Show Up. Listen Up. Speak Up. | 2/22/2022 - AUA With Lydia G

Recently Lydia said of one of her solo live events, “…you didn’t actually miss the live because I got on briefly to say I couldn’t do it today due to a migraine and needing to rest.” This is how to Show Up even when one can’t. Lydia’s nuanced and expansive healing BodyTalk technique helps us Listen Up beyond our day-to-day attentiveness. And both Lydia and I are now no strangers on how to Speak Up. We aim to inspire sharing with kindness, integrity, authenticity and alignment.

Transcript

Welcome everyone.

I'm gonna have you Josh introduce the topic today.

Today's topic I've entitled show up,

Listen up,

Speak up.

And so this was inspired by Lydia and I wrote a little piece on the blog post about this,

But mainly one of her recent,

I guess,

Insight Timer Live events,

She had a migraine and she couldn't do it,

But she still showed up on the event at the time to tell people that,

Right?

That she had a migraine and she didn't feel like doing it,

Right?

So this is a kind of a way to show up when we can't actually show up,

Kind of taking care of things like that.

Now listening up for those of us,

For those of you have joined before past couple shows,

And if you haven't noticed,

Denny K.

Mu is not with us today.

So Denny's father recently passed and he is looking to do other things,

Specifically from what I gather going back to helping maybe at the San Francisco Zen Center doing,

Volunteering at prisons,

The prison,

I think it's San Quentin and he's had such fruitful time there,

But anyway,

I digress.

Teaching Qigong,

Teaching Qigong?

No,

I don't know.

He might this time,

But before when he did,

He went through,

I think it's a San Francisco Zen Center program.

It's a very kind of rigorous training program to be able to go to prisons and speak of Dharma and do certain things like that.

I'm not 100% sure we'll have to ask Denny about that.

So listening up is Lydia's method of body talk,

Right?

So the past few shows,

We've talked about this technique specifically,

I think it was the last one we went into in depth on that,

We can get more even into that today.

So listening up that way,

That method of Lydia's body talk method gives us a way to listen that's beyond our current and everyday technique of listening.

It goes way deeper than just listening.

But so we've got presence and we've got paying attention,

Showing up and then speaking up.

So if you guys haven't noticed,

Lydia and I kind of,

We will talk over the top of each other a lot of times but we're really no stranger to speaking our minds and sharing what we know and helping folks and not being afraid to admit our mistakes,

Kind of at least for me in backpedal,

Right?

And do some corrections where needed,

But not also getting too tore up where,

Just kind of in a funk where always worrying about what has been said and things like this and regret.

So speaking up though,

And I feel that we possibly might be inspiring some people to find their own voice and to speak more publicly if they're called to do so,

With expressing things and also,

Speaking their truth,

I guess.

I mean,

That's kind of an overused phrase that I'm not really fond of,

But it puts a finger on the pulse,

I guess.

And so I guess to start this off,

I asked Lydia,

Just as an overall thing of what I've just said and introduced,

And then I guess we can jump into the showing up part,

Right?

Yeah.

So for those of you who are new to this,

Josh and I and Denny,

Who's not here today,

We've been going live once a month.

They were going live once a month,

What,

Since 2020,

2021?

I think it was in September,

2020.

Okay,

September,

2020 on YouTube,

Talking about Ask Us Anything,

Different topics around mindfulness,

Around embodied living,

Around integrity,

Dharma,

All of that.

And then at some point I started joining every month.

And it's been great.

It's so great because we all have,

We all come from very different perspectives.

We have different personalities.

So it's the ability to navigate conversation from very different perspectives.

And I appreciate it so much every time.

And I know clients of mine that have listened in,

Have loved it for any of you that,

So there's already one guest waiting on the wisdom app that wants to,

I guess,

Ask a question.

So at some point I'll open the mic up to you,

Whoever you are.

We were coming to you,

I see you.

And if you're listening on YouTube or on Facebook,

You're free to comment or ask any questions as we go into the conversation.

So we have about an hour today to do that.

And whenever I do any sort of live,

Whether I'm leading it or co-facilitating,

Like with Josh and Denny,

I like to ask for you to ponder,

What does it mean to show up in your life?

What does it mean to listen up?

What does it mean to speak up?

Like,

What does that mean to you?

And the reason I like to ask questions like this is because for two reasons.

One,

As a previous cognitive skills trainer,

It allows your mind to be more engaged.

The more you're engaged,

The more you have the ability to process and come to new,

Form new neuropathways for yourself and come to new realizations about your authentic truth,

Regardless if it matches or resonates with ours or not.

That's not the point.

But also the other part is,

In these types of conversations,

It helps us kind of be more on the same page of like differentiating.

Is this a semantics thing when we disagree?

Is it a concept?

Because all of us are uniquely,

Whether we're speaking or listening,

Coming to conversations like this from our own conditioning of our nervous system,

Our belief systems,

Our thoughts,

Our personality,

Our trauma,

Our joy,

Whatever it is,

We're all coming from a different context.

And I love being able to explore concepts simply from what is the concept and then how are each of us seeing it and learning from each other as we hear different points of view.

So I really like the title because it's kind of open-ended and we can kind of go in any direction and the ADD part of me loves that.

Are you open to welcoming the guest on Wisdom app?

Sure,

Why not?

And while you're bringing them up there,

I'll just say real quick,

That reminds me of that classic tale.

Like if you witness an accident and have to go fill out a police report,

Right?

Everybody can agree that they did witness something,

But then everybody kind of gives a different account,

Right?

And then how can we see each other's conditioning and then go beyond that to see the light within everybody,

Right,

To see everyone's unique light instead of just,

I don't know,

Empathing their conditioning,

Right?

Or having their conditioning mirrored to us.

How can we have the light mirrored to us?

Yeah.

That even goes so far into,

So I'm an embodiment coach,

Somatic educator,

Meditation facilitator,

Massage instructor,

Among other things I've done in my life.

And that's like what I currently do.

One of the things that I help to facilitate for my clients to see is the interpretation of ourselves and our life has everything to do with who we are and our experience in that moment.

And it helps to understand our context,

But it also helps to empower us to have greater inner sovereignty and authority over shifting where we're at in that moment to shift what we're choosing to see and how we're choosing to interpret what we're seeing.

So similar to what you said,

Everyone can see an accident and have completely different things that they're seeing because they're seeing it through their individual eyes,

From their perspective,

Their physiology,

Their context,

How traumatic it is for them or not based on what they're receiving.

But also that's the same with our unique expression at any given moment in our life,

Even from moment to moment in the same day.

So who was it,

Alan Watts or something that says your truth in the morning is not your truth in the afternoon.

And from my understanding,

The interpretation that I got from that was like,

Your physiology,

Your emotions,

What's happening in your life has a different effect on what you see in the morning and the afternoon.

And you might see something different and it's not because one is lesser,

More valid than the other.

It's just being in the moment and what you see.

And that obviously goes to a whole other conversation of what is truth,

What is your truth,

Does truth change,

Is it fickle,

All of that.

Very good point.

Causes and conditions too,

That's a big thing in Buddhist teachings is the causes and conditions of your general day-to-day could be very different in the morning.

Conditions and causes can change towards in the evening.

So it could be a whole different ball game just depending on who we're around,

Circumstances,

Weather,

What happened during the day,

What led up to that,

Kind of plans we're making,

All kinds of different stuff.

Yeah,

And you mentioned authority.

Are we gonna have the guests on site?

We'll just keep blabbing here unless we- Yeah,

Yeah,

We can keep talking.

So I think my settings on wisdom is arbitrary.

I think I set it up for three minutes.

Whoever you're waiting,

Guest,

You have about three minutes to ask a question,

Say a comment,

Whatever you want.

And then it's just gonna,

I think automatically meet you cause I'm new to the wisdom app,

This audio app,

Which is awesome.

And for any of you that are interested,

It's kind of like Clubhouse and it's a newer app,

I believe.

Yes,

Probably.

Not too many people but it's a lot of focus on mindfulness and how you're living,

Spirituality,

All of that.

So guest,

You can introduce yourself,

Welcome.

You can ask a question or say comments.

You're up.

Hello.

Hi,

Jimmy,

Welcome.

Hello,

Welcome.

Yeah,

So I'm a meditation teacher and I was just wondering what have you guys found that works?

In what sense?

So if you were to be more specific,

In what sense works for what?

As far as finding clients,

Putting together course materials,

Just in any way,

Cause it's an experiment,

Cause it's such an open topic and very wide thing.

So what have you found that works and what doesn't work?

Just curious.

Okay,

So if I'm understanding you correctly,

Are you asking more about the marketing aspect of how to call in,

Like grow business?

Yeah,

That could be one way to see it.

Okay.

If I were to get more clear,

Does it have to do with marketing and or what works with clients?

What brings results as well?

Yeah,

Just all of it,

Any of it,

Like whatever speaks to you,

Whatever you can say,

Like what works,

What doesn't work in any aspect.

It's like,

And like I said,

It's a big experiment.

It's like you're taking something from nothing and starting to create,

It's like the mind,

You start breaking apart the mind and the brain,

It's so powerful.

So that can be implemented in very many different ways.

So I'm just curious what you guys have found that to work,

Cause I've been a meditation teacher for three years now and I continue my education,

But I'm always open to learning more and more about other people's journeys and whatnot.

These are great questions.

Thank you for coming up and asking them,

Jimmy.

Is there anything else you wanted to say about for yourself answering those questions in the next 48 seconds you have?

What has worked for you?

No,

I mean,

I kind of came on to see what has worked for you guys,

This is your podcast.

Okay,

Awesome.

Well,

Thank you.

Okay,

So do you wanna take this first,

Josh?

I'd love to,

This is kind of like my bread and butter.

The classic advice that I've heard with business type things is,

Once you start doing something,

If it's a hobby beforehand,

Then you're probably not gonna like to do that in your spare time,

Right?

That's one of the ways people look at traditional business things,

Right?

So if you take on something you really like to do,

Well,

Then it's gonna become,

And you're an entrepreneur,

Then you're gonna be doing that 24 seven and you might get burnt out on it,

Right?

Now,

I don't know if that applies to the type of kind of career or work we're doing,

Because I know for me,

It was just,

I didn't come to this really in a traditional way,

Okay?

I won't give details here,

But I kind of hit rock bottom in my life.

And within the first three times that I did meditation,

It was kind of a complete 180,

So immediately,

And hardly anybody that I've encountered had had such a success immediately with that.

And I even had some mystical experiences.

I mean,

I was my own therapist for years,

And then I really kind of learned formal practice for this.

So for me,

What I'm getting at here with that is,

For me,

It was a commitment,

Right?

So that just those first few times,

And I noticed such a huge impact,

I committed to a daily practice.

So now,

This is kind of a metric that may mean a lot to some people,

May not mean much to people.

I'm maybe in the middle,

But I sat down and figured it out.

So next year,

I think around the middle of the year,

I'll probably go later just to be sure,

I'll have 10,

000 hours,

Right,

They say,

To become an expert at anything,

And I wouldn't really call myself an expert,

But it's a benchmark,

10,

000 hours or something.

So a daily sitting practice since 2012,

Right?

So that's one thing.

So if you're gonna commit to that,

And I don't think this is necessary for everybody.

I mean,

Teachers at all levels can jump in and resonate and help people at all kinds of different levels.

I'm not saying that that kind of commitment and training is necessary to do this,

Not at all.

But for me,

It's almost like a way of life.

And I'm sincere about it.

It's not just another job or anything like that,

Right?

So this is my,

It wouldn't matter if I taught or said anything,

I would still continue with my daily practice.

So that kind of is the core for me,

The grounding,

The framework for me.

So not only a teacher,

But also practitioner,

Okay?

And then,

I would just say in general,

With that,

So many fruits and benefits come from it.

So intuition greatly boosts.

So it can almost sit with somebody and just talk to them for a little bit and just kind of read what they're needing,

What's needed.

So what does the person need?

What kind of practice need?

And what's gonna help them,

Especially in the longterm,

Help them and be able to not only help them,

But help everyone around them.

What's gonna lead to their longterm benefit and happiness?

Right?

So I think those are the two big things.

What do your clients need?

Why are they coming to you?

Our client or our practitioner,

I should say,

Someone interested in meditation,

Find out what they could benefit from and how they can benefit,

And then how I can help facilitate that and bring that forth.

And also,

I don't wanna do everything,

You can't really do everything for them.

The teacher only points the way,

Right?

The actual work has to be done by the practitioner.

So I think that's enough for now.

We've got other things probably to say,

But I'll let Lydia jump in here.

Okay,

So I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with you,

But that's pretty normal of our conversations.

Okay,

So what works?

So the question was,

What works?

What works,

Jimmy asked the question,

You're a meditation teacher,

You're asking what works for marketing,

How do you actually bring in clients in any business you're starting,

Specifically around meditation and what actually works for the clients?

Number one is,

Especially when it's related to working with anyone's body,

Psyche,

Spirituality,

Energy,

The number one most important thing is integrity.

If you cannot show up in integrity,

Don't do it.

Integrity is defined by each of us individually,

By our collective,

By how we show up in the collective,

Our impact on others,

Our impact on ourselves.

From the perspective of me being a meditation facilitator,

Yoga teacher,

Massage instructor,

Embodiment coach,

Somatic educator,

Integrity to me means showing up with as much compassionate neutrality and clarity as possible.

And my philosophy is each of us has inner guidance,

Each of us has our own unique and individual wisdom.

My wisdom is not your wisdom.

I can bring my wisdom to the table through intuition.

As soon as I'm attached to you following what I say,

I am no longer neutral,

I am no longer in integrity with my belief system.

As soon as I try to fix a situation,

I'm moving into the space of you must be broken,

There's something wrong with you.

That's not what I actually believe.

I don't believe that,

I don't believe we're broken,

I do not believe there's something wrong with us.

I think our nervous systems have been conditioned over time through our lifetime,

Through society,

Through generational,

Whatever we pick up on to be in service of our safety and survival.

That may or may not look like in service of thriving and community thriving as an individual.

So for me specifically,

My integrity says,

If I'm not doing the work,

I shouldn't be doing this.

If I'm not doing the work with myself,

I should not be assuming or thinking that I can serve or help other people.

I can do accounting,

Fine.

But I'm choosing to do stuff that matters,

That hits directly on how I see the world,

How I see people,

Individuals,

How I see myself and how I'm showing up.

Whether I'm giving massage,

Whether I'm teaching massage,

Whether I'm teaching yoga,

Mindfulness,

Facilitating meditation,

Being a coach.

So for me,

What works always starts with me.

First of all,

Is it working for me?

Because if it's not,

Then it's bullshit.

I'm telling it's gonna work for someone else,

But it's not working for me.

I call bullshit on myself.

Second,

As soon as I move into the space,

I know what's better for them than they do.

I call bullshit on myself.

Because I don't.

What I do know is my experience,

My education,

What I can bring to the table to facilitate a space that creates safety and consent for them to explore their own truth and to get to a deeper level of connection with their own authenticity.

The timeline for that looks different for every single person.

I love this topic,

Show up,

Listen up,

Speak up,

Because the same applies to how I work with clients as how I do my marketing.

The number one thing I have to do is show up.

If I don't show up,

Marketing isn't happening.

Like I have to be visible on whatever platform I'm choosing,

Which right now is multiple insight timer,

The wisdom app.

Speaking of,

There's a comment below.

Someone's asking,

Shredderhead is asking,

Is the wisdom app available on Android?

Do you know that Josh?

Or is it just on Android?

I'm pretty sure it is.

Yeah,

I'm not familiar with Android,

But I wanna say,

Yeah,

Just search the app store for it and you'll get it.

Now don't hold me to that.

I don't know.

And it's a white background with a purple silhouette of Einstein wearing the same white background wearing white headphones,

Right?

Yes,

Yeah.

And I don't know,

Actually I think they started off not on Android.

So there's a possibility they're not on there yet.

You can listen on the web though too.

And I'm just gonna jump in here and follow up on Lydia's stuff.

And integrity is so important.

And I just take that for granted sometimes.

Once we're established in integrity,

I guess it's easier for me to overlook,

But it is really vital.

And part of that just being honest,

Honest with ourselves,

Right?

So that's just,

It's put myself on a pedestal,

But that's just seems so far away now that to come back to it,

That just being honest with ourselves.

I overlook that a lot too.

Cause if we can't do that,

Then in actually honesty is a form of self-love too.

If we can be honest with ourselves,

It's actually a form of self-love.

So just saying,

Self-love,

That's a bunch of BS,

That's sappy crap.

If you're at that spot,

That's honesty and that's actually a thing of self-love.

But yeah,

How are we gonna be able to tell somebody to do something if we haven't done it ourselves first,

Right?

And then very important- And if we're not in practice.

If we're not in consistent practice with it,

Like you said,

It's a commitment to showing up consistently modern or current,

Not modern,

Current research.

So for any of you that are interested,

There's an interesting app that brings a lot of science and current research to different topics,

The Huberman Lab.

And one of the most recent episodes was on mindset and embodiment,

Which is interesting.

And the woman on there,

I believe she's a PhD psychologist,

Behavioral scientist,

Et cetera.

And she talked about 300 reps gets you to muscle memory.

3000 reps gets you to embodiment.

She didn't mention the 10K,

But usually 10K is kind of the understood,

More mastery level.

And she distinguished embodiment by,

Once you've hit 300 reps of whatever it is,

Meditation,

Lifting weights,

Like speaking kindly,

Catching yourself in a moment of mindfulness or being out of integrity,

Whatever it is,

The 300 mark in general,

According to the research she's doing or whatever,

Means you've affected your nervous system,

Your neuro pathways enough where there's a strong enough new connection pathway in your body for there to be muscle memory.

That does not mean,

However,

That that's your new default.

The 3000 reps is where you get to that being your new default of how you're going to respond.

So if I'm in conflict and I normally escalate and go into insulting the other person in my head,

Let's just say,

Right,

That's my default.

If I start practicing,

One,

Catching myself going there,

Eventually two,

Being able to deescalate myself in my head and then speaking kindness or getting curious in the conflict in those moments,

At 300 practices,

I'll have familiarity with it.

At 3000 practices,

My new default will be to get curious versus get insulting.

So I really,

Really appreciate that.

And that really speaks to the show up.

We have to show up.

I have,

One of my clients is a personal trainer and works with professional athletes.

This client talks about how you cannot even assess what you're doing until you show up consistently,

Until you master the art of showing up,

You can't do any assessment of whether it's working or not.

So if there's anything in your life,

Eating new foods,

Getting healthy,

Stopping a behavior,

Starting a new behavior,

Don't assess it until you start showing up consistently to do it.

So many times we try to assess after showing up once,

We're not even at the 300 mark or we start assessing this isn't working and I've done it five times.

Well,

That doesn't mean anything.

It doesn't mean it's working or not working.

It just means you've shown up five times.

Good job on showing up five times.

Do you wanna show up 300 times?

Do you wanna show up 3000 times?

Do you wanna show up 10,

000 times?

And so many times that's where our mind sabotages moving forward because we get stuck.

I'm a professional overthinker.

We get stuck in the overthinking.

We get stuck in trying to figure out ahead of time whether it's the right move.

And we kind of are in a space of a little bit of disruption rather than I'm gonna do this.

I'm gonna do whatever it takes no matter what.

This is my intention coming back to connection.

What is my purpose?

What is my vision?

Why am I even doing this in the first place?

Do I care enough to follow through to get the reps in?

And if I'm not seeing progress,

Am I still okay to keep committing to it?

Yeah,

These are so important.

And this goes back to,

There's three things from a community that I've heard of that I feel really important.

And Lydia touched on one at the very beginning,

Authority.

And now this is intent,

What she just spoke to.

And the other one is,

What is it?

Authority,

Intent,

And oh,

Dang it,

I'm blanking on the one.

So where are we putting our authority?

Are we giving it outside ourselves?

Sometimes I guess we need to do that for assistance and help.

But where's the ultimate authority lie in anything?

And then intent,

What is the intent?

Oh,

Consent is the other one.

And Lydia's talked so much about that.

Very,

Very important too.

Are we giving away our consent?

Do people,

It's a thing called tacit consent where people just assume if you don't speak up and say so,

And say something,

Well,

Then you're given consent.

And a lot of times that's how people operate.

If you don't explicitly- A lot of times it's not true.

What's that?

A lot of times it's not true.

Just by showing up does not mean you're giving consent.

Absolutely not.

So what some people will assume that,

They'll assume you're giving consent if you don't say one thing or another,

Right?

So you have to really speak up and state where your consent lies too,

Right?

And be very mindful of that.

Now,

Going back to the,

Lydia said,

We're not broken.

I totally agree with that.

That is a huge perception that once we see that we're not broken,

That whatever we think is wrong with us is just a label that can be certain times and very harmful at other times.

A label that we can pick up and take input down,

Right?

But ultimately,

We've survived everything up to this point,

Right?

We're not broken.

If the heart breaks,

Then that's how the light gets in,

Right?

We can let tears water the heart too.

So,

And then,

Going back to the original question again too,

About the marketing thing.

So this is,

I used to actually work in online marketing,

But now I'm in a position where I'm doing what I do for donation basis.

So I can't speak a lot to that,

Although I'm starting to go on that route where I need to start considering bringing in passive income and things like this in a more traditional way.

And what Lydia said about knowing better than the client.

Now that's,

I'm glad she pointed it out because sometimes,

Yes,

Not guilty of that,

But I've been,

You know,

It's easy to put myself on a pedestal sometimes,

Right?

When you can see all these things,

Have all this wisdom to share,

Have all this practice,

Right?

So keeping that in mind that what are just suggestions,

Right,

They're not commands.

They're instructions to explore and know for yourself.

Now,

No one can know ourselves better than ourselves,

Right?

So the ultimate thing is you have to see and know it for yourself.

People can only offer suggestions.

And then showing up,

Right?

But we all know what it means to show up for other people,

But how do we show up for ourselves?

Sometimes we don't even show up for ourselves,

Right?

We just show up for other people.

So what does it mean to show up for ourselves too?

And that,

Yelling,

What Lydia was saying,

Yelling in the head,

I mean,

That's a really common one.

I still do that.

But once,

And once we get to this point where our perceptual sphere expands and becomes more malleable and wieldy,

Then perception can have a huge impact.

So when I heard this perception that when things like that,

Well,

What's the silver lining to that?

You know,

Usually we'll perceive that as,

Oh,

I'm judging someone.

And again,

I don't feel it's a judgment.

It's not driving satisfaction from that critique,

Or that discernment or whatever our head's doing.

A lot of times,

If we don't want our mind to say something and it just does,

Well then,

I don't feel that's really a judgment so much.

So the way that I reframe this,

Or I've been talking,

Or I've been taught,

Is to look at it as the silver lining of,

Okay,

I see your light,

Your divinity,

Or your Buddha nature,

Whatever you want to call it,

And that's just not for me.

So it's not necessarily that I'm judging because I want to get,

You know,

Obviously I'm not getting satisfaction and feeling righteous for judging that person because I don't want to do that,

Right?

So maybe that's just one way of the mind saying,

Okay,

You know,

That's great,

You know,

That's just not for me,

You know?

And so it's kind of this,

Maybe a built-in safety mechanism,

You know,

Saying that it's like,

Okay,

You know,

That's great,

But no,

Not doing that right now.

There's so many things coming to my mind as you talk.

One of the things,

So there's two main things that came up that I want to bring up first.

One is we can take a moment,

Any of you that are listening now or to the replay,

Take a moment right now and tune in.

How are you showing up for yourself in this moment?

Just right now,

Because the present moment is where we live.

As soon as we go into past or future,

That's fine.

I'm not against going into either of those,

But we're going out,

We're going into a little dissociation away from our body,

Away from our breath,

Away from the presence of now.

The future and the past affects us now.

We get to have that in context.

How are you showing up for yourself in this moment?

That looks different to each of us.

So what does it,

First of all,

Before we say how,

What does it mean for me to show up,

Lydia,

Grace,

On this live on multiple platforms?

What does it mean for me to be showing up for myself right now?

What does it mean to be showing up for the live?

Because those might be different definitions.

What does it mean for me to be showing up in life?

So again,

First of all,

What does show up mean for you?

And in what context are you asking that question?

On this live,

Am I show,

What does it mean for me in this moment to be showing up?

Am I connected to my body right now?

As an embodiment coach,

My intention is to come to lives like this in a state of presence,

In a state of connection to myself,

In a state of awareness of how much I want to dissociate into intellectual conversation,

How much I want to stay in my breath,

Where I am in my body.

Can I feel my hips or am I mostly in my head?

Am I aware of my heartbeat?

Am I aware of my breath?

Am I aware of my nervous system?

Can I notice right now if I'm going into more of an activated sympathetic response,

Which most of us know as fight or flight,

But it also is mobilizing,

More energy activated.

Am I connected at all to my parasympathetic response,

My rest,

Digest,

Calm,

Presence,

Self?

Am I out of balance in any way?

Is there anything I can be shifting right now?

How does my body feel?

Am I noticing not just tension in my body,

But am I also noticing any area of lightness or freedom or connection?

Can I be resourced in who I am in this moment?

Can I be resourced in connection to Josh as the other speaker right now in this moment?

Can I maintain co-regulation being with him in a space where we're regulating our nervous system simultaneously with the intention of respect,

Curiosity,

Like honor,

Fluidity?

Can we maintain an aspect of co-regulation together while I'm also noticing where I am at?

And even if I would be or am dysregulated in any way,

Can I be okay with that?

Can I show up being a human?

Those are the types of things that I bring to myself around what does it mean to show up?

Am I committed to following through with my intention on this live today?

Am I committed to following through with allowing myself to be human as I show up?

Where I can recognize vanity conditioning of how I look,

If there's a lighting right,

And then,

Or how my tone is,

Can I also be aware of just wanting to be me who gives a shit kind of thing?

Can I be aware of like,

What is my purpose?

All of those are showing up.

Am I showing up?

How am I showing up?

As a listener,

You get to also know is my intention to be fully engaged right now?

Am I fully engaged?

What does it mean to be fully engaged?

Do I feel like I'm giving full consent to myself?

Do I want to be fully engaged or does it feel safer to have this in the background while I do the dishes,

While I multitask?

You get to ask yourself all those questions.

Is there any part of you right now that isn't giving full consent to be here?

Can you get curious about that point part rather than forcing it to consent or just disappearing?

Can you just get curious?

What is that about?

Does it have an effect on me?

Does it need to have an effect on me?

So many questions can come up just with what does it mean to show up?

And then one quick thing,

Because I know you're going to want to say something.

When you mentioned honesty,

One of the most important things I've learned about honesty in the last decade is honesty.

We can use honesty to justify how we're behaving in any moment.

When I am in a full state of anger,

Dysregulation,

And I don't give a shit about the other person,

I can say I'm being honest.

What's not true is I am not being honest to my integrity.

I am being honest to my anger.

What is honesty?

Because if I'm being honest to my anger,

I am not being honest to showing up for the other person.

I am not being honest to showing up with,

I am not being honest to show up to who I am in my deepest state of presence.

I can validate that I have anger and there's reasons for it.

But if I'm being only honest to my anger and not honest to my truth,

That's not honesty.

But in the moment I can,

I will argue all day long in that moment if I'm angry that I'm being honest.

So even that question,

What is honesty and how are we bringing honesty to ourselves and our relationships?

Because we can hide behind the word and the concept of honesty to justify any behavior we're showing up with.

I wanted to put that out there because that's been a big lesson for me to learn of my impact on others and how I affect myself.

That's really interesting.

Could you go into maybe an example of that?

Because I don't know if I'm following 100%.

I mean,

Yeah,

I get it a little bit.

Like you're kind of just putting the emphasis on honesty itself instead of actually what needs to be brought forth into honesty in the forefront.

Is that right?

Or can you elaborate a little bit more,

I guess?

So I'm gonna give an example.

I've been on and off dating apps for years,

Like on dating websites.

I've kind of seen the evolution of the dating world online.

And there's a lot of profiles that say,

Like what's the most important thing in a relationship?

Honesty.

And I always wonder,

What does that mean to you?

Because back in 2012,

I was on a dating website and I dated someone and both of our most important things was honesty.

And we would fight like no other.

We would hurt each other with our words so easily.

And both of us thought we were being honest.

After that relationship was over,

I really considered like,

What happened?

Like,

Why did we always fight while we were both thinking we were being honest,

But we were just throwing insults after insult at each other and like tearing each other down.

What I recognized was there was a validity to the honesty that was happening,

But I was completely out of integrity in how I was showing up.

And probably I'm guessing the other person was too,

But we didn't process any of this afterwards.

I was honest to my level of anger.

I was honest to my level of how I was feeling about how the other person was treating me.

But honesty without compassion is mean and cruelty.

So I was not being honest to my values of how I wanted to show up in conflict.

I was being honest to my reactivity.

I was not being honest to my truth.

And my truth was,

I wanna be in a relationship where there's respect.

I wanna be in a relationship where when I get hurt,

I can honestly express myself,

Create boundaries with the other person and still respect them in the process and still have them respect me.

That was more honest.

I did not know that at the time.

I hadn't come to those realizations,

But over time now,

When I think of honesty,

I think of,

For me honesty is,

Honesty with compassion,

With alignment to my values,

With alignment to who I wanna be and how I wanna show up.

So rather than what am I trying to say in the argument,

My focus is now who do I wanna be in this argument?

That's gonna be more honest to me than what I'm trying to say.

Because once I'm honest to who I am,

Then I can be like,

I'm feeling really misunderstood right now.

Then I get to speak to my personal experience,

Own and be responsible for not just who I am and how I'm showing up,

But my impact on the other person without being codependent,

Without needing them to respond a certain way to get a certain outcome.

Does that help you understand how to do that?

Absolutely.

Yeah,

I follow pretty clear.

So yeah,

That's the thing.

I mean,

I've been there too.

And what that does is it,

For me,

It breeds a lot of righteousness too.

Oh,

Well,

This is right.

This is the way to do it.

And this is my moral high ground.

Screw you,

This is the way it is.

This is the way you should be.

This is the way everybody should be.

So that kind of righteousness,

If it's just honesty and nothing else tempering it,

Then for me,

That does breed righteousness and has in the past.

So this is why it's so helpful.

I found the Buddhist guidelines for right speech,

Right?

Why speech?

So honesty is,

Truthfulness is at the top,

But then it has to be kind too,

Right?

And then even more so,

Can we not use harsh speech,

Right?

Can we use speech that isn't harsh to hear?

Another thing is,

Is it the right time to say that,

Right?

You're not gonna be yelling certain things out at a funeral or maybe a wedding,

Right?

That you would some other places.

Also,

Is it helpful?

For what I'm saying,

Is it gonna help anybody?

Or is it just blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Weather,

Weather,

What's the sports team doing?

Which sometimes a lot of that is needed to break the ice to put people at ease,

Right?

But after a certain point,

We can just go blabbing on and on and on.

And it's really not doing anything but just wasting energy for both of us.

And what is the other guideline that I'm missing here?

Oh,

Maybe I'll come back to it.

What is it?

Is it kind,

Is it necessary?

Is it right time?

The right time,

Yeah,

Necessary.

Yeah,

I like for most- Oh,

Concord,

Doesn't create concord too,

Right?

Does it divide people or does it bring people together?

Go ahead,

Lydia.

Well,

It's interesting because you brought up the word harsh and then you brought up concord.

Sometimes speaking up divides and that's exactly what's necessary.

The sort of truth.

Like that does not necessarily bring peace.

But in that moment,

When you're speaking up for what's right,

What's right is more important than immediate peace,

Than immediate satisfaction of everyone feeling good in that moment.

Like sometimes the right thing to do is what's going to uphold integrity.

For example,

Human rights,

For example,

Other things,

You know,

Animal rights,

Environment rights,

Whatever.

That can feel uncomfortable but sometimes extremely necessary to do.

Speaking up is extremely important and it has to do with,

Can I maintain connection to my truth and myself while I'm speaking up,

Speaking truth,

Speaking up for others,

Speaking out for myself,

Whatever.

Can I continue to maintain connection with whatever,

With God,

With myself,

With my inner connection,

With my inner guidance,

With my inner truth?

And then the word harsh is interesting because I get curious,

How are you defining harsh?

Because for example,

As a woman from patriarchy,

A woman being harsh is a man being confident,

Right?

So like,

How are we defining harsh and what does that mean?

Is it based on what someone's looking at me in cultural context of women shouldn't ever disrupt the situation?

So like,

We're also working with systems of society,

Most of them systems of oppression and corruption that are defining all these words for us.

And my invitation to myself and others is always get curious about how you're defining it.

Is that definition from you or is that definition from society?

And if it's from society,

Is that a helpful definition?

Is that helping break down what's not working,

What's corrupt,

What's oppression and upholding truth and getting us into another paradigm where we can treat each other better,

Where we can elevate our consciousness as a whole.

And so sometimes showing up,

Listening up and speaking up can look like it's doing the opposite of our intentions when in fact it's right in the right path and can we show up and maintain and stay committed even if it looks like we're tearing things down.

And can we be in our integrity?

What does it mean to do things on?

Is that okay?

And are we doing it from a place of ego and reactivity out of integrity or are we doing that from a place of like collective consciousness,

Truth,

Et cetera.

So even there,

Like I noticed my heart rate,

Like,

Nah,

Nah,

Nah,

Nah,

Nah,

Nah,

Like my body's like getting activated of like,

Anger is not a negative emotion.

Anger,

Most of these emotions we think of as negative ideally are meant to mobilize.

They're meant to get us to shift out of something that hasn't been helpful and to move towards greater vision,

Greater clarity.

So just like pain in the body,

Negative emotion in the body is a wisdom,

Is our body's wisdom or a true wisdom to invite us into looking further and moving through and breaking through to see what else is possible.

Beautiful.

Oh,

And they're coming after you Lydia,

It sounds like.

No,

Not really.

So yeah,

That's right.

You know,

With the guidelines on speech,

It's prioritizing.

Sometimes the truthfulness might be more important.

Sometimes the kindness might be more important.

Sometimes the concord might be more.

So this is where the more discernment,

The better.

The more we can build our discernment muscle to know what's needed,

What needs to be prioritized among that,

The better.

And we kind of danced around this,

But Lydia asking where all this is coming from.

And so what I found it's so helpful for me is identifying core values.

So like three or four things that,

And this is also like an alternative to just living goal to goal in your life.

Nothing wrong with always gonna need goals to be able to keep moving forward.

And they can be temporary satisfying until we set the next goal,

Right?

But if we can identify our core values,

What really means the most to us in life?

And then if we act from those and in alignment with those core values,

Then there's way more satisfaction that can come in life,

Right?

Because it gives a sense of purpose as well.

It gives a direction point,

An anchoring point,

Stability.

Just for example,

Minor wisdom and the heart qualities.

One wing is wisdom.

And then the heart qualities balance those out,

Kindness,

Compassion,

Rejoicing,

And equanimity.

Because if wisdom without those gets too cold,

But then the heart qualities without wisdom,

It gets too hippy dippy kind of thing can be really saccharine and whatnot.

And then going back to Lydia's thing about listening,

I think it's Gil Fronsdal,

He's a meditation teacher.

And he talks about listening with our full attention,

Right?

So if we're getting,

Or even the meditation object,

That's really helpful with,

If you're meditating on a single meditation object like the breath or the body,

Can we give our full entire complete attention?

Not saying it's always necessary,

But that is a very valuable training to be able to do that,

Right?

It's very rare in this day and age when so much millions and trillions of dollars are after our attention,

Right?

And so many distractions.

We notice that we sit down and try to meditate,

Especially starting off.

And I know for me,

When Lydia was talking about what does it mean to show up?

Can we still be embodied and whatnot?

And this is where being the masculine,

Activated in the mind,

Right?

It's very easy for me to become not really disembodied,

But just put a lower priority on that.

And so this is why my meditation practice helps me so much because it returns me to my body.

And when I get ungrounded,

Then things,

The stress levels become way more impactful as well.

So being grounded in a lot of folks too,

And one way to do that.

Fastest way for me to do that is barefoot on the earth.

That's not always an option.

Mindfulness of the body is very vital.

And now I wanted to say one thing about the anger though.

This is a really interesting thing to me too,

Because in Buddhism,

There's these three poisons,

Greed,

Hatred,

Or anger,

And delusion or ignorance.

And this is where I feel that this second one,

And I agree with Lydia here to a certain degree,

I don't like the translation anger for this.

I like ill will.

Ill will is a poison because I don't see any benefit whatsoever in any context.

I'm open to change my mind where ill will can be helpful or needed.

It is a poison.

Now,

Anger and hatred,

While it's a low level thing that we can all see the disadvantages of,

It's there for me as a last resort fail-safe mechanism,

Because anger can,

Like I think Lydia said,

Motivate us,

Right?

It's there because harm is being perpetrated either on ourselves or others.

It's there to address that.

Otherwise,

You can't just say,

Oh,

I'll accept that.

I just need to be more tolerant,

Or I need to just,

I accept that the way it is.

No,

If somebody is getting the shit beat out of them right in front of you,

And you can say something or do something to stop it in harm,

Then you're going to do that.

You're not just going to say,

Oh,

I accept that,

Right?

Because the commitment to non-harming.

So that anger,

Or even hatred,

Hatred,

I don't know the exact etymology.

I heard this one teacher say,

I have to go back and look it up.

Even etymology changes throughout the ages too,

Right?

You can go and see different words have different meanings based on the time.

But hatred for me is like a last resort thing to say.

It can be out of care actually,

Because if you see something and you're hating it,

Then it might mean that it's based on,

Well,

I see the harm done in that.

I don't like that,

I hate that.

I want it to be something that's less harmful,

Okay?

But now this is not to say that you should act on that hatred,

Because a lot of times if we act on a hatred,

When we're in a hateful state,

It cannot,

It's usually not the best place to act from,

Right?

So if we're in a more grounded centered place,

Although sometimes I mean,

Some action is going to be called for immediately,

But not all the time.

A lot of times when we have more space groundedness and I don't know,

Resolution and more alignment with our core values,

Then we can act more integrity too.

But yeah,

I don't think we should completely write off hate and anger.

Anger is a whole other thing too.

It's like a double-edged sword,

Right?

Because if you don't address it,

It keeps bottling up and then it could really explode and do some harm.

But then the more we say,

Oh,

I want to express my anger all the time.

Well then it's just kind of like,

Like attracts.

It's coming out somewhere,

Yeah.

Yeah,

It was just like,

It was just,

Okay,

Well that felt really good.

I should keep doing more of that anger stuff,

You know?

So it's a really tricky piece to deal with.

We have around six minutes unless we want to go longer.

We can always change our mind and go longer than an hour.

One of the things I really like to do is bring practical application to like abstract and philosophical conversation,

Because I see it as like,

If we can't apply this now to our lives and use it to practice moving forward and getting better,

Like not necessarily what's the point because that's a whole philosophical conversation in itself.

But we all need idea,

Like tips,

Tricks.

How do I take what we're talking about and apply it now in this moment?

How do I let this be an embodied shift for myself,

Create new neuropathways,

Leverage neuroplasticity,

Get into a place of seeing that change is always possible,

Potential is always accessible to us in any moment,

No matter how much we feel it is or not.

And the more we can create little wins for ourself,

The smallest potential wins allows us to start building ourselves up,

To start moving forward in a way that can take us out of the fight or flight,

That can take us out of this freeze,

Collapse,

Take us out of emotions like hopelessness or whatever.

One of the things I wanted to bring up around anger is from the physiological perspective of what I've been learning.

So I am not a neuroscientist.

I am also not a licensed therapist.

So always take me with a grain of salt.

You're free to do that.

I'm gonna be speaking my understanding in layman's terms.

When we are in big emotion,

Especially emotions that we default to reactivity,

Like anger,

Hatred,

Rage,

Jealousy,

Extreme guilt or shame,

Betrayal,

Mistrust,

Whatever.

Physiologically,

We're going into,

These are layman's terms of a physiological thing that's happening in our body called amygdala hijack or limbic overload.

Essentially our limbic brain,

Which is around the brainstem is going into an overload.

And in order for the body to survive,

The mechanism that happens is it shuts us off from our neocortex,

Our frontal lobe,

Where there's rational reasoning,

Logical thinking,

Creative problem solving,

Access to memory.

So in these huge emotion,

That is not the time to think you're correct.

Unless you said there's extreme cases when harm is being done and we have to act in the moment and mobilizing the anger is a mobilizer to help make ourselves or others safe.

Yes,

I'm talking general life,

How we relate to each other and ourselves and stress.

General kind of not any extreme or abusive situation.

When we have big emotion,

If we have the understanding that we have less access physiologically to logical reasoning to,

And okay,

Also,

For any of you that are wanting to gonna use this in your next argument,

When someone's being more emotional than you,

I call bullshit.

Just because you're not showing big emotion doesn't mean you're not experiencing big emotion.

So just for any of you that wanna use that in your next argument,

You can have even bigger emotion than the person showing emotion and be stoic.

So don't use what you see as using this against someone else in your next argument.

It's not gonna work anyway,

Because they don't have access to it.

That's what my brain would do.

It would be like,

Ooh,

Cold,

And bad when he's listening to the next argument against the other person.

When you're in big emotion,

Regardless if you're showing big emotion,

You're not showing it or not.

So that's the caveat.

You do not have as much access to your limbic,

To your neocortex.

You do not have as much access to creative problem solving.

You do not have as much access.

So what do we do in those moments?

Don't send the email to your boss.

Wait,

Don't have that discussion with your colleague.

Do not go and try to resolve an issue with your significant other,

With your child,

With your friend,

In that amount of emotion.

If you're already in the situation,

The fastest way out is to name it.

I have a lot going on.

I am having a big emotion related to this conversation right now.

I need to step out and go to the bathroom and calm myself down.

Whatever,

Whatever it is,

However you say it,

If you're in a state like alone having a big emotion,

The fastest way out is to say,

A part of me is experiencing this anger.

Because as soon as you name that it's a part of your experience,

You're giving access to all the different parts of your experience that are not having that reality.

The parts of you that are resilient,

The parts of you that have rational brain ability,

The parts of you that can calm down,

You're giving access by naming,

This is what's happening.

It's a part of my experience.

It does not invalidate what you're going through.

So it validates you and it gives you access to resource.

Resource in yourself,

Resource in co-regulation,

Resource in community,

Resource with others.

So those are kind of a little bit of practical knowledge for you to like have context around big emotion.

And this is another point,

Knowledge will turn into wisdom.

And with that information to knowledge and then knowledge to wisdom,

Which means that that knowledge is being embodied and leveraged and known in the real world.

So it's been,

Basically what you know has been put,

You know it for yourself,

Right?

Gnosis,

It's being put into play and experienced in one's everyday life.

It's just not written down in a book somewhere or read it or heard it,

Right?

You actually know it for yourself.

I heard it on a podcast cause some of you might like this if you like little quotes.

It's not from me,

But I love it.

Information is not transformation.

Information is a great starting point because education is what dispels ignorance,

But you have to digest,

Integrate and own the information for it to turn into transformation.

Information in itself is neutral and it's like potential waiting for you to access.

Just because you read 25 books doesn't mean you transformed anything.

You gotta implement,

You gotta integrate,

You gotta process,

You gotta sit with it,

You gotta talk it,

Whatever your process is.

Absolutely.

I just wanted to put that.

It's the beginning of potential transformation.

It is not automatic transformation.

Yeah,

And that's the traditional ways where we were taught to learn,

Right?

You hear something,

You watch something,

You read something,

Right?

And then that's the main way we're taught.

But then you can also think about it,

Right?

And mull it over in your mind,

Come to conclusions that way.

That's kind of a more traditional,

But when we get into things like meditation and embodiment and things like this,

We're not really taught those in the traditional school system.

However,

That's a whole different way to,

Yeah,

Learn and transform and body,

Put knowledge into wisdom.

And I guess I'll go back to one other thing a little briefly,

What Lydia said is,

With these big emotions and how to,

She said to basically take notice that it's just a part of what's happening,

Right?

Just a part of us.

And I've mentioned this in past shows too.

And we look into what are we identifying with,

Right?

If rage comes up,

Oh,

I'm a rageful person now,

Or depression comes up,

Oh,

I'm a depressed person,

Right?

No,

I mean,

It's just temporary like everything else,

Right?

It passes through or it changes intensity levels too,

Right?

Nothing lasts forever.

But the big thing is,

Is that identification,

Is it that's who I am,

And that can be all consuming.

And then we identify with whatever the primary emotion is or mood.

No,

It's just,

Okay,

Depression is like this,

Anger is like this.

This is anger being experienced,

Not necessarily that I'm an angry person.

That's who I am,

I'm angry,

You know?

So it's kind of a slight nuanced perception,

But it really makes a huge difference.

I wanna bring up,

I wrote a post about exactly what you're saying.

So I'll just read it from Instagram.

What if those negative personality traits you thought were innate and couldn't change are simply symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system that can heal?

Guess what?

You're not broken.

Many of the things we're either going through or we think are personality defects actually have nothing to do with our personality and have everything to do with what we've gone through and how our nervous system has conditioned us to survive that.

And it's been repeated enough,

Behavior,

Whatever,

That we have then taken on the narrative,

Most likely from other people saying it's our personality issue,

To then own it as if it's a personality defect.

And I wanna say,

Let's just start calling bullshit on that.

Yes.

Stop believing it.

Because that's keeping us stuck.

That's keeping us stuck.

And it's keeping us as victims to behavior that's not helping us or others.

Instead,

Can we start seeing it as,

My nervous system did as what was best possible at that time for me to survive the situation I was in,

No matter what age you are.

We talk a lot about childhood,

But it can be it as an adult.

Or my nervous system is continuing to do its best to survive the society I live in,

The oppression,

Whatever we're going through,

Each of us uniquely,

Based on socioeconomics,

Race,

Gender,

Everything.

There's oppressive mechanisms happening at every level collectively.

What you're going through,

Your trauma is not unique to you,

Not to say you're not special,

But meaning you are being affected by the collective.

It is not a personality defect.

Your nervous system is perfectly working to help you survive.

And you have the ability to learn ways and tools and techniques to move in the direction you want,

To validate and accept what's happened,

How you're showing up,

And to draw in the resources,

The community support you need to dismantle whatever it is within yourself or in your community to dismantle,

To heal,

To repair,

Just because something needs repair,

First of all,

Doesn't mean it's broken also.

We make that assumption too.

If I'm repairing my nervous system,

It's not because it's broken.

It's because I want it to function differently than how it's been functioning.

And it's been functioning in service of my safety and survival.

It hasn't necessarily been functioning in service of my deep,

Healthy connection to other humans or myself.

And once we can get,

With Lydia's teachings and courses,

You can get a reference point for this if you haven't already.

I'm sure everybody at least has a reference point,

But this is why my guess would be so many people are drawn to certain drugs,

Right?

Because it's an artificial way to calm the nervous system,

Right?

But it's long-term detriment,

Right?

Because it's kind of a false- Certain ones.

I want to say certain ones,

Because there's now a lot of research going on about psychedelics,

About other things that can be potentially really beneficial.

I know that's a controversial topic,

But I just want to put that caveat.

Yeah.

And for certain people- Research with- Right,

Yeah.

With a good,

Healthy container where there's sacred honoring of what's happening.

Any kind of plant medicine or substance,

Whatever it is in our world,

Is ultimately neutral.

And it has to do with why,

How,

And how much we're consuming.

Absolutely.

And that's another thing with addiction too.

It's not necessarily amount.

It can also be frequency,

Right?

If we're doing something,

Even in small amounts on a regular basis,

And we can't go without it,

That can be an addiction.

It can also be like,

Yeah,

When you're binging as well.

But yeah,

It all depends on the set and setting the person,

How it's done,

Why it's done,

How often it's done.

But yeah,

So yeah,

And certain drugs really just don't really have any benefit whatsoever,

But some do.

Thank you all for joining.

So especially on technology,

What I appreciate is that even though we can't see all of you,

There's a collective energy that everyone listening and tuning in,

Whatever level of engagement you're in right now,

Are supporting this.

You're holding the container for this to happen by showing up,

By being part of it at whatever level you're being part of.

So I want to share deep appreciation for you showing up,

Whether you're listening live or on the replay,

Because it's supporting this expression,

It's supporting this exploration,

It's supporting your brain shifting and how you're listening,

What you're agreeing with,

What you're not,

What you're learning from this,

What you're going to take or not take from it,

That's obviously always up to you.

So I just want to share gratitude for this,

For all of you here today.

And I want to echo that,

Even though we only live in the present moment,

It's interesting with these timelines,

Right?

So wherever,

If you're listening to this on the replay,

You're experiencing it in the present moment,

Right?

That present moment is not this present moment,

But even when I think about that,

When I think about the future,

It's still happening in the present moment,

Right?

Because it's just a thought in the mind.

You're- I know,

Yeah.

It's a mind blurb,

I love it.

Okay,

And we're both on Insight Timer outside of these employees.

So I try as much as I can,

Depending on my schedule,

To go on about once a week.

Right now it's been Sunday morning or Friday morning,

Probably it'll be this Sunday morning around 10,

10,

30 Mountain Standard Time.

So you can always catch me there,

Follow me there.

And then,

I don't know how often you're on,

Josh.

Well,

I just noticed now,

Not too long ago,

These boxes in the background here to my,

This side,

Right?

Yeah,

So I'm moving.

So I hadn't had a lot of time to do lives last month.

I did do a few and I was traveling too.

I did one from the Tucson Gym and Mineral Show and I was in Alaska too,

So I didn't get a chance,

But I've got a long list of potential lives.

So it varies anywhere from,

You know,

Like,

I don't know,

Maybe eight times a month to,

Like last month was only a few,

But yeah,

I have plans,

Once I move,

And I have plans for plenty more,

So yep.

And we- I want to acknowledge,

I just noticed before we finish,

Someone left a comment 15 minutes ago.

So I just want to acknowledge it.

And if we each have maybe one short sentence to offer.

So Shredder has said on YouTube,

I'm looking for tips on feeling my emotions in my body.

My mother did not do much attunement with me,

So I didn't learn to attune to my feelings in my body.

I am avoidant attached.

Right off the bat,

And this is Lydia's expertise here,

But I would say,

Well,

You know,

Yes,

Parents have a huge impact,

And I went through that a lot,

But once we take self-responsibility,

You know,

Letting go of that,

And then they were doing the best they can,

Just like we were doing the best we can.

So now what,

You know?

How can I do this now,

Leaving,

Setting them aside from the picture?

Maybe you can come back to that through other means and methods,

But how do we do that now?

And now I'm forgetting the other part of his question.

We don't know what gender.

Shredder head.

His or her or their question,

Or is their?

I'm sorry,

What did I use?

I don't even remember what I used.

I'm looking for tips on feeling my emotions in my body.

My mother did not do much attunement with me,

So I didn't learn to attune my feelings in my body.

I am avoidant attached.

The avoidant attached can be very helpful too.

However,

I don't feel,

I mean,

Maybe that has some relevance to feeling emotions in your body,

But the key there is how do I feel emotions in my body?

That's what needs to be addressed.

Although it can be,

I'm not,

To invalidate,

You know,

What you've gone through and the influence the parents have and the label,

I'm sorry,

Whatever it was,

Avoidant.

But how can we focus on how to feel emotions in the body?

And I'm gonna throw that to Lydia because that's her cup of tea,

You know?

I would almost have to sit and ask and talk more with the person.

For me to even have a reference,

I mean,

Lydia might have some tips in general though,

Right?

So yeah,

That's actually where I was gonna go.

Neither of us are licensed trained therapists.

So take everything we say in response to your question,

Completely with a grain of salt.

We are humans sharing.

So none of what we say has any bearing on your worth as a human or your experience.

One of the things I would say with that context is your nervous system,

The fact that you're coming to this question shows a level of self-awareness that's beautiful and amazing.

Have a sense of gratitude for yourself for coming with this desire for yourself.

Maybe even place a hand on your heart in this moment.

Thank yourself for seeking,

For reaching for this.

Avoidant attached is a way that your nervous system developed to stay safe based on your life,

Based on what you've gone through.

Continue to cultivate self-compassion,

Seek out support in a way that feels like you have full consent over your process and you can develop and feel and understand what safety means.

Because no matter what we've gone through,

Our avoidance strategies,

Our self-sabotaging,

Our habits are all ways to protect us from what doesn't feel safe.

Honor the fact that you have maintained a level of safety with yourself and now you get to be curious of what is safety?

What is consent?

What do I want from this?

Who can help?

How can I show up for myself?

At minimum,

Start practicing having compassion and gratitude for the fact that you're here seeking this for yourself.

I do have,

Take it or leave it,

But I do have a 14-day meditation series on cultivating self-compassion that you can start doing right away.

It's a very gentle way to,

We do somatic practices in it,

10 to 15 minutes a day,

It's free to anyone.

It's on my website,

You can get that through my link.

That might not be the right approach for you,

I just wanted to put that out there because it's a free thing,

But you can start getting curious,

What else is possible?

Do I wanna figure this out with support?

Do I wanna figure this out on my own?

How is this gonna feel safe moving forward?

Can I continue to honor what safety means as I continue to explore this potential and this possibility for myself?

And can I take a moment right now to just be grateful that I'm even asking this,

That I want to go in this direction?

So that would be my response.

That beautiful Lydia,

I mean,

Those heart qualities,

I mean,

Yeah,

I couldn't have addressed those better.

I mean,

Amazing.

And this technique right here,

Even the double hand,

Our hands are amplifiers and healers.

So if the heart isn't open enough yet,

This can help amplify our heart to feel that.

Sometimes we don't wanna feel emotion if we shut down,

Because it's in a service to protect,

Protect our nervous system.

But this can amplify what we're feeling.

So now that also from a meditative context and kind of just a pure awareness type thing,

There's just some common things that happen around emotions for a lot of people like anger,

Okay,

Heat in the body.

So if we notice heat in the body,

That's often associated with anger,

Right?

Or joy can kind of feel like a bubbly uplifting thing,

Right?

Fear can be kind of closed down and tightening.

Just kind of more positive emotions in general tend to have a more of an expansive feel in the body,

While negative,

I mean,

I don't like words,

But like unbeneficial emotions,

Kind of more compression and contraction in the body.

And like nervousness,

People will feel that in the gut sometimes.

So there's certain types,

Areas of the body,

Some generalities that people often report around emotions.

And you can look these up.

Maybe Lydia can help with those too,

To maybe have kind of generalities to tune in to the certain areas of the body,

Certain effects around certain emotions.

And for any of you that do feel like you're in a place where you feel safe to feel your body,

To go into it,

To notice emotions,

A very,

Very simple technique,

Please listen to your own intuition and consent for yourself is what emotion am I feeling?

If it were somewhere in the body,

Where would that be?

So the hypothetical,

If it were,

It lets the intellect kind of take a nap for a second.

So the intellect goes like,

Your emotions aren't in your body,

You know.

If it were somewhere in my body,

Where is it?

If I were to describe it as sensation,

What would it be?

And then sometimes like that doesn't feel like enough.

If it had a need,

I could meet right now,

What is it?

And then meet the need.

Beautiful.

And it might not be that area of the body.

It might not be that emotion.

You can also ask,

Is there a need I can meet for myself in this moment while I'm experiencing this emotion?

It's not,

Do I have needs?

Yes,

We all have needs.

Because that takes us off into La La Land or like spiraling,

Not being able to meet it is,

Is there a need in this moment I can meet for my body,

For my human,

For this emotion,

Whatever it is.

That allows you to get immediate action,

Immediate result,

Builds trust in yourself,

Builds trust in your ability to tune in to listening.

And it comes back to the show up,

Listen up,

Speak up.

That kind of,

That's a mini process that you can try.

As long as it resonates with you,

As long as it feels safe,

As long as you feel like you can consent to that process on your own.

Very cool.

And one thing about safety that I've heard,

And I found this to be pretty much the case.

See if Lydia,

What she says,

And then we're gonna probably wrap up here.

If you're not running for your life or fighting to stay alive,

Like physically in an altercation,

You're safe enough to feel what you're feeling,

Right?

I disagree.

Okay.

I want to hear if I've gotten a little bit of time.

Because if your nervous system is in a state of trauma,

It's not safe to feel.

It might feel more traumatic to feel it.

It might feel more traumatic to go there.

I consider safety as the ability to regulate and come back to a state of regulation in your nervous system once you go into something.

If you do not have the tools and a capacity to quiet your body,

To come back into a state of connection to yourself,

It just might not be safe.

Physically,

Sure,

Maybe it's safe,

But emotionally,

Psychologically,

Energetically,

Breath-wise,

That's not necessary.

It might not necessarily be safe.

So again,

We're not trying to,

I'm not trying to go into fear or anything,

But that's where tools of like working with a trauma therapist who really knows how to teach you to tools first,

Then once you have these tools practiced,

Then you safely together go into whatever it is you want to process or explore.

So that would be like,

What do you do if?

Find a trauma therapist who's practiced in specifically somatic therapies,

Which is like mind-body therapies.

Until you get to a therapist though,

I guess I wasn't considering people that had dealt with like severe trauma and whatnot,

Because if they're not doing anything at all,

What do they do?

If they don't feel,

Feel enough to- Well,

And that again,

I'm someone who has dealt with severe trauma,

Dealt with PTSD,

And it was not safe to feel.

It was not safe to go into my body until it was.

So what do you do?

I do not recommend- I do not recommend that.

You open up to questions like,

What else is possible?

Show me.

Gratitude for the desire for moving towards that space.

You know,

You don't just assume,

And you acknowledge and continue to thank your nervous system for being in service of your safety and survival.

Continuing to,

There was a point in my life,

I could not function.

And I was binging 10,

15 hours of TV per day.

Was that wrong?

Could I have judged myself?

Sure.

Did I judge myself?

100%.

Was that all I could do?

And the resource I had at that time,

Which did the most minimal damage to me and my nervous system,

As opposed to being binging on any other substance or anything else?

Yeah.

I got to thank myself for moving through that time when I did not know how to feel safe in my body.

I did not know how to feel safe with my emotions.

I didn't even know how to safely relate to other humans because I would just immediately trauma dump onto them and I would overwhelm them,

You know?

I didn't know how to safely find the right therapist.

That period of time,

Years ago,

Was the safest thing I could do for myself.

And as I acknowledged and validated my experience and started thanking myself,

It started giving me the confidence and the empowerment to no longer treat myself like shit and to start being like,

What else is possible?

Wait,

I don't want to do this for the rest of my life.

I'm really grateful that this is what I'm using.

Sorry,

That's my weird ringtone.

Okay,

My bad.

Is there anything else that's possible?

Oh,

You know what?

I want to start getting cranial sacral therapy.

That's a really safe way to have someone co-regulate the space with me while I'm being in a very soothing time and I get to depend on someone else holding the energy for me.

No words,

No processing.

I'm on a table calming my nervous system.

I don't have to be part of it intellectually.

I don't have to consciously try.

I just get to receive and practice knowing how to receive and feel safe in receiving.

And that took a while.

And that's what started getting me out of where I was at that time.

So I want to say,

Traditionally we've been told,

If you're not in a war,

If no one's abusing you,

You're safe.

And I say,

That's the old way.

That's the old consciousness that doesn't address the nuance of collective trauma,

Of personal trauma,

Of the fact that just so much.

So obviously I spoke up.

That's so cool.

And when like,

A lot of people don't like this word,

But you get the drift,

Right?

It's what we've already gone through.

Then we become heroes for people who are still going through the same thing.

And so if you want to call it a mentor or coaching or whatever.

So anybody that come across that has dealt with trauma or is in a lot of trauma,

I could potentially refer them to Lydia because Lydia knows this forward and backwards,

Not just through going to school,

But through personal experience,

Right?

And yeah,

And I love this saying too,

If it could have happened any other way,

It would have.

Well,

And I want to say too,

Yeah,

You can point people in my direction,

But I'm not a licensed trained trauma therapist.

I have a lot of personal experience.

I do have a lot of training in it,

But that's not who I work with specifically.

Though,

If you have no one else to reach out to and you need the support of someone helping you find a trauma therapist or someone who is trained in trauma,

I'm trauma informed.

I'm not trained to handle trauma other than like working with myself and understanding that every human has their own context of it while we work together.

We're not going into it.

Good distinction,

Sorry about that.

But you can do referrals then,

Right?

So I'm glad you pointed that out.

Yeah,

And that's part of my responsibilities to find good people to refer to,

Find good networks and all that,

So that no matter how much you reach out,

You can feel safe on your own path with support.

Right on,

Well,

I appreciate the,

Not correction,

But yeah,

Explaining that to me.

And I learned something there today because yeah,

I haven't had huge experience with traditional trauma or whatever type of thing that is.

So I know trauma informed things are very helpful right now.

And more and more people are getting into that too.

And just know that too,

That if you're in a human body,

You don't get out of here without experiencing some form of trauma.

I mean,

It might be a lot more subtle than other people's trauma,

But still we all,

To a certain degree,

I feel have experienced some form of trauma one way or another.

So with that.

Well,

This is great.

Yeah.

Thank you,

Josh.

Thank you,

Lydia,

For showing up today.

Josh.

Thank you everyone who's tuning in,

Either now live or as part of the replay.

Continue to ask questions,

Continue to agree or disagree with us.

And I look forward personally to the next time we do this and to connecting with any of you that want to connect.

Doors open.

Likewise.

Love and blessings to the most optimal and ideal degree for you all.

Have a wonderful day,

Night,

Evening,

Morning,

Whatever time's on you and when you're listening in.