Reclaiming Our Mental Health | Whole Body Mental Health

for human beings.

Mental health is the ability to

connect deep with oneself and in a way that

helps us connect with others.

isn't that why we're here

Yes.

I think the connection, I just hear like a high level of mental health.

Right.

And mental wellness is our ability to connect and respond.

Right.

I think that's the other piece that you touched on is, is how are we responding?

To the stimulus around us, right?

How are

we responding to what happens on a daily basis?

are we present and able to respond in connection,

with what happens?

Are we shutting down?

Are we running away?

Are we fighting it?

Are we perceiving what happens?

Because we have trauma in our past, right?

Like how are we responding?

To that kind of environment, whatever environment we're

encountering at whatever moment.

If, you know, there is something deep inside of you that is yearning to be

seen, to be known and to have expression.

If there's something.

you need to reclaim and remember maybe it's your power

or your purpose, your gifts.

This is the podcast for you.

Welcome to reclaiming ourselves.

I'm your host, Sonya Stattmann And I'm honored to have

three amazing co-hosts Laura?

Shook-Guzman Belinda Haan And Emily Soccorsy here with me on

this journey to self discovery

every week, we're gonna help you unravel and

remember what it means to reclaim yourself to own who you are to

recognize your innate worth and greatness.

Now, this podcast is.

a deep dive into self-development healing and

empowerment.

So hold on.

Here We, go.

Hello, and welcome back to reclaiming ourselves.

I am so excited to be here today with my longtime.

Co-host Laura shook Guzman.

We're gonna dive into a topic that is definitely near and

dear to her heart and something.

I am also very passionate about as well today.

We really wanna talk about.

What it means to reclaim our mental health.

Right.

what does that even mean?

our mental health Why do we need to reclaim it?

This is gonna be a really juicy podcast.

That covers kind of a lot in this arena.

And I think it's a really important topic right now.

What do you think Laura?

yes.

yes, yes.

honestly, I think a lot of people feel that they know what mental health is.

It's almost like such a general term wellness, wellbeing,

mental health, mental wellness.

We, we see these words, these terms, and people think, oh, I know what that is.

But then when you really break it down and you ask someone, well,

what does mental health mean to you?

Or how do you measure.

Your mental health.

How do you know you're in a, a place where it is healthy and well, and when is it

challenged and you feel, you know, feeling ill at ease, like how do you measure that?

So I think it's gonna be a really good conversation to kind of come

back to the basics of what it is and how does one go about reclaiming it?

Yes.

Yes.

I love that.

And you know, there's like so many threads.

I wanna pull this one moment.

I could just feel like all these.

Okay.

Where do I start?

Where do I start?

I mean, I love this idea of defining the measurement.

Right.

Like, what does that look like for each of us?

Cause I think a lot of us are riding on this kind of burnout, mental exhaustion.

Like our mental health is not great and yet that's our norm, right?

Like that's what we consider normal.

And so I think it's really gonna be really interesting to kind of

unpack where is the line between when we feel really mentally healthy.

And the other thing I think we've gotta unpack is is mental health just mental.

Like we talk about mental health, but I mean, you and I definitely

talk about how it is physical.

It's somatic, it's emotional, it's mental, it's spiritual, right?

It's like it encompasses all of us.

So why have we relegated it to mental health?

That's a great starting point.

It's like, why do we use this word?

I mean, I think it speaks a lot to the origins of our.

School of our field of study for psychology, that the study, you

know, of the self of the psyche of the human for so many years began

with the mind, the fascination.

Of the mind and seeing so much of what we could understand, because we

didn't have all of the scientific tools that we have now to measure what was

happening inside the brain in the body.

So it was like what we can gather from people's behavior, what we can gather from

what they're saying, what they, what we can gather about what they're dreaming.

And so all of these ways in which the early students of psychology were

pulling information out of humans.

Like, they just really limited it to their understanding of the time, which

was so much during Freud's time, at least in all of, you know, all of the

people that, uh, we don't even name because you know, their contributions

aren't even fully understood.

So we have this white male fraud Freud uhoh that was a Freudian slip

in which they, they, they were creating so much focus on the mind.

and, you know one of his students, Carl Young was a lot um, more

interested in the body, but it was just difficult to move the focus there.

People were more worshiping worshiping the mind that still

actually persisted to this day.

and yet we have all of this evidence that shows the strong mind body connection.

And that when we say mind, it doesn't just mean this like brain up here in

our cognitive ability, but all of our.

Somatic cognitive emotional perception experience.

And so you will see researchers like Dan Siegel from Los Angeles

at UCLA mindfulness Institute, use the word mind sight, and he's

starting to broaden that definition within the scientific community.

Right.

But I struggle with this sometimes when I'm writing out I'm a mental

health professional, or I'm doing mental health for founders, I just

struggle with thinking that is.

A, an encompassing word like that is not enough because I'm working so much with

the entire human self and so much is happening in the mind and in the body.

And there's this beautiful bidirectional relationship.

Yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

You know, it's so funny cuz I think about, you know, back in, oh God, I'm

gonna really date myself back in like 97.

Right?

I was in college.

I was majoring in psychology, super passionate about psychology, but

something really felt incomplete.

that's what I felt like.

I love studying psychology.

I love studying, you know, all the different sort of prior people, all the

science they had, you know, which was very all mind based, all mental based.

But I always felt like something was missing.

Something was quite not complete, which is why I ended up switching majors and then,

you know, moving into business, which was like a completely different direction.

But I think, yes, it still persists so much today that

we're still talking about it.

Explaining it and looking at things through the, this mental

lens, through this brain lens, brain chemistry lens, right?

I think a lot of people define mental health as relating to brain chemistry.

And I don't think that we've broadened enough yet.

At least not on a.

A mass view that really, we can't talk about mental health without talking

about the mind body connection and mindfulness and our physical body

and our emotional body and all of these kind of pieces that really

affect and impact our mental health.

yeah, absolutely.

Because yeah, we sort of, you know, thought that we were progressing when we

went from thinking of any kind of mental illness, mental disease as a personal

problem, like in the past, it was like, well, this person has got an issue.

Something's wrong with them.

So then we were moving.

Narrative to understand, oh, there is a chemical difference

in this person's brain.

Oh, there's biological components.

So it's not a personal character flaw or weakness within this person, but there's

this biology that makes this vulnerable.

And we felt like that was very inclusive and we were, you know, really

getting somewhere with that narrative.

And then what it did though, is it landed here in this isolated brain,

you know, the brain for some reason.

Chemical imbalances, and we don't really understand why.

And then if you just take these other medications that will influence your

brain, then that's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna put some bandaid on those symptoms that are

occurring because of an imbalance.

That's such a top down, deductive way of thinking, trying to look at the symptom

and trace it all the way back, what I'm really interested in and am so grateful

that during my time, as a therapist, which to date myself has been for the past 25

years, that I've been in this field, is there more and more people are looking

at the bottom up what's happening at the.

What's happening that's impacting is whether it's an internal experience

inside that person's body or an external experience to which they're responding to.

There's a whole bunch of neurochemical, biological reactivity that occurs.

So we're not existing in a vacuum.

The brain doesn't sit there on a pedestal with nothing happening

to it and giving all the orders.

It is receptive.

To what is happening in all of the neurochemicals that are happening

on the neurotransmitters, they will shift and change depending on the

system, giving it orders, the nervous system, our central nervous system,

which goes all down our spine and throughout the body, like, so they say

our brain is not just up in our head.

It goes into our spinal column.

And so there's so much now understanding that our mental health is a bottom

up approach to health and wellness.

So that's why that mental.

is problematic because it is really a mind, body health and understanding

that when information is taken in a body has the nerves and the senses,

then it develops a response that then it will have a chemical reaction to, or

it'll send a message up to the brain.

That's like, this is dangerous or this is safe, or this is, you know, too much.

And we know that we have all the biological components that

don't preserve our happiness, but preserve our site safety.

So that means your body is gonna do certain things that don't really

doesn't really make sense for the happiest, healthier, healthiest

brain out there, but it keeps that

person alive.

So there's a lot to unpack there and a lot of threads, but I think that

what I wanna name as the field is

shifting for me, my experience of it, based on what I was

learning in grad school.

In the early two thousands,

what we were learning, there was very much based in the

cognitions and in the behaviors.

And if we could change people's thoughts and we could change their behavior, then

we felt that we could shift the mental

health.

what I have come to understand is that the state of the nervous system

is what tells the story of what those cognitive thoughts are and of.

the behavior is.

And so the language of the body is just such an important foundation for me of

helping myself and my clients establish

mental wellness, mind, body health.

Yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

Okay.

So then to kind of bring it back to the original question in A simple way,

how would you define mental health?

A simple waste on you.

You ask me

I, and I'll be transparent with the listeners.

Like right now, you know, I wanna root down.

So to find my source and my answer, I wanna root down into

my feet.

I wanna pull back my shoulders.

I wanna take a deep breath and just ask myself, you know, what

is my sense of mental health

and wellness, right.

For me, it's about integration.

it's about a mind

and a body that is in interdependence with one

another it's bidirectional communication is going both

ways and there is an integration and a resonance between all that

information.

Mmm.

that means that even when something

dangerous and threatening comes

into the system, it has.

This United integrated way in which it can perceive

what's happening and then be able to Mount a response, right?

Is this something that is life threatening and happening right now?

And everything knows what to do, whereas is

this safe and I can go into deeper connection with myself and I can

have healthy social engagement.

and therefore I can be a human that's both inside of

myself and capable of this interrelationship, this connection.

And really that is for human beings.

Mental health is the ability to

connect deep with oneself and in a way that

helps us connect with others.

isn't that why we're here

Yes.

I think the connection, I just hear like a high level of mental health.

Right.

And mental wellness is our ability to connect and respond.

Right.

I think that's the other piece that you touched on is, is how are we responding?

To the stimulus around us, right?

How are

we responding to what happens on a daily basis?

You know, are we present and able to respond in connection,

with what happens?

Are we shutting down?

Are we running away?

Are we fighting it?

Are we perceiving what happens?

Because we have trauma in our past, right?

Like how are we responding?

To that kind of environment, whatever environment we're

encountering at whatever moment.

Right.

I mean, and when I look at that myself, you know, a lot of times

I've felt pretty mentally healthy.

Right?

I don't, I don't know if I ever would ever say I have problems with my mental health.

And yet I definitely have times of meltdown.

I have times where I can't respond to the stimulus.

I feel so overwhelmed.

I shut down.

I hide, I hide into my Netflix.

So, you know, I think this is why this is such an important topic because we are.

All navigating our mental health, especially in today's environment.

I mean, even our children who are faced with so much more uncertainty,

so much more disconnection, so much more electronics, right.

They are also constantly dealing with mental health issues and challenges.

And so this is such a broader topic than We used to think of it in the past.

It's such an important topic

now.

Yes.

absolutely.

And there's so many things that I'm thinking of is I'm

hearing you actually name.

Symptoms.

So here I am naming mental health as an integration.

So when you start to experience overwhelm insomnia, depression,

anxiety, all of those different

behavioral

and cognitive and sensory sets of symptoms are signals

from your mind.

Letting you know, that that integration is

not occurring.

Something is happening.

And those are just giving you that

information.

A system that is feeling

the emotional experience is sensing through the body, able to hold

space, turn that sensation into, oh, that's me feeling tired or that's me

grieving a loss of this loved one.

And I'm able to allow myself to feel, and I trust myself to feel

we're naming things.

We're feeling it to heal it, all of this.

We know, even as scientifically backed up that an organism needs to

do this, we need to let everything in and feel it and process it.

When we're doing that, we're staying integrated and the system is operating.

We can still get stressed out.

We can still have a fearful moment and the body's going to amount that

defense or respond, but it doesn't get stuck there when we're able to

keep allowing the information in and, and trusting ourselves to be with it.

What occurs for a lot of individuals is a fear of letting the full experience

in

because there's a lot of intensity to being alive.

I was saying

so much now more than ever.

so much intensity with being alive

and we learn from early age to.

deny those feelings.

I, we think about babies.

Now we tell them, which is just such a horrible message that, oh,

you know, we just let them cry it out because they're just gonna

eventually learn that guess what?

No one's coming.

That's a wonderful message.

And so what we're actually teaching, so babies are great at telling

you that life is intense and they're not always comfortable.

and then we come in and give them food or give them a nice

rub or a bath or change a diaper.

And then they get soothed.

So they fully experience the intensity

and then they ask for help.

And if those needs are met, then they keep going and

growing.

But we do live in a culture and in a greater society in which a lot

of those needs start not being met.

And we learn this kind of maladaptive.

Of being with intensity.

And so we begin to shut it out and numb it out don't feel.

And that suppression of emotion is exhausting

for a system,

which means it's not able to keep processing and integrating as it.

That's right.

so what's really interesting is we have this system, the

human body that is miraculous and does so

many things.

And yet we treat our mental health, meaning these symptoms that are just alarm

bells saying, oh, something's going on?

we don't have enough safety, our needs.

Aren't getting met.

We need more space for this.

These are all very normal responses to abnormal levels of stress and

our body in mind just signals.

, but we have a lot of

We have a lot of societal and cultural stigma around not being able to name those

vulnerabilities, not being able to feel

right.

And I'm talking a lot about the individual body, but I will say that as a systems

therapist, I'm constantly thinking, not just like what this person is

doing and thinking about their feelings and their body and their trauma,

but what is the message being sent?

the outer systems, the family, the institutions, the larger country, the

larger world of the human citizenship.

Right.

So we are influenced constantly by what is okay or not okay to do and feel.

And then we have our own individual challenges with feeling

the intensity of being alive

inside our bodies.

Yes.

it's all interrelated, we can't split and compartmentalize the systems.

We can't say this individual, you know, just needs to get over it and be stronger.

And yet there's all these really broken systems.

I feel to be mentally healthy.

We actually have to go completely against the grain.

right?

Like

There's a lot of reprogramming or like dismantling

systems that actually bring.

into that separateness, the disconnecting, and then this is beautiful work.

That's coming out recently where they're showing evidence that this

legacy trauma legacy burdens or what's, you know trauma that's passed down,

intergenerational trauma, the epigenetics, it's not just a memory or a story

that's passed down from the family, one generation to the next there's a.

passing on, felt experience and a passing that on through the gene pool, in

which certain people are less resilient because they have had ancestor after

ancestor, after ancestor going through

a culture that continues to harm and wound.

Yes.

And so we know that there's a lot to pay attention to,

and we have this tendency to be like,

what's wrong with that person?

Why can't they keep it together?

What's going on

And even ourselves, right?

Like, you know, when you were talking earlier about what

mental health is or looks like.

I started to think, does anyone ever experience that all the

time?

Right.

Is there anyone who is like fully resilient?

You know, isn't completely falling apart.

Isn't experiencing overwhelm, isn't shutting down, right?

Like.

Is it even reasonable to think that you can get to a place where

you're in constant connection or constant integration?

Because I think there's so many people that, you know, constantly

beat themselves up for not being strong enough for not being more

capable for getting overwhelmed.

And yet, I think we have to talk about kind of the humanity of it, right?

Like what is realistic in terms of our connection, integration and mental health,

you know, is it always, no matter how healthy we are gonna be an in and an out,

uh, response and an, an unresponsiveness, like, what do you think about

Yes.

Yes.

If I can, get all my clients to move from the inner dialogue of what's wrong with

me to what is

happening to me right now, what's happening.

Cuz my body is giving me

signals.

My mind is giving me

signals.

Depression

is telling me some things.

Suppressed.

There's something that I'm holding something that's exhausting me something

I'm not feeling or able to move through.

Anxiety tells me that there's something too big for me to hold it's spilling

over the edges and I don't know what to

do with it.

Right.

But these are

natural.

Like you said, kind of ebbs and flows.

Sometimes life is gonna give you something that's really heavy and you don't wanna

feel.

And other times it's gonna flood you with all the feelings you can't help, but feel.

And knowing the ability to ask oneself what's happening to me

and learning, not to judge those symptoms, but when there's

insomnia it's oh, my system

is not

safe to sleep.

Mmm.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

Sleep is very vulnerable.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

So what's happening with me that there's a perceived.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

Now that doesn't necessarily mean there is a threat.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

It could be that I've heard layoffs are coming.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

I've heard about the re recession, you know, the credit card

Laura Shook-Guzman:

interest rates are going up.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

And so there is a real threat that there's something happening in that way.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

But the body in you are not thinking like the body's

Laura Shook-Guzman:

just like, yeah, your heart rate went up when you read that article.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

And then I can't go to sleep because we won't

Laura Shook-Guzman:

be.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

Right.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

So I guess I really wish that people would think of mental health as learning the

Laura Shook-Guzman:

language of the body and of the mind, and to be able to better decipher your needs.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

Yeah.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

I love that.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

I just wanted to like frame that right.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

Learning the language of our body, mind emotions.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

Right.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

All the sort of pieces of ourselves.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

Yeah.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

And, and what was the last thing you said?

Laura Shook-Guzman:

Cause I really love

Laura Shook-Guzman:

Yeah.

Laura Shook-Guzman:

So being able to learn the language

Laura Shook-Guzman:

of our mind,

Laura Shook-Guzman:

our

Laura Shook-Guzman:

body, our emotions, and be able to meet

Laura Shook-Guzman:

those needs.

meet our needs.

Not everyone else's needs just our needs.

I think that alone puts a lot of people in a more, you know, in a framework of a

more mentally unhealthy existence, Right,

Like how many of us are burnt out or depleted because we're

So busy meeting everyone else's needs that we're not meeting our.

Yes.

Yes.

And we do live in a culture.

That will push back a lot on this, because I mean, I feel like this is the

majority of my sessions with my clients as they they're like, okay, I get that.

But then I go to work and my boss tells this, or I, you know, I have

to do this for school or I have to do this to fundraise, you know?

So there's a lot of like, I have to do this.

Like the world is not gonna stop.

And I get that, that you're still operating with pressures and expectations,

but the more that you start to learn, it's your own in inner dialog.

and how you start to relate to yourself that you have full control over.

So who, yes.

You're not gonna change your, your boss or this or

that, that we can let

that go.

What if on the way to that meeting, when your anxiety is out the roof

and you didn't sleep well that night, instead of berating yourself,

what the hell's wrong with me?

I've got this important presentation.

I'm just gonna freak out again, or I'm too tired, all that.

Then you can just braid yourself all the way to.

Or you could take a couple deep breaths in

the car and you could say, so what's

happening.

I have a lot of

move, a lot of energy moving through my body right

now, but I also feel really

tired.

And so what are a couple of things I could do?

One, I could get more oxygen to my brain.

So all the way to work, I could just do some deep breathing

to like bring more

oxygen

because I'm tired and I'm anxious.

So guess what?

I'm gonna get more oxygen to my.

Which is gonna help me feel more alert.

And I'm also going to have my heart rate slow down because

that's what deep breathing will do.

Every time you exhale really, really long, your heart rate slows.

And then your body says, oh my heart rate down.

So there's no threat here.

So see the difference of berating yourself.

What the hell's wrong with me?

Why am I acting this way again?

How am I gonna ever get myself

together to.

What's happening with me Right?

now, read the signs and then bring some tools.

Yes.

And you know, it's so funny cuz I feel Like this has been my week, right?

Like you know, we go in and out of these places and even, you know,

being aware, even having lots of tools, we don't always even recognize

for a few moments that we're in something and we need to pull a tool.

Right.

And I feel like, you know, for me, I sort of have this.

really challenging relationship with time.

And when I feel start to feel pressure of time deadlines,

there's so much to get done.

And I'm, I'm kind of seeing a looming deadline coming at me.

I perceive this great thread and I can, I can get into this space where, you know,

I'm distressed about the time, right?

it's not, there's like, it's, it's, I'm triggered.

And my central nervous system is

high.

And my, my heartbeat and I can't breathe and there's all this stuff happening And

the perception is I just have no time.

I'm trapped.

There's no time.

I'm never gonna get it done.

And I've been playing with this this week because I've been feeling some of that.

And, you know, and then I notice, okay, if I can just get back into my body, Right.

If I can just, you know, have a few moments of breathing.

Right.

And then all of a sudden it's so interesting.

It's like a sliding door moment.

Right.

You know, it's like all of a sudden my perception shifts and I'm

like, oh, I can just not do these.

Things, they're not really that important or, oh, I can easily fit this in here.

Right?

Like it's like, my perception is so different and I've been going in and out

of this place, like all week.

and so I can really

feel.

If I didn't have these tools and these practices, and if I'd never

tried them before, you know, I would just stay in this altered state

of, you know, this like, you know, sympathetic, nervous system going crazy.

And you know, it really, it really is that simple.

It really can just be some simple things to kind of shift.

That place so that we're more in our body that we're breathing deeply and that we,

we kind of trigger that parasympathetic system so that we can, feel more at ease.

We can see things from a different viewpoint.

Yes.

And I love that you name that, that it is a simple shift and yet not an easy one

to make immediately.

And I think a lot of people put a lot of expectation of like, I, well, I just can't

do that and I should be able to do it.

And a lot of my clients who have complex PTSD,

so this is layered trauma.

It's gonna be a different

experience for them.

We're gonna learn.

some basic grounding and presenting in the beginning, just to kind

of help them keep remembering.

It's like a new neural pathway.

There's the pathway that just runs away.

And it's like, everything is a, is a threat to like helping that person learn.

Oh, actually that.

Safe and I'm here.

Right?

So I just want anybody that's listening, any listener that's thinking.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That works for people.

Not like me to remember that at any stage

of where you are.

If you've been patterned to have a very strong survival response that

kept you safe for many, many years,

that we wanna befriend that response, not criticize

it, give it a lot of love for keeping you alive and.

and start to introduce a new way for you

to keep coming back to what's happening to me right now,

so that I can start to shift that

connection in those neural pathways.

There's a really beautiful expression from Dan Siegel again, who said

what fires together, wires together.

so that's the

neuroplasticity.

Now you've had some wiring in there that's been running on automatic,

but with the therapeutic work, especially the body based.

So I'm a big proponent.

If you're doing trauma work, find yourself a body based professional,

Somatic psychotherapy there's a lot of different branches, but that's

your overall arching umbrella that you're looking for and learning

how to come into a different way of And just to full circle this all

the way to our theme of reclaiming

ourselves.

Mm-hmm

I would say that's the core of the work for anyone,

whether it's someone with complex

PTSD or someone who's just started to struggle with

some depression or insomnia or overwhelm

is what we're doing is

learning to ask what's happening to

me

and return.

to the present moment, return

to self over and over and over again, we learn different ways to do that.

There's different tools, different ways, but we're wiring the new connection.

We are firing all of those

awareness, those perceptions together, so that there

is These new connections.

so I just really feel like this message is so important for those out there

that are thinking, I just struggle.

I struggle with my mental health and it's just always gonna be the case.

The more extreme the symptoms,

the more challenging it is to find these, this center, because basically those

symptoms are just showing you the extreme of that disconnect and, those traumas,

and yet returning.

to your self energy returning to your most integrated

self is where that healing occurs.

And I've never met anyone in the thousands of therapy sessions that I've done,

who doesn't have a self energy.

Yes.

It's

And what does that look like, Laura?

Like, you know, what does that mean?

Because I, I do think this is at the core of what we're

talking about on this podcast.

And in this episode, right.

Is, you know, we're talking about reclaiming ourselves, we're

talking about reclaiming the self.

So, what does the self in there.

look like?

How do we have reference points or recognize, or remember, self energy.

I mean, that right there is a really good podcast, you know, episode, topic,

I think like what is self energy?

exactly right.

It sounds good, but what is it?

So for me, I have the ability to feel

self energy better than I can probably articulate it.

And I used to worry about that.

I used to think that I wasn't learning something like I better

take another training on self energy or self work or parts work.

Cause I, I need to know how to teach

this,

but the more that I've done, the more work I've done is.

The self is an energy that is very

much a

sense of presence.

Qualities that come from my clients when they're accessing self are

a sense of curiosity towards what's happening with them.

A sense of centeredness,

a sense of compassion.

Hmm.

and I feel it in my body

when they start to go there, I can feel it.

And I stay in my self energy as much as I can when I'm working with

someone who's trying to track that.

So I'm in that energy, trying to resonate with that self inside of.

and I will track their body.

And so they are, maybe their eyes are closed when people, when I ask

them to connect, you know, can you find that part inside of you where

there's a

sense of curiosity?

That might be a question, or can you find sense where there's a sense of

calm, then people will often close their eyes and they start to

notice what their what's coming up and I'll notice their shoulders.

Relax.

I'll notice them sit back in.

Or straighten up their spine lengthens.

So our physical body has this lengthening

stabilizing when it's in self,

which is good news, cuz you can actually use posture too.

You can lengthen the spine to find

that sense.

kind of drops down into.

So you notice that gravity can drop into your sit bones, like warmth in the belly.

So there's all of these somatic sensations that come with

self energy.

A lot of people will experience that when they're meditating.

They'll notice it in yoga class when they're moving between poses.

They'll notice it during Tai Chi, cuz that energy they source to

as they move their limb,

so.

Eastern traditions

have wonderful practices for connecting

that self energy.

And we all were born with it.

We all have it

yet through like the ifs and the somatic trauma

lens.

You understand that

things start to

break apart.

Parts of you begin to try to protect vulnerabilities.

so there's wounding that occurs.

The self can sit and hold that wounding, but we don't yet quite

often trust the intensity of life.

So we think something bad is happening.

And so these protector parts come out right.

To try to keep everything safe.

So when clients come into my office, I am not always.

getting them to that self energy at the very first, because they

have to develop trust with me and then trust with themselves.

But eventually we're able to find it more and more, and it becomes a

resource for them to be able to come back to that place when that

integration isn't happening, when they're dysregulated and these

symptoms are getting bigger and bigger,

it's a place for them

to remember their way back.

I

And you know it when you get it right?

Like you, when it happens, it it's like there's Uh, remembering,

uh, a knowing,

yeah.

When you kind of tap back in and, and it's amazing how long

we can live outside of it.

Like, you know, I think some people think, oh, I'm always with myself.

You know, I always am connected to myself energy, but , you know, it's amazing

how many years we can live disconnected.

And then when we reconnect, it's like, wow, I didn't even know.

You know, I was thinking the other day about when I first had that

realization, which was in college and I, this woman, I swear my instructor

totally saved my life at that time.

And I happened to like pop into a PE class.

I just needed an extra PE class and it was called stress reduction through dance.

And she basically taught the language of somatics.

And, you know, at first I was kind of like this is weird, you know,

right, because you weren't used to learning about the body

that way and dance through that way.

Nom.

And I mean, it was, it was a lot of play, which was not anywhere in my,

you know, being at that time, you know, my twenties, I mean, I drank a lot.

I partied a lot.

I worked a lot, you know, this was like a whole

different reality.

And when it dropped

in, when I finally actually felt a connection to the self in one of.

Classes.

I remember just sitting there and just bawling.

Like I was just in the corner bawling and like I had the realization

that for my entire life, as far back as I could remember, I was

not sitting in that self energy.

I was disconnected from my myself to such an extreme.

In that moment, I felt myself for the first time that I could really

recollect, you know, really have a, a cognitive awareness around.

And that moment totally changed the trajectory of my life.

And, and so you, when you get it, when you feel it, you know, it

it's something that is familiar.

Yes.

Yes.

I love that.

You said that it is familiar

and I do.

I see a dawning in my client's eyes, like a recognition.

Sometimes there's a cautiousness, like, is that.

and, you know, a fear like, oh, it's gonna go away, but you always know it.

And the more that you spend time

connecting to it, you just, you cultivate it and you make that connection stronger.

Yeah,

But we do live in a

culture that doesn't teach us about being in the.

mm-hmm.

And even our understanding of self, like

you said, is often intellectual.

Like I know I have self awareness.

I know what I'm thinking.

I know what I'm feeling, but it's a whole nother layer to drop into what

you're really sensing and feeling.

And we are sensory creature.

I mean, we are designed to learn through our senses and they are rich.

And if we lose one, the other ones become strong.

We are such sensory beings.

And yet we live around and in a lot of

disconnected spaces and containers.

So something that comes to mind is as we're having this conversation.

And so some of my clients will ask, well then how do I cultivate that?

You know, outside of the therapy session.

And I know I have named that a lot of the, you know, Eastern

medicine traditions are great.

Yoga and meditation, Tai Chi Chiko dance therapy, but also a simple

one that people often overlook is simply going out into nature

Mm.

because we are vibrational and nature stays on a

really beautiful vibrational frequency.

so we're not just going out to enjoy the beauty of it, the aesthetics of

it, which is awesome.

But there's

literal vibrational resonance.

When you are in a forest of trees that you start to feel what's coming from

the trees, what's coming from the leaves that's coming from the roots and all

the organisms around, I think people just really underestimate the power

of nature

Yes.

Reconnect.

So I'm a huge fan of forest bathing and in Texas it's Cedar brush bathing

but it even works even works in Cedar and

dance, like you said.

And then another one that I really love is sound, sound, bowls,

music that moves

you again.

Beautiful.

Vibrational.

massages.

I mean, you're just basically like giving your self energy a nice dose of

beautiful resonances,

right?

So I'd just like to remind people it's not as complicated as they might think

to just start to get in touch with that.

And then of course the more trauma you have be very compassionate because you're

gonna have to befriend a lot of these.

Protective coping mechanisms, if you will, or protector parts in order to actually

get to more and more of the self energy.

And that's just because those are all little external boundaries

that have been built up to protect the wounded parts inside of you.

Yeah.

Oh, look, I feel like we could talk forever.

Like there's, there's so many pieces I'd like to pull.

There's So, many, you know, deep and really powerful messages here.

And, and I guess, you know, before we wrap up, I really, I kind of wanna look at,

or talk about some simple ways that we can start to reclaim our mental health.

So.

Reclaiming our reconnection to ourselves, our connection to the world,

like, all these listeners who are out there who may be thinking, oh yeah.

I could definitely use some support in this area.

And of course, highly recommend seeing Laura, you know, if you need a

psychotherapist or the many, many number of amazing people who are out there

supporting it, but even just as some, some simple steps, you know, Is it as easy as

just starting to go out into nature, you know, do we start to reclaim our feelings?

Like what are some kind of simple steps that we can take to start off with

to start to reclaim our mental health and, and shift what we're experiencing?

Yeah.

Well, I think, you know, definitely the, the different activities that I

mentioned, I hope that everyone realizes that those can be very inclusive.

, those are very much, you can accommodate yourself in some level, even if it's

like you can't get down into nature.

It works to.

look at beautiful images of nature as well.

Like that one is a, a little bit, it's not as much the vibrational, but it's

the the resonance with that visual.

Right.

So all of those activities.

And then I also think that, simple question, if you can shift the question

in your mind, what's wrong with me to what's happening to me, what's happening.

To me, meaning what's happening right now in my environment.

What's happening inside of me and listening for all those little signals.

Yeah.

I'm sad.

I'm depressed today.

We don't have to blame or criticize depression.

We just get that as information.

So that shift, that's a mindset shift that can be really powerful.

It's like what's happening with me.

And then we move into soothing that like, well,

Over stimulated.

So I need to like turn off all the sounds and just take care of

myself for a minute, or I need to do that deep breathing, or I need to

listen to music or go out in nature

I think all those activities like come after this question.

So this question to return to self stop judging,

criticizing, questioning yourself and why you're feeling what you're feeling.

and simply ask what is happening to me, what am I experiencing then?

You know, the things that need to happen.

Right.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I think that question is really, really important.

And then another little expression that we say in therapy a lot is name

it to tame it, feel it, to heal it.

So, if you can name what's happening,

then it deescalates the activation just saying it to yourself or someone else.

So what's happening to me.

Then you name it that Tams it, let yourself feel it.

so it moves through.

Then you get to

stay in a more integrated state and your mental health has

much more of a wider window.

Bigger capacity to take in the stress of the world and still

be regulating.

Yes.

And, and I have no doubt.

We're gonna unpack more

Yes.

It's a big topic.

And we did say this to everyone, like to unpack something as big as mental

health, and there are so many yeah.

Little threads that we could have gone off on, but I hope that that what came today.

Really breaking it down to something as simple as reorienting, the way

you view mental health, this is an integration you can move towards.

And if you're dysregulated and having symptoms, that's a signal simple as that.

It's just telling you so.

and then you can hopefully take action to shift what's in your environment.

Maybe it tells you that you shouldn't be in a relationship anymore, or you need

to be in a deeper connection or you need to be at that job or not at that job.

I mean, there's tons of things that once we start listening, we then can

have clarity about what actions to take.

Yeah.

And, and I just wanna add to that too, because you know,

listening is the first step.

If you just listen, if you just wanna practice one thing, practice the listening

or practice exactly like what Laura said, turning the what's wrong with me.

Question into what's happening.

Just the listening that in and of itself has so much impact.

That you don't even need to worry about the next step, which is taking action

or fixing it or changing something or leaving your job or leaving your partner

or, you know, whatever else is there.

Just the listening has a huge impact and you can just start

there.

Yeah.

just start there.

Mm.

Yeah, I love that.

All right.

Well, thank you Laura, for joining me today.

This is so powerful and amazing.

And thank you listeners.

And we will see you next week.

well, thanks for joining us today.

And I hope you enjoyed the show.

If you wanna learn more about this topic, head over to conscious ambition.com,

you can sign up for my email list.

So you never miss an episode, have a great day, and we'll see you next time.