Hello and welcome to the Soul Aligned Self-Care Podcast.
How are you doing today?
I am doing fantastic.
I'm super excited to be here.
I love the space that you've created through your podcast and just, you know, really honored
and excited to spend time with you and talk about all things, nervous system and self-care.
Yes.
I'm very excited.
This is a time where your services are needed in the world.
I can say, honestly, everybody's nervous system is a little amped up right now, including
my own.
And so I'm very excited about this conversation as well.
So to begin, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey and where
you came from and how you ended up doing the type of work that you're doing right now.
Yeah.
You know, they say that you teach what you need to learn.
That certainly was the case for me.
And I struggled for about three and a half decades with many, many, I guess I'll say challenges.
I call them adaptations because that's what they were.
They were adaptations to the early events in my life.
It was, I was the six out of seven children.
So by the time I came along, there was plenty going on, my, my mother's nervous system was,
was pretty much shot.
She was in overwhelm from, from the first day.
And I knew that, right?
My, my system knew that, that I was kind of a burden, essentially, you know, not that I
wasn't loved, but I was more than could be handled.
On top of that, I have a history of sexual abuse for a period of time when I was four years
old.
So that, that combination of things really kind of set my nervous system up to struggle.
And I developed a number of adaptations that were brilliant at the time, right?
They helped me survive those conditions.
One of them was emotional eating.
And so I started turning to food to kind of calm that, that noise, the fear, the terror
really inside my system right around the time that, that I was a victim of, of sexual abuse.
So it didn't take long for my little body to start having some, some pretty good roles
and, and, you know, beyond what you would consider traditional childhood jubbliness, right?
That was scary to my mom because she had struggled with, with her own body image and her
weight.
So she didn't want that for me, right?
So with all good intention, she let me know that, you know, being heavy was no fun.
And that I needed to start my first diet, which I did right around six years old.
And really set me up for a lifetime of struggles with my body and with food.
You know, I figured, well, you know, people, people don't aren't loving me quite the right
way and people are doing bad things to me.
And when the doctor said, you need to lose weight, I'm like, oh, my little mind put those two
things together and said, got it.
It's my body.
If I just fix my body, I'll be worthy.
I'll be lovable.
Bad things won't happen.
And so, you know, it makes sense.
And that's what so many of us do, whether it's with, with food in our bodies or, you know,
I need to, to keep everybody happy or, you know, I have to be the fun one or I can't cause
trouble or I have to cause trouble to, to get attention.
Whatever, whatever the story, whatever our own personal adaptations, we develop them early
and then we create a life based on them.
And so that's what I did.
And although I came from a law background, as I started to heal and figure this stuff out
for myself, I thought to myself, there's no way that I can't take this out to the world
and if I change one person's life from what I was, was living to what I'm living now,
if I can do that one other time with one other person, it will totally be worth it.
And so that's when I decided to make that change, which probably didn't make sense to
very many people, but it sure did make sense to me.
And so for the last 15 years, I've been helping people with their adaptations, whether that
be with food or any of the other, you know, kind of typical adaptations that we, we struggle
with and it's through a trauma and form nervous system lens.
And so that is a little bit about the background and how I ended up here today.
Well, thank you for sharing that.
And I have so many questions.
The first one is what other different adaptations do people use to, I don't know what the
right word is to adjust their nervous system, I guess.
And also what is the sign if you could share some of the signs behind it, like why we do
that?
So like what happens when we use food as a comfort or as a way of dealing with other different
emotions, like what's going on in the brain?
And why do we keep going back to that?
Yeah, such a great question.
Really, I think, I think of it kind of in two parts.
So the first part, we said, you know, what are some of the other adaptations and all of us,
we do not need to experience trauma in the, in the traditionally, you know, defined sense
for us to adapt.
Every single one of us had adapted, right?
So in the way we adapt is through our mind, we develop thought patterns, right?
And we also develop nervous system patterns and those, those match.
So for example, if I grew up and, you know, this can be very subtle things.
And I'm, and when we acknowledge that some of the struggles or pains that we went through
as kids early on when we're developing our view of ourselves and the world and other people,
when we understand that, that, that some absolutely regular, Monday, everyday circumstances
had a big impact on us.
It's not us being overly sensitive or, you know, traumatizing or victimizing ourselves.
It's just reality, you know, if you weren't picked to sit at the lunch table, right?
That can be a big deal.
You're 12 years old.
You're trying to find your place in the world.
You're, you, that sends a message to you, right?
That can be significant.
Maybe you grow up in a house where there's a lot of tension and you feel like, oh, I have
to manage this.
I have to keep mom and dad happy.
I, I'm responsible for, you know, everything going smooth.
So you develop thought pattern around, you know, that's, that's my job.
That's my value.
If I don't do this, I'm not safe.
Bad things are going to happen, right?
So that mental pattern is matched by a nervous system pattern.
You become hyper vigilant where you're always on edge, always looking for, you know, what's
going on?
Reading the room, right?
And that is, is fine.
There's nothing wrong with that.
It's just as you do that through your whole life, you realize that the adaptation that sets
you up for, you know, that was the best you could do in the moment when you're a kid and
you don't have control over stuff and you don't know that you're not responsible for everybody
else, you know, it worked for you then.
But later in life, this, these become our prison bars because I don't have to be hyper
vigilant.
That's not the truth of me.
That's just who I had to be, to I had to come to survive.
So the, some of the common patterns are, the things are already naming, right?
We, we, that hyper vigilance, the people pleasing, the, just molding ourselves to be what
we think we need to.
If we grow up in a house where the only time we're really praised is when we do something
spectacular, then we're always reaching for the overachievement, right?
We can't just be satisfied with, oh, I did my best and, and that was, you know, good
enough.
Yeah, me, it has to be like the, the top level of achievement.
Otherwise, it didn't count, right?
There's, there's so many, right?
We could, we could sit here literally all day till, till midnight, listing all of the
ways that is possible to adapt.
Now, the other thing that you are asking about is with respect to food or other coping mechanisms,
right?
And a lot goes into that basket.
We could put shopping, we could put scrolling, we could put wine, we could put mopping
the floor, we could put anything in that category, anything that we are doing to deal with
the consequences of our patterns.
So my nervous system being, you know, patterned to be hyper vigilant or easily overwhelmed
or whatever it is, that is very uncomfortable, right?
And we're smart and we will always try to get our needs met and for our, to help our nervous
system come down into a more regulated kind of what I call home-based state, right?
So we pull in these coping behaviors to help us do that, to help deal with the fact
that now our adaptations have created a life that really isn't authentic to us and it doesn't
feel very good.
So we reach for something that can help us feel a little bit better.
And of course we do, right?
That makes sense.
That's not a failure.
That's why, and that's why the book is called, you're not the problem because you're not,
right?
These, these behaviors make sense.
Yeah.
Is it, yeah, I'm sorry.
Is it always about like, is it about like the dopamine hit or the like what you get out
of it?
Is it always about that?
And is there a level of coping, I assume, or you know, when you're doing these things,
that is healthy, right?
Is it, is it, because we all do it, right?
And is there a part of it that can be really healthy?
And like, when does it like cross over to that unhealthy mark if that's, if that's the
case?
Wow, such a great question because, and you know, let's, let's just use food because it's
a concrete example and it will help us understand and apply it a little bit more easily, but
I really want people to understand if food is not your thing, right?
There's probably something that you, that you recognize that you turn to kind of automatically
to help you kind of get through, right?
So but taking food in particular and in really just substitute whatever it is for you, it's
really about three things.
It's about your habituated pathways, right?
So, so you've done this in the past.
It worked in some way for you, right?
It calmed your nervous system, it, or it, it kind of puts you into a, a state where, you
know, sometimes in life, we don't know how to deal with the problem at hand, right?
We're going through something and there doesn't seem to be a solution, but we know how to
deal with our weight and when we eat too much, right?
So we may actually create a situation for us with food because that's a problem we know
the answer to, right?
We can go on the diet, we can do the, get up extra early and do the workout and being
able to put our focus on that is so much better than how am I going to deal with this, you
know, unfulfilling marriage or this career path that's not working out or whatever, you
know, maybe bigger and harder to figure out challenge that we may be facing, right?
So we, we start with the behavior, you know, like I did, okay, I'm four years old, I don't
feel good inside.
I'm reaching for something, I need soothing, it's not available anywhere to me.
Oh, it feels great when I eat this Twinkie.
Oh, these cheese and crackers, I felt a little better after I ate them.
So the brain says, oh, okay, got it.
You just taught me whenever that feeling comes up, go to food, got it.
Next time that happens and I feel that feeling, I'm not even going to check in with you because
you already trained to be, right?
That this is, this should be a behavior that we do all the time.
It's like when we're driving and we see a yellow light.
We don't sit there and be like, oh, yellow light, what am I supposed to do?
Oh, that's right.
I take my foot off the gas and I put it on the break.
Oh, good thing I remembered.
It's just, we just do it, right?
Yeah.
So after we've done this in use food or whatever it is a few times, saw that it worked for,
you know, even a moment, right?
Then we have the pathways that are associated with it and we become automatic with it.
We don't even have to think about it.
It just happens and we wake up afterwards and be like, what just happened?
Why did I do that?
You know, part of us wasn't really there.
We weren't conscious in that moment.
We were just automatic.
So that's a big, big aspect of it.
The second thing is our nervous system because when our nervous system is in need and meaning
it's activated and we're up in those survival zones, whether that's fight or flight or the
free state overwhelm, we're looking for something to help us and to bring us down.
So of course, we associate food with that and it works.
It actually, you know, chewing and swallowing activates our vagus nerve.
So that's part of the putting us in the parasympathetic.
And honestly, once our body registers that there's a bunch of food in our system, it can
force us into parasympathetic because we need to digest that.
You know, and then you put the dopamine in what it does neurochemically in the brain.
So it works, right?
And when our nervous system is activated and we need something, we turn to it and the other
thing about having an activated nervous system is when we're in that state survival, survival
brain doesn't care about your long-term goals at all.
It has no ability to override habituated pathways.
It says, we have to survive the next 30 seconds.
I don't care about how you're going to look in three weeks at that wedding or whatever
goal you set for yourself.
It's like right now, we're either going to eat those ships or we're going to die.
Those are our two choices.
And it's convincing, right?
And then the third piece is our emotions.
So if we haven't been taught how to sit in uncomfortable emotions, we want to run
as quick as we can, right?
And that's kind of what we're taught, but how to deal with our emotions.
What's the quickest way to not feel this way?
Right?
We're not taught how to get through.
We're taught how to avoid.
And if we don't have the tools to be in our uncomfortable emotions and our nervous system
is revved up and we have these habituated pathways that put us on autopilot, forget it.
Right?
Of course, we're going to go for the food.
Yeah.
We are.
Yeah, it makes that makes total sense.
And I could see just like little things popping in my head as you're talking like my mom always
and like my mom's great first of all.
She was fantastic, but she always used food in so many different ways, you know, comfort,
celebration.
And I still do this.
I definitely use food for comfort.
I definitely use food for celebration.
It's like, oh, I did that.
I did the hard thing.
Let's go get a milkshake or an ice cream cone or something like that and celebrate.
And so I could definitely see, you know, that's just like lighting up that part of my brain.
And then every time I want to celebrate, it's going to involve food, not to mention that
most celebrations do include food.
So that's a pretty normal one.
Absolutely.
And you had asked you, it said, is there a place where it's healthy and where it kind of crosses
over?
And what I would say about that is, I think we are emotional eaters.
We come into the world and comforted by the food.
And that can be, that definitely plays into our maladaptive use.
But I say, you know, part of my own journey, I never thought that food and I would be friends.
Right?
But I think we should be emotional eaters.
I think food should be used in celebration.
It should be used to comfort us.
Right?
It's just not the only thing.
And as a piece of life that fits in with our broader goals, we want to take care of ourselves
and be healthy and all the things.
But to say, I should never turn to food, that would be like to deny being human.
We should.
Right?
Yes.
I love food.
Yes.
And you should.
And it's a beautiful thing.
And so, you know, having overcoming emotional eating is not about eating, not being emotional.
It's about it not using it to abandon yourself in the, in, in, and your needs, right?
Because if I'm turning to food, I, I believe in, I, I came to this realization.
It was such a crazy moment because I always focused on my weight from my, you know, my adaptation
as a, as a child.
I thought that was the thing.
But I came to a realization at some point in my journey where I said, you know what?
Even if food didn't cause extra weight and there was no outward sign of me using food, it
would still be worth it to fix this because when I turn to food, I'm literally telling the
part of me that struggling, whether it's my nervous system or my emotions more, more
likely both.
Um, here, you know, I'm not going to deal with you.
I'm not going to take care of you.
Here's a cookie.
Now go play.
And that's, that's not care.
Mm-hmm.
So using food as a, you know, because when you celebrate with food, you know, you have a
lovely milkshake and you're like, that was awesome and it made those experience and it's
part of this cool thing.
Have six milkshakes every time you know, you know, something, then, then might be hurting
yourself, right?
Yeah.
But there's nothing left enjoying food.
Please enjoy your food.
Mm-hmm.
Definitely.
So let's move on to the next step where like how, how do we care for ourselves?
What is the answer to this?
Like how do we move forward?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's, it's understanding the need behind the food, right?
And meeting those needs.
And it really, you know, at first, it means just setting aside that battle with food, just
whatever food, however I'm eating whatever that doesn't matter what matters is my overactive
nervous system.
What matters is the fact that I have these emotions and I don't know what to do with them.
I don't know how to process them.
I don't know how to see them as my compass and not be taken over by them.
And when we work there, right, the need for the food goes away.
So we can stop fighting ourselves, stop fighting our bodies, stop fighting the food, tend
to what is the food is serving, right?
And it takes care of itself.
And you know, make it sounds so easy and so simple, right?
And it's not.
I don't mean to be like, oh, it's just so simple.
Oh, we do.
It's hard.
But at least when you have the right focus and you're putting your energy and your willpower
into the right thing, you're going to win.
When you put your energy and your willpower into denying your needs, no way, no way.
Will we ever win by fighting ourselves?
So is it kind of like mother in yourself?
And I guess the next question too would be to talk about your freedom formula.
Is that part of what you do with people?
Absolutely.
Yeah, the freedom formula really is it's a three-part system that leads from your adaptive
self to your most expansive self and your most expansive life.
So we're talking about in the first phase of the freedom formula is your foundation.
It's your solid basement because all of us, you know, we know a lot of times what we want
and we're out there trying to create it at the behavioral level, right?
Which is in my mind, it's like, you know, what you want in your life is like this big, beautiful
mansion that you're trying to build.
And the first phase of the freedom formula is your basement.
It's your solid concrete foundation that will hold up everything else.
And we're out here when we started the behavioral level.
That means we're up here trying to build second floor balconies with nothing underneath,
right?
It's not going to hold.
It's going to crumble.
You might be good for a week or two weeks or whatever, but it's going to fill again
and again and again because it's not built on anything strong.
So the first phase, which is this first book is all about getting out of survival mode
and tending to your nervous system.
Because without that, none of the other things are possible sustainably.
So when we talk about how do we tend to our nervous system, our nervous system needs
three things.
Safety, capacity and energy.
And with these three things, we can move on to step two, which is really understanding
our adaptive thought patterns, right?
And the thing is people don't understand, everything is always mind and body, right?
You know how it's always both things.
But what people, I think, don't understand is, you know, we try so hard and there's so much
mindset stuff out there, which is great.
It's good.
It's needed.
But if your system is in survival, you don't have access to the part of your brain that
is capable of thinking new thoughts.
You can think them, but they're not going to stick.
They're not going to become part of your operating system.
And so you're doing all this work, you're doing all this work, you're doing all this work
and nothing's happening.
And then you use it as evidence that you're broken, right?
And again, you're not a problem.
If you have a system that has the right conditions that is, is, is, uh, capacitated and resourced,
you can do anything.
Yeah, I really start.
Yeah, I, that, that is so good because it's so hard to get through to some people and
tell them that they can't really progress until they balance their nervous system, you know?
And yeah, none of the work that you're doing, like, you know, I can't tell you how many
times I've been with a client and they've been like, come back to me for the same problem
over and over and over again.
And I'm like, well, are you doing this?
Are you been doing, you know, your breath work?
Have you been doing, you know, oh, yes, oh, I have to get back to that.
I'm like, yeah, you have to get yourself out of that fighter flight and that freeze before
you can move forward to do anything else and work on anything else.
And I think you just said that perfectly, perfectly.
Yeah.
Isn't that the truth, you know?
Yeah.
And I actually, it's so cruel, you know, to do to yourself.
And that's what, but I found, for me is like, gosh, every Monday, you know, I got out
my little notebook and I told myself exactly how I was going to behave and all the things
I was going to do.
And I didn't have any capacity for any of it.
And yeah, I would set myself up that way every single week, you know?
And you know, it is hard.
It is hard because for a lot of reasons, because we're in pain and we want that thing at the
end.
And so it's so hard to not turn to that, right?
Whatever it is.
And I say, okay, I'm not going to touch that and I'm going to work on my breathing excite
in my nervous system.
Yeah.
It's like telling a child, you know, I have a 10 year old and she has downs and she just,
I'll tell her, oh, I made a haircut for you next Thursday.
I will hear about that haircut a thousand times a day from now until next Thursday, right?
And because it wants it so, it's like all you can focus on, right?
And it's the same thing we want when we get in our mind, what we want, you know, it is
so hard to not put all of our effort into it, you know?
But you see it, people will struggle.
And I did too.
30 some years doing the same thing.
Yeah, me too.
Yeah.
Because I won't do, I'm like, no, this really is the fastest way.
I promise, I promise, look at your own data from your own life, you know?
Oh, yeah.
No, but if I could just do the thing, if I could just do the thing, if I could just get my
shit together, then I'd be there and then I'll worry about my nervous system.
Yeah, exactly.
And I just don't work that way.
And I feel like it took me, it took me way too long.
I always feel that way about myself in different situations where I'm like, God, I wish it didn't
take me so long to learn that for crying out loud, you know?
But I'm so grateful now that I have learned it.
And I learned that lesson so many times that when I do fall away from it, because I do, obviously,
I think we all do.
It's not something that you get, because then you never go back to it.
It's something that's like a continuous lifestyle kind of thing.
I know exactly how to get back to it.
I know exactly what I need to do to, you know, get my nervous system where it needs to
be in order to move forward.
And I do realize that that's the most important thing at this point before I do anything.
So, you just, so yes, everything, it is everything.
And I love how you acknowledge.
And I'm always surprised when people say, what?
Your nervous system still gets active.
I'm like, of course it does.
It would be broken, right?
If it did, like that would not be good.
Our nervous systems are responsive for a reason.
And they're like a compass for us.
They help us direct our lives into in good ways.
But I love how you're saying, you know, when I do, and of course I do, yeah.
But it's when you have that foundation that I'm talking about, when you have that foundation,
you're not scared that your progress is going to be taken away.
And that's what you get when you use willpower to achieve something.
How many times, and I'm sure you've come across hundreds or thousands, tens of thousands
of people who have said to you, oh, there was that one time when I did lose weight, you
know, I lost weight, I kept it off for a year and a half.
And then I get, you know, because when we build something based on willpower, it's not sturdy.
And when we have the tools to constantly understand where we are, come back, you know, for
our individual systems, then we're secure.
Yes, we still do the work every day.
I still do the work, but I know that when I veer a little bit, because I'm not going to let
myself over your far, when I veer a little bit, exactly what you said, and know how to get
back on track, you know, how to respond to that message that the nervous system is offering.
Yeah, exactly.
And I think it's up to the individual person to really figure out what works for them,
you know, because what works for me doesn't necessarily work for you, you know, so I know
what works really good and quick for me.
And I just, I've learned that over the years by trying a million different things.
I try everything, you know.
I always struggled with stress and anxiety.
I always felt like I was a little high strong, and I think it was because that's how my
mom was, you know, it was almost in my DNA, I almost couldn't avoid it.
So knowing that, you know, I was like, all right, I need to fix this, you know, so I was
like, how can I, you know, feel better?
How can I get myself to feel better?
How can I calm my nervous system?
And just trying all those different things and somethings work, like, you know, I tried tapping.
That just didn't jive with me.
It doesn't mean that it doesn't work.
Work for yourself.
You pull magically, but it wasn't my thing.
Breathwork was my thing.
Meditation, yoga, needle was my thing.
Running, go figure.
You know, so it's like, you just have to figure out what works for you.
And I think once you do that, then you have that toolkit to go back to, you know.
So, yeah, talk about love that you're bringing that up because it's so important.
And I also feel like it's a point that people really need to understand because, you know,
just like a handyman doesn't show up to every job with just a screwdriver, right?
He needs a full on tool belt.
And depending on the job and what it requires.
So each of us need a tool belt, but as you're saying, your tool belt may look different
than my tool belt.
And I think a lot of people who start with this work, you know, they might start with meditation,
oh, I can't meditate.
No, I'm on my mind always races or whatever.
Well, I think, yeah, that's another topic.
But the whole mother of God, the whole mother, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, but then, you know, and things don't always work in the moment that, you know, sometimes
your nervous system is going to be like, no, I don't want to calm down.
I need to be in this state because there's to be a bunch of problems.
I need to be a bit like exactly.
So it's really, it's not about finding a tool.
It's about learning your system.
And that's hard to hear.
I remember being really frustrated when I realized that I was going to have to learn and develop
this for myself.
I was kind of pissed because I just wanted you to tell me, just freaking tell me the thing
to do.
And I'll do it, you know, but that, and that's part of having the capacity to be in there
and developing that knowledge of yourself.
And it requires that you learn to hear your body, you know, you're not just going to
put a tool on it.
You like, here you go.
And I think that's really important to understand because when people don't have the underlying
knowledge of their system, they will pull, you know, oh, this, this, this thing over here,
it's not going to be your answer.
And that's okay.
It might be part of your answer, ultimately.
But really do this work and to have it as your foundation, you got to know yourself,
which is a beautiful thing.
It just, yeah, it is, it is something that requires effort.
Yeah.
And I think you brought up a really important point, which is, you know, I did say that
not everything works, but you do have to give it a chance.
Like you brought up with the meditation.
The first time I tried to meditate, my body did not want to set still.
The first time I tried to do a yoga, Neatra, I was like, that's crazy doing a meditation
for 20 minutes.
That's crazy.
Who does that?
You know, but now I'm like, that's my sanctuary, that's my place.
And so you have to, you do have to give it a chance, definitely.
And I think it's really important not to focus too much on those quick fixes, you know, as
a, as a population that uses pharmaceuticals and stuff like that.
And now there's a place, there's a good place for pharmaceuticals.
I'm not saying they're bad, but we're, we're so used to that instant, that instant gratification,
that instant feeling, that when it doesn't come with certain remedies that we're searching
for, we think it doesn't work.
That's not always the case.
We have to sometimes give things a little bit of time to naturally unfold.
And so I talking about the tapping again, because I don't want to give tapping a bad name.
Yeah.
I tried tapping multiple times.
I interviewed people on my podcast about tapping.
It just changes lives for people, you know?
And so I definitely tried it numerous times.
It just wasn't my thing, but yeah, that was an important point that you brought up.
And I think that taking the time to try different things can actually be fun sometimes.
You could make it fun, but I, and it's interesting, because I've noticed for myself, I've had
different seasons where different works for me.
I had a tapping season.
And man, it was just, and then it didn't feel as helpful.
I was drawn to other things.
And so, and I think there's just certain, you know, times and certain specific things that
the tools work for you, right?
So I think of our practices and everything that they are ever evolving and we're becoming
more skillful, like craftspeople, right?
This is a craft that we're learning.
And it's fun to never be done.
You always have like, ooh, that could be fun, right?
I didn't start the way, certainly, right?
There was so much resistance.
I don't want to have to do this.
And really what happens?
I don't want to have to pay attention to myself.
Yeah, yeah.
And somebody, I can't remember who it was.
It was a guess I had on, but this was like a really good point she made.
She said, because a lot of people are like, when I was a kid, I didn't have to do any of
this stuff.
And she said, yeah, but when you were a kid, you went outside and you played.
And you did all the different things.
And she was like, that's kind of equal to like somatic shaking or somatic dancing.
Like, she's like, do you ever watch a child standing in line with their mom?
And their mom wants them to stand still and they're just flopping around and doing all
this stuff.
Yeah.
It was like, that's their system trying to work out those frustrations of having to sit still
on that moment.
And that when they're a child, you automatically do those things.
Yeah.
And so I was like, that's such an interesting way to like think about it.
And it's almost like we're relearning how to, how to feel, how to connect with the way
our body feels.
And you had said that you said that earlier that it's really important to pay attention to
how you feel.
And go take care of that and move into that.
And I think you definitely move through that in seasons like you said, you know, like running
for me was really, really good for a long time.
But then when my nervous system was really, really heightened, it wasn't good anymore because
it just running put you into fighting, fighting for me, you know.
So I noticed that running helped me release anger.
But if I was really anxious, running did not make me feel good.
Which is already depleted.
There's nothing to offer the run.
So it was very interesting.
And it's so paying attention to how you feel is very important, I think.
And I really want to talk about your book.
Like awesome.
It's called You're Not the Problem.
So tell me about the book.
I'm so interested.
I love books.
I read so many books.
So tell me about it.
Definitely going to read it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it's, it's really so much of what we've been talking about with that.
Again, it's the first phase of the freedom formula of that basement.
How do you build that basement to shift from your adopted self, the self you've had to
become in order to survive in your world to your expansive self, the self that is your
authentic self, the self that's calm, and regulated, and creative, and curious, and
resourced, you know, because that's the self that we want to take into, into life, right?
That's the self capable of creating whatever it is that that you individually want to be
do or have, you know, and I listened to a few episodes ago where you were talking about,
you know, success as defined by what feels good to you, you know, if you're not just, I
just want to be home and raising my kids and that, awesome.
That is success for you, you know, and so to become the version of you that's capable
of creating your success, whatever that is, right?
We need that solid foundation and that's what this, this first book is.
It's about teaching you that your adaptations are not flaws.
It's not your personality, it's not what you're stuck with, it's how you learn to adapt.
Now let's adapt again, this time towards wholeness and authenticity and, and resourcefulness
and capacity.
So it really is the, the three things that I mentioned.
It takes you through each section of the book, one section is devoted to safety.
How, what does safety mean in the body, right?
It's not your physical environment, doesn't mean you're physically safe.
It means you feel safe.
Your body is able to register safety, capacity.
If you don't have the capacity to take on anything, then asking yourself to change is ridiculous.
Like putting is like your little seed and you toss yourself into the flower pot with a
couple tablespoons of sand and then stick it in the closet and be like, grow, blow up,
it's wrong with you.
Why are you not blossoming?
We got to give our substance conditions, right?
And capacity is one of those important things.
And then the energy, a body that has been living in adaptations, stress, overwhelm functions
differently at the mitochondrial level, you know, your cells have been changed by
years of stress.
And so how do we bring back energy into the body?
Because if you don't have energy, you can want all of these things.
You can even be going through the motions, but your body is going to stay in lockdown because
it doesn't have what it means.
So we want to switch the mitochondria from cell danger response, which is just, you know,
they're just trying to protect and batten down the hatches, you know, and all that and
switch it into energy production again.
So that you feel like doing the things, right?
It cannot be just a constant drag to do the things.
And it's, it's night and day when you have to have the energy, you can do the things that
you've been trying to do for so long and failing at them, you know, and you just do them and
you're like, oh, wow.
This is not so bad at all, you know, this is, it takes some, maybe some intention, but
it's, it's totally doable.
And that's a wonderful moment because then you can stop blaming yourself and you can
reap the benefits of, you know, what it is that you're wanting and achieving.
And so that's really the, the basis for this first book and it is a very, I use myself
as and many, many client stories that the wonderful people who allowed me to just share.
And I think it really brings it home because we can read about theory and about science and
about our system all day long.
And it's like, oh, okay, that explains a lot.
But how does it actually show up in a person's life?
I think is really what allows us to use it.
And so, you know, for me, it's very raw.
It's, I didn't hold anything back, which was interesting because when I first thought,
I want to bring this work out to the world.
I thought, but it has to be all secret.
I need a pen name and I need, you know, many years ago, I thought I will never be able to
tell anyone and I didn't up in, you know, nearly 40 years old.
I didn't tell anyone that I hadn't had any of these struggles.
I never told anyone that happened to me.
No one knew.
And so now for me to be like, Hey, here's everything, you know, the good of bad and the ugly.
It was so interesting to me.
Wow, how, I don't say easy because of course it was challenging.
I feel like I was in one of those dreams when you get on the bus and you forgot to get dressed.
Mm-hmm.
And, you know, it was, yeah, but I'm like, wow, I'm not embarrassed.
Not in the slightest bit.
There's nothing in me that says I should be ashamed of myself and all the bad choices
and all the, you know, the rough stuff.
Yeah.
So I think it's a good way to learn this information because it's real.
It's how it looked in my life and in many others.
Well, I'm very excited to read it myself.
As I said, I love reading.
I'm always reading at least 10 bucks at a time.
And it's like, no, okay, that's not 10, but at least five.
Yeah, five.
Yeah.
And it's like, I have like this little area next to my couch where I stack all the bucks.
Yeah.
And it looks a little cluttery.
I'm not going to lie.
But every morning, I'm like, which one do I, like what kind of mood am I in today?
What do I want to read?
You know, do I want to learn something?
Do I want something fun?
And that's how I decide when I'm reading.
And so I'm excited to read this book because I do overwhelmingly read books that I learned
from.
Need to know.
Yeah.
Just recently, my son kind of turned me on to reading for fun, which was kind of good.
But I'm very excited to read it.
So tell us where everyone can connect with you, like where you hang out.
And also where everyone can find your book when it comes out, all the information.
Yeah.
So the book, the intro is available right now for people to download.
And you can definitely, that'll probably be in the show notes, the link for that.
Yes.
You can also find that link on my website at www.lorymontery.com L-O-R-I-M-O-N-T-R-Y.
I also hang out on YouTube.
And as part of the book, you know, I really want this to be much more than just, you know,
a book that people read in isolation, created a community around it and a movement around
it because if enough people are building that strong foundation and have nervous systems
that are, that are capacitated and regulated and resourced, this world will be different.
Yeah.
I agree with you.
Yeah.
Definitely a better place.
Absolutely.
And because we touch, you know, all of the lives in our circle and those circles and those
circles and for whatever reason when I, as I was writing the book and realizing the impact
that could have, I had the, I guess, I'll call it a download that says, we need to touch
50 million people by the end of this decade.
So by 2030, we need to have touched in this message.
In some form, has to reach 50 million people.
And I thought, what the heck?
Where did that come from?
That's not possible.
And they said, no, okay, I have to do this.
So I'm asking for help from, you know, amazing people like you.
Like we have to let people know that they're not the problem and that with the right nervous
system support, they can, they can feel resourced again and have the capacity to, to be the best
versions of them, which will have that impact in the world.
Yeah.
I would definitely love to be a part of that and all that information will be in the show
notes.
And before we go, one last question, just a fun question.
What is your go-to self-care practice that you use to kind of give yourself some relief
or your nervous system relief?
Hmm, great question.
Yeah.
And it goes back to, you know, it being different for all of us.
But I think my real go-to, what I've learned most about self-care is for me, it's time where
I can be responsive to me.
I call it time where I see where the wind takes me.
What I mean by that is it's just, it's time where I don't have to, oh, you know, oh, it's
9.45, I have to be this, I have to do this, I have to go get the kids, I have to make dinner,
I have to, whatever, it's just time where I can be like, hmm, what do I, what do I feel
like?
It's like what you do when you go to your reading corner, say, hey, what do I feel like?
And then you respond by giving yourself that, right?
And that time has to be, I think, in the world that we live in, in the lives that we have,
I think it has to be set aside.
It won't happen organically, not in my life, in my life.
I have, I have a little space every morning that's just for me and I do whatever I want.
It's usually roughly the same, you know, my dream being in my bodies, my somatic work
and things, but I get to decide.
And then I have days or, you know, half days or something where there's literally nothing
planned, nothing magic happens.
I might stay in the shower for five extra minutes, whereas, you know, normally it's like,
okay, I'm clean, we're done here.
Oh, this is nice.
I like the warm water, whatever.
Oh, I'm like, spending a few extra minutes in making this for myself for breakfast.
It's just time to be responsive to me.
And for me at least that is the ultimate form of self-care.
A toolment.
It's a real achievement.
That's beautiful.
I love that.
That's beautiful.
Thank you for sharing.
Well, thank you for being a guest on the podcast today and all the information to connect
with you and to check out the book.
We'll be in the show notes.
And once again, it was lovely to meet you.
Absolutely.
I appreciate you so much and all that you do and all the viewer offerings and just, you
really get it.
And I'm excited to know that you're out here doing great things.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
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