Nervous System Hygiene | 3/9

Discover why your shaking practice is profoundly unique – an inside-out approach that releases control, unlike most modalities focused on effort and grip. If your first session felt challenging, you're not alone! Get practical tips in this discussion to access therapeutic tremoring more easily – relax deeper, move slower, trust instincts, allow sounds, and embrace tiny vibrations.

Learn to go deeper with strategies like range-of-motion exploration and fatigue-based shapes. Explore common sensations: buzzing energy, spontaneous stretches, emotions surfacing, yawns, warmth/cold, even digestive activation – all signs of nervous system healing. Understand the natural waves of progress, why low points happen, and how to practice sustainably for long-term resilience.

Prioritize safety: Titrate gently, pendulate, build capacity slowly – no rush to "shake it all out.

Transcript

Hey,

Welcome back.

Hope you enjoyed the journey of class one,

Which was a balanced class,

And we really looked at some of the fundamentals of tuning in to our therapeutic tremoring mechanism.

We explored moving really slowly and as relaxed as we can,

Aiming to surrender and soften and allow our shaken stations to arise in places when they're ready,

Not forcing,

Because if we force it,

It's voluntary shaking instead of involuntary therapeutic tremoring,

At least doing our best not to force.

And yeah,

I wanted to cover the uniqueness of shaking medicine.

It may be quite different than what you're used to,

And it's very different than most modalities out there,

As I get my picture the right size.

There we go.

And that is,

Hopefully you get a sense of that.

That is the allowing and surrendering and relinquishing control,

Whereas most other modalities are about controlling in some way.

A lot of the breathwork or kundalini yoga out there is it's largely controlling,

And yoga,

Qigong,

Stuff like that,

It's controlling the mind,

The body,

The breath.

So what makes this really potent is how it deeply lets go of all that effort,

All that control,

And we tune into our instinct and intuition,

We move into feeling,

And out of the logical,

Controlled thinking,

Egoic mind that does all that controlling.

Eventually,

Down the road,

This all merges and kind of becomes one,

But for now,

It's useful to think,

Okay,

Let me just relax the logical controlling mind and let the instinctive nervous system do what it knows how to do.

And I love the lens of how this is,

Think of this as nervous system hygiene.

It's like brushing our teeth for the nerves,

The electrics of our body.

And the spine is important in this,

So a lot of our warmups,

We did some spinal warmups there,

Spinal breathing.

It's because warming up the spine is one of the best things we can do to warm up for shaking medicine.

So I'll often do a lot of stuff with the spine,

And to get the tremorine into the central nervous system,

Which runs through the spine,

Right,

And getting the tremorine going,

And the muscles and such that connect closely to the spine,

It's really powerful,

Because that filtrates out to our whole periphery nervous system,

And can support the healing of so many issues in our body.

This is,

Another way to look at this is it's an inside-out approach,

Whereas a lot of stuff out there is an outside-in approach.

Not bad,

It's just the balance is the best.

And another reason why shaking medicine works so well,

And it's so awesome,

Is that it balances out all that control we're doing with finally something that lets us let go of control,

Loosen the grip on life.

So this,

As a practice of the nervous system,

It's very good at purifying the nerves,

The electrics,

And toning it as well.

You likely felt some,

You know,

Like muscles and such are getting workouts.

No doubt it will,

Because the tremorine is gonna be accessing parts of our body that we're not used to using.

And also a lot of my warmups,

Creative warmups are about,

Often about neurogenesis,

Like neuro-rewiring,

Doing movements intentionally in ways that we're not used to doing so we can feel our body in different ways.

And that helps us to find shaken stations and to awaken the shaken.

So I wanted to speak to,

If this was hard to get for you,

You're not alone.

Not the majority of people,

But a significant enough portion will say they didn't get it really in their first class,

Or maybe they just got it a little bit.

And that is normal.

Like,

Again,

We're doing something completely different than what most people out there are used to doing,

Which is letting go of control.

And most likely you aren't so used to deeply letting go of control.

So I wanted to run through a bunch of my best tips for helping you get this more efficiently.

And this is good for if you didn't get it at all,

Or even if you did get it,

This can help you get it more and go even deeper.

So as best as you can,

Less is more,

Relax more,

Let go of control more.

Come out of the logical thinking as best as you can,

Like let the mind relax and move into feeling.

We want to minimize the force and effort.

There's something in Qigong I love called wu wei.

Effortless effort.

So we want,

When we're doing even the strong shapes,

Which we'll do more of in the next class,

It's we want to do them with least possible effort.

Even if there's a lot of effort,

Like how can you be soft in the effort?

Learn more and more to trust your feeling,

Your instinct,

Your intuitions,

And be with the sensations of the body instead of the thinking.

So be with the sensations,

Be with the breathing.

Breathing,

Especially belly,

Parasympathetic breathing is very helpful,

Because anything that relaxes us can help.

So whether it's nature,

Music,

Belly breathing,

Or in your body,

Like relaxing the jaw a little bit,

Your belly,

Your fingers,

Your toes,

Your breathing,

All of this,

Even just a micro bit of relaxation can deeply help us access the tremor,

Because generally we go,

We can access the tremor more deeply,

And especially more therapeutically by softening into it more.

Allowing sounds is very juicy,

Very helpful.

Like I'll do it a lot,

Just breath in,

And then a relaxed sigh out,

Whatever sigh wants to come.

Ah,

Maybe do a few now,

Even as you listen.

Like inhale,

Ah,

Oh,

It can be weird.

Like it doesn't matter,

Just a vibration that helps shake the vagus nerve and relaxing the body.

So when using,

Well,

Let the shaking arise when it's ready,

And really sink into that.

Like don't force,

If we force it,

We kind of destroy it.

It becomes voluntary shaking,

Which is still good,

Still healthy,

But it's not really what we're aiming to do here.

I will do voluntary shaking in the warmup a bit often,

But that's more like part of the warmup.

So range of motion strategy.

When using this one,

When basically we move a part of the body through a range of motion as slowly and as relaxed as we can,

Importantly is that each time you go a little bit slower than the last time,

Even to the point where it's so slow,

You barely see it moving.

And also,

Someone who's experienced in shaking medicine will likely get the trimmering on their first exploration.

Oh,

There it is,

Like you find it easier and easier.

But at first,

You may just need to be going through it five or 10 times each time,

Slower and more relaxed.

So treat it as like a chi gong movement where just the mindful,

Slow moving and articulation is in and of itself therapeutic.

And then if and when the trimmering arises in that shape,

That range of motion,

Then great,

Go with it.

Hang out in that shaking station.

So big shaking isn't necessarily better than small.

Sometimes it's so small,

It's more like an internal current of vibration.

And often what I'll see in my classes is that people are often,

They think they're not getting it,

But then they'll come up,

I'll look at their leg or something,

And it's just sitting there,

It's like tiny,

Very tiny,

Just vibrating from what I can feel is just huge pent-up stress or tension.

So sometimes,

And that's another note,

It's like the more we do this,

We become more and more sensitive to it.

We can tune into it within ourselves more easily and also feel the charges in other people more potently and more easily as we do this,

Which is great because it also makes us super resilient at the same time.

So we get sensitive while developing the tool of resiliency.

So often it's happening,

It actually is happening,

But you aren't aware yet because you haven't built the sensitivity to it.

So sometimes just that extra little bit of focus,

Patience,

Or just lowering the bar of what it needs to be,

Like even a tiny little vibration is enough to start tuning into it.

So sometimes some people actually get shaking medicine more easily at first in a strong shape.

So that's good for the next class because we'll be looking at some stronger shapes where basically the idea is we go to a point where our muscles really fatigue and they start shaking.

And then as soon as they start shaking,

What we can do slowly,

Like bit by bit,

Is start to relax out of that position,

But only relax so fast that you can hang out with the shaking.

And maybe you get down a bit to more softness and then it stops so you come back into it.

Or maybe eventually as you build your relationship with this tiring out method,

You'll be able to relax into deeper and deeper parasympathetic states and eventually just basically melt into the earth using no effort whatsoever.

And the tremor ring can move you for you.

So it's just bit by bit that builds the relationship with it in a strong way.

Some people get the strong easier.

Everyone's different though.

Some people get the softer shapes easier at first.

So it's a bit,

It's very mixed I find.

So basically if you're not getting it,

Change up your approach,

Try different shapes,

Try different strategies.

And the combination will give a lot of these there.

So don't get stuck in the first shape or the first class.

Like keep going,

Even if you barely got the shaking or didn't really get it,

Go ahead and try this next class.

Do more shapes,

Different strategies,

And just be patient with it.

Be patient,

Allow it to steadily trickle in.

And even if you just get a little bit for a few moments,

Great,

You're starting to build the connection and next time it'll get easier to last a bit longer.

And so just think of it as like any time you can find a shaken station,

Hang out in it and allow it to more and more move into you as you relax into it.

And be diligent,

Like this is worth waking up.

Some people say,

Well,

I don't have this mechanism.

It's like,

No,

No,

We're all born with it.

We're all mammals.

We all have a nervous system.

This is genetically encoded in all of us.

We do it in our mother's wombs.

We do it as babies.

It just,

It gets suppressed in our culture and not taught in schools.

And so it just gets,

Becomes this weird thing that's made taboo.

And so we all can do it.

It's just been,

It's just been,

Yeah,

It's been eradicated essentially from our culture.

So important,

So yeah.

No attach to getting it,

So quick.

No attachment to getting it.

Got a dog barking,

My dog found me,

One second.

So I wanted to say important not to get attached to getting it,

Like why let that frustrate us?

Let's take our time.

It'll awaken in its own time.

And until it does,

Treat it as a health and wellbeing practice where you're moving intentionally,

You're trying new things,

And no doubt it will wake up quick enough.

And even just getting one shape in the whole class is already super powerful to start building your relationship and connection to this.

So less is more,

Let's go for a sustainable practice and there's no rush,

And know that there's always deeper to go as well.

So some things you may feel in shaking medicine,

There's like this dial of control where it's like you kind of,

You feel like you're kind of making it happen and you're kind of not.

So that is something that can very much be the case.

Go away,

Bill.

So there's things that you may feel in shaking medicine.

There's this thing,

I call it the control dial.

There's complete control and then letting go of control.

And most of us are always in this control state.

And so with shaking medicine,

Basically we want to start embodying therapeutic tremoring and move our ability to fully let go of control to the other end.

And likely in your first class,

It won't be like all the way over there.

It'll be like a little bit.

So you'll get some shaking.

It might be a little bit isolated or kind of like it goes for a little bit and then stops.

And eventually more and more,

It gets easier to access.

It moves through more of the body.

And as you're able to build your trust to this,

Your relationship with it,

And move that dial over to deeply letting go of control.

So the movement,

It can be big,

It can be subtle,

It can be isolated,

It can be asymmetric.

Like one sided,

One leg might go and the other doesn't.

We all have unique life experiences and injuries and tensions store typically asymmetrically.

So that's awesome.

Let it,

The idea is to let it do what it wants to do.

The movements can be layered.

They can be,

You might be trying to tune one area in and another area starts shaking.

Like go with that.

Cause that's your body saying,

Oh,

This is what I need right now.

I call it a referred shake because their nerve pathways are connected.

It can feel like trembling,

Quaking,

Shaking,

Skipping like Morse code.

Like da,

Da,

Da,

Da,

Da,

Da,

Da,

Da,

Da,

Da,

Da.

You can feel tension,

Aches,

Pains.

You could feel like things are softening,

Expanding.

You can get spontaneous stretching,

Twisting,

Squeezing,

Tensing,

And relaxing.

Energetically,

It might feel like a vibrational current of energy or buzzing and vibration.

Electricity could be warm,

It could be cold.

You could yawn,

Like moving into rest and digest.

Hands and fingers and eyes can like move spontaneously.

Digestive system can activate.

So it starts to gurgle or you burp or you fart.

Your breathing can change.

You might feel it deep inside internally.

Your energy levels can change.

Sometimes you'll feel tired after,

Sometimes you'll feel activated.

Go with it.

It's your body giving you what you need.

A lot of us,

The reason we might feel tired after is a lot of us are chronically operated in like go,

Go,

Go mode and never properly resting.

Shaking medicine is really profound at moving us into parasympathetic.

So if we move there and our body's like,

Man or woman,

You need to rest,

It will.

It'll be like,

It'll feel like,

Might feel like we wanna take a nap or meditate or something.

And it won't always be the same.

Like it'll do that until your energy is recuperated and then it'll probably turn into like an activation and it can change depending on our day and where we're at.

Gestures can come out.

Sounds,

Animal noises,

Emotions,

Your body can finally squeeze and stretch and kind of contort as you deeply let go of control.

Mental,

You're likely to have like inspirational aha moments,

Realizations,

Old stories can surface,

Subconscious feelings or sensations coming forth,

Suppressed emotions,

Trauma,

All the headaches and fogginess sort of thing.

Cause the body processes energy and sometimes it processes it in the brain and sometimes it's like moving that fog,

That brain fog.

So again,

Feel it to heal it.

Clarity can happen,

Deep clarity,

Emptiness and stillness.

Spontaneous meditation is a big one.

This sends us into spontaneous states of meditation.

Know that this is a wavy process.

It's on average,

We'll be going up and up,

But there's gonna be waves.

So there'll be low points and high points.

I'm just telling you now,

Cause it's often enough.

And me too,

Like I've had so many low points that I've had to like get out of,

But on average after the low points,

Just like up,

Up,

Up,

Up.

And it will feel a little bit like that often.

And again,

We feel it to heal it.

We'll process deep hurt,

Sometimes emotions,

Traumas,

Aches,

Pains.

We might,

No matter how sustainable we practice,

Or how careful we are in stopping and starting a lot,

Sometimes our body just inherently needs to purge,

Detox or have a fever.

So generally we're careful not to shake too much so that doesn't happen.

But sometimes the body will just say like,

Oh,

Even though you're doing less is more,

A little bit it's like,

Finally the nervous system relaxes enough that the immune system can do its thing and it might create a fever so it can purge that pathogen that's been there for a decade,

You know?

So I generally don't see that stuff as bad.

It might be unpleasant.

Certainly it's not pleasant to go through that,

But it's often a kind of purging that's happening cause we're doing a process that brings us into vibrant health and wellbeing and in the waves of it all,

Bang.

You know,

Sometimes we have these low points where it's like,

Ugh,

You know,

My stomach needs to purge and I have diarrhea or I get a fever and I'd sweat all night while I'm trying to sleep.

Just,

It's not,

That doesn't happen a lot,

But it no doubt will happen at some point,

Things like this.

So more on the sustainability and safety.

I'm very much a fan of somatic approaches of like titrating or pendulating where we wanna just kind of go into it a little bit,

Kiss the edge of it all cause feeling it can be very healing.

So feel the edge of the pain,

The emotion,

The trauma,

And then,

Okay,

Feel it for a bit and then back off.

It's like peel away that outer layer and let the feeling of whatever is arising,

Let the tremor and kind of dissipate that layer,

Be with it with presence,

With awareness,

Within feeling,

Not judging it and not avoiding it either.

And then we work that onion,

We peel those layers away.

And just bit by bit as you do this sustainably,

You'll build up your capacity,

You'll tone it,

You'll become more resilient,

More sensitive as you learn to trust this and just embody it bit by bit.

There is no rush.

We definitely don't wanna try to shake out all our trauma in one go,

One day,

One week,

Even one month.

It's just like sustainably building capacity.

Max one class a day for now,

Like at this beginners and intermediate level,

Especially just no more than one class a day.

And that might be too much.

So you might,

Again,

You might do a couple of classes and then you need a day or two off,

Like a couple of classes,

A couple of days in a row and then some time off.

Again,

Minimum about one week for decent progress,

One class a week.

And other than that,

I invite you to find the comfortable amount that works for you,

Your lifestyle,

Your work,

Your time schedule and such.

And again,

Reach out for support along the way.

Please journal,

Please share,

Ask questions.

I'm here and I'll see you in class too.