Transcript

Brian
Hi, and welcome to the Somatic Coaching Academy podcast. How are you, Ani?

Ani
I’m really good. How are you, Brian?

Brian
Doing great this week. Doing great this week.

Ani
Great. Awesome. Yeah.

Brian
Hey, this week, we are on episode 117.

Ani
Wow, they’re really flying.

Brian
They’re flying by, yeah. This week, we’re talking about what embodying resilience means for your life.

Ani
I’ve really been looking forward to talking about embodiment, actually. Okay. I think it’s one of those words that’s being tossed around out Embodiment. I think it’s worthy of a conversation. Resilience, it’s a good one.

Brian
It’s also a good one. What are your thoughts on embodiment? What is the conversation that you would like to have?

Ani
Well, I think it’s funny from a place of being very heady people that we talk about and think about embodiment. You get my little nuances.

Brian
I get your little nuances there. Yes.

Ani
But what does it really feel like to be embodied? What does it really feel like to be embodied? What does it look like to be embodied? What does that look like?

Brian
What does it smell like to be embodied?

Ani
What does it smell like? Exactly. I think one of the reasons it’s really been on my mind is because we talk a lot, and people talk a lot to us about how to change their belief systems. The word belief is used so often in a way that is disembodied. It’s tough to find language around things when our language revolves around a very heady space. I want to talk about this thing about being embodied because I really, honestly, 100% believe that it is the key to changing belief systems. I mean, quite obviously. Yes. That’s why I want to talk about it.

Brian
Well, we touched on that last week that beliefs are certainly woven into the fabric of our physiology, of our bodies. In our heads, our cognitive capacities basically just describe what the beliefs are. But they don’t really feel the beliefs. They’re not really living. The beliefs live in our bodies.

Ani
Just the way you’re describing that is a perfect description. The brain is a part of the whole system. And yet, I mean, maybe part of it’s because… I mean, I know a lot of history around it for sure, but it’s part of it because we look out of our eyes that are in our head that have this orientation that dismembers us, that we forget, that we need to remember that the body is the thing living the experience. The body is the thing living the belief is the body. It’s all It’s all one system. It’s all the same system. Yeah.

Brian
Of course, we got to go to the dictionary whenever we do something like this. We got to go to the dictionary. We got to go to the dictionary. We have to ask ourselves, what does the dictionary say about the definition of embodied?

Ani
Well, I’m really looking forward to hearing that.

Brian
Okay, so you’re ready? Yeah. So let’s take it off of it. According to the Oxford language dictionaries, to embody something means to give a tangible- There you go. Concrete form… Okay, form. To an idea, quality or feeling.

Ani
As if it couldn’t have a tangible concrete form to it. Okay, keep going. Sorry.

Brian
Making it visible or real through a Person, Object, or Action.

Ani
Oh, I love that, person, object, or action. Oh, I love that person, object, or action. I think the thing about that definition that strikes me is, okay, I could sit here and close my eyes and have a visualization in my head thing that is not embodied. But literally to talk everything that we do in life needs to have the conversation of embodied. It’s not like a choice I make. Am I going to have walnuts on my oatmeal this morning? Am I going to be embodied or not? You might not have conscious awareness about the fact that everything in your life is embodied. You might not conscious awareness, but it is happening.

Brian
There’s a second part to this definition. That thing’s really interesting. Again, the first part was to embody something means to give a tangible concrete form to an idea, quality or feeling, making it visible or real through a person, object, or an action. Here’s the second part. It’s about being the living example, personification, or physical representation of an abstract concept, like a leader embodying hope or a painting embodying despair. It’s more than just understanding, it’s living or being that thing.

Ani
Okay. I think that probably gives context to more how I hear embodiment out there. So like the leader, embodying hope, for example. And that’s one of the things we actually help a lot of our clients with is to embody their purpose, to embody to embody their worth, to embody the message that they’re bringing to people who they want to impact their work or in their personal life. So that makes a lot of sense.

Brian
To your point about beliefs, I think this second part of the definition also extends to or highlights the idea of embodying a belief. A belief is really an abstract concept, isn’t it? Sure. I can’t hold a belief in my hands. I can’t have a cup of belief. It’s an abstract concept.

Ani
Boy, wouldn’t that be good?

Brian
Wouldn’t that be amazing if I could just drink a new belief? Somehow I’m embodying the abstract concept. Also, I think what’s not mentioned here, it says it’s living. Maybe it says it’s living or being that thing. In some way, there’s also a demonstration. Sure. Demonstrating that abstract concept. Sure. Demonstrating hope, let’s say, or demonstrating despair, or demonstrating the belief. And so when you think about that, we’re always demonstrating our beliefs, aren’t we?

Ani
Absolutely. All the time. I think one of the things I was hearing in this definition is the idea of subconscious change. Because if I am not embodying a belief, and if I am not demonstrating a belief, then it is not completely living in my subconscious to be able to then… I would need to go through a subconscious change a change process to be demonstrating that belief. I mean, all beliefs we have the potential to tap into and to adopt and have as a part of our subconscious programming. But if we’re not embodying it, then it’s not part of our subconscious programming, and we would need to go through a subconscious change process. To do it.

Brian
To do it. To do it. Right. Yeah. And demonstrate it. If you think about the four parts of a somatic pattern, a belief is a somatic pattern. The There are parts to it, sensations, thoughts, words, actions. Actions are the demonstration of the words, thoughts, and sensations, which create the belief. I think what we’re saying essentially is that a belief is that pattern. And when we reprogram the subconscious with a new somatic pattern, a. K. A. A belief, we automatically then get the demonstration of the belief or the pattern.

Ani
I think that’s interesting It’s interesting because when I believe something, when I actually believe something, I will demonstrate that belief. We are all constantly demonstrating our beliefs. We are compelled to demonstrate the things we believe. If we’re not demonstrating, we don’t believe it.

Brian
Correct. If we’re not demonstrating it, I think, let’s say, habitually, then we don’t believe it. Because you could consciously try to act out a demonstration of a belief that you don’t actually have embodied yet. Sure. And some people use that as a way to begin reprogramming through demonstration. Sure. That’s not a bad way to do it, for sure. And we also know that the trickle down isn’t as powerful as the building from the bottom up. So for people that are demonstrating new beliefs, it’s really important that they get in touch with the sensations associated with the new belief that they’re demonstrating, because that’s how they’re going to build it the fastest. Otherwise, it’s just, quote, unquote, fake it till you make it. That’s not necessarily true, because you could fake it and get a result without actually truly embodying the new belief, which means that you always have to spend a lot of energy trying to fake it, and that creates a lot of a disintegration in the system.

Ani
I guess you could say as you’re working to change your sensory base so that you can have a different come from, so that you can have a different demonstration. As you’re working to change the sensory base, I guess by definition, we would say that that is not yet embodied.

Brian
Correct. When you’re in the process of changing it? Yeah. It’s not embodied until all four parts of that pattern are linked together and incorporated into a subconscious program that auto-manifests.

Ani
Right. Yeah.

Brian
So you could be in the process of embodying it.

Ani
You could be in the process of embodying it.

Brian
And then when it becomes embodied, it’s when it’s all when it’s operational. Yeah.

Ani
Boy, that was super fun, nerdy time. On the topic of embodiment in particular. Like I said, it’s tossed around so often to take a conscious moment to really disentangle it. Yeah.

Brian
Let’s take that information and segue into the idea of resilience. Because lots of times people think about resilience as the experience of overcoming great adversity or challenge or those kinds of things. Some people, when they are experiencing adversity or challenge, will tap into resilience and try to reframe their cognitive relationship with what’s going on. That creates a lot of energy. I’m not saying it’s not useful to help people get going, but it’s not embodying the resilience.

Ani
What does that smell like?

Brian
What’s embodying resilience smell like, actually? Let’s talk about that. Because I think we can talk about micro resilience and macro resilience. I know some people are just tired of talking about resilience. They’re tired of talking about having to be resilient.

Ani
For sure. Well, yes.

Brian
And I agree.

Ani
There are systems where some people are just constantly needing to be resilient.

Brian
Constantly.

Ani
Because of how we’ve set things up.

Brian
It’s unfair. It’s oppressive. Unjust. All the things that we care about, just systems. We care about equitable system. That whole situation is not… Not okay. Not okay. Let’s just put that aside for a second because what we’re really going to be talking about more is micro resilience. So macro resilience, you see on a more like an external scale, you can see someone overcoming great challenges or systemic barriers and those kinds of things. And that’s like a macro resilient. Micro resilience is the resilience that happens inside of our nervous system, actually. So what actually is resilience on a micro scale? Well, we come back to the idea of the window of tolerance, again.

Ani
Would we have to We have to look at a microscope?

Brian
We have to look at a microscope to look at the micro scale. Yeah, exactly. You do more pun jokes on this podcast than you do anywhere else. And normally, you shoot my puns down when they’re in the kitchen. So I’m just curious, your belief you’re acting out here on the podcast through these being punny.

Ani
That’s a good topic for another day.

Brian
We’ll explore that in another podcast. Yes. Okay, so if we got that- That was occurring to me as well, I will admit. If we’re talking about the window of tolerance, again, so the window of tolerance has three basic frames to it. In the center of the window of tolerance is optimal nervous nervous system arousal or regulation, where a person feels present, relaxed, centered, reasonable, all the things that I think we can agree that most people would like to feel most of the time to help them be functional and meet their goals and those kinds of things in the world. Then above that optimal arousal, we have hyper arousal. That’s typically talked about in terms of sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight, hypervigilance, hypersensitivity, really feeling revved revved up, really revved up. Then below that optimal window of arousal is hypo-arousal. This is feeling sluggish, shut down, lethargic, confused, those sorts of things. At any given time, we’re going to show up in one of those three windows. We’re either going to show up really ramped up, really too slow down, or in that optimal window of arousal. Now, for people who have really narrow windows of tolerance, they to become dysregulated very often.

Brian
Little things will either go into hyper, hypo, arousal with this small little thing. You’re running a little late for work, someone cuts you off in traffic, your order is wrong at the coffee shop, whatever it is. You know what I mean? Sort of thing.

Ani
I don’t, but I’ve seen other people.

Brian
Okay. The very narrow window of tolerances, you get kicked out of that window very often. Sometimes you stay out of that window for long periods of time. Something can happen in the morning and you get activated, and all day long, you’re just spun out about it. That would be an example of a- If you’re really skilled for days. If you’re really skilled for days?

Ani
If you’re really skilled at staying- Oh, really skilled at staying spun out, you can stay at it for days or weeks or whatever.

Brian
That would be an example of less micro resilience. Because really what resilience Resilience is when we get kicked out of our window of tolerance, and we all do from time to time. Sometimes people more often than other times, but life just shows up in ways where we get kicked out of that window of tolerance. Resilience is the capacity to get back into the window again on your own. Not that it’s not helpful to have someone else help you re-regulate, but what you’re talking about, your personal micro-resilience. When you get kicked out of the window, can you get back into the window? When you get kicked out, can you get back in?

Ani
I’m just I’m thinking about how many times I’ve heard people talk about resilience all over the place in talks, lectures, classes on social media, whatever. It very frequently does not involve anything with the body.

Brian
Correct. Yeah, exactly. A lot of people come at it from that macro resilience perspective.

Ani
Right, which is really harder.

Brian
Yeah. A lot of times when I think people talk about resilience from a macro perspective, it It has to do with just pushing through.

Ani
Well, if you don’t have tools, then you don’t have tools is the thing.

Brian
Yeah. You’re just going to try to push through to get it done.

Ani
Yeah. Or there’s this idea of, Well, I’ve got to fill my tank back up, so I’ve got to take a time out and self-care until I have enough energy to push through.

Brian
Yeah, right.

Ani
Or tolerate or be with or whatever.

Brian
Yeah. What we’re proponents of is to enhance your macro resilience capabilities by having micro resilience capabilities in order to bring yourself back into that window of optimal arousal. So this really comes back down to what we’re talking about with these four parts of a pattern, sensation, thoughts, words, and actions. It’s the sensations. When you get kicked out of your window of tolerance, it’s the feelings. It’s the feelings that actually become most distressing. Absolutely. People are like, no, it’s the thoughts. It’s actually how you feel in your body. People are like, I’m feeling really anxious. When I’m really anxious, I have all these thoughts. But what are the feelings like in the body? Well, it’s all that tension in the throat or however people describe anxiety. It’s a lot of energy in the head, tension in the throat. The chest is really buzzy or on fire. Or the other side, people are like, I feel really depressed, lethargic, shut down. I can barely open my eyes. It’s hard for me to pick my head I can’t get out of bed. Those are all sensation qualities.

Ani
That’s what really stops people.

Brian
That’s what really stops people. Resilience is to be able to get your sensations, get your sensations, again, back into that optimal regulation window. That’s what we’re talking about, and that would be embodied.

Ani
Resilience. Well, as we were talking about, we might be working on embodying resilience. Then getting to a place where you embody Body resilience would be really knowing how to use the tools, knowing which one to grab when, and using the tools to be able to just continually help yourself to get back into that optimal level of arousal.

Brian
Yeah, exactly.

Ani
My client says this phrase that she heard something like… Or saying, It’s something like the The bird doesn’t worry because the branch is going to break. Because if the branch breaks, the bird knows it can use its wings.

Brian
Something along the lines of it doesn’t trust the branch because the branch will hold it up or something. The bird trusts the branch because it trusts its wings.

Ani
Something like that. I think that’s really what I’m hearing you speak to when you talk about embodying resilience because there’s this self-trust about it. Really, when we have that self-trust, isn’t that resilience? Because it’s not about getting knocked down or hoping we’re not knocked down again, but having that self-trust that I can meet challenges.

Brian
Yeah, because branches break. Branches break in the world. That’s what we’re talking about. The world will present us with things that activate either hyper or hypoarousal. We can either, to your point, if we’re really skilled at staying outside of our window, because outside of the window for days, weeks, months. But if you have a desire to get back into the window, how do you actually do that quickly? To your point, some people say, I just Basically, shut it all down and take a nap or take a rest or go to work for a couple of days, whatever it is. We’re not saying that those aren’t great things to do, but those could also create more challenges for you in your life, too. What if you had the capacity to quickly shift your sensory state to basically do two things, learn how to widen your window of tolerance, which means actually practicing with stretching that window, helping your sensory state go into little bits of dysregulation so that you can practice in getting back into your window of tolerance. It’s expanding and then coming back in, expanding expanding and then coming back in again.

Ani
I just have a great example of this with a client that I just talked to this morning. Years ago, she used to get dysregulated all the time. Things would happen. She’s children, and things would happen, specifically with the kids, getting them out the door in the morning, super dysregulating. Certain music they wanted to listen to, super dysregulating. Different things that they wanted to do or not do, super dysregulating. She has worked to widen her window of tolerance over the years. She was describing to me that another mother was asking her opinion because their child wanted to listen to music that had really rough lyrics, and the mother was having a really hard time with that. As my client was describing it, she described it as witnessing the situation in herself and noticing that she had a lot of compassion because that would have been her a few years ago. Also, now, because she’s widened her window of tolerance, not only could she be with the situation with her own kids, but also be with the situation with this person who was having hard time with this, so much I know that she’s asking for her advice about it and really wasn’t trying to fix or solve or anything, but helping the person to feel acknowledged and heard.

Ani
That sounds really hard, and I get that. Then helping her come to her own conclusion about what she wanted to do, which, by the way, everything my client did was about coaching. It was about really being with a person and letting them have their own experience and helping them to tap into their own wisdom within themselves. She was able to do all of that because she’s expanded her window of tolerance, her capacity over the years. It’s a really beautiful life to have less things be agitating all the time. I used to be the person who could hold on to dysregulation, as you very well are aware of for days. World champion. Not I’m not a world champion, but you know what I mean.

Brian
A dysregulator.

Ani
I really clung to that as a status symbol, being able to cling to my annoyances somehow, because if I let it go, It appeared to me that that would be a sign of weakness.

Brian
Interesting.

Ani
The reality is that both of us are well aware of now and can talk about is that that was a very unresilient, non-resilient state for me. Now, I am a much more resilient person, and it’s definitely because I’ve increased my window of tolerance and can be with so much more. Is that embodying resilience?

Brian
It is embodying resilience. Yeah, you have it. But what’s occurring to me as you’re talking about that actually is the difference between resilience and rigidity. So resilience has this idea of bouncing like a ball, right? I can end up in a place I don’t want and bounce back into another part. Where it sounded like as an ex-champion dysregulator, part of what you were attached to was the rigidity of the status or the Like I said, it was a weakness not to be dysregulated. There’s some type of rigidity around thought or attachment with that.

Ani
I used to really dislike the idea of being flexible because it appeared to be a weakness. It’s one of the reasons I used to have a hard time with you years ago, because you are way more flexible by nature than me. It used to be very confronting for me that you were so flexible. I remember recalling in my mind the idea that what’s not flexible can break.

Brian
Yes.

Ani
Over and over and over to myself, even as I am judging you for whatever my perceptions are and being rigid within myself and saying that, but knowing that rigidity can break and breaking over and over again. But it is that flexibility. You have a little smirk, maybe?

Brian
I’m just thinking about one of my favorite stanzas in the Dao Deching talking about water, and how water, how the softest thing in the world overcomes the hardest thing in the world, and how water finds its way through all the spaces, all the spaces between all the hard stuff. And then it just seeps through and erodes away rock and stone with patience over eons thing.

Ani
I can hear that now. I didn’t used to be able to. That idea that water is the strongest thing in nature. I hated that. It’s true. Being able to really embody resilience does have those qualities of flexibility.

Brian
Because water also expands. When it’s under pressure, water will expand. When it’s heated, it’ll expand. But also when it’s frozen, it expands. I was just meeting with a friend of mine who was recalling his growing up years in Michigan, way northern part of Michigan. He’d say he’d go out for walks in the wintertime, and it was like 20, 30 below, and trees would be exploding because the sap inside the trees would freeze and trees would explode and split apart. That’s how- That’s wild. That’s how crazy it was when water freezes. So water is the most adaptable thing, but it’s also one of the most powerful things, again, in nature.

Ani
Okay, so nerd alert here for just a second. This reminds me of five element theory and how winter is water and water is associated with fear. No wonder we’re afraid of water. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

Brian
There’s so much- Where you can be like it. So much amazing stuff. You can be like water. Like become water. It become the thing that you are afraid of. It become the thing you’re afraid of. And that’s That’s super resilient. Just to wrap back around in terms of embodying the resilience, it really does count down to practicing with somatic practices to help get in touch with your sensory, your interoceptive capacities. Let’s just use a big word, sensory or interoceptive capacities. You got to get in touch with those things. Then the next level is being able to consciously shift your interoception so that you can choose to experience things that feel slightly distressing and widen your window of tolerance, but then also have the conscious capacity and ability to come back into the window. Using sensation-based tools. Using sensation-based tools. This is how you create micro resilience. Then to your point, working with your client for so many years, now she’s able to hold so much more space in your nervous system for challenging things because she’s just experienced more micro resilience over time.

Ani
Most of the people listening really care about this. As we do, it helps you to make the impact that you want to make with the other people in your world, whether it’s the people that you serve through your work or your family or community or whoever, embodying resilience and being like water.

Brian
Being like water.

Ani
Allow you to make a profoundly different impact with the people in your life, just like my client was exhibiting with her story today.

Brian
Yeah, exactly. Here’s your invitation, my friends, to embody more resilience in your life. Let us know what your thoughts are about this. If you know people in your life who can also embody some resilience, share the episode with them.

Ani
Tell us about your favorite somatic practices and sensation-based tools that you are using to embody resilience. Cool.

Brian
Thanks so much for joining us this week on the podcast. See you next week. Bye-bye.