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Dr. Sophie Fletcher on Embodiment, Somatically Psychology, Healing the Psyche, Psychotherapy, & More
529 Plays2 years ago
This week we are joined by Dr. Sophie Fletcher. She gives us a beautiful definition of health, relating it to our relationships. This cycles into a discussion on parapersonal space, and embodiment.
We then discuss how our physical bodies can hold on to trauma, or suppressed energy. We discuss how to work though this psychological energy somatically, as well as how to stay on top of it to ensure nothing gets stored.
We discuss the role of the nervous system, and discuss Dr. Fletchers thoughts on psychotherapy. We discuss 'maladaptive patters' and discuss why a neutral standpoint is important in self-assessment. We also have a word about Jung and some of the original psychotherapists!
I hope you enjoy the episode!
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Transcript
Introduction of Dr. Sophie Fletcher and Topics Teaser
00:00:02
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of The Beyond Train Podcast. I'm your host, Liam Dalton. We have a very special guest on today, Dr. Sophie Fletcher, and we're going to delve into some very interesting topics. Definitely pertinent to what I'm going to be doing moving forward. I think central really to just what we're talking about in general here. And so, yeah, I think we're going to get into some really cool topics today. So Dr. Fletcher, thank you so much for coming on today. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me.
00:00:31
Speaker
Lovely to connect. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I always start the episodes off asking just a general question.
Defining Health as Vitality and Engagement
00:00:40
Speaker
I ask, what is health? What does health mean to you? You know, how does it look like? How does it manifest? And so I'll just give you the Florida to answer that. Right. What is health? Well, I'll say when you said that the first word that popped into my head was vitality.
00:00:58
Speaker
And I think that really covers a lot of arenas. Are you vitally engaged in your life in general? Are you learning? Are you pushing yourself? Are you in relationship? I think relationships are a huge part of health that often kind of go by the wayside sometimes, especially in such a technological
00:01:25
Speaker
age, it can kind of feel a little bit more like, oh, we're connected to everyone and everything, but are you really like relating? Are you really with it? Are you aware of it? Are you embodied in it? And I will also say that I think vitality sort of leads with embodiment. So if you're not here, if you're not present in your own body, in your own skin, in your own life,
00:01:53
Speaker
Are you also vital? I don't think so. I think they have to come hand in hand So that'd be my short answer. Yes Awesome. I love it. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. That's Again, usually we always get a great answer on this question and it's been different for every single episode Of course. Yeah, I love that you brought up the relationships because you know we're social beings and
00:02:20
Speaker
That's so important to nurture and foster healthy relationships.
The Importance of Social Relationships and Physical Contact
00:02:24
Speaker
You know, you could be as healthy as you want, you know, but if you're just kind of isolated, you know, nothing good comes from that. And, you know, there's been some, like, well, they've observed cases of people who've been isolated and their health is not there. It deteriorates very quickly if they're isolated or if they lack
00:02:46
Speaker
you know, the relation, especially in children and young like young children, you know, like if they don't have any connection growing up. So I think that's really a really, really interesting point and a really important point to bring up. I love that. I mean, there were those studies in the Romanian orphanages where babies if
00:03:05
Speaker
You know, they're given all of the, they're kept at the right temperature. They're fed the right nutrition, you know, put in the quote unquote ideal environment and everything. And yet they have no physical contact.
00:03:20
Speaker
the babies. I can't remember the word. I always, I always, always forget it, but it's, it basically means like it's you, you don't develop, like it's wasting away. Um, and it's literally like, we are social beings. We have social brains. We develop socially. We are mammals who need that interaction and that group and that
00:03:43
Speaker
connection with others. And there's extremely important parts of us that don't develop if we don't have those, including our physical bodies, not just our emotional and mental experiences, but also
00:03:59
Speaker
physical bodies need that stimulation. And this wasn't actually something I was interested in until I started my dissertation for my PhD. It came sort of out of nowhere in my head, but I feel like coming from more depth psychological perspective and more younginess, it was called. I feel like I was called to this.
00:04:28
Speaker
topic. And I'm still curious why. It's still unfolding. But my main topic was the inter-relational dynamics of contact. But that came from this sort of interest in how we relate with one another and what is happening between two bodies,
00:04:48
Speaker
or two beings when they interact more than just the physical stimulation but what else is communicating and happening and over and over and over and over again in all of the reading and research and studies and everything that I did it was like this isn't a luxury.
00:05:07
Speaker
It's not this nice thing to sort of have as like a side of your main meal of life. Like it is, it is the foundation of our beingness is this relational dynamics and being in contact. So maybe that's where I came. I'd love to hear more about that. You know, maybe you want to open up about that and maybe a little bit of the work that you did in your dissertation specifically, like how you came to these conclusions as well. I'd love to hear more about
Understanding Parapersonal Space
00:05:35
Speaker
that. I think that's so important.
00:05:36
Speaker
Sure. Well, the main spark of it was actually a particular book by Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee. And in it, I read about this neuroscience sort of discovery at the time of parapersonal space.
00:05:55
Speaker
and parapersonal space is this sort of like a few inches off of your body, this sort of amoeba area around you that moves with you. And when you touch something, so when you're in physical contact with it, this parapersonal space actually sort of engulfs what it is you're touching. And then that actually starts being tracked in your somatosensory cortex as part of, whoa.
00:06:24
Speaker
Is anybody just listening? That's really true. All of a sudden my background on my video had fireworks. I don't know how or why. That was a nice little surprise. Apparently I just went soundtrack. That was funny.
00:06:43
Speaker
So anyway, so this parapersonal space engulfs what it is that you're touching. So and then in this somatosensor cortex, it starts tracking that as part of your being. Now, obviously, the more you touch something, the more your brain sort of tracks it as potentially part of you. So one of my favorite examples of this is have you ever been driving and you go under something low hanging and you physically duck?
00:07:10
Speaker
And we all logically know that me moving my physical head is not going to have any impact whatsoever on whether or not the top of my car gets taken off. But especially if it's my personal car, my parapersonal spaces mapped the outside of this car as my body, as sort of the outer layer of me. And so me doing that is just that instinct of, you know, sort of that taking over.
00:07:39
Speaker
Um, and what they were talking about was really this had been studied a lot in terms of inanimate objects so far in terms of people with artificial limbs. So you hear a lot now of people with artificial limbs, they can feel.
00:07:55
Speaker
sensation within their limb, like they can feel their fingertips, even if it's an artificial limb, and it's this parapersonal space that engulfs it and sort of starts mapping it as part of ourselves. They also study this with like tool usage and things like people who use heavy machinery or like a rake, like certain things, they can start feeling the edges of these pieces.
00:08:22
Speaker
And I started thinking like, well, does this also happen with inanimate objects? Does this happen with a person in relationship, animals, all of that. And I couldn't find anything where that had been studied.
00:08:40
Speaker
And coming from a bodywork background for myself, I had sort of had this experience where I'd be in these close contact with my clients and feel like a bit of like melting or feel like maybe the boundaries were getting a little blurry of like my body and their body or even leaving a session sort of feeling like something had sort of like come over me.
00:09:06
Speaker
or something that wasn't necessarily mine. And I hadn't gotten any training in that or education. Like it was never mentioned like, Hey, PS, your bodies are speaking to each other. And especially in these, you know, intimate experiences, there could be exchanges, things like that.
00:09:25
Speaker
And so I had gone on my own personal journey of finding out for myself, like, okay, what do I need to do like before a session? What do I need to do during a session? What do I do after a session to kind of like reorient and come back to myself, like really sit more strongly within my own body. And so reading about the para-personal space, those two kind of collided for me into this inquiry.
00:09:53
Speaker
And so then my dissertation ended up focusing on the experience of hands-on body workers with their clients. And part of that was really because I felt like if I walked down the street and just asked 10 random people what their experience of touch is, I was probably not going to get a lot of information that I could use in any substantial way. And it would probably be pretty, it would probably be entertaining, that's for sure.
00:10:23
Speaker
But I wanted to really focus on one body workers because they're intentionally in contact with others. And so I thought that would be really helpful. And then it also seemed to be another gap in sort of research that I thought
00:10:37
Speaker
could have a little light shit on it, that there are these, you know, in psychology, there's the understanding of transference and countertransference. And then the terms of somatic transference and somatic countertransference, where you'll feel something like countertransference would be me feeling something in my body, that's actually the client.
00:10:57
Speaker
And so there's that sort of understanding, but then I was curious about it even at that deeper level of like, if you're in contact with them, does that get heightened? Does that get shifted at all? Like what happens with that?
Cultivating Embodiment and Self-Awareness
00:11:12
Speaker
And so that was where the exploration took me. And the main sort of like consensus, I'll say was the more embodied you are within yourself,
00:11:25
Speaker
the stronger you are in that capability to sort of feel into the other's boundaries and edges while also maintaining your own sense of self. So that was, I think, the more that we gain our own self-awareness.
00:11:41
Speaker
get more somatically in tune with ourselves. That helps us be in actual relationship with another versus that melding over coupling or like being too scared to be in relationship because maybe we've had those experiences in the past and it was, you know, uncomfortable or anything like that. Cool. That's amazing.
00:12:05
Speaker
So this embodiment that you speak of, maybe you could break that down a little bit for the listener. How do you get into this sort of embodiment? How do you foster that? Even in people that you're working with, because I'm sure that's a goal as well. You want them to really feel present and thereby, like you were mentioning earlier. Yeah, and a big part of that is really getting in tune with your
00:12:27
Speaker
your own body because, and when I say that, I mean more of like the sensations of your body. Getting in tune with the boundaries, borders of your own body, your own ideas and thoughts, your own voice, you know.
00:12:44
Speaker
It's sort of interesting how I feel like there's sort of this umbrella experience of when you hear your own voice and it sounds so different than when I'm speaking, I sound one way and then I'll hear my voice and be like, is that me? That's so weird. But how can you get more comfortable with hearing your own self?
00:13:09
Speaker
And your voice, yes, but also like your sensations. And most of my clients, you know, when I'm working with them and things, it'll be this experience where at some point they'll say like, I feel like I'm in kindergarten and I'm so frustrated because, you know, I work with adults. And it's like, well, you are like we kind of are as as like a
00:13:32
Speaker
you know, culture, we're a little bit in kindergarten around this, I think. I think we used to be much, much more in touch with it. And we're sort of coming back to this experience of feeling our bodies and being here in this physical world. Because I think a lot of it at the moment, it's really enticing to be just in the intellect, just in the mind and or secondarily sort of like flight
00:14:02
Speaker
dissociated more in that like dorsal frozen state sort of dissociated from our beings because it's uncomfortable and it has all these like aches or pains or just traumas you know that we've had throughout our life and so we sort of learn that being here feeling this physical experience just isn't necessarily all that great.
00:14:27
Speaker
all the time. And so the more we can get in tune with that. So really simple ways are even just us sitting here right now or whoever is listening to this, feel into like, can you feel your body touching whatever it is that's holding your weight? If you're standing, maybe that's just the soles of your feet. If you're sitting, maybe that's the back of your body, down the back of your thighs.
00:14:55
Speaker
Can you feel where your body is actually in contact with something else? And what is that like? Can you feel that little, little tiny bit of space in between your body and the other and sort of like allow it to be held, but like receive the holding and hold yourself at the same time? Does that make sense?
00:15:18
Speaker
So it's kind of like I can feel my muscles relaxing and at the same time there's other muscles that are activated because I'm sitting up straight. So tuning into that, what is it like to feel certain muscles that are relaxing and being held and other ones that are holding your body in a specific position? Another thing is to tune in, are you comfortable how you're sitting?
00:15:44
Speaker
A lot of times when I ask a client that, or if I do lead groups and stuff, when I ask that, it's like many people will shift. It's like, well,
00:15:57
Speaker
Why were you sitting in an uncomfortable position? You know, generally, if we're all adults, we're all capable of moving our body position and helping ourselves get comfortable. We're asking, you know, a lot of people, it's like, can you use your voice to ask for, do you need a pillow? Or do you need a blanket? Are you a little bit cold? Are you a little hot? Like, have you actually tuned into that?
00:16:23
Speaker
And the vast majority of the time, it's like people aren't constantly tuning into that. I'm not saying it needs to be every single moment of every single second, but the more we do it, the more it doesn't have to be this like intentional process. It can just be like, oh, I'm uncomfortable.
Dr. Fletcher's Journey from Dissociation to Embodiment
00:16:40
Speaker
I'm going to move. Versus, oh, I've been sitting in this uncomfortable position and I didn't even notice.
00:16:47
Speaker
I didn't even realize what was happening because I wasn't here. I wasn't really present in my own body and what's happening to the sensations that I'm feeling. Another thing is like, when you need to pee, go pee.
00:17:04
Speaker
You know, when you're hungry, get something to eat. It's not rocket science. It really is sort of kindergarten. But how many of us, if we went to traditional schooling, we were told when you're allowed to pee, when you're allowed to move or walk or run or play, when you're allowed to eat.
00:17:23
Speaker
When you're allowed to have water, we have to ask permission for these things from the adults around us. Well, okay, so we adapted to be able to sort of survive in that situation, but we're now adults. Or maybe, you know, kids are listening to this. But if you're an adult listening to this, like, you can generally, I don't know in what circumstances if you needed to pee, somebody would be like, no, you're not allowed. Like,
00:17:53
Speaker
I'm 38, who's gonna tell me I'm not allowed to pee? That's just something, but it's like how many of us have sort of numbed that out? And it's like, oh no, I'll do that later. Or I don't even notice until it's like, oh, I really have to pee. So really getting just those subtle hints, those subtle whispers from our bodies of like, hey, this is what I need, or this is what's happening, or this is what I'm feeling. And then actually responding.
00:18:23
Speaker
to it and that builds that communication between your awareness and your body and it leads that more embodied experience of I'm actually here and I'm feeling what's happening. And that's, you know, as I said, a lot of us have also been trained out of that because maybe it was uncomfortable at certain times or it was safer to sort of numb out and dissociate. That was very much
00:18:50
Speaker
Part of my story was just through a series of events. When I was little, I learned to dissociate. That was much more comfortable to not really be here, not feel physical discomfort. And so I learned to dissociate. And then I got involved in a spiritual community. And that spiritual community did save my life 100% because I sort of got taught that if
00:19:18
Speaker
If I were to commit suicide just to be blunt, then I would, in that sort
Storing Trauma in the Body and Somatic Healing
00:19:24
Speaker
of understanding, I would just have to come back and live it again. And I was like, well, I don't want to do that. And this was actually at four years old. So I started having suicidal ideation at three because of certain things that happened in my life. And at four, I was taught this. And at four, I was like, that sounds like a bad plan. I'm already four years in, maybe I just continue going.
00:19:48
Speaker
but my way of continuing growing was to just dissociate. And then in the spiritual community, it was very geared towards more like meditation, transcend the body, be above the body. So if the body is like the lesser, you know, the bad part of us or whatever that we have to get above. And so that sort of fed for me into my own trauma response.
00:20:15
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I just did fireworks again. And maybe it's a certain hand gesture I'm doing. I'll try to keep my hands down now. But so it fed into that for me and really eventually sort of strengthened my own trauma response of going more into that dorsal shut down frozen state. And it wasn't until my mid 20s when I ended up
00:20:42
Speaker
sort of getting involved in this community where one of the people was a body worker. And part of the body work was walking on the person's body. And so he started walking on my body. And I mean, I had so much pain. I had so much pain. And I had been doing all of this spiritual work and all of this karmic work since I was four. So I was like, what is happening? Why is there so much? I should be, you know, I should be great.
00:21:11
Speaker
And it clicked for me where I was like, oh, it's actually here. Like my lesson is to be here, to feel this, to be with the pain, to not dissociate, to not numb from it, to really be here and experience this level of discomfort and stay. And that was,
00:21:36
Speaker
So hard, but also really it ended up giving me like a second saving of my life because I felt like, oh, I'm actually here now. I'm actually engaged in what's happening. I'm actually aware of the sky above me and the beautiful trees outside and the soft chair under me right now. And I have a sort of velvety blanket across my lap right now. Like, oh, I can feel those things too.
00:22:07
Speaker
Anyway, that was a long-winded answer, but embodiment of being here, being just engaged with the experiences of being in a body. So even just more engaged with the five physical senses, not discounting in any way, shape, or form the more senses that we have accessible to us. And at the same time, can you smell the beauty of a flower?
00:22:37
Speaker
Can you taste delicious food? Can you feel, you know, a really nice texture of a blanket? Can you, like, can you hear the bird songs as well as all the discomfort that comes with it? But yeah, I think we're here on this, you know, physical reality of, for some reason, if so, why not, and why not feel it? Why not be here? Feel the good and the bad, right? It's no feeling at all.
00:23:06
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I like that you highlighted that. My fiance actually took a yoga course and in it, like they always talked about this grounding exercise that was just to come back to your senses, you know, like name five things you can see, five things you can hear, five things you can, you know, taste as the kind of the hardest one, but five things you can touch, you know, so, um, and it's always really good if you get worked up and you can kind of come back to your body just by engaging with these senses, which I think is really powerful. Yeah.
00:23:37
Speaker
I think that one of these mechanisms of storing trauma or storing our emotions is when you don't feel it. There's this idea, I don't know if you agree with this or your thoughts on this, maybe you can expand on that after, but there's this idea that we store it physically in our body.
00:24:02
Speaker
And that's why we hold tension in our muscles in certain areas in the body correspond to different areas where you're holding tension and what kind of stress it is, or if you were pressed it for this long, whatever it may be, right? And I always thought that was really interesting. And I mean, that to me really opens up this whole, it's so obvious that there's a somatic component to all of this. It's so obvious that we need to take care of our physical body. It's not useless.
00:24:32
Speaker
really like that ideology that we have to demonize the physical realm. Are we living in this materialistic biochemical construct of the world? Absolutely not. That is not what I'm saying. But we can't necessarily discount our senses. We can't discount what we can feel and what we can see of what these material objects like
00:24:58
Speaker
And the way that you're talking about how you were relating to these, uh, I just, anyways, maybe I'll let you have a comment on that. Yeah, I absolutely agree. Um, that we hold a lot of these sort of repressed or suppressed energies within us. So.
00:25:17
Speaker
in our physical bodies. And, you know, I mean, Jung, in sort of like my studies of depth psychology with somatics, the main sort of overarching theme was that our bodies hold our unconscious. And so by going into the body, you're really reaching into these unconscious areas and pieces. And even now it's sort of like all my work is sort of based in somatics, anything that I sort of study, but
00:25:48
Speaker
Like with the body work, I had that personal realization really strongly where I had this one instance where my teacher put my body in like a certain physical position. And it wasn't a normal sort of natural position that I ever remember being in. But as I was in that position, I had this memory come flooding back.
00:26:13
Speaker
to me that I had zero awareness of prior. And I think it was, it sort of got unlocked within my psyche. And I do think that our psyche has sort of like a filtering system for us as well in terms of it's going to allow to come to the surface what you are now maybe ready to process.
00:26:37
Speaker
So as you said, when we go through these traumas or when things happen, a trauma for me in my sort of thoughts is anything that's overwhelming to the system that can't be processed or sort of felt entirely in the moment because it's too much. Maybe it could be unsafe.
00:26:56
Speaker
too. So there's times when our autonomic nerve system will come online and be like, uh-uh, we're going to numb out from this because that's the most saving and the highest probability of survival that I can give to the system right now, right? So it's doing it out of protection.
00:27:15
Speaker
But it doesn't just go away. You know, that sort of saying, like, time heals all. I have a real problem with that saying, because no, it just sort of gets stuck in there somewhere within the system. And then your body is having to sort of figure out what to do. And the more and more we suppress down, the more and more we're holding down within our system, the more energy it's taking from us to hold these things down and under.
00:27:43
Speaker
versus allowing it to sort of be felt and be processed through. So even in like somatic experiencing, which is one of the main works that I utilize from Peter Levine, he talks about like how all of our joints hold a lot of affect within them because it's sort of like the main, it's sort of space within our body. And so energy can kind of get stuck there. And so a lot of people have more joint issues, you know, chronic joint,
00:28:12
Speaker
pains or aches or things like that. There's, you know, as you said, you know, the different correlations of the places in the body. And there are multiple different schools of thoughts around that of like, which areas correlate with what and, you know, different things in terms of like, most of my training has had a Chinese meridian basis within it. But then, you know, there's
00:28:39
Speaker
I'm also, I'm being curious about like biofield tuning and they have a different map. And then there's the chakras and then there's sifuro and then all the different things. And I've even been studying a lot more of like German new medicine and stuff. And so then it brings in a whole other sort of layer and everything. But yeah, I mean, I just, I agree with that strongly from my own experience as well as seeing it very, very clearly with clients.
00:29:09
Speaker
Um, and even part of that, that trauma sort of getting stuck in the body just from a physiological sense too is, um, like when there's a, when something happens, there can be multiple impulses that our body wants to play out in order to stay safe or help us survive. So think about it like if you were, you know, driving,
00:29:34
Speaker
and you see a car coming at you from one side. There may be part of you that wants to turn the wheel in a certain way or look away or do something. Or maybe there might be another impulse to put your hands up to shield yourself. And the other impulse is to turn the wheel to try to get away. You can only do one of those.
00:29:59
Speaker
but the other impulse is still sort of stuck within your system. So a lot of sort of more of the somatic experiencing work is sort of playing those out, like playing what might have wanted to move through your body, through your body now in the present moment so that it can sort of gain access to that. So just a personal example was that I was on like one of those big yoga balls
00:30:27
Speaker
and we were having it like just moving around on it. And I was the client at the time. So I was on this ball and I noticed that every time I went forward, I would feel more tensing in my body. It was pretty subtle, but I was just like aware that that felt different than like the sides or the back or anything. And I was kind of like, I don't know what that is, but I'm just noticing like my muscles are tensing in a certain way whenever I sort of roll a little bit forward.
00:30:57
Speaker
And as we worked with it, this memory came back to me of, and very simple, but I tripped on a curb and fell. And I was with some friends. I wasn't, you know, massively injured or anything. I think my ego was a little bruised because people had seen me fall and I was like on the street and, you know, I don't know where I was in Santa Monica or something.
00:31:22
Speaker
you know, and I had a bruised and like little bit of a skinned knee, you know. So nothing to write home about, nothing that would be like, oh my God, I had this traumatic experience today. But for whatever reason in my body, it remembered that experience.
00:31:37
Speaker
And it had wanted to fall in like a different way than I did fall, if that makes sense. And so then we sort of played it out of, if I were physically played it out of like, okay, if I fell this way, what would have happened? Or if I fell that way or just kind of playing with it. Because this is where our system sort of gets stuck and a little bit frozen sometimes of like, oh, I fell this time in the past and it worked. So next time I'd probably fall the same way, even if,
00:32:07
Speaker
there was maybe a better way, right? So having done that, now my body has more freedom to try out different ways of falling. And then once we sort of played them all out and then we did it again, it's like, oh, my body didn't tense up anymore when I went in that forward motion. So even just like the very sort of base physiological state, yes, our bodies remember all these things and sort of hold all these
00:32:35
Speaker
different experiences and tensions. And then the deeper layers or the memories and the emotions and the energy that sort of stuck within our beings as well. And coming sort of full circle again back to that embodiment piece, like if we're not embodied, we're not feeling it. We're not aware that it's there, that there might be something deeper under the surface that could really shift our experience of life, like shift chronic pain.
00:33:06
Speaker
Things like that.
00:33:11
Speaker
So can you hold on, like, can we extrapolate this to sort of like interactions as well? Like, Oh, I wish I would have said this or spoken up or maybe, you know, because I always feel like after an interaction, you're like, Oh man, I really should have said that. Or if you were arguing, whatever, like, can you kind of hold on to those things too? Like, I guess it's kind of good afterwards to say, Oh, I wish I would have said that. Maybe you're kind of thinking the situation through a little bit, but you know, maybe you might miss that too. Right? And then maybe it gets a little pushed under the rug.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah, and it's good to feel those impulses and then to sort of play with it, as I'm saying, like have that conversation out loud if you can. In the head, it can just kind of get a little circular.
00:33:51
Speaker
Um, but if you know, if you can have a private space or even, you know, discuss it with a loved one or a close friend or whatever who could hold more of like a neutral space, it's like, Hey, I wish I had said that. Or how do you think that would have gone or, you know, just sort of play it out for yourself because then you're giving yourself the experience of playing with it more curiosity into the experience. Um, and I even tell people, so,
00:34:18
Speaker
I use a lot of examples of telling people to go to the bathroom. And not necessarily to actually physically go to the bathroom, but because generally it creates a little space from wherever you are to where you can express something. So one of the big things that I'll tell people to do is growl.
00:34:41
Speaker
because we are these animal bodies. So of course we have all this higher consciousness now and all these other things happening, but physically our bodies are very animal and it developed from that. So animals in the wild, when you're watching them, generally the first sign that they're gonna give or one of the main signs they're gonna give of a boundary is they're going to sort of show their teeth and maybe growl a little or hiss or make some sort of vocalization.
00:35:11
Speaker
Now, if we're walking down the street and someone bumps into your shoulder, I'm not suggesting that you turn around and growl in their face. Generally, that's an act of aggression. So we don't want to be doing those things, and yet there might be an impulse in your body to do that. So then find a place where you can actually go act that out. So I say to people who work in an office arena, or if you're visiting, this is just always the easiest one, if you're visiting family,
00:35:40
Speaker
You know, and generally our parents or siblings are going to know the exact buttons to push and what to say and all the things. So can you go to the bathroom and you can flush the toilet while you do it so that, you know, they can't hear you, but go to the bathroom and be like, just because you're, again, you don't want to do that. Most likely in your mother or father's face.
00:36:08
Speaker
but allowing that impulse to still move through your system. So instead of suppressing it, just be like, I need a minute, you know, and going and doing that or pushing against the wall or ringing a towel or, you know, I have, there's tons of these tips or tricks or whatever. But the main thing is just to feel into your body and be like, what's the impulse that it needs to do right now? So that those energies don't get stuck so that they don't get repressed into the system.
00:36:38
Speaker
And you can continue sort of feeling and moving through and, you know, staying as present as possible. Yeah. Cool. I love it. Maybe you could touch on the role the nervous system plays in all this. What role doesn't it play? It touches and, you know.
00:37:02
Speaker
sort of navigate everything. And when I talk about the nervous, I'm talking about the autonomic nervous system. So I'm talking about all these auto automatic things in our bodies. So our physiology, heartbeat, digestion, respiration, all of those things.
The Autonomic Nervous System and Emotional Regulation
00:37:20
Speaker
But and I come from more of like the polyvagal Steven Porges background. So thinking about how we have two main
00:37:30
Speaker
sort of systems, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. And then the parasympathetic has two branches underneath it. It has the ventral and then it has the dorsal. And all of those systems, so the nervous system, our autonomic nervous system, its only job is to help us survive. And it is always, always, always just trying to do that. So it is always surveying
00:37:58
Speaker
everything around us being like, how do I stay safe and how do I survive? How do I stay safe and how do I survive? And what happens is when we're little, little, little, there can be experiences where the nervous system takes those into account. So it makes a list. It sort of has the history books of like, what has worked? What helped me stay safe? What helped me survive in certain situations? And so it adapts.
00:38:27
Speaker
into how that works. So maybe there were a certain number of times or extended periods of times when you were crying or you needed attention and there wasn't any given. The system, because when we're born, we don't have the ability to self soothe yet. It's just not developed. It's not that the baby, there's something wrong with it. It's literally just not a part of its being. It has to learn that.
00:38:55
Speaker
through that co-regulation with the parents. So that's part of that withering away. We were talking about of not getting that touch, not being that nurturing. And so that doesn't develop within us. So if that happens is sort of enough, most of the time a baby can't fight and it can't flight. It's an infant. It's fully, fully, fully, fully.
00:39:24
Speaker
needs this other being to take care of it, to help it survive. So what it'll do is the audit on my nurses will sort of be like, okay, well, I can't fight what's happening. I can't flight away from what's happening. So I'm going to go into my most extreme form of survival and defense, which is our dorsal vehicle. And that's that shutdown that I was talking about a little bit more frozen can go into like dissociation, disembodiment,
00:39:55
Speaker
And that's like that numb out because it's the pain can be so overwhelming that it's like, Oh, I'm just going to numb out so that I don't feel this because there's nothing I can do about it. You know, and then we sort of grow up and maybe now there's little instincts or impulses to fight or to flight a little bit more. Um, and maybe we try it and that gets stifled or we get yelled at. Um,
00:40:22
Speaker
And so we sort of learned like, I don't know if that's correct, you know, if that's going to help me survive, but maybe it does. So maybe I fought back and I won in some way. And so the nervous sort of takes that and sort of stocks that away as a possibility. And, um, the nervous system is sort of stacked in like a ladder kind of situation. So if you think of the bottom of the ladder is the dorsal.
00:40:48
Speaker
So that's sort of our most extreme, as I said, most extreme form of defense and survival. And then you sort of go up the ladder into the sympathetic, which is that fight flight system. And then you go up the ladder into ventral vagal. That's going to be our safety, our connection. That's where we can be in relationship with others and actually be present to it.
00:41:13
Speaker
but a healthy nervous system is being able to go through all of these states flexibly in the correct sort of orientation to when something's happening. But when we're like if a baby gets sort of stuck in that dorsal state, if they were neglected to certain degrees or for whatever reason, that sympathetic wasn't available. And so they learned that that dorsal that shut down that frozen is
00:41:43
Speaker
the best way. They're going to be tend towards a little bit more like depression, apathy, a lot more procrastination, having a hard time getting oneself going. The sympathetic, if you go into that, as I said, if you have like a fight and you win, or something positive happens from being in more of the sympathetic fight-flight situation,
00:42:08
Speaker
that gets logged away and maybe you tend to a little bit more like anxiety or hyperactivity or hyper awareness, hypervigilance, because it's sort of like on guard, you're in this sympathetic like, oh, I'm ready at any moment to fight or flight, right? And then being in that ventral vagal, if you become comfortable in these other twos can feel really uncomfortable. If you didn't have that nurturing, if you didn't have
00:42:38
Speaker
the relational dynamics happening, being nurtured within your system, then that can feel like, Oh, I don't know. Because a lot of, a lot of trauma is relational because of those, those young experiences where we needed the other, we needed the other in order to survive. Right. And so then as we grow older, we may not need them anymore, but there's still that part that's like, Oh, but I, I, I, I can't be completely alone.
00:43:07
Speaker
So I need that ventilator, but it's also dangerous. I need it, but it's dangerous. I need it, but it's dangerous. So it's just interesting to sort of like have the awareness of your own system of like, where do I tend? Where are my most comfortable? Where do I need a little bit more like, you know, flexibility in there? One of my favorite studies that, can't remember the name of it for some reason right now,
00:43:36
Speaker
Um, they took a group of, um, extreme meditators of monks, and then they took a group of, um, sort of like regular people, whoever, and they were expecting that these monks would have sort of like zero stimulation within their system. If something happened, they would just sort of stay really, really neutral instead.
00:44:04
Speaker
And that sort of like the regular people would be like all over the board. And so they would put somebody in a room and then they would slam a door. So they were trying to startle the person. And what they found was that for the monks, they actually had a higher rate within their system of stimulation, but then they came down really quickly.
00:44:32
Speaker
So they would sort of like get this massive stimulation. They would figure out, oh, it was just the door. And then they would come straight back to level. Whereas other people would get a lower stimulation, but they would stay there. So that's what I mean by having this flexibility within your nervous system where it was correct for them to have a high stimulation to a door slam out of nowhere.
00:45:01
Speaker
but then to come back to sort of neutral, stable. Whereas the other people, it was like they didn't have the capacity to go to as high of a level of stimulation, but then they couldn't calm down as quickly. And so part of this nervous system work is gaining that capacity within the system so that you can
00:45:24
Speaker
feel as we were saying with this embodiment, like you can feel the good, you can feel the bad, you can feel all in between it and actually be with it, be present with what's happening and then sort of like flexibly move through the states as is needed. None of them are better or worse and you know the
00:45:47
Speaker
The adaptations that we create because of, oh, this has worked in the past, and so this situation might be sort of similar, so I'm just going to do the same thing in our system. They can become maladaptive as we grow up. So while they were adaptive when we were little, because it helped us survive and it helped you stay safe in whatever way, is now possibly maladaptive because we have more capabilities as we grow older.
00:46:17
Speaker
We can fight, we can flee, we can feed ourselves, we can self-soothe ourselves, we can ask for assistance, you know, all these different various things that are come online over time. And so I always say like the biggest, biggest thing is having compassion and gratitude for your nervous system, because if you're here, you're sitting in that room, I can see you on the computer, anyone who's listening to this,
00:46:48
Speaker
Congratulations. Your nervous system has done its job. It has kept you alive. That's a major, major success. Great. Wonderful. Celebrate it. Have so much gratitude for that. And if there's pieces of it that feel now maladaptive, it's okay. Now we can start to consciously shift those and the more embodied we are, the more aware of that we are, the more choice we have.
00:47:16
Speaker
around making different decisions and reteaching our nervous system. It's just going off of sort of experience. So if we give it new experiences, it learns and it shifts along with it. Hmm. You know, awesome. Yeah. It's a great way to kind of explain the inner workings in a way, right? Like it's helpful.
Limitations of Traditional Psychotherapy
00:47:41
Speaker
So really curious about your thoughts on psychotherapy.
00:47:45
Speaker
I think that there's a little distinction between like traditional psychotherapy and this sort of modern cognitive behavioral focused therapy. I just love to hear your thoughts on that. I may get in trouble with this one. I think that traditional therapy has its role
00:48:14
Speaker
And it can be very helpful. I also believe that it's limited in its abilities because rehashing, re-talking about everything that's happened to you is not necessarily meaning that you are processing it. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's changing your orientation to things. Sure, you may get some awarenesses, you may get some new insights and
00:48:44
Speaker
And that's what I mean, it can be really helpful. And at the same time, for me, if you're not including the body, if you're not including this massive experience of you that is literally the part of you that's taking in every experience that you've ever had through your senses and storing it, you're not getting to the deeper layers. You're not really shifting the experience in a true and sort of
00:49:14
Speaker
integrated and lasting way. There's also sort of things now where it's like if you're just sort of retelling like the same stories, one, it can get sort of apathetic, you can kind of numb out from it, but it also might be a signal that like you're going into more of that dorsal shutdown state because you're not actually with what's happening. So one of the things that I always say with more of the somatic work is
00:49:44
Speaker
Yes, my clients or whoever I'm talking to and things, we can tell stories and I do want to know bits about your history and things like that. But my main concern or what I'm mainly focused on with people is what's present now? So not necessarily what happened then, but how is what happened then still present for you now in the here and now? How is that still alive in your body? So if somebody is telling me
00:50:12
Speaker
you know, one of their traumas or what happened to them. It's like one going really, really, really slowly. Because as we were saying, in a traumatic event, your system gets overwhelmed. Well, retelling that your system can get overwhelmed again.
00:50:30
Speaker
So it's really going really, really slowly and be like, Hey, can you feel that? Can you feel what you're saying? What do you notice in your body as you're saying this? What affect is coming up? Are there any images that are coming up? Any behaviors that want to sort of move through you, any impulses and sort of being with like moving it through in the here and now of what's now present. And maybe we'll go in like little tiny chunks because there's also,
00:51:00
Speaker
the idea of titration. So instead of just, you know, tell me your biggest trauma for an hour. Like maybe we work with like, you know, the first second of the experience for an hour because it's too overwhelming. So we're going to talk a little bit about it. And then I'm probably going to be like, Hey, did you notice that the trees are starting to bloom outside?
00:51:30
Speaker
Oh, I really like your shoes today. Those look really comfy, you know, because we want to sort of like dive in and then come back out and then dive in and come back out and dive in and come back out that titration through the system. So the system isn't getting overwhelmed so that we're not re-traumatizing the system as we're retelling whatever stories have happened to us. And we're actually able to then be present with it and feel it and move it through the system.
00:52:00
Speaker
So I do think psychotherapy is very, very helpful. And I think that it can also be at times detrimental if you are just going in and sort of rehashing the same things over and over, or if you're telling stories and you're numbing out, or you're not really present with what's happening, or you're just sort of re-traumatizing yourself by, let me just regurgitate this whole thing again. Yeah. So like going back and
00:52:29
Speaker
Reliving it without processing it is the detrimental component of it, right? That's what you're saying here. And so in processing it, you're kind of alluding to that somatic component or, you know, maybe you want to punch something or something along these lines. Is that kind of what you're getting at? Like you need to have this somatic, this movement attached to
00:52:54
Speaker
the thought or feeling to kind of create that safety. Is that what we're hitting out here? Yeah. And it may not be like a physical movement. It can be when I talk about those impulses or behaviors that maybe want to come forward. Yes. But also it can be that affect that maybe you really wanted to cry. And for whatever reason, that wasn't accessible for you at that time. But you're retelling the story. I mean, how many times can somebody be retelling a story and like the tears well up?
00:53:24
Speaker
And then it's like, oh, no, no, no. And then, you know, they start talking like a little bit faster and they get through their story. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
00:53:51
Speaker
Um, you know, it's just like something links to something else. Um, so it doesn't necessarily have to be these physical movements, but it can be just anything that's sort of present with it. Yeah. Cool. And so I guess one of the goals, like you were mentioning these maladaptive patterns, like that's almost the way that it manifests in the present, right? You have these, these situations that occur in the past.
00:54:21
Speaker
And now we're in the moment and based on those situations, we're acting in this certain way or have these certain responses to the situation. And that's what you're trying to address there now, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's the goal of, for me, of anything that I study, it's sort of looking at like, how does this create more freedom and more space within the person's being? Hmm.
00:54:50
Speaker
Cause I don't want, I don't want it to be like, Oh, I'm telling you exactly what to do or how to be. Um, no, I want to create the space or, or the freedom within your own system to be able to explore what's correct for you. I don't know. I'm not in your body. I current feel all the same things or the experiences like that's up to you. It's your responsibility for how you want to live your life. Um,
00:55:16
Speaker
And I'm more like sort of to hold that, that co-regulation state space within a system. Um, and even, I don't know if, I don't know if you've studied, but human design. Um, and so, so I get really into that. I love that. Um, and one of the big things that they talk about is like conditioning. It's sort of, for me, it's like the same, it's, it's just another variation of saying those mal, you know, adaptations that have become maladapt adaptations or
00:55:44
Speaker
ways that we've taken things on from others. But this conditioning that's happening just naturally by being in relationship, by being around, just physically around other people when I walk into a coffee shop, things like that, like my system is being conditioned. It's not a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with it. But the more that I know myself, the more I can be aware of, oh, that's a conditioning. Do I still want that?
00:56:11
Speaker
Or is that not really serving me any more? So again, with my clients, I'm doing the same thing. Even if I'm just doing a human design reading or bringing human design into the sessions, it's like, what works for you and what doesn't? Like this is maybe how like from this system, this is sort of like describing pieces of your design, but then experiment with it. Try it out. I don't know. I'm not the expert of you.
00:56:37
Speaker
I'm just creating information and maybe some sort of like breath around how we've been trained or conditioned or adapted to be in the world.
Embracing Diverse Inner Experiences
00:56:49
Speaker
Cool. So like, do you think that Jung was trying to get at this? Because he talked about like complexes, of course, and you know, how these complexes can be maladaptive too. But, you know, I guess,
00:57:07
Speaker
when you spoke of it, it was like everything's kind of a complex, whether it's maladaptive or not, right? Yeah. You know, I think that that's what they were trying to get at through psychotherapy, right? Through that exploration. Like, would you agree with that? Yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. And I think it's interesting. So one of the things that I was sort of curious about, and so like the history of psychotherapy is, you know, for
00:57:37
Speaker
um, being sort of like the grandfather, if you will, of it and stuff. But one of his main things was, you know, the therapist sits behind the client, um, out of you and is sort of this like disembodied voice sort of behind them. And you're in this reclined position and it's just sort of like speaking everything, you know, um, that comes forward.
00:58:03
Speaker
And so sort of for me, and especially I came up with this in the dissertation was like Freud for him, it was like the therapist doesn't even have a body, let alone like nobody has a body in this situation because you can't see anything. And then Jung changed it so that you were facing each other. So for Jung, I feel like the body actually came back online.
00:58:27
Speaker
within his own being as well as the other. And he had more of an understanding and awareness of this inter-relational dynamic. And I believe he would sort of like, I mean, yes, he was much more interested in the unconscious, but he talked about how the body held the unconscious. And there was also this other piece, going back to your question with psychotherapy, of,
00:58:57
Speaker
The idea was that the person, the client would be, you know, telling the truth, nothing but the truth and only but only the truth kind of thing. But as I said, like our psyches have these these filters sort of inbuilt of and so they also sort of, you know, found that a client would be telling them what they thought the therapist wanted to hear.
00:59:24
Speaker
Or they'd be sort of skewing things into ways, you know, because none of us want to look bad. I mean, that's just a natural human instinct is not to sort of degrade yourself too much or to put yourself in a bad light. Like anytime I'm listening to a story, it's like, OK, I know that there's like other pieces here. You know, there's more flesh on this than is what's being told. And that's not a bad thing. That's not lying. It's just just subjective awareness.
00:59:56
Speaker
that comes with that. But then it was Reich who then started touching the body and sort of using more of this bodywork modality. And that was when he discovered that of like, oh, my clients are only telling me what they think I want to hear or creating certain stories that are happening. And then once going into the body, you get a very different story. You get a very different experience. I mean, even just for me of
01:00:24
Speaker
I thought, I mean, I was severely dissociated from my body, um, in my 20s, you know, from three until my mid twenties, but I, but from the outside I looked happy. I looked engaged. I had, I had already done my first masters in spiritual psychology and I was seeing clients and I was teaching at a preschool and things like that. And then as soon as that teacher walked on my body,
01:00:53
Speaker
It was like, oh, there's the truth. There's the actual truth of what my experience is of not wanting to be here. And now, again, that was just what shifted me into like, oh, the body has to be included in all this. And I'm not saying bodywork. That was my avenue. But like, I see clients online over Zoom. Well, because as I'm saying, I can ask a lot of questions that are sensation oriented.
01:01:24
Speaker
I can ask them to, because the whole point is for you as the client, whoever I'm talking to, to be gaining that within yourself, to be getting in touch with yourself, to be feeling your own body, feeling what's happening within your system. So I don't have to physically be there in order to sort of cultivate that or point in those directions or ask questions more oriented to that or things like that.
01:01:53
Speaker
I don't necessarily think I'm not exact, I'm not like a Raikian. I'm not like full Jungian and sort of like put everything together and see what happens. And there's been a ton, you know, traumatology has had massive, massive developments in the past like 20, 30 years of just completely new revelations, even in terms of like polyvagal theory and things like that.
01:02:21
Speaker
I think just the way that things are oriented. And at the same time, I think Jung had such foundational and beautiful ways of relating and describing the human experience that were so needed sort of along the way as we're always going. Because I just think that the human experience, the exploration of the human experience is, at least for me, sort of like, I don't think it's ever ending. Or maybe I'm just
01:02:51
Speaker
limited in my view that it could be, but, um, I don't know. I mean, your experience is completely different than mine. So that's an endless exploration. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think if we can learn anything from young, it's that, you know, he explored pretty well until the day that he went and, you know, only right before he passed, it was, you had this feeling of enlightenment now is
01:03:19
Speaker
Young's interpretation of the psyche and the development of the psyche over time was that individual I've heard some great criticism on that, you know that You don't necessarily have to develop the anima or the animus later in life Which would be the male or female counterpart of the psyche or I should say masculine feminine counterpart of the psyche Yeah, you know, there's a some schools of thought that that's the first thing that should be developed, you know, so it's kind of interesting like is is You know
01:03:49
Speaker
I love reading Young and he's very interesting to read. Him and Joseph Campbell were my first loves, I always say. I read Joseph Campbell when I was in high school, I think it was my sophomore year, and was thoroughly convinced that I was going to marry him until I found out that he had already passed away. I was heartbroken.
01:04:14
Speaker
And then I came across Jung and had the same experience, although he had passed, you know, a lot earlier in time. But those were sort of my first two male loves, I'll say. But I also think, so for me, Jung, one of the main contributions
01:04:35
Speaker
not one of, there's a billion, that I think he really brought to light and really advanced so much in our understanding. But I think he really flew in the face of this unified experience, which I still really, really use and appreciate in terms of not this unified psyche being that is just this one thing, that we have all these parts, we have all these archetypes that we tap into and
01:05:04
Speaker
pieces and experiences, and it's all us. It's not fragmented or this is better than that one, or we may have more primary parts and more lesser parts, but sort of the thing, and then we can sort of have this like awareness in the center of all of these pieces, but all of it is us. We're not, we don't have to be, you know, this straight and narrow arrow of like self.
01:05:33
Speaker
to have self-understanding or awareness. I actually think the greater self-awareness is understanding how diversified we are within our own beings and that it's okay to hold all of it, right? And that we're capable of everything. The worst of the worst and the best of the best. And the more we're aware of that, the less likely we are to be overcome by it.
01:06:04
Speaker
less likely the unconscious is going to be playing out in the shadows, sort of behind the scenes, creepy ways. Yeah, one of my other favorite, favorite parts is the transcendent function. I just still think that's just brilliant, this sort of like experience of the tension between opposites and being able to hold that tension within your system for that third to come forward. But
01:06:33
Speaker
Again, when I talk about like anything that I do, I want to be looking at like, what's creating more space and freedom within one system. And I think that transcendent function, that ability to hold tension of opposites or different feelings or different experiences, curiosity comes into play of like, Oh, it's okay to have all of these different things. It doesn't have to be.
01:06:59
Speaker
one way and only one way because through more and more trauma, through experiences where our, especially the autonomic nervous system gets stuck in like one of those phases, it's sort of like gray goes out the window. Everything becomes really, really polarized versus more sort of like enmeshed or gray or curious curiosity completely disappears. You know, the difference between talking to like,
01:07:29
Speaker
a four-year-old and hearing about everything that they're curious about and all of that versus like, you know, a 44-year-old where it's like, nope, this is the way and this is it and this is the truth and there's no other way. You know, that's a rigid polarity versus the openness and the expansiveness of being able to hold all these different pieces. I think curiosity is central and like,
01:07:58
Speaker
even going back to what you were saying there just a moment ago, you know, this self understanding is kind of developed through self observation away.
Curiosity and Self-Exploration
01:08:07
Speaker
But, you know, even Young spoke about like looking at the self objectively, and that's a very difficult thing to do. But I think it comes from curiosity, right? You need to be able to look at yourself objectively, right? It takes this curiosity to be able to have this mindset to be able to, you know, maybe think, okay, well, here are the
01:08:29
Speaker
maladaptive patterns or whatever it may be, right? And that's a very, very challenging thing to do, I think. And trying to do it as you're seeing sort of like, as objectively, as neutrally as possible. Yeah.
01:08:45
Speaker
is that big difference between like, oh, this maladaptive behavior that I created in order to survive for whatever reason. I don't need to know the reason, but it helped me survive at some point in time. And that's why I'm doing it. So I'm grateful for it. And at the same time, like there's nothing wrong. I would just like to try this other thing.
01:09:10
Speaker
I would just like to have curiosity and openness towards like, what if I responded differently when this person says this? Or what if I responded differently when somebody cuts me off in traffic than I have in the past? You know, just, who knows? Who knows what could happen? Yeah. I think it's important not to demonize
01:09:36
Speaker
the maladaptive patterns in a ray where there's good negative connotation towards them. But like you're saying here, like they were developed to allow you to maintain this psychological equilibrium growing up. You know what I mean? Like I said, I mean, assuming it happened when you're younger, right? Obviously it did. You know what I'm trying to say here, you know, like it's something that was a, it was a necessary component of your existence for that to happen. And so it's,
01:10:05
Speaker
not something that you should demonize. We shouldn't demonize our physical bodies. We shouldn't even know there's no need for us to have these, even though it has a negative connotation to have a negative look on it, right? Because then you're not taking that neutral stance either. That's so important in looking at yourself objectively. Yeah. Well, and I will say that I feel like change happens much more quickly.
01:10:31
Speaker
if you can maintain that more neutral objective stance versus engaging that inner critic to come in and be like, I'm bad at this is wrong. I have to change this. Like, you know, just think of it in terms of like parents and children. It's like the more a child gets scolded, does that make them better? Like not generally.
01:10:57
Speaker
It's going to create more adaptations just to be able to survive and make it through. Versus like, hey, maybe we just try this other avenue. This could be fun. Yeah. That's such a great outlook. Such a great outlook. I love it. That's great. I think we got to wrap it up around here now. So I want to open the floor and just hear any final thoughts, anything you want to add or you think you might have missed throughout the session that you want to bring up.
01:11:28
Speaker
I don't know.
Self-Compassion and Enhancing Relationships
01:11:30
Speaker
No, just, I mean, I really, I guess just continuing to hit this home, like the compassion for yourself that whatever these patterns are, whatever ways that you created for your experience at some point served you. And so having that gratitude for them is going to be the thing that changes it more quickly.
01:11:52
Speaker
And the more you develop your relationship with your own self, with your own body, with these parts of yourself, with holding all of this, you know, all the variety within your being, feeling into your physical senses and being here in the present moment, that's also going to help you in your relations outside. So that's going to help you have better relationships with your parents, your children, your spouse, your friends.
01:12:21
Speaker
all of that because you will actually be showing up as yourself. I think a lot of us have sort of adapted and switched and sort of morphed into whatever it is that we think gets liked and gets approval and you know for whatever reasons and yeah how can you
01:12:43
Speaker
get to know yourself. What do you like? What kind of music do you like? What kind of food do you actually like? What kind of textures do you actually like? What kind of smells do you actually like, you know, versus like, Oh, this is just what my family ate growing up. And so that's what I eat. Like, is that true for you? Is that actually, it could be, I'm not saying it's not. I'm just saying, like, have you questioned it? Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Uh,
01:13:13
Speaker
Now maybe you can tell the listener how they can support you, learn more from you, you know, where they can find you on the internet.
Contact and Follow Dr. Sophie Fletcher
01:13:20
Speaker
Cool. So my website is sophieflecherphd.com.
01:13:27
Speaker
Um, it's a pretty simple website. I created it. So, um, but, uh, but you can message me through there. So if you want to get in contact with me, there's a contact on that. Um, and then I'm on Instagram at Sophie Fletcher dot PhD. Pretty sure there's a dot, um, after Sophie Fletcher dot PhD. Um, so you can also, you know, contact me there or I don't post a ton, but maybe someday I will post more. Um,
01:13:57
Speaker
Those are the main ways, yeah. I teach within my husband, Gerasimos, he has a podcast here for the truth and I teach within their membership community a monthly group call and also I'm part of their telegram group to answer nervous system, somatic, human design questions and things. So I'm there as well. I go to a lot of the,
01:14:25
Speaker
you know, in-person, conference-y things, like I was just at Confluence earlier this month. I almost did last month and I was like, nope, it was like a week ago. I'm gonna be at Music in Sky coming up in June. That's super, super fun and amazing. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, well, we'll put the links down below too. So, should be easy to find, yeah. Listen, I...
01:14:55
Speaker
learned so much today. I really, really, really appreciate you coming on. I know the guests or the listeners will appreciate you coming on as well. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for anybody who is listening. I love doing these things. So I love having these conversations. Thanks so much. You asked great questions. I love having these conversations too. So that works out well. Yeah, definitely. Thanks.
01:15:22
Speaker
All right. I want to thank you all for listening. You should know that it's not medical advice or psychotherapeutic advice or psychological advice in any form, any way. This is for your general informational purposes only. But remember, we're all sovereign, responsible beings, capable of thinking, understanding, criticizing, absolutely anything. With people in the greater forces that are together, self-healers, self-governable, self-teachers, and so much more, please reach out. If you have any questions, criticism, comments, concerns,
01:15:50
Speaker
If you want to argue, if you want to agree, I'm open. You guys know where to find me on Instagram. Yeah, and I really appreciate you guys checking it out today. So best way to support is to share, like, comment, review, follow, subscribe, whatever you're on, you know how to use your platform. So that'd be great in helping us get this word out and help us grow a little bit more. So yeah, just keep in mind that there are two types of people in this world, those believe they can and those believe they can't and they're both correct.
01:16:20
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Take care.