Hello everyone.
Welcome.
Good evening.
We're just going to take a few seconds just to continue arriving just for the first minute.
I'm Jeremy.
I'm here in Atlanta,
Georgia.
Wherever this finds you in your day,
If you're at the end of it or at the beginning or in the middle.
Thank you for being here.
We're going to be together for about 45 minutes.
We're going to spend some time Learning about the nervous system,
We're going to spend a little time.
Doing a few experiments and getting to know our nervous systems a little bit better.
Um.
.
.
And how we can use it in our daily lives.
So before.
We do anything else.
I just want to offer a small reminder that there is no right way to do this.
This is a total come as you are session.
Arrive as you are.
We're not going to do anything to be good at this tonight.
We're not going to try to relax.
We're not even going to need to try to meditate well.
So we're just really going to need to be here is enough.
That's what we're shooting for.
So no performance.
And just continue arriving,
And as you're arriving wherever you are in your space,
Start to take in where you are in the environment.
Not necessarily scanning,
Just lightly taking in the temperature.
Any sounds?
Maybe they'll lie.
And just continue to settle and continue to arrive.
You see,
Most of us spend our days paying attention to everyone else,
Everything else around us.
I've got work going on,
Family.
And responsibilities and deadlines.
Notifications,
News.
Problems,
Tomorrow's problems,
Yesterday's tasks.
So tonight,
Let's take an opportunity to notice ourselves inside of those things.
So if you'd like,
Drop one word in the chat about how you're arriving tonight.
It could be stress.
It could be busy.
It could be hopeful.
It could be delighted,
Curious.
I'm seeing calm come in.
Be grateful.
This is just whatever's true for you.
You need to be relaxed.
These are all wonderful.
There's no right answers here.
So.
.
.
Fearful,
Upset.
Curious.
All,
All,
All welcome.
All the feelings are welcome.
So let's begin.
With a small choice.
Um.
.
.
We're going to do something with our hands to start.
So oftentimes,
I work in brain and spine surgery,
And one of the things that we monitor a lot in the brain is where the hands live.
And the hands actually have a lot of real estate in the brain because they have a lot of nerves.
So we can use them as a simple way to start listening to our body and also give us some simple choices about what we're doing.
Sometimes we don't realize that we have these choices right in front of us.
Experiment as we get started here.
Um,
Just try it with your palms.
Either do a palms down.
Or a palms up.
No right choice.
And just give it a sense,
Give it a breath.
One easy breath.
There's no correct way to do your breathing.
This is totally you.
Now.
Switch the position.
So if you had your palms down.
Dry your palms up.
And just get a simple breath there.
So this is giving our nervous system information.
Palms down.
Palms up.
Is a simple choice that we can use.
To guide ourselves into giving a signal to our nervous system.
You might sense a difference.
You might sense a temperature difference.
You might sense a texture difference.
You may not sense anything different.
They might feel the same.
This is just a moment to try to see one of these moments with our hands that have a lot of nerves and are also directly connected to our brain.
And how we can use them to start to come into our bodies.
So the other thing that we're going to choose real quick is take a.
.
.
Choice with your eyes.
And so your eyes are another direct input into the brain.
Your optic nerve is there.
Also,
It's directly connected into the back of side of your brain.
So there's just a lot of signals going there all the time.
Same with your hands.
So these places of our body are constantly sending signals back and forth.
And so what we can do with our eyes is we can use our eyelids to adjust how much input we have coming into our eyes,
And therefore our brains and our systems.
So there's a few ways to try.
You could try to take in the room as it is and gently gazing around and not necessarily focusing on anything in particular.
The next step would be a half.
Half down,
Letting your eyelids drop just a little.
And you could also let your eyelids drop all the way if that feels natural.
And just take a sense here,
And just take a breath.
Easy breath.
And so here's another signal.
And another opportunity inside of our bodies with our eyes.
Were small choices about how our nervous system is taking in the environment that we're in.
And the way that we're taken in the environment.
Can also impact and shift into the rest of the nervous system.
So then let's next do.
.
.
A choice with.
Your feet.
And take your feet,
Even if they're in shoes,
And gently wiggle your toes.
And sense the inside or the bottoms of your feet.
And just sense what's here.
It's a texture.
Temperature.
Are they inside of shoes?
Do they feel warm?
Are they bare on the floor and I can feel the floor?
Just take in what's there.
And now start to take in the seat beneath you.
And where you're meeting the seat.
And start to feel the stability there.
Now,
One of the reasons I became fascinated with the nervous system is because the nerves and the signals that they send all the time are telling us stories.
Now,
In the operating room,
I monitor them real time to give the surgeons information.
And it's usually not dramatic information.
It's not the movie kind of stuff.
These are like small,
Subtle changes.
Small,
Subtle stories that the nervous system's telling us in real time.
About what's happening so that we might be able to catch something before it could go wrong.
Now these signals are traveling around the body.
They're going through the nervous system.
They're going through the brain.
They're going through your spine,
And they're going through you all the time,
All throughout your day,
While you're asleep.
Our nervous system is constantly receiving signals,
And it's constantly sending signals.
And so what we are doing here in the operating room and what we can do with ourselves in our day.
Is that we can bring some attention.
To those areas.
And what happens when we bring our attention or we bring in this noticing factor into our day?
Is that we're able to watch,
We're able to observe.
And there.
.
.
We might be able to distinguish the signal from the rest of the noise.
And that's really what my job is in the OR2,
Is that we're monitoring electrical signals in the body.
There's also a lot of electrical signals going on in our world.
And so we're trying to.
Quiet ourselves and with the information,
Key in on the information of what the signal is actually saying that might be important to allow us to make an adjustment versus the noise that is just constantly going that's part of our world.
So I had a surgery recently.
You know,
What we do at the top is we set a baseline.
This gives us an idea of what's happening with the nervous system before the surgeon is ever going to do anything.
And so this lets us know exactly where we're starting.
This information is solid.
It's good.
It gives everybody a good footing,
Even if the nervous system is in not great shape.
We still get to know that at the top because we're able to set conditions when we have that information about the nervous system.
And with those conditions,
We're not able to control how the outcome of the case is going to go.
But what we are able to do is we're able to shift and notice things as they're happening more regularly.
And we can do that in our daily lives.
So that's not some magic that happens that surgeons are doing,
That people are doing behind closed doors.
This noticing.
Is something that we can bring in.
To almost every situation that we're in.
If we're standing in line.
If we're in traffic.
If we are scrolling on our phone.
It might come in a number of ways in our day.
And it might just come as a notice,
As it might catch you off guard.
Ah,
I noticed this.
That's the moment to hone in.
So during this case,
That everything started fine.
One of our signals off of the spine.
It started to change.
And it's not necessarily expected,
But it does happen.
It's not an alarm.
It's not a.
.
.
It's a moment that we use with the information to go in and say,
What are we noticing here?
What information is the patient giving us?
What information am I getting in my own?
And this is the surgeon.
So you have to take in all the information of the environment.
You take in all of the physiology happening.
And you also take into account,
You know,
Where we're at in our day.
Um.
.
.
So these are all things that are constantly happening in surgery,
But also in our daily lives outside of it.
And so what really stuck with me Um.
.
.
At the end of that case,
What ended up happening was that we had an electrical interference.
So as the signal went down,
There was actually nothing really physically wrong with the patient.
Nothing had really even happened bad during the surgery.
Everything was going according to plan.
Everything was pristine.
What had actually happened was a loose plug on a wall across the room gave off some electrical interference.
And that sometimes is enough.
To cause a change inside of the whole system of electricity.
And so it's when we have to put those information together that we're presented in these moments that we say,
Okay,
Yeah,
This is here,
But what also is here?
And it may come in a subtle.
Just a subtle noticing.
Of your hands.
What's going on with my hands right now?
Are they sweaty?
Are they grips?
Are they loose?
So your hands,
It's just a real quick way to hone in and see what's happening.
And it might give you a clue and a cue into the rest of your nervous system.
In a similar way with our eyes.
So not only with our eyes are we taking in information,
From the world,
And we're having this constant signals coming in.
But also.
.
.
We are.
Have internal information.
We have our heart rate.
We have things happening internally that are also coming into the mix.
And so what happens is that.
.
.
Usually.
.
.
When people are coming close and our nervous systems are in a moment of overwhelm,
We may not be thinking about it.
We may not be in the moment to have solutions.
And so in those moments,
Thinking might not be the right tool that we would go to.
In those moments,
It may be the body that would give us more solid information.
On what exactly might be a key that we could do a small change,
A small shift.
To then let the nervous system know and send a signal of safety versus fear,
Or send a signal of grounding versus awareness.
And there's no right or wrong signals.
There's really just this ability that we can work on to notice the signals as they're coming off of us,
And then when we do notice them,
That's when the moment comes that we can use the information.
So we have our hands.
We have our eyes.
Another trick that surgeons use?
As they go to their feet.
So sometimes you'll see them moving their feet around.
And this is not because they're distracted while they're working.
This is a moment,
And this is the way that they're regulating their nervous systems in positions in which sometimes they stand in for very long times,
Caring for patients and doing great care.
But nervous systems have motion.
And so it's in these moments that we realize that there's fluctuations happening constantly.
There's fluctuations happening.
Outside of our body.
There's fluctuations happening inside of our body.
And those fluctuations can come in a number of ways.
They can come inside of our breath.
And perhaps there are breathing changes.
And a lot of us walk around and we're not even really aware.
Of our breath.
And so that's something that we can.
Come into.
We can all practice together as a first experiment.
We're just going to take three easy breaths,
And these are your breaths.
I'm going to open a little window,
And we're going to do three at your pace.
And let them be easy in and out.
Nothing special,
Nothing performed.
And just let them see if you can sense in to where exactly in your body you feel your breath.
You could feel it in your ribs.
You could feel it in your chest.
You could feel it down into your body.
Into your belly.
Let's see if you can take a few more,
Just in and out.
Through your nose if you like.
The nose is an extra filter for us and there's also nerve stimulation that happens with our cranial nerves when we breathe through our nose.
And so this is another way that we can stimulate our nervous system and filter the air while at the same time.
If the nose is available,
See if the nose is there.
If not.
.
.
No issue.
It's just something to try.
So.
.
.
And as you're moving into your breath.
See if you can expand into your ribs.
And so instead of trying to breathe deep,
See if you can breathe into your back.
You might even reach around and touch your back.
Place your hand on your mid-back.
And see if you can take an easy breath there.
Now I feel like you might place your hands on your ribs.
You might take a gentle in and out here.
There's a few things happening when we breathe in a 360 degree breath.
So breathing into our sides.
We're breathing into our front and into our back,
And we're visioning and seeing the breath going to those places.
And so what's happening is not necessarily a deep breath,
But with these 360 breaths,
We're stimulating the vagus nerve.
Just sending another signal.
And that's signal of safety.
So continue finding your breath there.
And that's some of the times the first signal that we can come into,
Is we can catch ourselves in our breath.
We can just notice.
Not change.
Just see where we're at.
You see,
When the stress comes and the overwhelm happens,
Usually there might have been signals from the body first.
And so the jaw is another area.
That tends to carry a lot of tension.
And it is also a cranial nerve so it's hooked directly into your brain and it also is a very strong muscle so whether you tense there or not You may feel tension here in your day,
And you may just see where you're at right now,
And you might even feel it and just see.
What's the texture here?
What's the temperature?
What happens when I talk or move my mouth?
Can I feel the difference?
Nothing to change here.
We're just feeling.
And maybe you feel the other side.
You see,
Our bodies are not symmetrical.
Our hands are wired to the different side.
So just use your hands.
Just feel where your jaw is.
We're not going to fix it.
But what you might see.
.
.
If there's any room to just drop maybe 2%.
And take a breath here.
Maybe it's a curious breath this time.
There's another way we can stimulate our vagus nerve by diving a curious,
Hmm.
So every time you make a curious.
.
.
Hmm.
That nerve lives right behind our vocal cords.
And by stimulating that nerve,
Here again,
You're giving the nervous system simple information.
You see the brain and the nervous system.
Rely and produce the best results with simple,
Clear signals.
And I think what happens with a lot of times and definitely during my day when I get in the midst of doing tasks and finishing things and moving to the next thing is that it's easy to get caught up in the momentum of those items and lose track and lose awareness of my breath or my hands or my feet.
And those are things that I know,
Or my eyes,
That I can go to.
And see a quick check of what's happening with the nerves.
Another area.
That we carry a lot of tension is in our shoulders.
So it could come in the back of your neck,
It could come clear down into your shoulder blades.
So this is just an area that tends to,
Again,
It's holding your head up all day.
Your head's very heavy.
It's doing a lot of work for us that we don't realize because unless we have sensation,
We don't really take a lot of awareness to that side of the body.
And that's usually how our brains works is whatever is giving the most loudest signal,
The brain might key in on.
Whether that's pain,
Whether that is numbness,
Whether that is a ruminating thought,
So it could be all of these different things that could actually show up in your shoulders.
And so quick experiment here.
Is to.
.
.
Notice your shoulders.
And just see where they're at right now.
If you can,
You might take your hand on either side and feel them.
And just sense.
What am I sensing here?
What's the density of my shoulders?
Is it soft?
Is it supple?
Is it hard?
Can I feel my fingers pressing in?
What's the sensation in my hands?
When my fingers are pressing into my shoulders.
It might be different.
You might not be able to notice.
No right answers.
Now you might try to in the next breath.
Raise them up just a little.
Drop them Take a breath and just notice and sense into this.
So we just gave in some effort into our shoulders,
Bringing them up.
And then we introduce some ease into our nervous system by letting them drop.
So these are things that you can do.
So when we put the nervous system under pressure,
Increase the effort it can create clarity.
Because what we're able to do,
Essentially with your fingers on each side,
Is that you can sense both sides.
And so that is giving a clear information to the brain,
These hands are touching.
So what happens though is if the signals are fuzzy.
Or If you are caught in a ruminating thought and are unaware of the signals coming off of your body,
Then.
.
.
You may always be a peer.
Or you may always be hard.
And so these are just quick checks that I do and that a lot of surgeons do before surgery.
Before their cases,
After their cases,
Whenever they have time in their day.
Um.
.
.
To give a quick check.
It's not necessarily to fix where you're at,
But it may be to notice.
What's happening in my body right now.
And what is that information telling me about my current situation?
And so.
.
.
What happens when we introduce the ease back into our shoulders?
Is that we're giving the complementary effect of the effort.
And so you can do that with your hands too.
You can stretch your hands.
And you can let them piss off.
And you can stretch them.
And you can let them saw.
And so this is information.
And it's bringing you into your body.
So when you're noticing your hands,
When you're inside of your breath.
When you are inside of a spot of your body,
The brain is only able to interpret so many signals at a time.
And so it may be an opportunity as you bring awareness to one of these spaces.
That the ruminating thoughts or the tasks that you're thinking about or a moment of dwelling.
May be able to move or shift.
When it doesn't have the attention on it.
And so they're just little items that you can do during your day.
To see where you're at.
And a lot of us,
We're carrying a lot.
We're carrying it all through the day.
We're carrying it for ourselves.
We carry it for others.
What we carry,
We actually carry it inside of our tissues.
It's inside of our body.
It's inside of our nervous system.
And so it can even impact our sleep.
When we are in a mode of rush,
When we are shorter of patience,
When we're in fatigue.
You know,
The sleep.
Can slowly become less restorative.
Um.
.
.
And it has that cascading effect.
So what we're doing here is we're just trying to bring in the noticing that awareness can create options for us.
And when we notice something earlier,
Oftentimes,
We have more options available to us.
Not necessarily control,
Not perfection like that surgeon had in that case.
Not certainty,
But we had options.
We were able to check information.
We were able to check the patient.
We were able to do all of these things that allowed us,
Because we were listening to the signals and using the information.
And it takes.
Letting some of the noise pass.
And.
.
.
Honing in on the body a little more into your tissues to allow us to get that information.
Into our nervous system.
Over time is really the is really what happens and so the noticing has an ability to Build a layer.
And.
.
.
What might happen over time is that You might just start noticing where your hands are.
And that information that you're getting from them in real time without having to go there.
And so,
This inevitably.
.
.
Has an impact on your own nervous system,
But it also has an impact on others around you.
And so.
.
.
You know,
We know that some of the information is coming from outside of our bodies.
And so some of the information is coming from the inside of our bodies.
And that word is called interception.
And interception is.
.
.
The ability to.
.
.
See inside of yourselves and really have conversations.
You and how you're interacting within the environment.
And it has them to go into the things that we talked about at the top.
What is the,
How is the light impacting me?
How is.
.
.
The temperature of this room impacting me.
How are the sounds impacting me?
And there's not necessarily,
There's nothing to change.
A lot of us are taught.
To make an adjustment if we're uncomfortable or make a shift,
Change it.
And I think that The opportunity is in the moment of.
.
.
Noticing and not changing it,
And seeing what is there.
Because it takes just a second for the senses to to fully register inside of the system.
So I measure,
When I'm doing work in the OR,
I measure in milliseconds,
And we're looking for changes in the nervous system in milliseconds.
So that's how fast things can happen.
But I think that for us,
When we're moving through our day,
In the moment,
It really takes a solid,
Easy breath.
That's really,
You know,
In those moments is not the,
Not a special type of breath.
But even the art of noticing the breath,
Just one.
Is enough for a signal shift.
Because that interception is able to take a top layer to maybe other signals that are also happening.
Maybe fear is down here,
And maybe back pain is on top of that,
And maybe sleep debt is on top of that,
And maybe financial worries are on top of that,
And maybe my relative is on top of that,
And my spouse is on top of that.
And so what we can do is just for the moment that we take our breath in,
Into that easy breath,
We can move the breath to the top.
And then my move back down.
But just for that moment.
And that can be repeated.
And that they can be on the habit over time.
And so there are things that are other things.
Inside of your breath.
That we can notice.
We can notice our heartbeat.
We can notice our energy level.
We can notice how tense we are.
We notice if we're hungry.
Or if we are fatigued.
These are all things that are like.
.
.
Might pop in at some point.
And it's really the art of just noticing.
And not judging.
No intervention yet,
Right?
It's like this idea of awareness before intervention.
The idea that we're able to pause.
Even for a second.
Even for a millisecond.
And the interesting thing is.
.
.
Is that.
.
.
You know,
Some experts spend years noticing everything about one particular subject.
And how they're doing.
You know,
All those things.
But what they might miss in that is their interception.
How are they doing with that environment?
How are they doing?
What are they feeling?
What do they need?
And so.
These are all items that.
.
.
Modern life just doesn't often reward.
You know,
Awareness.
Is usually not rewarded.
As other things are,
But it is a skill that can be practiced.
And I think that.
.
.
In my experience,
The more that I've come into these simple tools that are inside of my body,
The more ease or at least balance in a moment of effort may come in that I may be able to see Am I over-efforting?
Am I able to reduce my effort by even 2%?
Not reduce my effort in my thoughts,
Maybe check into my shoulders and see if I am able to drop them just 2%.
Maybe I check into my eyes.
And see if there's any softening that can happen around them.
Maybe I'll check into my jaw and see if it can drop just a little.
Maybe I check into my hands and see if I can get a little more ease there.
And you see we find a little more ease when we take a little more of the unneeded effort out of some of these areas.
The signals change on their own and they change in that interception window when it comes with the noticing.
And so that is not something that could be planned,
Really.
It's more of a coming into it and simply saying,
What am I sensing here?
Where is the strongest signal?
In my body coming from right now.
And you might put in the chat where your strongest signal is coming from.
It could be pain.
It could be thoughts.
It could be stress.
There's all these things that are layered on our lives that it's just not one signal usually that has us in a moment of overwhelm.
It's usually a combination of multiple signals,
Multiple instances,
And so really the ability to just key in on one might allow us some insight into what's happening in the overall system.
And not necessarily,
Again,
To change it,
But just to sense it.
Because a lot of times,
We don't even sense it.
Um.
.
.
I talk to people every day before they go into surgery.
The one question I ask them is,
What is the sensation on your hands and your feet?
And can you feel your hands and your feet?
And sometimes it's a I don't know.
Sometimes I don't know today.
Sometimes it changes day to day.
And so something that I've learned with my work in the nervous system is that Every single nervous system is different.
And every single nervous system is different every day,
Dependent on all of these conditions that we just talked about.
Sleep.
What we put in.
What we have going on the day before.
What the light in the room is,
What the temperature is,
Who's around us.
These are all impacting us.
And it's not necessarily to try to change things from where they're at.
The habit is the noticing.
And with the noticing,
You may uncover signals that give you information to shift something.
That may come.
Maybe nothing comes.
Uh.
.
.
But Even honing in on one of those.
Is enough.
To just do a small shift.
So you have your first layer,
You have your strongest signal.
And now maybe decide what a second layer might be for you.
So what's there but not roaring?
What's there that's not loud?
And so there might be things.
And there's usually.
.
.
This want to adjust or to improve or to optimize.
And tonight we're going to try the curiosity before judgment.
So don't try to solve anything.
But you might hone in on that signal.
And just hold that for a moment.
And see,
While we're here with that signal,
See if you can find your breath.
And just check in.
And check into the ease.
Check in to see if you're still doing the 360 degrees.
If you're still able to breathe into your front.
And then to your back.
And to your sides.
We're not going to shift anything right now.
Let's see if you can find another few breaths in it.
You might even see if you can get that curious.
That hum and stimulate that nerve.
You might give a quick check on your hands.
I sense a temperature there.
Are they different than where we started?
Just a quick.
.
.
No right answers.
Maybe the same.
Maybe I don't know.
And so as we start moving into this.
We've worked on our eyes.
We've looked at our shoulders.
We've looked at our feet.
And these are all areas that are available.
They may not be top of mind.
But they're layered there that you can find maybe in a moment.
Now The next few breaths.
See if you can bring yourself into your whole body as a whole.
And see if he can sense you.
A whole system.
Can you sense certain eyes?
And sense your face.
Shoulders.
In chess.
And sense your breath.
360 degrees.
And sense into your belly.
And sense into your legs.
You calves.
And sense your ankles down into your feet.
And clear to your toes.
And now start to be in the room that you're in again.
No need to open your eyes if they're closed.
Let's start to take in the sounds.
Start to take in any light.
And start to become.
Part of this environment again.
And start to bring yourself into space.
Or you might build a notice.
What signals here?
Now.
Send my breath.
Am I still fatigued?
Am I still tired?
Our goal wasn't to change anything.
Tonight we are sensing in.
And doing some experiences to observe.
And so we checked in on our shoulders and our hands.
And we gave a little more permission to those areas to soften.
If there's any availability.
Even 2%.
And we also gave effort to those areas.
And we showed our effort through sensation by pressing.
We moved our bodies.
Remove the eyes.
And you made a number of small choices throughout.
And there weren't any right or wrong answers.
But she successfully made the choices.
In afterwards.
We took a moment to sense.
What each choice.
And how that might resonate in our bodies.
And.
.
.
We just,
It was an experiment just to see.
No right answers.
Nothing to do,
Right?
The body's not about being corrected.
We were trying to relate to the body with curiosity.
Before judgment.
Now let's spend a few more moments coming to our breath.
And a few easy breaths here.
Maybe in your chest.
Maybe you feel it in your throat.
Maybe you feel it at your nostrils.
All of those are OK.
On the next exhale.
See if you can let it be a little longer.
See if you can let it be a little less hurried.
A little less rush.
And a few breaths here.
Just a little longer exhale than your inhales,
If available.
It's natural,
Easy.
For me,
The breath is always the first thing that I go to.
It gives us a moment to observe.
Our breath also runs through our entire body into our nerves.
So each breath we take,
Electricity is going into our eyes and our hands and our jaws and our shoulders.
So which one for you feels most noticeable tonight?
That might be your signal for a minute.
Not necessarily your biggest problem right now,
And not necessarily something to fix.
But maybe there's a signal that's asking for attention.
Something that's been increasing.
.
.
You see,
We often think that stress is one thing.
Sleep is another.
Movement is another.
Relationships is something else.
Purpose is something different.
But real life doesn't work that way.
You see,
All these things are layers.
And in those layers.
When we bring the awareness.
And when we bring the noticing,
And set the conditions.
We give ourselves options.
And that's sometimes good enough.
One small shift.
One small signal.
Can move into the rest of the nervous system.
I appreciate all of your time listening this evening,
And take care until next time.
