Speaker 1: Holy Human with Leanne Rhymes is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Today's guest has truly helped me step into
Speaker 1: a deeper place of wholeness and openness that I am
Speaker 1: in today. Nicole Los is a somatic practitioner, and we'll
Speaker 1: explain exactly what that is in a moment and also
Speaker 1: how Nicole changed my life and could change yours too.
Speaker 1: On today's polling him sing that all you say with me? So, Nicole,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining me on the Holy Human podcast. Um,
Speaker 1: you are are my guinea pig. You are my very
Speaker 1: first conversation on this podcast. Yeah, so, thank you for
Speaker 1: for doing this. Thank you for agreeing to do that.
Speaker 1: Of course, I think I had to have someone that
Speaker 1: I was so comfortable with to start this podcast off,
Speaker 1: and that fully knows what it's like two or the
Speaker 1: whole experience of putting yourself out there in new, super
Speaker 1: freaking uncomfortable way. I know that because that's what I mean.
Speaker 1: This is honestly, this is I used my voice all
Speaker 1: the time, and I I'm interviewed all the time by people,
Speaker 1: so I never actually get to flip the script and
Speaker 1: do the questioning, right. Um so yeah, So it's a
Speaker 1: it's a bit nerve wracking. It's funny because for me
Speaker 1: it's the opposite too, because I'm usually in the in
Speaker 1: the seat of supporting and now we get to switch
Speaker 1: roles too, so it's pretty fun. Yeah, you always ask
Speaker 1: me good questions in are when we're sitting together. Um,
Speaker 1: so I just want uh to first off, start out
Speaker 1: with who you are and what you do. I actually
Speaker 1: I met Nicole through a good friend of ours, Kylie Macbeth,
Speaker 1: who I had been working with as a coach for
Speaker 1: a while, and she's like, you have to meet this
Speaker 1: lady name Nicolos because she she does this work called
Speaker 1: somatic experiencing. And first off, I'm like, what the hell
Speaker 1: is semantically experiencing, which I'm sure a lot of people
Speaker 1: are wondering. You can explain what that is. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: allow you to do that in a moment. But it's
Speaker 1: even difficult for me sometimes to still wrap my head
Speaker 1: around what it is that we actually are doing because
Speaker 1: it's so involved and sometimes I'm thinking, am I'm making
Speaker 1: this up? It's a fascinating experience and it all has
Speaker 1: to do with the body. So can you just explain
Speaker 1: what is somatic experiencing. Yeah, I mean it's funny because
Speaker 1: I too, am still learning how to explain it because
Speaker 1: it is such a I don't want to say surreal,
Speaker 1: because it's very real, but the experience is sometimes hard
Speaker 1: to grasp and it's hard to put words to what
Speaker 1: it is that's happening. Right, But ultimately, somatic experiencing is
Speaker 1: the work of Peter Levine, and what we're paying attention
Speaker 1: to is our survival physiology. So a lot of the
Speaker 1: time when we learn to pay our attention to our experiences,
Speaker 1: we learned to try to make sense of our experiences.
Speaker 1: But with somatic experiencing, we're actually paying attention to our
Speaker 1: mid and lower brain and what's happening at that level
Speaker 1: from more of a survival perspective. So when I'm going
Speaker 1: throughout my day, what's happening from in from within those systems,
Speaker 1: what's happening when I respond to something, How am I
Speaker 1: responding from a survival perspective instead of how am I
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what's happening and trying to make
Speaker 1: sense of what's happening. So it's kind of like we're
Speaker 1: getting on into our primitive brain and trying to make
Speaker 1: sense of something that's kind of hard to make sense of. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: when you use the word respond, I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of us are triggered, you know, and don't really
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to even respond. We just naturally react
Speaker 1: from that old from an old place, that's that's familiar.
Speaker 1: How do we even get into the option to respond? Well,
Speaker 1: first off, before we go there, I'd love to talk
Speaker 1: about how and why we are so disconnected from the body.
Speaker 1: A lot of us live up in our heads most
Speaker 1: of the time, and why is there such a disconnect there?
Speaker 1: And how do we even start understanding, like when we're triggered,
Speaker 1: why is it such a disconnect there? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: to start off with like, when we're paying attention to
Speaker 1: our survival physiology, we're paying attention to what's below our head.
Speaker 1: We're paying attention to what's happening in our body. So
Speaker 1: how am I tightening? How is my heart rate increasing?
Speaker 1: How is my body changing in response to whatever is
Speaker 1: triggering me? How am I responding? And this isn't something
Speaker 1: we're often taught. We're taught to try to make sense
Speaker 1: of what's happening. You know, I got triggered here. This
Speaker 1: is probably because of this or I'm not even aware
Speaker 1: I'm triggered. I'm just responding the way I know how
Speaker 1: to respond because that's just what I know, because we
Speaker 1: love what's familiar. So I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: biggest things is we're not taught how to pay attention
Speaker 1: to what's happening in our body. And also we can
Speaker 1: be numb to what's happening in our body, and that's
Speaker 1: a lot of society. We live in our heads and
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I have this body, but I have
Speaker 1: no sense or idea of what the heck is happening
Speaker 1: in there, and that can be a survival mechanism exactly. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: why because I feel like so many of us have
Speaker 1: a lot of trauma living within the body, and I
Speaker 1: feel like sometimes we need to even expand what our
Speaker 1: definition of trauma is because a lot of us are
Speaker 1: walking around thinking there's only these large traumas that that's
Speaker 1: what really trauma is. But there can also be a
Speaker 1: lot of small traumas, like throughout our day to day
Speaker 1: experiences that we don't necessarily feel and or know that's
Speaker 1: locked in there. Do you think that's the reason why
Speaker 1: we don't want to feel those things exactly. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why we can be numb to
Speaker 1: our experience. It's not only because we didn't learn how
Speaker 1: to be with it, but it is because one of
Speaker 1: our survival mechanisms is to freeze, is to disconnect from
Speaker 1: our experience. So when we're looking at trauma, trauma ultimately
Speaker 1: is us stuck, still trying to survive. And that can
Speaker 1: show up in so many different ways. We can show
Speaker 1: up in us trying to be something we're not because
Speaker 1: it's safer to be something else. It can be us
Speaker 1: trying to constantly be on, constantly be in that go
Speaker 1: mode because slowing down doesn't feel okay, right, we don't
Speaker 1: know how to be anything but in that go, go
Speaker 1: go mode, or we're so disconnected that we're numb, and
Speaker 1: we can carry on through life doing our thing, and
Speaker 1: then for whatever reason, you know, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you have this big blow up and have this crisis
Speaker 1: at work and there's this I'm forgetting the word, what's
Speaker 1: the word? When I wanted to call it a midlife crisis?
Speaker 1: It's not that too. You should burn out at any rate, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: but ultimately you have you know, life is pretty good.
Speaker 1: Life is awesome, and then all of a sudden something
Speaker 1: happens and I get really sick and or I burn out.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing. Trauma can show up in so
Speaker 1: many different ways, and we tend to uss as the
Speaker 1: trauma is these events that happened to us. But it's
Speaker 1: important to recognize trauma doesn't need to be an event
Speaker 1: at all. It's more about us stuck still trying to
Speaker 1: survive these situations that happened throughout our life, so it
Speaker 1: can show up is so many different ways in our
Speaker 1: everyday life. Interesting, yeah, yeah, what in your life brought
Speaker 1: you to this work? What made you choose semantic experiencing
Speaker 1: as you were? As you were a line connecting with people?
Speaker 1: Really for me, and I'm still in this process of
Speaker 1: constantly knowing there's more to know about myself and about
Speaker 1: each other. And it started for me through yoga, and
Speaker 1: I got into teaching yoga and had a pretty strong
Speaker 1: yoga practice, but I never felt like that was it,
Speaker 1: So I was always inquiring looking for more. I live
Speaker 1: and I still do a really amazing life. I had
Speaker 1: a lot of opportunity. I can say in air quotes
Speaker 1: that I came from a good family life was really good,
Speaker 1: but I always knew something was missing. I always knew
Speaker 1: that there was more to us as human beings. So
Speaker 1: yoga was my introduction to that, and then through more
Speaker 1: curiosity I got into Feldon Chris which is another movement
Speaker 1: practice which is all about exploring what your patterns and
Speaker 1: your habits are so f E L D E N
Speaker 1: K R A I S and the method is amazing.
Speaker 1: It's named after Moscha Feldon CHRISI, and he, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: was the pioneer of neuroplasticity. He very much looked at
Speaker 1: movement from a nervous system perspective and was all about
Speaker 1: exploring what our patterns in our habits were and how
Speaker 1: to be more efficient with how we use ourselves. So
Speaker 1: he created this modality based a lot on how children
Speaker 1: learn to move, how we organically know how to move
Speaker 1: if we allow our structure to do what it's does
Speaker 1: I to do. But yet we get in our own way.
Speaker 1: We get in our own way from you know, copying
Speaker 1: those around us. We get in our own way by
Speaker 1: getting injuries and overcompensating, under compensating, and ultimately the work
Speaker 1: is about bringing ourselves back into our body and back
Speaker 1: towards moving the way we were designed to move. What
Speaker 1: I really appreciated about the Pelton Chris method is he
Speaker 1: uses movement as a way to get into the body
Speaker 1: to get to know yourself more So, even though it's
Speaker 1: movement based, there's so many more layers. Like read his
Speaker 1: books and it's mind blowing. There's so much depth to
Speaker 1: the work, a lot of action based activities. It's like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I get to be in my body, and I can
Speaker 1: also not be in my body. How do I teach
Speaker 1: a class but invite people to learn more about themselves?
Speaker 1: So that's where I got more into sc where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's I'm seeing all these nervous systems. I'm seeing all
Speaker 1: these bodies, but there's something lacking and how we are
Speaker 1: seeing ourselves. And it was the nervous system from a
Speaker 1: trauma perspective piece that really gave me insight into seeing
Speaker 1: the depths of us as human beings and where we
Speaker 1: get stuck and why we get stuck, and how us
Speaker 1: in survival mode really limits us from not just the
Speaker 1: physical respective, but now really understanding how the that survival
Speaker 1: energy and us living and survival ultimately stops us from
Speaker 1: showing up as who we are. I mean, they're surviving
Speaker 1: and thriving, right, And so most of us are constantly
Speaker 1: in survival mode, and there there is no thriving exactly,
Speaker 1: there's no access to thriving. I think, gosh, I for
Speaker 1: even my personal experience, I think I'm just starting to thrive.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, congratulation, I mean, thank you. Right, that's a
Speaker 1: big because when you live in survival mode, you're gosh,
Speaker 1: there's no expanding out out of what we call the
Speaker 1: comfort zone. You know, there's no there's no expanding outside
Speaker 1: of that. There's no growth. There's a lot of stagnation.
Speaker 1: Um and like you're basically what you're saying, there's kind
Speaker 1: of this looping pattern and you're stuck in a loop. Right,
Speaker 1: there's a little access to intuition, Yes, even to instincts.
Speaker 1: Instincts are all astrue. You're not only questioning yourself, you
Speaker 1: know constantly, and like you're saying, with your instincts and
Speaker 1: your intuition, and and that brings us back to why
Speaker 1: we're so disconnected, why so many people are in their
Speaker 1: heads and not in their bodies, Because ultimately, it's like
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to survive and the best way I
Speaker 1: can do that is by living from my higher brain.
Speaker 1: You're right, my neo cortex and just like, oh, I
Speaker 1: can think my way through the yeah, we can all
Speaker 1: we can think our way and it becomes very analytical
Speaker 1: and nothing becomes instinctual. And feel that in the feeling,
Speaker 1: especially for a woman, like when you get disconnected from that,
Speaker 1: like that's you're disconnected from your complete life force. I
Speaker 1: mean not just for women, to everybody, but especially as
Speaker 1: a woman, I think we naturally have that innate feminine
Speaker 1: life force and flow, and clearly we're living in a
Speaker 1: world that's alot of from that. Of percent, do you
Speaker 1: feel like you always had a connection to your own body.
Speaker 1: I feel like I've always had a connection to knowing,
Speaker 1: my deeper knowing. I feel like I've always been pretty
Speaker 1: in my body, and I also have definitely been numb.
Speaker 1: And the more I do this work, the more I
Speaker 1: realize how ultimately in Freeze I am and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the world because it's like, let's just
Speaker 1: shut this down and not feel. And as I do
Speaker 1: the work, the more access I'm getting to feeling the
Speaker 1: depth of emotion and understanding of who I am and
Speaker 1: that's still evolving. Um So, even though I did have
Speaker 1: a lot of access to my body, I now recognize
Speaker 1: that I still was in phrase. Alright, So on that note,
Speaker 1: we are going to freeze and take a breath for
Speaker 1: a quick break. But when we come back, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get into sharing a moment when I was frozen. Welcome
Speaker 1: back everyone. Last night I was having a freak out
Speaker 1: about doing this interview with you, and my husband's like
Speaker 1: giving me this pep talk of oh, you're gonna be great,
Speaker 1: and you do this all the time. And literally I
Speaker 1: went through fight, flight and freeze all in one experience.
Speaker 1: And the crazy thing is, you've made me so aware
Speaker 1: of it now. I literally started an argument with him,
Speaker 1: like and wanted to fight like with him about him
Speaker 1: telling me I was great. Then I literally like left
Speaker 1: the room and went upstairs and then I completely frozen bed,
Speaker 1: like I couldn't move. I started to go into like
Speaker 1: depression mode, and all of a sudden, in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night last night, I woe up from my
Speaker 1: sleep and went, oh my god, I just went through
Speaker 1: the whole experience right there, like one in one conversation,
Speaker 1: and it's amazing. The awareness is beautiful, but it's also
Speaker 1: so freaking painful because then you when you start to
Speaker 1: have this awareness around your trauma responses, you start to realize,
Speaker 1: like how often you're living there, like you were just saying,
Speaker 1: how often that happened? How often I freeze? Actually had
Speaker 1: the experience of a freeze state right before I went
Speaker 1: on stage the other day. If I had not have
Speaker 1: done this work with you, I would have never known
Speaker 1: what was happening and how to re acquaint myself with
Speaker 1: like the space and actually kind of come back into
Speaker 1: the moment and my my own you know, experience how
Speaker 1: to actually get out of that. But are you willing
Speaker 1: to share what you what you experienced that showed you
Speaker 1: it was phrasing then how you got that? Sure? Um?
Speaker 1: Usually my free state just feels like super heavy in
Speaker 1: my body. Um, I feel heavy. I feel like everything
Speaker 1: kind of slows down, and I feel like like my
Speaker 1: vision all of a sudden gets like, um, almost blurry
Speaker 1: and hyper focused. And I don't I feel like you
Speaker 1: can't move. I really don't feel like I'm frozen. And
Speaker 1: I started to use mindfulness really to reaquate myself with
Speaker 1: the room and the you know what, what was I
Speaker 1: smelling what was what was I you know, my I
Speaker 1: guess I was kind of broad um broadening my sense
Speaker 1: of focus. It didn't have to be. It wasn't so
Speaker 1: hyper focused anymore. So I was just trying to acquit
Speaker 1: myself with the moment and the room that I was in,
Speaker 1: Because what happens to me is before I go on stage,
Speaker 1: I can get really hyper focused on wanting to do
Speaker 1: it right, you know, making sure that I go over lyrics.
Speaker 1: Sometimes in my head I can all of a sudden
Speaker 1: just put me into a free state. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was really about me coming back into the moment,
Speaker 1: can be back into my breath, and then trusting I
Speaker 1: have to remind myself, especially before I walk on stage,
Speaker 1: like trusting I know what I'm doing, like I've done
Speaker 1: this my whole life, and really loving the part of
Speaker 1: myself that was scared, like coming like even just touching
Speaker 1: my own body, and like coming back into my heart
Speaker 1: and knowing like my intention for what I'm going to
Speaker 1: do when I walk on stages, I'm just going to
Speaker 1: share my heart. I mean to share it, which is,
Speaker 1: by the way, it seems, can be really fear inducing
Speaker 1: in itself of like, yeah, I'm just gonna go share
Speaker 1: my heart. But for me, that's what I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm put here to do, you know. Um so yeah,
Speaker 1: So that that was kind of my experience. And what's
Speaker 1: cool Like, as you're talking about it, there's the knowing
Speaker 1: of what you did, but then there's also the embodying
Speaker 1: of what you did, right, So it's like I can
Speaker 1: try to think my way out of this, or I
Speaker 1: can try to really you know, I've done this a
Speaker 1: million times, You've got this. There's that mental activity, but
Speaker 1: then there's actually feeling what part of you knows that
Speaker 1: you love this, and what part of you knows that
Speaker 1: you're present, Like how do you know that your attentions
Speaker 1: addening instead of just being all hyper focused? Right? That's
Speaker 1: what I love about this work is we're aware of
Speaker 1: ourselves then moving into the survival states, so into fight
Speaker 1: and to flee, into shutting down, into ultimately our survival patterns.
Speaker 1: So first we start to become aware of how that happens, right,
Speaker 1: what that feels like in our own body, what that
Speaker 1: looks like, how do I know I'm moving more into freeze,
Speaker 1: and how I often explain it. It's like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: going down that highway again, the highway I know really well,
Speaker 1: I'm moving into that freeze response and I know it,
Speaker 1: and there's this other highway over here. And by tapping
Speaker 1: into some of the tools you mentioned that I can
Speaker 1: choose something different. I don't have to stay stuck down
Speaker 1: this highway, we don't have to stay frozen. I can
Speaker 1: actually start to feel connected to myself again and orient
Speaker 1: to my surroundings and have my system recognized this isn't
Speaker 1: as dangerous as I'm perceiving it. It's actually more like, oh,
Speaker 1: I feel a bit more expansive and less freezy. Or
Speaker 1: I'm noticing as I look around and I'm noticing smells,
Speaker 1: or I'm noticing the things that I'm seeing. I notice
Speaker 1: I organically take a breath, and I feel myself shifting
Speaker 1: out of that freeze day and feel some sensation of
Speaker 1: my feet on the ground. Really using these opportunities like oh,
Speaker 1: I notice I'm traveling down this road I know really well,
Speaker 1: but what else is possible? So I can start to
Speaker 1: establish a new potential pattern here, a new highway to travel.
Speaker 1: And you you just said aware, though, I think is
Speaker 1: such a It's a key word that's used so often
Speaker 1: and I wonder if you could just expand upon what
Speaker 1: embodiment is a little bit more, because I hear it
Speaker 1: all the time and I still I'm just now starting
Speaker 1: to I think, understand exactly what that is. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: if you could expand upon that, that would be great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Embodiment similar to wholeness. I think when we get to
Speaker 1: wholeness is a word that we don't know until we
Speaker 1: know it. And so I was actually just in a
Speaker 1: training and one of the teachers says, you don't know
Speaker 1: what you don't know until you know it. Yes, that's true.
Speaker 1: It is so true. Can I just say this, It's
Speaker 1: not even to you know it's it's to you until
Speaker 1: you feel it exactly. There's a big difference because I've
Speaker 1: known a lot of ship but until I feel it,
Speaker 1: which is the work that you do, which is I
Speaker 1: think the key component in my own healing journey of
Speaker 1: where I felt that something just wasn't clicking completely, this
Speaker 1: concepts that I had in my head, and I had
Speaker 1: all this knowledge, you know, all of this experience actually
Speaker 1: of talking about it and therapizing it. There you go,
Speaker 1: that's a word therapyizing, um. But I've never had the
Speaker 1: bodily experience, and so I just wanted to when we
Speaker 1: talk about knowing, we really mean like the full bodily
Speaker 1: knowing exactly. Yeah, there's two different types of knowing. There's
Speaker 1: knowing logically and then there's knowing through the body's experience
Speaker 1: of just knowing. Embodying ultimately means embodying the experience of
Speaker 1: what is being explored or embodying whatever is being explored.
Speaker 1: So for example, um, for me, like I said, I
Speaker 1: was just at a workshop this weekend. We were exploring
Speaker 1: the somatics of complex emotions, which that's amazing. You look
Speaker 1: at emotions from a somatic way, somatic meaning of the body.
Speaker 1: So what is the pattern of emotions in our body?
Speaker 1: And something I personally have been working on myself is
Speaker 1: receiving the depth of actually receiving support from other people.
Speaker 1: And I can know that that someone's there for me,
Speaker 1: but to actually feel that has been a real big
Speaker 1: challenge for me. So through my explorations, this has been
Speaker 1: an ongoing process for me. But I had the shift
Speaker 1: within my body. I woke up at four am just
Speaker 1: being like, holy shit, they care And I just had
Speaker 1: this feeling in my body that indicated like they care,
Speaker 1: they care, and the love is unconditional, and the support
Speaker 1: is there, and there was now a body belief of
Speaker 1: that versus just the mind of knowing that. That makes
Speaker 1: me want to cry because I don't know that yet completely.
Speaker 1: It's only half my body that we're going to cheer
Speaker 1: that half on big time, Oh my god, because yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like so many of us, you know, the
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of unconditional love, the idea of belonging,
Speaker 1: the idea of receiving, like those are beautiful things that
Speaker 1: I hope that we all one day get to feel
Speaker 1: and truly embody. But I think so many of us
Speaker 1: we don't, like you're saying, we don't know truly what
Speaker 1: that experience feels like. And it's and that breaks my heart.
Speaker 1: It breaks heart. I mean, so many of us are.
Speaker 1: We have it right in front of us, We have
Speaker 1: the people that are and the belonging in the and
Speaker 1: the love right there in front of us. And when
Speaker 1: it it's when we've built up these walls to not
Speaker 1: allow it in, whether it be because of our own
Speaker 1: beliefs of I think this is such a deep belief
Speaker 1: for almost everyone, is that we aren't worthy of it.
Speaker 1: And I want to challenge that it's a belief. I
Speaker 1: don't even think it's a belief. I think it's a
Speaker 1: protection in the system that feels that it has to
Speaker 1: protect from receiving that and with it coming to the belief.
Speaker 1: So you're basically saying, we have these defense mechanisms that
Speaker 1: we ultimately are that we feel, and what we're feeling
Speaker 1: is causing is connected to the belief. That's how I
Speaker 1: see it. I see it again. It happens so much
Speaker 1: in our body. It's in our cells, it's in our
Speaker 1: way our nervous system and our lower and midbrain communicate
Speaker 1: with one another. It's that part of trying to survive
Speaker 1: that implements these protecting mechanisms that implements the ultimately survival
Speaker 1: patterns that don't necessarily allow us to connect because connection
Speaker 1: doesn't feel safe. And to me, it's starts within that
Speaker 1: survival physiology. And then we obviously gained beliefs from that
Speaker 1: because that's the experience that's actually that's amazing, and that
Speaker 1: actually frees me. I just felt like such a freeing
Speaker 1: feeling from that because I don't know how many times
Speaker 1: I think to myself, why can't I changed this self
Speaker 1: worth belief and that just totally explained it to me
Speaker 1: because I can't feel it exactly because it's in the cells.
Speaker 1: The belief is in the cells. Yeah, that's fascinating. Okay,
Speaker 1: number two, we're working on that. Next Okay, we have
Speaker 1: receiving and so worth. And then you know something that
Speaker 1: you introduced me to and I really wanted to have
Speaker 1: you on as one of my first guests to talk
Speaker 1: about wholeness because of the podcast being called The Holy
Speaker 1: Human I thought that would be a great place foundationally
Speaker 1: to start. And I feel like, now that you've introduced
Speaker 1: me to this idea of wholeness, which I feel like
Speaker 1: I've only touched upon, it's not just a concept, it's
Speaker 1: now I've actually felt it, I feel like it's so foundational.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I just would love for you to tell
Speaker 1: everyone what, well, what is wholeness to you? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: an interesting thing because the wholeness is relatively new to
Speaker 1: me in a word context, the idea, the idea of
Speaker 1: wholeness is new to me, probably within the last year
Speaker 1: and a half, but it's something that I've always experienced.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for this. I remember, you know, growing
Speaker 1: up and being in high school and we would drive
Speaker 1: around with the windows down and everyone in the car
Speaker 1: would heckle everyone, because that's what you do in high
Speaker 1: school annoyingly. Um, just induce drama on people right now.
Speaker 1: But I remember always being like, guys, you have to stop,
Speaker 1: like this is so wrong, because I've always just seen
Speaker 1: in all human beings, which is sometimes hard to grasp
Speaker 1: because some human beings are evil. But there's a sense
Speaker 1: of wholeness, like you are already whole, you are already
Speaker 1: at your core someone something that is expansive ultimately, but
Speaker 1: we aren't taught how to show up from that place.
Speaker 1: We aren't taught to pay attention to that place. We're
Speaker 1: taught and we just automatically show up more in our
Speaker 1: survival patterns. So wholeness to me is this sense of
Speaker 1: you are already whole, You're already with such an experiential
Speaker 1: thing that it's just you already are, yet you have
Speaker 1: all these other ways of showing up in the world
Speaker 1: to help you survive wholeness. Uh. I feel like we're
Speaker 1: originally the idea of original sin and the idea and
Speaker 1: religion of you know, of us being wisteners and are
Speaker 1: already broken and there's something outside of us that will
Speaker 1: make us whole. And you know that really is I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the basis of of feeling like we're fragmented and
Speaker 1: that and that that fragmentation. I don't necessarily feel like
Speaker 1: that fragmentation is wrong. There's nothing wrong with it. It's
Speaker 1: just like we're saying pieces of who we are. It's
Speaker 1: the remembrance of that we are foundationally fundamentally whole is
Speaker 1: what enables us to bring to Actually, even for me,
Speaker 1: it's it's allowed me to look at these fragments without
Speaker 1: with less judgment totally. Yeah, it's kind of like it
Speaker 1: helps you differentiate, like, oh, this is me showing up
Speaker 1: in life, trying to do what I know how to do,
Speaker 1: and there's space for change there. There's it's malleable that
Speaker 1: fragmentation can start to evolve and become back come into
Speaker 1: who I already am. M h. That I don't have
Speaker 1: to be these other pieces, these fragmentations I can differentiate
Speaker 1: and as I work through the layers of that, I
Speaker 1: can eventually come more and more into my wholeness. I
Speaker 1: use a river analogy for this, which I find really helpful.
Speaker 1: The river analogy Ultimately, it's partially I'm pulling it from
Speaker 1: Peter Levin's work, but also bringing in aspects of from
Speaker 1: my spiritual teacher, Chris Turkeys, and how I kind of
Speaker 1: see life in general. Is us in our wholeness is
Speaker 1: when we're in the river, when we're connected to our
Speaker 1: life force energy, and when we are in that state,
Speaker 1: we are able to respond to whatever is happening in
Speaker 1: our lives. It's not that life is, you know, great
Speaker 1: all the time and we're happy all the time, because
Speaker 1: that's bullshit. It's more that I'm able to regulate. I'm
Speaker 1: able to respond to whatever happens in my environment and
Speaker 1: move through it and carry on in life without staying
Speaker 1: stuck in my trigger or stuck in my activation. Something happens,
Speaker 1: I respond, and then I'm back into feeling connected in flow,
Speaker 1: carrying on down my river. But when we have trauma,
Speaker 1: we tend to get sucked down into war taxes. So
Speaker 1: flowing down the river life's pretty good. Something happens and
Speaker 1: I get pulled into one of my survival patterns and
Speaker 1: pulled into one of my traumas and stuck believing I
Speaker 1: still need to survive. So let's say I'm going to
Speaker 1: throw an example in here so it's more relatable. Let's
Speaker 1: say I'm having an argument with my partner and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I move into anger and it feels
Speaker 1: too much, so I shut down. So I'm pulled into
Speaker 1: my trauma vortex, which is me just shut down, unable
Speaker 1: to express and defensive, and you know, I just want
Speaker 1: to storm out of there. There's all this energy, but
Speaker 1: I'm kind of just stuck in it, and we go
Speaker 1: to sleep, and the next day, you know, we just
Speaker 1: carry on doing our thing, but I'm still kind of
Speaker 1: stuck in the energy of that vortex, and that can
Speaker 1: happen over and over and over throughout our day. This
Speaker 1: ultimately is disregulation where I'm stuck in all my trauma responses.
Speaker 1: I'm stuck trying to survive. I'm stuck on mighty flee
Speaker 1: anxious energy or totally shut down and can't feel just
Speaker 1: carrying on with my life Versus when I'm in the
Speaker 1: river and I can just feel and I can be
Speaker 1: in flow and I can adapt to whatever I'm feeling.
Speaker 1: So when we're stuck in these vortexes, that's when this
Speaker 1: work is so important. It's like, how do I start
Speaker 1: to pick apart these var texes, how do I ultimately
Speaker 1: find again coming back to the highway analogy, another road
Speaker 1: to travel down. So what's important to recognize is with
Speaker 1: every vortex, there's a counter vortex that connects us back
Speaker 1: into the river, back into the sense of I'm already
Speaker 1: whole and the vortex is ultimately just one of the fragmentations.
Speaker 1: So with every fragmentation, there's still this connection of oh,
Speaker 1: I'm already whole, I'm I still have access to self,
Speaker 1: I still have access the life force energy. I might
Speaker 1: just be really caught up in this vortex that I
Speaker 1: don't realize it. I don't even know how to navigate
Speaker 1: my way back there. And that's where I find this
Speaker 1: work so important, is like I can now recognize them
Speaker 1: being drawn into one of those vortexes, into one of
Speaker 1: my patterns, and however it shows up for me in
Speaker 1: that energy of you know, shutting down, or my energy
Speaker 1: of freaking out, or my energy of wanting to run away,
Speaker 1: whatever is involved in that. But how do I start
Speaker 1: to access this counter vortex? How do I start to
Speaker 1: access this piece that is connected into feeling, in flow
Speaker 1: in connected into life force energy, connected into wholeness. So
Speaker 1: ultimately that's what this work is about, is dabbling into
Speaker 1: the counter vortex to then dip back into the trauma
Speaker 1: vortex in a tie traded way, because when we're in
Speaker 1: the depth of our patterns, it's really hard to work with.
Speaker 1: But when we can learn to explore our risk sponses
Speaker 1: in a small way, it's easier to find a new
Speaker 1: road to start to travel down. So when we think
Speaker 1: of the counter vortex, it's like, what what do I
Speaker 1: experience there? When I think of connection, someone who supports me,
Speaker 1: someone who um I know is there for me, and
Speaker 1: like we said earlier, sometimes that's not available. So then
Speaker 1: it's like, what furry friend do I have that I
Speaker 1: feel some connection with, or what location place do I
Speaker 1: have connection with that allows me to feel less of
Speaker 1: the trauma vortex and more of the counter vortex, more
Speaker 1: access into the sense of wholeness. If I take a
Speaker 1: moment and just imagine or remember a place, a person,
Speaker 1: a thing that allows me to feel a little more
Speaker 1: connected what happens in my body? How do I dip
Speaker 1: into this counter vortex by allowing my system to recognize, like, hey,
Speaker 1: that river is still there, let's kind of dip out
Speaker 1: of the vortex a little the trauma wartex and into
Speaker 1: a little this bit of the sense of feeling a
Speaker 1: little more supportive. So for me, nature is a big one, right,
Speaker 1: whether that's going out into nature or even just thinking
Speaker 1: of the place that I feel supportive in nature. And
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden that vortex feels less intense,
Speaker 1: and I can remind myself like, oh, here I am
Speaker 1: connected into something that is less intense. Isn't always great,
Speaker 1: and I feel totally connected and supported, but it's at
Speaker 1: least kind of veering in the direction of wholeness, right,
Speaker 1: especially fullness isn't available yet. Yeah. No, That's what I
Speaker 1: find so interesting about what you have helped me do
Speaker 1: is understand that we can hold multiple experiences at one time.
Speaker 1: And just because maybe I'm now connected with the sense
Speaker 1: of wholeness doesn't and thank you for reminding me of this,
Speaker 1: by the way, doesn't mean that I'm going to be
Speaker 1: completely out of not now out of my uncomfortable experience.
Speaker 1: Like I can actually hold both of those places at
Speaker 1: the same time. All Right, we're gonna pause for just
Speaker 1: a moment, but when we come back, we're going to
Speaker 1: be diving a bit deeper into the vortex of trauma.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, my loves. So just to kind of give
Speaker 1: people a little bit of a simple practice of being
Speaker 1: able to notice when we are in the trauma vortex
Speaker 1: as you call it, and then be able to come
Speaker 1: out of that trauma vortex is to think of or
Speaker 1: go out and experience something that makes us feel connected.
Speaker 1: And by the way, the imagination is incredible, Like you're saying,
Speaker 1: we don't have to walk out to nature. We really
Speaker 1: can just imagine that and imagine that feeling of being
Speaker 1: in that space. So that's the counter. How do people know,
Speaker 1: especially when we have not become aware of our trauma,
Speaker 1: how do we begin to become aware of our trauma?
Speaker 1: What is what's like the first step and becoming aware
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, I think the first step is just
Speaker 1: starting to be curious and what you experience in your
Speaker 1: body when you are noticing yourself triggered. So, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: noticing I'm getting in this argument with my partner, and
Speaker 1: I can sense my jaw clunching, and I can feel
Speaker 1: a tightness in my belly, and I can feel my
Speaker 1: hands wanting to be a fist. Now I feel a
Speaker 1: tightness in my throat and I can't even say anything right.
Speaker 1: It's so I'm paying attention to how my body is
Speaker 1: changing as I'm in these situations that might be triggering,
Speaker 1: that are moving being more into some sort of fight
Speaker 1: or flee energy or some sort of shutdown energy where
Speaker 1: it's like and ultimately shutdown shows up because feeling is
Speaker 1: too much. All of this is too much. Let's put
Speaker 1: a put the brakes on and not feel anything, which
Speaker 1: we're all very good at doing. So, so it's starting
Speaker 1: to just pay attention to how do I notice myself?
Speaker 1: How am I experiencing myself in these situations? And then
Speaker 1: I invite not only in situations where you're triggered, but
Speaker 1: in situations where you're feeling enjoyment expansion, when you're having
Speaker 1: a social engagement with friends, Like, how do you notice connection?
Speaker 1: How do you notice a sense of receiving support? Right? Like?
Speaker 1: What does that feel like? Oh, I'm hanging out with
Speaker 1: my friends and I'm noticing the sense of warmth and
Speaker 1: my stomach and this expansion and this like wanting to
Speaker 1: make contact and lean in, and you know what's showing
Speaker 1: up in ultimately all the situations throughout your life. How
Speaker 1: is it your body showing up? How is it your
Speaker 1: nervous system showing up? Because there's so much to learn
Speaker 1: from those places, So to start just by paying attention
Speaker 1: what are you experiencing? Because wholeness, which was something that
Speaker 1: I found fascinating. Wholeness allowed me to connect with joy
Speaker 1: in a new way that my my experience of wholeness
Speaker 1: was like, oh wow, and and joy is really true joy,
Speaker 1: I think is has been very challenging for me to
Speaker 1: connect with. The sense of play has been very challenging
Speaker 1: for me to connect with just because I mean, I
Speaker 1: didn't really have much of a childhood and like this
Speaker 1: very dampened. So when I started to experience wholeness for
Speaker 1: the first time, and even just the thought of like, wow,
Speaker 1: I'm whole, like completely whole already, and then truly feeling
Speaker 1: into that was oh, this is my natural joyous state,
Speaker 1: like and it it is available. It was such a
Speaker 1: relief to feel that. But it was truly, I think
Speaker 1: probably the first time I had felt joy, like real joy.
Speaker 1: So amazing it is. It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful experience.
Speaker 1: And I do have that some days I have more
Speaker 1: access to it than others. Um but just even having
Speaker 1: that first experience. Once we have that one experience, we
Speaker 1: know that it's we know that it does exist. And
Speaker 1: I think that's a beautiful thing. That's it, and that's
Speaker 1: so thank you, such a beautiful thing. Hell yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a beautiful sign that you're no longer or less than
Speaker 1: the vortexas. And as the vortexas start to shift, as
Speaker 1: the vortexas start to become smaller, as you move through
Speaker 1: the pieces of the trauma, the river gets bigger and
Speaker 1: you have more and more access to your true essence,
Speaker 1: which is emotions in their purest form, joy being one
Speaker 1: of them, right, which is so beautiful. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean so many of us are really living in in
Speaker 1: trauma at this moment in time and being triggered in
Speaker 1: ways that I think we have to get curious about.
Speaker 1: Or I mean, for me, I'm triggered in new ways
Speaker 1: all the time. And I think curiosity is so key
Speaker 1: at this moment in time because judgment is judgment is
Speaker 1: the first place that we normally go instead of I
Speaker 1: feel like, instead of curiosity, do you have any thoughts
Speaker 1: on ways too? I guess it's really recognizing when we
Speaker 1: are in judgment and choosing differently choosing to be curious
Speaker 1: instead of judgmental. I think even just the contrast of
Speaker 1: noticing contraction versus expansion can be helpful. One easier way
Speaker 1: to look at it is when do I feel contraction
Speaker 1: and when do I feel expansion? Often with judgment or fear,
Speaker 1: or with whatever people's patterns are relative to those situations,
Speaker 1: there's probably a contractiveness to it. And then with joy,
Speaker 1: with playfulness, with engaging with other humans, with really feeling safe,
Speaker 1: there's more of a sense of expansion to it. And
Speaker 1: there can be too far expanded where we're just lost
Speaker 1: in la la land a little bit. But the curiosity
Speaker 1: of when do I feel expansiveness and when do I
Speaker 1: feel contraction, just the curiosity around that might give more insight,
Speaker 1: might lead to more curiosity because even if I'm in
Speaker 1: one of my survival patterns and noticing with curiosity, there's
Speaker 1: a bit more space versus if I'm in it, there's
Speaker 1: going to be more contractive. Yeah, that makes sense. Thank
Speaker 1: you for clarifying. Um. I of course, being the musician
Speaker 1: that I am, I'm always interested in the way music
Speaker 1: affects people's lives, and because I do think it's so
Speaker 1: powerful it's such a powerful art form. And I wanted
Speaker 1: on this podcast to start something called the Holy Five,
Speaker 1: which was it's basically five songs that either describe your
Speaker 1: life or pieces pieces of you, or maybe that make
Speaker 1: you feel and that maybe make you feel different things
Speaker 1: and and and relate to different pieces of you. So
Speaker 1: I would love to talk to you about what your
Speaker 1: love of music is and what those five songs are
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah, I love that you're adding this. I'm
Speaker 1: one of those people that never knows what who the
Speaker 1: artist is or what the song name is. But I
Speaker 1: love listening to music, and depending on my experience, depends
Speaker 1: on what type of music I'm listening to. Like I'll
Speaker 1: go through phases of just wanting to listen to classical music,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what the hell is this? Okay for
Speaker 1: rolling with this, but there's something in my system that's
Speaker 1: like craving classical or or classic guitar. I went through
Speaker 1: this like phase of just wanting to listen to classical
Speaker 1: guitar music and I was like, what is this? Um?
Speaker 1: And then I find also depending on what my nervous
Speaker 1: system state is on on a daily basis, it changes
Speaker 1: what kind of music I want to listen to. So
Speaker 1: I really value this question because it's something that's in
Speaker 1: my awareness. Like when I'm feeling more feisty, or when
Speaker 1: there's some anger or aggression or frustration in I pull
Speaker 1: in my high school punk playlist. Yeah, and I have
Speaker 1: literal playlists for every emotion. It's a way to express
Speaker 1: those feelings that we sometimes cannot or have a challenging
Speaker 1: time getting in touch with on our own, you know, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I really appreciate what are you fine? So
Speaker 1: it depends on my moon. One of my always go too,
Speaker 1: and it has been for a long time is Xavier
Speaker 1: Rudd Spirit First. And I used to live in Whistler
Speaker 1: and and Xavier right used to live in Whistler before
Speaker 1: he became big, and he would play at all the
Speaker 1: app Ray Bars and I would follow him everywhere and
Speaker 1: go see all his shows. So I have a real
Speaker 1: connection to his music because it's very soulful. He's very
Speaker 1: connected he when he plays it feels like it's reaching
Speaker 1: me at a soul level. It has this richness to
Speaker 1: it and this depth to it. And I really really
Speaker 1: value his music. I love it. I feel like people
Speaker 1: are going to start introducing me to musicians that I
Speaker 1: didn't even know about, which is so cool. So you
Speaker 1: don't know what Exavier red, I don't. I don't think
Speaker 1: I do. And I'm going to go listen. Definitely, I'm excited. Definitely,
Speaker 1: I have a feeling you don't know anyone. I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you My other go to song right now
Speaker 1: is it has a lot of real richness to it
Speaker 1: from a love perspective. It's this couple based out of Victoria, BC.
Speaker 1: They're called Akie Elliott and this song is a run
Speaker 1: to you and I've seen them in concert a couple
Speaker 1: of times. They're this gorgeous couple that just speak at
Speaker 1: a deeper level. Like the way they play to one
Speaker 1: another and with one another, you can just feel love.
Speaker 1: And this song, yeah, it's it's got this beautiful flow
Speaker 1: to it and this exchange to it. It's my like
Speaker 1: number one go to right now. And then sensuality and
Speaker 1: sexuality is something that's big in my life right now. Again,
Speaker 1: we were talking a little bit about the feminism that's
Speaker 1: really live and well for me right now, this expression
Speaker 1: of self and really tapping into more sexuality. And there's
Speaker 1: this one song called Acoustic by and I might say
Speaker 1: his name wrong. Billy rough fool Tutor home. Oh oh
Speaker 1: I love that song. Oh my god, you don't need
Speaker 1: to be oh we need just exactly. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's so good. Yes, that's what between and simple. I
Speaker 1: love it. Yeah, I play it often. It's such a good. Yes,
Speaker 1: and then I want to throw a punk song in
Speaker 1: there because it's so it's so good, like as soon
Speaker 1: as there's any aggravation or anger or discuss, the sounds
Speaker 1: really good for discuss. It's called the anti love song
Speaker 1: by bad Cop Bad Cop, and it's like she makes
Speaker 1: the black black black sound in it all the time.
Speaker 1: But I feel like that's why the sounding you make
Speaker 1: me make discussed, So that one's Yeah, anytime there's some
Speaker 1: sort of anger, I find my puked onto that song.
Speaker 1: And then I'm going to cheat on my fifth song
Speaker 1: and just name a band because I could listen to
Speaker 1: this band for hours. It makes they think of road
Speaker 1: tripping music, and that's camp c A A M. B.
Speaker 1: Wish More Lishen and do streak your thank you And
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I totally feel like I would
Speaker 1: love them, Yeah, definitely would. So that's that's my thanks
Speaker 1: for sharing those because I feel like I feel like
Speaker 1: I get a little more in depth of like what
Speaker 1: moves you totally, which is cool. Yeah, happy, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on here, and thank you for
Speaker 1: being my very first um. I have so enjoyed having
Speaker 1: you on here. You have truly, truly made a difference
Speaker 1: in my life. I'll start crying talking about that too,
Speaker 1: but you have. You've made such a difference in my
Speaker 1: world and the way I experienced life, and I'm grateful,
Speaker 1: honored to have the other my life and with the
Speaker 1: fort you and that thank you. Alright, everyone, That is
Speaker 1: it for this week's Holy Human. I so loved connecting
Speaker 1: with Nicole and with you. Next week I am going
Speaker 1: to be welcoming a super cool guy to my podcast.
Speaker 1: He is my dear friend, Lewis House, and we're going
Speaker 1: to be talking all things about vulnerability and what an
Speaker 1: incredible superpower it is. So until then, I wish you
Speaker 1: much love, clarity, and wholeness. I love you. Holy Human
Speaker 1: with Leanne Rhymes is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Thank you listen and follow Holy Human on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: Eight