discomfort to be in something that, yeah, we don't have to want it still, but when we're open to it and just let it be, it's often like a couple of minutes at most that an emotion is going to be there, that that discomfort is going to be there, because when we stop fighting, it is really when our nervous system is like oh okay, this isn't a problem, great.
Speaker 1:
And then sometimes it doesn't feel as bad as you anticipated. It's just our belief about it and how bad it's really going to be and how afraid we have decided that we are about it. When we move through it it's maybe not as bad.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, it's usually not as bad. Yeah, most of the time Not as bad, not as scary. There are exceptions to that rule, for sure.
Speaker 2:
Yeah absolutely Nothing's perfect. But it's also like I'm just thinking, like, as we're saying that right, being like maybe scared for a performance or something or having those nervous jitters, and then like let's say you totally do blow it and you're like fall all over the place or something like that's still okay because ultimately nobody really like what you know, I guess, unless you're trying to be like a prima ballerina and that was your shot with I don't know somebody from a fancy ballet company coming to watch you like then that sucks right, right, that is stressful. But when you know, when we fear the stress is usually when it gets bad, right? Yeah, so we'll probably mess up really bad if we're going with this example because we're so stressed about not messing up.
Speaker 1:
Right, rather than just allowing it to flow, and yeah, so I wrote down something that you had said before clearing the emotional stack points.
Speaker 2:
Is that what it is?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, from the body to plug into the infinite energy source and understand human experience, so we can be present and learn to dance with the flow of life's experiences.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah, I love that, I love dancing yeah.
Speaker 1:
Because it really it is a dance and it's really getting into the flow of the ups and downs and just dancing our way through it right.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, literally and figuratively.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
So dancing your way through it fully recommend back to play. Yeah, dancing is really fun. If you just let yourself go, it can be awesome. But yeah, I think the flow of life is it's ups and downs, it's pain and it's pleasure, it's light and it's dark. There's going to be times that are more light, that are more flowy, and there's going to be times where there's more stress. But ultimately it's balanced and when we can balance ourselves within that and just kind of be aware we have so much more ease. We don't have to have it easy to have ease, and I just love that distinction because you don't have to have no stress, you have a stressful life, but if you can learn to process that emotion.
Speaker 2:
So the emotional stuck points that I would be referring to are when we like hold on tight and clamp down and try not to feel certain emotions or sensations because we're so uncomfortable with it. Think of your body like a big filing cabinet, like for emotions, for pain. Usually it's not the good things we store, because we're not wired to want to store, or feel like we need to store positive things, because we just let those ones come because we're like oh, I like this. So the more we put into our filing cabinet because we don't want to feel it, the more stuck things get.
Speaker 2:
And honestly, there are a lot of evidence-based knowledge that our emotions affect ourselves physically, whether it's chronic stress and how that messes up your gut, your digestion. Migraines can be just chronic stress when there's no other physical indication. So whenever we have these physical things going on that doctors are like I don't know, it doesn't look like you should be having pain there. Like I will say at least some of the time right, I'm not a doctor, so I don't know all about it, but more often than not we're attaching to pain somewhere and it's unconscious.
Speaker 2:
So it's not that it's not real or it's not that it's like in your head, but when we attach to it, when we try to deny it, I guess, and fight against it, is when we get ourselves into trouble and get things stuck. And so, as we were talking about just that willingness to feel into the discomfort, to sit in the discomfort, to sit in pain, it comes and it goes, we can allow it to flow through us rather than just stay stuck. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Playing Tony Donnalyst.
Speaker 2:
And there's different, like you know, pain in our shoulders or shoulder blades. Our neck is often associated with this burden, right, because like the weight on our shoulders, and usually that's emotional. And also we can correct that with body changes, with posture, right, if we're carrying a lot of tension and we're just like rounding our back and shoulders all the time we can, we can release a lot just by moving our body differently. So there's lots of different ways to have like physical therapies that can help move emotions through. Even you can get a massage and start sobbing because your massage therapist like gets in a certain spot and like, well turns out, you have a lot of stuck emotions there, yeah, and so like let it flow, let it come out. It's actually a wonderful gift.
Speaker 1:
It doesn't always work out like that, so sometimes we need to be more intentional with letting go being intentional and I think also just the awareness, the awareness of all of it. So what would you recommend? Let's say somebody's you know wanting to feel better and they're feeling stuck and they're feeling like their nervous system is dysregulated. What would you recommend being the first step that they take?
Speaker 2:
Pay attention right, be intentional with, with how aware you are, Nonjudgmentally, of course, like we don't want to go through our day being like like I'm, like we're not judging ourselves, we're just paying attention and starting to just practice releasing things, like laying around with it, like try breath, breath work, try stretching right. Like go to yoga, do something that is going to be different, pay attention to your posture. When we start to get intentional with ourselves and to be open with moving those things through, we can start to listen to our bodies. And this is just one of the reasons I love breath work so much is that we let go with our mind where we're not thinking through this, like I heard this wonderful quote before it's that our body thinks in feels, it thinks in feels. So our mind thinks in words, our body thinks in feels. So when we can just feel and not think about it, that's the sweet spot there.
Speaker 2:
And like a breath work practice, you know you're going to get into the feeling if, like, if you can keep practicing and let go with your mind, we're never going to like the myth of meditating, of like clearing your mind. That's like never going to happen. You're not going to clear your mind. Nobody is here. I don't know what that would mean if you had, like, no thoughts, like I feel, like that's. If you've had no thoughts, come talk to me.
Speaker 1:
I know Seriously it's going on, but I think that's what that stops people so much from meditation or maybe even breath work, you know, because it's like they think that they have to actually stop their mind, actually shut it off, and that's just not. That's not really a thing.
Speaker 2:
It's not really a thing, not realistic, it's not even necessary, like we don't have to stop our mind. We just have to learn how to like anchor ourselves down into our bodies, and that is by feeling. And so, like I said before, like your breath can be a vehicle, your breath can be the bridge from your mind to your body, and when you are in your body, when you're embodied, you can just let yourself do the things that your body innately knows to do. So we, we can let our body dance it out or move it out, or we can like, if that's what my body is asking for, I can like make weird sounds, and it's fine. It's our mind that stops our body, because the fears, the judgments, like fears of judgments. Really, I don't want to look weird. What will people think if I'm making guttural noises and like, and I don't say, who cares what other people think, other people are going to judge you. I'm just going to say that, and it's fine, you swing on the swings, right?
Speaker 1:
Yep.
Speaker 2:
It doesn't matter what that person over there is thinking, they're just jealous anyway, exactly. They just want to play and they don't feel like they can.
Speaker 1:
They don't feel like they can yeah.
Speaker 2:
But, yeah, our body knows, like, it knows what it wants to do, and I think one of the fun things about being aware and paying attention is that you start to notice the things that your body wants to do more. And it's entertaining a little bit. I try to get my clients all the time to like, like, shake with me, right, shake it out. Yeah, like, just move your body and shake. And 90% of people in my office like won't do it. Like they, they can't allow themselves to shake. Some people can, but I take a deep breath a lot just because, like, I think I've trained my nervous system Like, like, that just feels good. But once I take a deep breath I have a really hard time not shaking Because my body's like, oh yeah, like, let's like let's go.
Speaker 2:
So I I will often like take deep breaths, like with clients and things at work, and I just I always have to explain like, like this is just like my body, just like is asking for this? What's your body asking for? And again like it. It takes people a while to want to do it because it really feels silly, but like, I'm like, all right, well, I feel good.
Speaker 1:
Well, and you doing it is kind of giving them permission to do the same, right, yeah, like opening, inviting them, inviting them to do it. So imagine in your breath, work classes, it's very similar, right that you're giving people that invitation to just shake it out and be and be silly.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, let it come like in breath work and I will say it is totally fine if you want to have this stillest breathwork practice and you don't want to move. But if that's the case, I hope that is like the stillness that your body's asking for and not that you're like I don't want to look weird doing this. Like you know, I'll say can we just all look weird together? Yeah, I mean I've had breathwork sessions that I've participated in that like I don't want to move, like my body feels good being still except for the breath, and I've also had breathwork sessions where I'm like I'm going to just wiggle the whole time.
Speaker 2:
I'm like moving something out, or sometimes you can get tingly fingers and hands and feet and different physiological things happen with breathwork, just because we're altering like our physiology when we breathe differently. So it's not dangerous but it makes us want to move a little bit. I mean I've had breathwork sessions in which, when they're in person, it's nice because as a facilitator or as a participant, it's nice when someone can come up and support you physically with touch, like to help you release things. But it's all back to the point I went on a little tangent there, that's okay, it was a beautiful tangent.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, invitator for me.
Speaker 2:
I'll like listen to your body. What does your body want? Does it want to move? Great Like in the town where I live, there's frequently this young man I don't know how old he is Like on the corner, like maybe waiting for the bus. I don't know, maybe he's just standing on the corner, but he's always dancing.
Speaker 1:
There's a guy by my house that does that too, I'll be driving down the road and he's like dancing and moving and I'm like I want to be that guy.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I know. Every time I see him I'm like I feel your joy, man. Yes, you get common. If I didn't have to get home and make dinner, I'm tempted to join you. Let's just dance.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it's again that invitation for people to be themselves and feel in their bodies and do all the things.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and like are people judging them on the corner dancing Sure?
Speaker 1:
I'm sure some are, I'm definitely not. That is awesome that you feel so good about yourself that you can go do that and not care what anybody thinks.
Speaker 2:
That level of authenticity right, when you see that and you're like, oh, like, yeah, I feel good because you feel good, yeah, like that's amazing, so contagious, so contagious. Yeah, and that's why I love this work, because I really believe when we heal ourselves, we're healing other people too. And maybe that's through permissioning, maybe it's just vibes and energy, right, I don't know. There's lots of ways we can influence people. I think it's a combination of all of it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah. And so like, yeah, why not heal myself? Why not heal yourself? Because it's just going to have ripple effects. That's pretty awesome. But unfortunately, the other side of that is true as well. When we are not healed, when we are in our wounds and in our pain and stuck in that we've all been around that person, yeah, and then like, maybe we don't know why, but we're just like you can feel that energy.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, Like my body hurts now, yeah, the感じ of back pain is oh, almost got it. Do a little raising of our own energy, intentional comes back to that being aware, being intentional and just letting yourself go.
Speaker 1:
I love that. So if people want to connect with you, Lauren, how would we go about doing that?
Speaker 2:
You can find my website if you want. It is nurturedselforg. I am also on Instagram at the underscore nurtured, underscore self. That's a mouthful, but those are ways to connect with me and I think those are remain outlets at this moment in time. I would love to hear from people.
Speaker 1:
Do you have any offers available right now?
Speaker 2:
I do. I actually have a guide, if you will, of seven ways to soothe your nervous system and allow yourself to de-stress Seven easy ways. So probably some of the things we talked about here would be on that guide. But the idea is fast, simple, little things that are going to bring about micro shifts and oftentimes, when we're really stressed out, there's not going to be one thing we can do that's going to erase everything. But it's in practice, it's in the little things that we do, it's in the micro shifts that build up into the bigger healing. And so I've got that guide and that is available for anybody who wants to grab it.
Speaker 1:
Is that on your website, or is that something you can send me the link for and I can put it in the show notes? You?
Speaker 2:
can put the link in the show notes. It's also going to be on my website.
Speaker 1:
We'll put both of them there so it's easy access for everybody.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I want everyone to feel good in their bodies, to have a nervous system that can respond instead of reacting all of the time, so we can get better at managing through this crazy stressful life. Because that I'm sorry. I can't do anything about it. If we could, we would. Yeah, yeah, that would be like going upstream, finding the problem but I think that's an unsolvable one at least and learn how to manage our way through it this time, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
So until then, my mission is like let's get your nervous system healthy and find some fun. Find some fun. Yeah, it's really like that's what it's all about it is.
Speaker 1:
Thank you so much for spending time with us and sharing all of that it's I love it. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I learned a lot actually, and it's amazing. So thank you for coming on and sharing with us today.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it was definitely my pleasure and it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:
It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I will nerd out on the nervous system. Self-care Love it. Let's talk more.