Full Transcript for Brian Tierney┃Rewilding the Nervous System: Stilless, Embodiment & the Return of Your Animal Soul

that all of a sudden, when I would go to parties, 67 00:04:22.470 --> 00:04:25.490 I would clamp up, my heart rate would go up, 68 00:04:25.569 --> 00:04:30.620 and I just couldn't organize my thoughts properly. And I 69 00:04:30.660 --> 00:04:33.519 just got really nervous socially and I didn't know what 70 00:04:33.560 --> 00:04:37.509 it was. I started to get like a weird feeling 71 00:04:37.550 --> 00:04:42.069 in my throat, like I couldn't swallow. And so I 72 00:04:42.110 --> 00:04:48.379 went to the Western medical allopathic doctors and they basically said, oh, well, 73 00:04:48.399 --> 00:04:51.839 you must have gut stuff. You must have GRD. But 74 00:04:51.879 --> 00:04:55.220 I knew that that wasn't cutting it for me, that diagnosis, 75 00:04:56.480 --> 00:04:59.600 mainly because the medication didn't work and the anxiety just 76 00:04:59.639 --> 00:05:03.189 kept on coming. So I eventually ended up seeing my 77 00:05:03.250 --> 00:05:08.269 first therapist and, you know, I really started a long 78 00:05:08.350 --> 00:05:12.839 journey with somatic psychology because You know, this throat area 79 00:05:12.899 --> 00:05:15.740 became the center of my attention for maybe 12 years. 80 00:05:16.639 --> 00:05:19.490 I ended up moving out to California and I worked 81 00:05:19.589 --> 00:05:22.910 at a healing arts institute. That was my first job 82 00:05:22.970 --> 00:05:25.290 out of school. I was a yoga teacher there and 83 00:05:25.329 --> 00:05:30.170 a marketing director. And I got to work with just 84 00:05:30.250 --> 00:05:35.180 these incredible traveling teachers that would come in to teach 85 00:05:35.240 --> 00:05:39.680 their trade, you know, ranging from polarity therapy to shiatsu 86 00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:43.209 to craniosacral therapy. And I just fell in love with 87 00:05:43.750 --> 00:05:48.410 the healing arts. And I started to get better. And, 88 00:05:48.430 --> 00:05:53.889 you know, years later, I realized, well, hey, you know, 89 00:05:53.920 --> 00:06:00.860 this throat stuff, I gradually got a framework for understanding 90 00:06:00.899 --> 00:06:03.300 that this throat chakra stuff, if we want to talk 91 00:06:03.319 --> 00:06:05.139 about chakras, I don't know if we want to talk 92 00:06:05.160 --> 00:06:12.430 about chakras, but certainly the element of self-expression. I connected 93 00:06:12.470 --> 00:06:16.670 with that because growing up in the Midwest, I didn't 94 00:06:16.689 --> 00:06:19.209 really know much about my emotions and therefore I didn't 95 00:06:19.649 --> 00:06:22.850 have a way of expressing them. And what I found 96 00:06:23.029 --> 00:06:25.670 out over the years is that I was holding a 97 00:06:25.689 --> 00:06:30.629 lot of grief here, grief and rage. And through working 98 00:06:30.649 --> 00:06:34.610 with these practitioners and getting into somatic psychology, I really 99 00:06:34.629 --> 00:06:38.730 started to understand that, you know what, I need to 100 00:06:38.850 --> 00:06:43.230 express my emotions. Who'd have thought? So I did a 101 00:06:43.250 --> 00:06:45.769 lot of men's work and that was pivotal for me 102 00:06:46.649 --> 00:06:49.730 doing work with men. And because I really didn't have 103 00:06:49.769 --> 00:06:53.790 a model about how to release all of these emotions. 104 00:06:53.949 --> 00:07:00.060 And when I met elders that were holding a space 105 00:07:00.300 --> 00:07:05.699 of emotional intimacy and safety, all of this emotion just 106 00:07:06.100 --> 00:07:10.009 poured out of me. All this grief and all this 107 00:07:10.180 --> 00:07:13.500 rage that I didn't even know was there. And my 108 00:07:13.560 --> 00:07:17.779 throat just got better and my social anxiety gradually cleared up. 109 00:07:20.259 --> 00:07:27.550 Wow. Yeah, so did you ever get a sense of 110 00:07:29.149 --> 00:07:34.269 that that had some roots in some trauma, whether childhood, ancestral, 111 00:07:34.290 --> 00:07:36.689 or what have you? I ask you that because What 112 00:07:36.709 --> 00:07:39.750 we're kind of exploring here today is the connection between 113 00:07:39.790 --> 00:07:47.129 trauma and fear and anxiety. And I wonder if your work, 114 00:07:47.689 --> 00:07:49.730 as I read your bio, you've been involved in all 115 00:07:49.769 --> 00:07:53.290 these different somatic modalities and somatic healing work for so long. 116 00:07:53.310 --> 00:07:56.389 I wonder if you have a sense of how trauma 117 00:07:56.610 --> 00:08:04.000 speaks through the body and then You know, just some 118 00:08:04.060 --> 00:08:06.699 sense of its connection to fear and anxiety when we 119 00:08:06.740 --> 00:08:09.810 find ourselves that way. I mean, there are lots of 120 00:08:09.850 --> 00:08:12.550 different types of anxiety and it can be more situational, 121 00:08:12.589 --> 00:08:16.310 but there certainly can be a connection to roots and 122 00:08:16.509 --> 00:08:19.050 personal traumas of various kinds. So I'm curious about your 123 00:08:19.069 --> 00:08:19.649 thoughts on that. 124 00:08:21.139 --> 00:08:25.879 Yeah, so I got body shamed when I was an adolescent. 125 00:08:27.069 --> 00:08:30.569 I was one of the many boys that get a 126 00:08:30.610 --> 00:08:36.240 condition called gynecomastia. Gynecomastia is inflated breast tissue during adolescence, 127 00:08:36.299 --> 00:08:39.500 and it's happening more and more because of the endocrine 128 00:08:39.519 --> 00:08:43.019 disruptors in our environment, the plastics and so on. And that, 129 00:08:43.320 --> 00:08:47.929 you know, changes up the endocrine and the hormonal situation 130 00:08:48.029 --> 00:08:53.940 during gestation. So I had these boobs, essentially. And if 131 00:08:53.980 --> 00:08:58.610 you watch Fight Club, actually, there's this scene in Fight 132 00:08:58.679 --> 00:09:04.529 Club where the guys basically kill a guy for having 133 00:09:04.590 --> 00:09:09.450 bitch tits. They end up killing the guy. So it's 134 00:09:09.490 -->

00:09:15.669 really deep in the masculine psyche, this kind of weird 135 00:09:15.870 --> 00:09:20.720 body shaming orientation towards gynecomastia. And I think that has 136 00:09:20.759 --> 00:09:23.580 to do psychologically with the inner feminine in a man. 137 00:09:23.600 --> 00:09:26.799 So I got body shamed for that. I think I also, 138 00:09:27.200 --> 00:09:29.600 and that was definitely traumatic. And I would say that 139 00:09:31.750 --> 00:09:35.230 there's probably a religious dimension to my trauma as well, 140 00:09:35.289 --> 00:09:41.429 because the Catholic church doesn't go very far in the 141 00:09:41.509 --> 00:09:46.840 direction of helping young men to get in contact with 142 00:09:46.879 --> 00:09:52.490 their emotions and find outlets for self-expression. Um, and I 143 00:09:52.529 --> 00:09:55.659 was kind of shamed by the Lutheran church and the 144 00:09:55.700 --> 00:09:58.559 Catholic church for my sexuality and so on. So I 145 00:09:58.580 --> 00:10:01.929 think there's that. And then there was some other things 146 00:10:02.149 --> 00:10:06.409 in high school where I got bullied for, um, or 147 00:10:06.470 --> 00:10:09.830 like a, uh, like a teenage pregnancy. where the older 148 00:10:09.870 --> 00:10:12.509 boys would just come after me and they found out 149 00:10:12.570 --> 00:10:16.110 about it and all sorts of shaming dynamics. And I 150 00:10:16.149 --> 00:10:19.409 just didn't know what to do with the emotions that 151 00:10:19.450 --> 00:10:21.950 I didn't even know that I had. So what did 152 00:10:22.009 --> 00:10:24.889 I do? I just went to Madison and drank beer. 153 00:10:24.909 --> 00:10:34.399 Yeah, it's not an uncommon life trajectory anywhere for young men, 154 00:10:34.460 --> 00:10:37.360 but perhaps in the Midwest in particular. I grew up 155 00:10:37.879 --> 00:10:40.740 Roman Catholic in the Midwest, too, and an earlier generation 156 00:10:40.779 --> 00:10:44.559 than you, I suspect. And if anything, it was even 157 00:10:44.620 --> 00:10:49.990 more repressed. So, yeah, I can understand. So I wonder 158 00:10:50.029 --> 00:10:53.269 if you could think about your understanding then somatically of 159 00:10:54.450 --> 00:10:57.570 how trauma then shows up through the body. How does 160 00:10:57.590 --> 00:11:00.649 the body communicate that? And maybe one of the manifestations 161 00:11:00.720 --> 00:11:04.259 can be anxiety. There can be other manifestations, obviously, as well. 162 00:11:04.279 --> 00:11:06.019 But I wonder if you could speak to your understanding 163 00:11:06.080 --> 00:11:09.159 of how, you know, obviously, Bessel van der Kolk's book 164 00:11:09.220 --> 00:11:12.090 is quite renowned, The Body Keeps the Score. So we 165 00:11:12.129 --> 00:11:17.009 know that we really hold these patterns of dysregulation that 166 00:11:17.049 --> 00:11:18.870 are stuck in the body. And I wonder if you 167 00:11:18.909 --> 00:11:21.289 could talk about, from your experience, some of the

ways 168 00:11:21.330 --> 00:11:24.470 that the body communicates that, that then maybe lead you 169 00:11:24.549 --> 00:11:26.809 as a healer into how to support people and how 170 00:11:26.830 --> 00:11:28.710 to heal. Yeah. Yeah. 171 00:11:29.690 --> 00:11:34.250 So the hub, there's two hubs for me, major hubs 172 00:11:34.330 --> 00:11:41.090 in terms of how I was holding my emotion, the throat, 173 00:11:41.769 --> 00:11:47.190 and my chest area from being body shamed. And the 174 00:11:47.289 --> 00:11:50.750 throat one, let's approach the throat first, you know, and 175 00:11:51.169 --> 00:11:54.710 I think we can frame it in the Wilhelm Reich language. 176 00:11:54.789 --> 00:11:58.299 So Wilhelm Reich was He's traditionally thought of as the 177 00:11:58.370 --> 00:12:02.590 founder of somatic psychology, of Western somatic psychology. And he 178 00:12:02.629 --> 00:12:06.649 would look at the basic body plan of us vertebrates, 179 00:12:07.110 --> 00:12:09.950 which is basically if you look at a developing human, 180 00:12:10.029 --> 00:12:13.330 as you see in, you know, other mammals, you see 181 00:12:13.350 --> 00:12:17.789 a segmented form. You know, our spinal cord is segmented 182 00:12:17.809 --> 00:12:21.909 and has segmented outlets in terms of the spinal roots 183 00:12:21.980 --> 00:12:26.659 and all that stuff. And Reich was a laboratory observer 184 00:12:26.700 --> 00:12:30.139 as well as an incredible clinician. And what he came 185 00:12:30.230 --> 00:12:32.929 to see is like, you know, he would study worms 186 00:12:32.990 --> 00:12:37.990 and amoebas and stuff like that. And his theory was that, 187 00:12:38.110 --> 00:12:41.750 and this is based on his clinical experience, is that 188 00:12:42.450 --> 00:12:47.000 we would get stuck in certain segments of our deep 189 00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:51.009 nervous system, our core nervous system. And that there's a 190 00:12:51.830 --> 00:12:56.539 biological energy that likes to pulsate in an expansion and 191 00:12:56.580 --> 00:13:01.600 contraction rhythmic pattern that goes up and down longitudinally through 192 00:13:01.659 --> 00:13:05.539 the core of the body. And that when trauma happens, 193 00:13:05.779 --> 00:13:09.840 when intense experience happens, we start to armor along one 194 00:13:09.879 --> 00:13:13.860 of these segments, along one of these core segments. And 195 00:13:13.919 --> 00:13:17.549 for me, the main segment was my throat. And what 196 00:13:17.610 --> 00:13:22.309 he's his basic binary, Wilhelm Reich's basic binary was charge 197 00:13:22.370 --> 00:13:26.240 and discharge. Or another way that he talked about it 198 00:13:26.500 --> 00:13:31.480 is an undercharged segment and an overcharged segment. I was 199 00:13:31.720 --> 00:13:35.600 undercharged because I was stuck. Somebody that would be overcharged 200 00:13:35.639 --> 00:13:37.799 would be somebody that would be talking all the time. 201 00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:42.559 We all know people who talk too much, right? Mansplainers 202 00:13:42.620 --> 00:13:45.399 and so on, where there's just like an overcharge in 203 00:13:45.419 --> 00:13:47.789 the throat and the mouth. And what does that mean? 204 00:13:47.830 --> 00:13:51.909 There's all this biological energy that's just spewing out of 205 00:13:51.970 --> 00:13:55.649 these segments. And there's a hyperactivation of the neural circuits 206 00:13:55.690 --> 00:13:59.450 in those particular segments. For me, it was an undercharge. 207 00:13:59.509 --> 00:14:03.950 So I was holding a lot. And because I didn't 208 00:14:03.990 --> 00:14:07.309 have an outlet, because when a trauma happens, the organism 209 00:14:07.350 --> 00:14:11.659 wants to release. wants to discharge. There's a charge that 210 00:14:11.700 --> 00:14:14.539 builds up and then a discharge. And when there's not 211 00:14:14.559 --> 00:14:18.049 a discharge, there's a held charge in the system. And 212 00:14:18.129 --> 00:14:20.629 for me, there was a held charge right here. I 213 00:14:20.669 --> 00:14:26.210 didn't have any outlet for emotional self-expression until, I don't know, 214 00:14:26.230 --> 00:14:28.629 maybe eight years later or something like that when I 215 00:14:28.669 --> 00:14:32.049 ran into the men's work and these amazing healers. And 216 00:14:32.379 --> 00:14:34.639 when I had access to my grief and my rage 217 00:14:34.700 --> 00:14:37.649 and so on, then it was like, you know, kind 218 00:14:37.669 --> 00:14:40.509 of like coughing up a furball or something like that, 219 00:14:41.169 --> 00:14:44.610 where the trauma that was held in this region could 220 00:14:44.970 --> 00:14:48.889 come out of my mouth in the form of grief 221 00:14:48.960 --> 00:14:51.799 and rage. So that's one way of thinking about it. 222 00:14:51.799 --> 00:14:55.340 There's kind of like a stasis or there's energy and 223 00:14:55.419 --> 00:15:00.620 information that's stuck in time from my high school era. 224 00:15:01.559 --> 00:15:03.620 And all I did, all I had was beer as 225 00:15:03.679 --> 00:15:06.220 a resource. You know what I mean? I had loving parents. 226 00:15:07.470 --> 00:15:10.070 But I didn't have an outlet. I didn't know how 227 00:15:10.110 --> 00:15:12.649 to share with them how deeply I was impacted by 228 00:15:12.669 --> 00:15:15.509 the bullying and so on. And then there was the 229 00:15:15.789 --> 00:15:20.710 chest area that, you know, another layer of trauma, I suppose, 230 00:15:20.769 --> 00:15:24.279 is being indoctrinated as a male into the be a 231 00:15:24.340 --> 00:15:27.179 man box. I mean, I suppose we could talk about 232 00:15:27.200 --> 00:15:29.799 that as a kind of cultural trauma, right? Because especially 233 00:15:29.820 --> 00:15:33.549 when it comes to grief. I think we could go there. 234 00:15:33.629 --> 00:15:36.370 But also, I could say like a trauma to my 235 00:15:36.450 --> 00:15:39.909 inner feminine. That's an interesting way to think about it. 236

00:15:40.009 --> 00:15:42.870 I think that makes sense, right? The softer, more vulnerable 237 00:15:42.970 --> 00:15:46.129 side of myself. I'm a sensitive guy, always was a 238 00:15:46.169 --> 00:15:48.919 sensitive guy. That showed up in my body and I 239 00:15:48.960 --> 00:15:53.220 got body shamed for that feminine element of myself. And 240 00:15:53.279 --> 00:15:54.940 where did I hold it? I held it in the 241 00:15:55.019 --> 00:15:58.039 chest segment. And so how did that show up? So 242 00:15:58.179 --> 00:16:02.710 Reich had this term called character armoring. which is, you know, 243 00:16:02.750 --> 00:16:06.750 you have a segment that's overcharged or undercharged over many 244 00:16:06.789 --> 00:16:11.070 years and it starts to impact your posture. And so 245 00:16:11.190 --> 00:16:14.389 my shoulders were hunched forward and I was in essence 246 00:16:14.610 --> 00:16:19.950 protecting my heart and protecting my feminine side, my vulnerabilities 247 00:16:20.029 --> 00:16:22.509 and so on. And that actually showed up in my posture. 248 00:16:24.039 --> 00:16:26.899 And so my learnings about that from the inside out, 249 00:16:26.980 --> 00:16:30.419 like first it was experience and then it was explanation, 250 00:16:30.460 --> 00:16:32.200 which I think is a great way to learn, right? 251 00:16:32.259 --> 00:16:35.220 Experience before explanation. Because then I could go into the 252 00:16:35.279 --> 00:16:40.159 neuroscience years later and the Reikian clinical data and really 253 00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:41.919 make sense of it because I had moved through it 254 00:16:41.960 --> 00:16:42.500 on my own. 255 00:16:43.120 --> 00:16:49.350 So the public and lay folks who are interested in perhaps, 256 00:16:49.570 --> 00:16:53.990 you know, modalities for self-healing and developing greater self-awareness around 257 00:16:54.509 --> 00:16:57.570 things they may be struggling with, or then how to access, 258 00:16:57.870 --> 00:17:02.210 you know, clinical resources and so forth. So I'm curious, 259 00:17:02.830 --> 00:17:06.089 you know, when we talk about trauma, we can talk 260 00:17:06.109 --> 00:17:11.450 about it psychologically, we can talk about it neurophysiologically, we 261 00:17:11.490 --> 00:17:13.730 can talk about in terms of energy work. I use 262 00:17:13.769 --> 00:17:17.470 the term energy and information, stuck patterns of energy. I 263 00:17:17.990 --> 00:17:22.440 like that's a Dan Siegel offers for a Western definition 264 00:17:22.460 --> 00:17:26.220 of mind, a continual flow of energy and information within 265 00:17:26.240 --> 00:17:30.400 and without. But I'm wondering, because you've done a lot 266 00:17:30.420 --> 00:17:33.339 of actual bodywork, you do a lot of hands-on bodywork, 267 00:17:34.019 --> 00:17:41.250 whether that armoring that you talked about, obviously there could 268 00:17:41.289 --> 00:17:44.990 be patterning going on at the energy level. You could 269 00:17:45.029 --> 00:17:48.329 even think about it in terms of even the quantum level, probably. 270 00:17:49.700 --> 00:17:53.359 So in Deepak Chopra's book around the quantum body and 271 00:17:53.380 --> 00:17:57.099 quantum healing are very instructive around those areas. But then, 272 00:17:57.220 --> 00:18:00.859 you know, we can think about it in terms of 273 00:18:01.500 --> 00:18:04.740 life force energy, you know, and how things go up 274 00:18:04.759 --> 00:18:08.279 in these various energetic centers, sometimes called chakras in the body. 275 00:18:08.960 --> 00:18:11.519 But then does it actually show up? You find it 276 00:18:11.640 --> 00:18:16.440 then manifesting in the musculature itself or the connective tissue, 277 00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:19.980 the viscera and so forth. the fascia? Do you find 278 00:18:20.039 --> 00:18:22.940 it actually that armoring? Do you find it there when 279 00:18:22.960 --> 00:18:25.670 you're actually doing work with someone? So is there a 280 00:18:25.710 --> 00:18:29.410 continuum perhaps from, you know, stuck patterns of energy and 281 00:18:29.450 --> 00:18:31.829 information even at the quantum level all the way through 282 00:18:31.849 --> 00:18:35.369 to the physical manifestation in our body and our tissue 283 00:18:35.450 --> 00:18:39.819 and then working with it in different modalities how, you know, 284 00:18:39.839 --> 00:18:42.539 all these different things you've been trained in look like 285 00:18:42.579 --> 00:18:45.019 they're possibly coming at that from different angles to help 286 00:18:45.819 --> 00:18:51.329 that discharge, that release, however that might best happen. Sorry 287 00:18:51.349 --> 00:18:52.630 for the long-winded question, but. 288 00:18:53.349 --> 00:18:56.509 Yeah, so I'm a bit of a unicorn in the 289 00:18:56.549 --> 00:19:00.319 body work world in the sense that I started with 290 00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:06.660 an energy approach. I was drawn immediately towards acupuncture, Reiki, 291 00:19:06.779 --> 00:19:10.660 craniosacral work, and then polarity therapy, which is just brilliant. 292 00:19:10.779 --> 00:19:15.539 I met this polarity therapist early on. It was just brilliant. 293 00:19:15.980 --> 00:19:18.599 And then I started with the energy work and then 294 00:19:18.799 --> 00:19:21.180 went into the deep tissue stuff. And a lot of 295 00:19:21.220 --> 00:19:23.740 people do it the opposite. They get into the kind 296 00:19:23.779 --> 00:19:26.700 of work with the fascia connective tissue, work with the 297 00:19:26.759 --> 00:19:30.160 musculature and classical massage school. And then gradually, because it's 298 00:19:30.200 --> 00:19:34.420 such hard work, go into the energy work and just 299 00:19:34.460 --> 00:19:37.430 develop that intuition about energy. So I did it kind 300 00:19:37.470 --> 00:19:40.349 of the opposite direction. And the reason why is that 301 00:19:40.450 --> 00:19:43.369 I felt in my tissue when I was getting work done, 302 00:19:43.940 --> 00:19:48.390

like on my chest, for example, uh that it very 303 00:19:48.450 --> 00:19:51.420 much was in the tissues the issues were in the 304 00:19:51.480 --> 00:19:55.400 tissues as it were um and so i the way 305 00:19:55.440 --> 00:19:58.799 that i approach bodies is as you said like a 306 00:19:58.880 --> 00:20:03.140 wide continuum from the subtlest of the subtle uh the 307 00:20:03.160 --> 00:20:06.960 craniosacral touch which i'm not i'm now calling that stillness 308 00:20:07.009 --> 00:20:11.539 touch um craniosacral work kind of gets a bad rap 309 00:20:11.619 --> 00:20:15.240 if you just plug it into Wikipedia and do a search. 310 00:20:15.940 --> 00:20:19.609 You realize that Wikipedia doesn't have a very good attitude 311 00:20:19.660 --> 00:20:25.009 towards craniosacral work. So I've repackaged it as stillness touch. 312 00:20:25.150 --> 00:20:28.750 Stillness touch is very subtle. I like to call it 313 00:20:28.809 --> 00:20:32.450 a noise reduction function for the nervous system, where it's 314 00:20:32.519 --> 00:20:36.079 really just Kind of like if you watch a clinician 315 00:20:36.599 --> 00:20:41.079 and a client in the craniosacral field of stillness touch, 316 00:20:41.940 --> 00:20:46.269 you don't see any movement happening. The hands aren't moving 317 00:20:46.349 --> 00:20:48.609 tissue around and so on like you would see in 318 00:20:48.630 --> 00:20:52.390 a massage. What you see is basically like a paired meditation, 319 00:20:52.890 --> 00:20:59.220 like two people meditating relationally. What's very powerful about that 320 00:20:59.240 --> 00:21:03.160 is exactly this noise reduction function where, because we're just 321 00:21:03.220 --> 00:21:08.309 inundated with information and there's so many opinions and so 322 00:21:08.349 --> 00:21:12.549 much information being added to the organism, being added to 323 00:21:12.589 --> 00:21:18.269 the ears and the senses. And so it's really restorative 324 00:21:18.509 --> 00:21:22.509 to nervous systems to not have something added or have 325 00:21:22.690 --> 00:21:28.240 minimal addition. in the form of adding tactile information and 326 00:21:28.319 --> 00:21:30.859 moving tissues around and stuff like that. So I work 327 00:21:30.900 --> 00:21:33.480 with the, really subtle stuff where I'm working with the 328 00:21:33.640 --> 00:21:36.680 autonomic hubs of the body. You know, those are the 329 00:21:36.720 --> 00:21:41.690 plexi where the gas, sympathetic, parasympathetic wiring in the core 330 00:21:41.710 --> 00:21:44.470 of your body. And those are contenders for the ancient 331 00:21:44.509 --> 00:21:48.509 chakra system. Like these hubs, autonomic hubs in the body. 332 00:21:48.930 --> 00:21:51.470 So I'll often, you know, use stillness touch at those 333 00:21:51.609 --> 00:21:54.180 autonomic hubs to just get the body into a space 334 00:21:54.220 --> 00:21:58.869 of safety and to reduce noise. The other far end 335 00:21:58.910 --> 00:22:02.349 of the spectrum is the deepest of the deep of 336 00:22:02.470 --> 00:22:06.230 deep tissue, which would be rolfing or structural integration. And 337 00:22:06.279 --> 00:22:08.920 I don't know if you've ever had structural integration work, 338 00:22:09.339 --> 00:22:11.440 but it is it is the deepest of the deep. 339 00:22:11.640 --> 00:22:14.440 It is like get an elbow in there and just 340 00:22:14.579 --> 00:22:21.119 plow out these character armor patternings. And so I'll also 341 00:22:21.259 --> 00:22:24.380 use the deepest of the deep because sometimes that's just needed. 342 00:22:24.740 --> 00:22:27.539 And I'll just give you a clinical example of how powerful. 343 00:22:27.880 --> 00:22:29.819 And it's not just some of this stuff is kind 344 00:22:29.859 --> 00:22:34.319 of counterintuitive. And I'll share an example about why. As 345 00:22:34.339 --> 00:22:36.680 you think if you've had if a person, for example, 346 00:22:36.700 --> 00:22:38.769 has had a sexual trauma, it would make sense that 347 00:22:38.789 --> 00:22:41.869 their trauma would be in the physiology of their pelvis, right? 348 00:22:43.230 --> 00:22:46.369 because it's a sexual trauma and the pelvic organs are 349 00:22:46.769 --> 00:22:52.029 registered sexual information and rape and so on. And so 350 00:22:52.230 --> 00:22:56.150 I was working with a client that was subject to 351 00:22:56.210 --> 00:23:01.420 sexual abuse and I didn't work directly with her adductors 352 00:23:01.500 --> 00:23:04.019 or her legs or anything like that because something was 353 00:23:04.059 --> 00:23:06.119 just telling me that that would be too direct and 354 00:23:06.180 --> 00:23:09.579 too intense for her. So what I ended up doing 355 00:23:09.920 --> 00:23:12.849 was I ended up doing a fair bit of deep 356 00:23:12.950 --> 00:23:16.150 tissue work, the full spectrum work. So deep tissue plus 357 00:23:16.210 --> 00:23:19.910 really gentle stillness touch on the mouth, because I had 358 00:23:19.990 --> 00:23:24.920 noticed that the musculature and the segment, the neurological segment 359 00:23:24.960 --> 00:23:27.900 in the mouth, which Reich talked about as the most 360 00:23:27.960 --> 00:23:32.240 heavily charged segment, the mouth and the eyes. I worked 361 00:23:32.460 --> 00:23:37.019 from this whole continuum on this area. This person's main 362 00:23:37.059 --> 00:23:40.740 clinical concern was that she wasn't getting pregnant. And within 363 00:23:40.799 --> 00:23:43.839 two months after doing this work with me, she got pregnant. 364 00:23:46.119 --> 00:23:48.779 You know, so she was holding a lot of her 365 00:23:48.880 --> 00:23:52.140 pelvic trauma up here in her mouth. And when I 366 00:23:52.180 --> 00:23:55.000 was doing this work, she had all sorts of emotional release. 367 00:23:55.059 --> 00:23:57.279 And then we could actually do some gentle holding on 368 00:23:57.319 --> 00:24:00.700 her legs. And as Reich said, you know, we should 369 00:24:00.759 --> 00:24:04.009

probably start from the top and work our way down 370 00:24:05.049 --> 00:24:10.029 in terms of body work stuff. So it's not... just 371 00:24:10.069 --> 00:24:13.789 the kind of intuitive, the trauma is in your chest. 372 00:24:13.910 --> 00:24:17.890 So therefore work on the chest immediately. You know, sometimes 373 00:24:17.910 --> 00:24:22.690 you got to work obliquely and, um, sometimes the trauma 374 00:24:22.710 --> 00:24:24.710 just goes to different areas of the body and you 375 00:24:24.730 --> 00:24:28.819 need to develop a kind of unique perceptual skillset to 376 00:24:28.859 --> 00:24:33.900 be able to read these, uh, tension patterns in the body. Yeah. 377 00:24:33.920 --> 00:24:38.200 It's fascinating how interconnected everything in the body is. And, um, 378 00:24:39.859 --> 00:24:43.259 You know, the work we can do at various centers, 379 00:24:43.319 --> 00:24:47.849 whether it's acupressure points in the body or the points 380 00:24:47.910 --> 00:24:49.650 on the soles of the feet or the palms of 381 00:24:49.670 --> 00:24:51.990 the hands that are connected with the internal organs in 382 00:24:52.029 --> 00:24:56.210 all kinds of fascinating ways. So it's the entry point, 383 00:24:56.529 --> 00:24:58.730 I guess, with the skill. And it's wonderful that you 384 00:24:58.769 --> 00:25:02.230 have the background you have with all these different modalities because, 385 00:25:02.390 --> 00:25:04.920 you know, you've probably developed the kind of clinical ability 386 00:25:04.940 --> 00:25:08.109 to to kind of intuit what is the best access point, 387 00:25:08.130 --> 00:25:10.339 regardless of where the trauma is or what the roots 388 00:25:10.390 --> 00:25:12.660 of it are. Where is the best access point for 389 00:25:12.700 --> 00:25:18.240 this person to be in? Now, you mentioned the idea 390 00:25:18.279 --> 00:25:23.420 of safety. And so that can be a bit of 391 00:25:23.480 --> 00:25:27.400 a challenge because, you know, trauma, the stuck patterning of 392 00:25:27.460 --> 00:25:30.589 trauma and this armoring you're referencing is held in the body. 393 00:25:31.390 --> 00:25:36.880 And therefore the healing process often, really, in many ways, 394 00:25:36.940 --> 00:25:39.619 needs to happen in the body. Healing can happen through 395 00:25:39.660 --> 00:25:42.259 expression and in psychological terms, but a lot of it is, 396 00:25:42.740 --> 00:25:48.769 the healing is somatic. But that's not a safe place 397 00:25:48.789 --> 00:25:51.990 for people to go, often, or certain parts of the body, 398 00:25:52.009 --> 00:25:55.150 or maybe the body altogether. So I teach a very 399 00:25:55.190 --> 00:26:00.549 deeply embodied approach to meditation. which I feel really accelerates 400 00:26:01.150 --> 00:26:04.829 the deepening and the possibilities for healing and awakening within practice. 401 00:26:07.589 --> 00:26:11.450 And yet it can be challenging for folks. And most 402 00:26:11.490 --> 00:26:15.609 of us Westerners have been enculturated to lead very disembodied lives, 403 00:26:15.650 --> 00:26:18.319 regardless of how much trauma we have. We've just been 404 00:26:18.359 --> 00:26:23.720 enculturated to live externalized lives and, you know, we have 405 00:26:23.880 --> 00:26:28.519 overactive cognitive faculty and we're very visually and auditorily oriented. 406 00:26:29.220 --> 00:26:32.150 And there's not much in Western culture that supports embodiment 407 00:26:32.190 --> 00:26:34.849 or embodiment training. So actually, I have a friend that 408 00:26:34.890 --> 00:26:37.990 says in Western culture, the body has been relegated to 409 00:26:38.009 --> 00:26:40.289 the role of being nothing other than a brain taxi, 410 00:26:40.809 --> 00:26:44.230 just a vehicle to carry around this supercomputer on our shoulders, right? 411 00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:47.900 So I wonder if you could talk about that part 412 00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:50.640 of healing, whether for ourselves in our own journey of 413 00:26:50.700 --> 00:26:54.299 self-healing and awakening, or whether as a clinician supporting others 414 00:26:54.859 --> 00:26:58.670 of finding that way for someone to begin to feel 415 00:26:58.829 --> 00:27:02.009 safe enough in their body to really take the journey 416 00:27:02.089 --> 00:27:05.140 of both of embodiment and healing through embodiment. 417 00:27:06.660 --> 00:27:13.539 Yeah. So safety is a central issue. Um, let's start 418 00:27:13.680 --> 00:27:19.630 by talking about, um, the limitations of some of the 419 00:27:19.750 --> 00:27:27.490 embodiment approaches out there. Um, Because we can't just assume 420 00:27:27.509 --> 00:27:33.559 that bringing the awareness into the body and embodiment is 421 00:27:34.240 --> 00:27:36.980 going to be safe for a person. That the body, 422 00:27:37.240 --> 00:27:40.980 we can't just assume that embodiment is going to bring 423 00:27:41.019 --> 00:27:45.180 a person into a state of feeling resourced and safe. 424 00:27:46.079 --> 00:27:49.480 A lot of bodies are very, very traumatized. And we 425 00:27:49.539 --> 00:27:52.480 can't start with that assumption. I like to start there. 426 00:27:52.819 --> 00:27:56.910 Because that's kind of, in the somatics community and the 427 00:27:58.190 --> 00:28:02.430 embodiment community is like this hidden assumption that the body 428 00:28:02.450 --> 00:28:04.430 is always going to be a safe place to be 429 00:28:04.450 --> 00:28:06.839 or bringing our awareness into the body is going to 430 00:28:06.859 --> 00:28:11.480 be stabilizing for everyone. And that is most definitely not 431 00:28:11.519 --> 00:28:17.240 the case. Trauma literature has shown actually that engaging with 432 00:28:17.309 --> 00:28:20.930 the third person perspective, actually engaging with a kind of 433 00:28:21.009 --> 00:28:26.180 witness consciousness or an observational perspective consciousness or perceptual dynamic 434 00:28:26.349 --> 00:28:30.230 is safer for a person

that's heavily traumatized before going 435 00:28:30.269 --> 00:28:33.490 into the first person embodiment where I'm saying, okay, well, 436 00:28:33.509 --> 00:28:37.230 I'm feeling some tension in my abdomen or whatnot. Because 437 00:28:37.269 --> 00:28:41.650 if you direct a person, a traumatized person, their awareness 438 00:28:41.690 --> 00:28:45.160 into their abdomen or their pelvis or something like that, 439 00:28:45.660 --> 00:28:49.880 or their legs even, it could very much put them 440 00:28:50.019 --> 00:28:54.869 into the trauma spin. And so I like to approach 441 00:28:54.950 --> 00:28:58.430 embodiment slowly. There's a lot of talk about taking it 442 00:28:58.549 --> 00:29:02.319 slow and titration, kind of moving into the intensity from 443 00:29:02.380 --> 00:29:06.480 the outside, from more of a third person perspective, going 444 00:29:06.559 --> 00:29:08.900 in to touch a little bit of the intensity and 445 00:29:08.920 --> 00:29:13.740 then coming out and directing the eyes, for example, engaging 446 00:29:13.759 --> 00:29:16.660 the orienting reflex, you know, where the head is turning 447 00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:20.410 and looking at objects in the environment to stabilize the 448 00:29:20.450 --> 00:29:22.859 body in the here and now. So there's a lot 449 00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:27.279 of attention these days to safety, which is important, and 450 00:29:27.319 --> 00:29:32.119 a lot of attention to taking it slow. And that's good. 451 00:29:32.220 --> 00:29:35.309 Taking it slow is essential. We can't assume that embodiment 452 00:29:35.390 --> 00:29:38.390 is always going to be safe for everybody. But then 453 00:29:38.430 --> 00:29:42.809 the other piece is... is that is this interesting phrase 454 00:29:42.849 --> 00:29:45.650 that I've been throwing around with my neuroscience students a 455 00:29:45.690 --> 00:29:50.410 fair bit is that, um, is that too much safety 456 00:29:50.470 --> 00:29:55.700 is unsafe. Um, And you've been through, you've been around 457 00:29:55.720 --> 00:29:59.500 the block many times, Fleet. You've explored, you've done your 458 00:29:59.539 --> 00:30:03.869 catharsis research. And, you know, I think we're in a 459 00:30:03.920 --> 00:30:07.130 bit of a pendulum shift from like the encounter era 460 00:30:07.150 --> 00:30:11.329 where you have these intense gestalt marathons where people are 461 00:30:11.369 --> 00:30:14.089 speaking the truth and you have all this dramatic kind 462 00:30:14.130 --> 00:30:18.650 of blasting and cathartic expression of emotional stuff. And now 463 00:30:18.690 --> 00:30:22.329 with all this neuroscience and the Norton series on interpersonal 464 00:30:22.369 --> 00:30:25.930 neurobiology and Dan Siegel and the mindfulness stuff, it's wonderful, 465 00:30:26.069 --> 00:30:30.950 important stuff. However, the attention to safety can become so, 466 00:30:30.970 --> 00:30:36.990 I don't know, like kind of policing or it's almost 467 00:30:37.049 --> 00:30:42.089 like this slowing down process just takes over any possibility 468 00:30:42.170 --> 00:30:48.559 to express cathartically and intensely. And I think that is 469 00:30:48.579 --> 00:30:54.369 a compensation for these gestalt marathon days. I think it's 470 00:30:54.450 --> 00:30:58.910 actually quite important for some people, especially underwhelmed nervous systems, 471 00:30:59.869 --> 00:31:03.190 because you have overwhelmed nervous systems, which is most of us, 472 00:31:04.630 --> 00:31:08.700 where things are overcharged and inundated with information, and then 473 00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:12.720 underwhelmed systems where you actually need to bring a bit 474 00:31:12.779 --> 00:31:16.869 more spark into that person's life, and they actually need 475 00:31:16.910 --> 00:31:20.799 to turn, need to learn to take risks again. And 476 00:31:20.819 --> 00:31:28.799 there could be a component of emotional self-expression that is fast, intense, 477 00:31:29.180 --> 00:31:32.549 and cathartic. And if we're focusing all the time on 478 00:31:32.680 --> 00:31:36.690 slowing things down and keeping the pacing, and we're equating 479 00:31:36.829 --> 00:31:41.630 slow pace with safety, and that's like our Bible or 480 00:31:41.730 --> 00:31:45.599 our dogma, then, you know, We're just, I think, running 481 00:31:45.619 --> 00:31:51.059 a compensation for... Back to the statement, too much safety 482 00:31:51.119 --> 00:31:54.299 is unsafe. Yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up. 483 00:31:54.400 --> 00:31:57.700 And it's a little bit of a tricky line because 484 00:31:57.740 --> 00:32:00.079 we certainly have been in a cultural shift for a 485 00:32:00.119 --> 00:32:04.680 while that really emphasizes safety and the whole trauma-informed approach 486 00:32:04.849 --> 00:32:07.150 and all of this, which is all wonderful and definitely 487 00:32:07.170 --> 00:32:10.349 a response to the real needs. And at the same time, 488 00:32:10.369 --> 00:32:13.069 if you create too much safety, not much is going 489 00:32:13.089 --> 00:32:17.470 to happen. And I mean, it just touches so many 490 00:32:17.529 --> 00:32:19.769 different areas. You know, I've been involved in the mainstream 491 00:32:19.789 --> 00:32:23.009 mindfulness movement as well as in deep spiritual traditions of 492 00:32:23.069 --> 00:32:26.359 meditation for four and five decades. I've seen quite a 493 00:32:26.390 --> 00:32:29.180 course of things. And, you know, the whole integration of 494 00:32:29.200 --> 00:32:34.140 psychotherapy and mindfulness meditation, Buddhism and so forth in the West, 495 00:32:34.759 --> 00:32:38.779 I think was very beneficial for psychotherapy. I'm not sure 496 00:32:38.819 --> 00:32:41.700 how beneficial it was for the spiritual traditions in some case. 497 00:32:42.039 --> 00:32:45.900 I think it was in terms of the requirement for 498 00:32:46.559 --> 00:32:50.940 teachers to embrace ethical foundations and ethical codes, and especially 499

00:32:50.980 --> 00:32:55.180 teachers who are not realized, and even realized teachers, I think, 500 00:32:55.680 --> 00:32:56.420 have to. 501 00:32:56.460 --> 00:32:57.900 We're not living in an era where. 502 00:32:57.920 --> 00:33:03.420 Anyway, that's a longer conversation. But there was a danger 503 00:33:03.460 --> 00:33:05.990 of making things so safe or putting a person in 504 00:33:06.029 --> 00:33:09.170 a bubble that they're never going to get access to anything. 505 00:33:10.119 --> 00:33:13.549 in some ways, whether, you know, therapy is kind of constructive, right? 506 00:33:13.589 --> 00:33:15.809 We're trying to get a person back to a state 507 00:33:15.849 --> 00:33:20.710 of stability and relative well-being. And then there's the spiritual journey, 508 00:33:20.750 --> 00:33:26.769 which often is more deconstructive, right? And letting go. And so, 509 00:33:27.789 --> 00:33:30.190 you know, we had the whole surfacing of the idea 510 00:33:30.210 --> 00:33:36.400 of re-traumatization. And so, you know, I've actually been very... 511 00:33:39.140 --> 00:33:46.630 surprised and encouraged by the emergence of the psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy field. 512 00:33:47.109 --> 00:33:49.869 Because I feel like, you know, I kind of got 513 00:33:49.910 --> 00:33:52.130 my training in that era that you talked about with 514 00:33:52.170 --> 00:33:55.119 all the Gestalt work and even some therapies. It was 515 00:33:55.160 --> 00:33:59.160 called attack therapy, which was a criticism and maybe valid, 516 00:33:59.180 --> 00:34:00.819 but not really valid. 517 00:34:01.680 --> 00:34:02.589 But, you know, it was. 518 00:34:03.160 --> 00:34:07.839 you know, could be confrontational, skillfully held with deep compassion, 519 00:34:07.880 --> 00:34:10.199 but could be confrontational because that's what it took to 520 00:34:10.239 --> 00:34:12.880 get people from out behind their mask and out, you know, 521 00:34:12.900 --> 00:34:16.650 to do some real work, right? And some often rage 522 00:34:16.690 --> 00:34:19.510 work and grief work, what needs to be released. And 523 00:34:20.429 --> 00:34:23.250 so I think the whole emphasis on safety had kind 524 00:34:23.309 --> 00:34:26.070 of suppressed what was possible in the world of psychotherapy. 525 00:34:26.449 --> 00:34:29.719 And again, saying what some people probably need is the safest, 526 00:34:29.780 --> 00:34:33.670 slowest psychotherapy or body work possible. but it's not what's 527 00:34:33.690 --> 00:34:39.469 going to serve everyone. And it seems like with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, 528 00:34:40.250 --> 00:34:44.739 that field has rediscovered some courage. And I've watched many, 529 00:34:44.800 --> 00:34:49.980 many films of clinical trials with psilocybin and MDMA and 530 00:34:50.019 --> 00:34:53.679 so forth, and people are going through some really intense stuff, 531 00:34:53.739 --> 00:34:56.840 and the therapists and clinicians are holding space for that, 532 00:34:57.199 --> 00:35:00.650 but they're allowing people to really go through some some 533 00:35:00.710 --> 00:35:03.449 pretty challenging stuff, which in the world of psychotherapy, if 534 00:35:03.469 --> 00:35:06.449 you were facilitating that, you'd get a lot of criticism, right? 535 00:35:06.949 --> 00:35:09.599 So it does seem like there's maybe a little bit 536 00:35:09.659 --> 00:35:11.880 of shift back in that direction. But I think what 537 00:35:11.900 --> 00:35:15.800 all this points to is the need for both for 538 00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:20.539 ourselves in terms of our own process of self-healing to really, 539 00:35:21.409 --> 00:35:23.469 you know, get a lot of good information and then 540 00:35:23.550 --> 00:35:26.630 exercise a process of discernment around what we really need 541 00:35:26.690 --> 00:35:29.739 at any given moment and what our resources are. And 542 00:35:29.760 --> 00:35:33.239 then for clinicians as well to take a very individualized approach. 543 00:35:34.239 --> 00:35:38.550 You mentioned something that made me think, well, you mentioned Dr. 544 00:35:38.610 --> 00:35:43.030 Siegel's work in interpersonal neurobiology. But one of his constructs 545 00:35:43.070 --> 00:35:46.590 I've always loved is the window of tolerance. And some 546 00:35:46.630 --> 00:35:50.110 like to call it the zone of resilience. And this 547 00:35:50.219 --> 00:35:53.800 is not the comfort zone, but it's the bandwidth where 548 00:35:53.840 --> 00:35:57.900 we can respond to whatever we're working with. in a 549 00:35:58.039 --> 00:36:00.800 fairly relational way, in a workable way. So sometimes I 550 00:36:00.840 --> 00:36:07.440 prefer the term workable rather than safety. But I think 551 00:36:07.480 --> 00:36:09.960 that gives a good map for there's ways that we 552 00:36:09.980 --> 00:36:13.820 get triggered out of that window of tolerance. And usually 553 00:36:13.880 --> 00:36:18.659 it's into shutting down or it's into getting hyperarousal. So hyperarousal, hyperarousal. 554 00:36:19.260 --> 00:36:22.300 And then the way for all of us that has 555 00:36:22.360 --> 00:36:25.130 shrunk in our lives is the human condition that You 556 00:36:25.150 --> 00:36:27.530 just get into all kinds of avoidance behaviors with all 557 00:36:27.570 --> 00:36:29.610 the bumps and bruises of life and with trauma can 558 00:36:29.639 --> 00:36:33.239 get really shrunk and some severe forms of PTSD can 559 00:36:33.260 --> 00:36:37.659 become agoraphobia, right? Because our tolerance is so low. But 560 00:36:37.699 --> 00:36:41.840 then how do we re-expand that? And to me, that 561 00:36:43.039 --> 00:36:48.400 brings in like Peter Levine's work around somatic experiencing, the 562 00:36:48.440 --> 00:36:51.420 idea of pendulating it. Lina, you talked about touching it 563 00:36:51.480 --> 00:36:53.719 a little bit, just touching it and then coming back 564 00:36:53.760 --> 00:36:56.639 to a sense of workability, touching it, coming back,

touching it, 565 00:36:56.699 --> 00:37:00.019 coming back. So I wonder if you could talk about both, 566 00:37:02.099 --> 00:37:06.599 you know, ideally for us as individuals seeking healing and awakening, 567 00:37:06.679 --> 00:37:09.079 whatever we're seeking. Maybe we're just focused on healing for now. 568 00:37:09.500 --> 00:37:12.309 Maybe we're also interested in personal evolution and the higher 569 00:37:12.349 --> 00:37:15.469 capacities that we can access as human beings, or whether 570 00:37:15.510 --> 00:37:17.730 it's clinicians, why they really serve their patients. 571 00:37:18.289 --> 00:37:20.610 Both the need for a broadly. 572 00:37:21.480 --> 00:37:25.440 educated and well-integrated approach, kind of holistic drawing. I mean, 573 00:37:25.480 --> 00:37:28.889 you've been trained in so many different modalities, but then 574 00:37:28.929 --> 00:37:32.409 also a very individualized approach, really meeting people where they're at. 575 00:37:32.429 --> 00:37:34.650 So I wonder if you could talk about both those 576 00:37:34.730 --> 00:37:35.630 two spectrums. 577 00:37:37.889 --> 00:37:42.789 Yeah, so I really appreciate the window of tolerance framework. 578 00:37:42.889 --> 00:37:49.789 It's quite good. And consistent with what I was saying before, though, 579 00:37:50.659 --> 00:37:58.250 I think there's kind of an overfocus on hyperarousal under 580 00:37:58.329 --> 00:38:04.909 this principle of self-regulation and teaching self-regulation skills, which is 581 00:38:05.030 --> 00:38:08.869 radically important. We need to find that noise reduction function 582 00:38:08.949 --> 00:38:13.289 and learn how to cool off in an argument. And 583 00:38:13.789 --> 00:38:20.119 so I think there can be this clinical overfocus on hyperarousal. 584 00:38:20.869 --> 00:38:25.929 And then hypoarousal, I mean, it gets talked about in 585 00:38:25.969 --> 00:38:30.780 the context of dissociation, but it doesn't get talked about 586 00:38:30.980 --> 00:38:37.679 enough in this realm of what I was calling before underwhelm. Okay. 587 00:38:38.360 --> 00:38:42.710 So underwhelm is when a person is, they've got a 588 00:38:42.909 --> 00:38:46.170 frozen emotion. For example, with me, it was in my throat. 589 00:38:46.929 --> 00:38:53.099 And a self-regulation situation, uh, pathway, um, even though I 590 00:38:53.139 --> 00:38:57.199 was hyper aroused with my anxiety and, you know, I'd 591 00:38:57.239 --> 00:38:59.889 go into a social situation and feel like, you know, 592 00:38:59.929 --> 00:39:03.929 people were talking about me, some paranoid elements and stuff 593 00:39:03.949 --> 00:39:07.150 like that. So even though I was feeling hyper arousal, 594 00:39:07.789 --> 00:39:13.139 my frozenness was actually here and was in this space 595 00:39:13.199 --> 00:39:17.679 of underwhelm. Nobody was inspiring me. My friends weren't inspiring me. 596 00:39:17.760 --> 00:39:19.639 I knew that they didn't have anything to offer me 597 00:39:19.699

--> 00:39:21.960 in terms of where I was trying to get. Just 598 00:39:22.019 --> 00:39:26.710 intuitively pick that up. And what did it for me 599 00:39:27.010 --> 00:39:30.639 is being in an expressive space, hence my life. my deep, 600 00:39:30.739 --> 00:39:35.199 deep interest in drama therapy. And as a craniosacral therapy, 601 00:39:35.239 --> 00:39:42.170 this is another craniosacral therapist, this is another continuum that 602 00:39:42.190 --> 00:39:44.989 I think is really important. So for me, at least, 603 00:39:45.150 --> 00:39:48.730 and what I find clinically, it's important. In the body work, 604 00:39:48.789 --> 00:39:52.099 I have this continuum from the subtlest of the subtle 605 00:39:52.199 --> 00:39:56.119 to the deepest of the deep. In psychotherapy, I have 606 00:39:56.260 --> 00:40:01.500 self-regulation approaches where everything is about slowing down, but I'm 607 00:40:01.559 --> 00:40:05.360 also a drama therapist, which is all about expression and 608 00:40:05.420 --> 00:40:10.449 working with underwhelm. And when a person has underwhelm, the 609 00:40:10.469 --> 00:40:19.190 intention is to really let loose And a kind of 610 00:40:19.590 --> 00:40:23.909 I'm a plumber sort of guy, you know, let loose 611 00:40:24.190 --> 00:40:27.880 the stuck areas of the body that haven't expressed whatever 612 00:40:27.929 --> 00:40:33.980 they needed to express. So let's say that a person got, well, 613 00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:38.639 they're in a car accident. And this is a particular 614 00:40:38.699 --> 00:40:41.449 case that I talk about where a guy fell asleep 615 00:40:41.510 --> 00:40:44.760 at the wheel going 75 miles per hour. and went 616 00:40:44.820 --> 00:40:47.780 into a roll and ended up upside down, hanging from 617 00:40:47.820 --> 00:40:52.239 his seatbelt. And then when the cops got there and 618 00:40:52.260 --> 00:40:55.460 the ambulance and whatnot, there was all this emotion and 619 00:40:55.539 --> 00:40:59.800 hullabaloo and all this emotional intensity around him. But he 620 00:41:00.340 --> 00:41:04.500 couldn't express himself. There was people really afraid. He could 621 00:41:04.539 --> 00:41:07.400 feel the fear. But really what it came down to 622 00:41:07.639 --> 00:41:13.699 is he needed to basically like wail in pain. He 623 00:41:13.739 --> 00:41:16.860 was suffering so much and he needed to grieve, but 624 00:41:16.900 --> 00:41:19.780 not grieve in the sort of just, you know, a calm, 625 00:41:19.940 --> 00:41:24.989 self-regulated tear goes down the cheek, but I'm talking about wailing. 626 00:41:26.230 --> 00:41:28.510 He had a wail in there that needed to come 627 00:41:28.630 --> 00:41:31.590 out of him, and he needed a more expressive, dramatic 628 00:41:31.650 --> 00:41:36.409 space in order to get that intensity out of him. 629 00:41:39.429 --> 00:41:43.920 What if transformation isn't just about thinking differently, but feeling differently. 630 00:41:44.440 --> 00:41:47.300 Science shows us that true change happens when we align 631 00:41:47.389 --> 00:41:50.889 not just our minds, but also the neural networks in 632 00:41:50.969 --> 00:41:54.809 our hearts and guts. 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Click the link to learn more and 647 00:42:54.820 --> 00:43:01.840 start your journey today. Yeah, it's very interesting what you're 648 00:43:01.860 --> 00:43:05.699 saying there. I led a very intense kind of training 649 00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:08.530 in this work for for many, many years up until 650 00:43:08.570 --> 00:43:11.989 the pandemic began. And we haven't found the bandwidth to 651 00:43:12.030 --> 00:43:16.829 resuscitate it since then, but I probably, that was in 2020. 652 00:43:16.829 --> 00:43:20.130 So I had led it for about 25 years. And 653 00:43:20.690 --> 00:43:25.570 it involves drama therapy or psychodrama, a lot of different 654 00:43:25.590 --> 00:43:29.199 variations of psychodrama, but a lot of physical work, stick work, 655 00:43:29.280 --> 00:43:36.119 floor work, holdings, resistance work, And can be very confrontational, 656 00:43:36.219 --> 00:43:39.699 but also held in a very compassionate space and really 657 00:43:39.719 --> 00:43:43.820 whatever's needed. It's kind of whatever. But what I found, 658 00:43:43.840 --> 00:43:48.760 you know, even though, you know, people self-selected to come 659 00:43:48.780 --> 00:43:50.070 to that training and. 660 00:43:50.650 --> 00:43:52.650 It was kind of a little bit underground. 661 00:43:52.670 --> 00:43:55.110 We didn't really market it heavily because, you know, it 662 00:43:55.170 -->

00:43:59.230 was not the kind of therapy or training. We weren't 663 00:43:59.250 --> 00:44:00.929 doing therapy. It wasn't the kind of training that was 664 00:44:00.989 --> 00:44:03.269 in favor over the last 20 years for the most part. 665 00:44:05.380 --> 00:44:08.340 But people self-selected. And so people were having a lot 666 00:44:08.380 --> 00:44:11.340 of issues in their lives that may show up as 667 00:44:11.400 --> 00:44:16.389 some form of hyperarousal that can maybe go into various 668 00:44:16.429 --> 00:44:18.809 kinds of acting out that's getting them in all kinds 669 00:44:18.849 --> 00:44:22.769 of problems in their lives, or more rigidity and addictions 670 00:44:22.849 --> 00:44:26.010 and obsessive-compulsive stuff, all kinds of stuff that you would 671 00:44:26.050 --> 00:44:31.300 normally think of as hyper. But almost universally, what was 672 00:44:31.320 --> 00:44:33.519 going on underneath that was they were totally shut down. 673 00:44:34.139 --> 00:44:38.510 They were totally frozen, you know, and inevitably we found 674 00:44:38.530 --> 00:44:40.789 the vast majority of people really needed to find their 675 00:44:40.849 --> 00:44:43.849 way into deep grief work and deep rage, usually both, 676 00:44:43.949 --> 00:44:47.349 often the rage first and then the grief. And what 677 00:44:47.389 --> 00:44:52.590 it took to get them there was really physical often, 678 00:44:52.909 --> 00:44:56.679 like really physical, you know, going into rage holds and 679 00:44:57.190 --> 00:45:00.610 and stick work and things just to loosen things up 680 00:45:00.650 --> 00:45:04.269 enough because they had absolutely no access. There was so 681 00:45:04.309 --> 00:45:07.949 much defendedness, so much frozenness. It makes me also think 682 00:45:07.989 --> 00:45:12.369 of my friend Thomas Hubel's work around collective trauma, where 683 00:45:12.409 --> 00:45:15.750 he talks about at a collective level, trauma becomes frozen. 684 00:45:15.809 --> 00:45:21.260 It's like the frozen tundra, right? And it's always going 685 00:45:21.280 --> 00:45:23.820 to erupt here, there, and everywhere. There's more violence and 686 00:45:23.860 --> 00:45:26.429 more wars and more this and more that. But there's 687 00:45:26.469 --> 00:45:29.110 this frozen level. And part of the healing process is 688 00:45:29.510 --> 00:45:32.389 we have to be willing to unfreeze and then work 689 00:45:32.449 --> 00:45:35.250 with what comes as things begin thawing out. 690 00:45:36.710 --> 00:45:39.920 Well, you said a word that I often use with students. 691 00:45:40.440 --> 00:45:44.400 I think it's a wonderful word, resuscitate. Because with the 692 00:45:44.579 --> 00:45:52.150 underwhelmed configuration or underwhelmed presentation, this is precisely what's needed, resuscitation. 693 00:45:53.199 --> 00:45:56.579 Things are very much on that in that freeze mode 694 00:45:57.219 --> 00:46:03.710 and need a physical register to get them going again. 695 00:46:04.230 --> 00:46:07.010 And this is why the body work is so powerful, 696 00:46:07.090 --> 00:46:11.909 because we are animals. We are domesticated animals. We're probably 697 00:46:11.989 --> 00:46:15.130 suffering from what we can call what we could call 698 00:46:15.150 --> 00:46:20.429 a domestication syndrome. And trauma, the trauma discharge response after 699 00:46:20.449 --> 00:46:25.079 a major trauma happens, the natural animal response is to 700 00:46:25.139 --> 00:46:27.539 shake it off and tremble and look a bit crazy 701 00:46:27.579 --> 00:46:31.920 and disorganized for a while. And so I really do think, 702 00:46:31.980 --> 00:46:36.980 and I go into this in my book, that this 703 00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:40.679 has been domesticated out of us and that we just 704 00:46:40.860 --> 00:46:45.349 hold the animal intensities in there and we need to 705 00:46:45.409 --> 00:46:50.670 be reminded. how to get back in our bodies through 706 00:46:50.710 --> 00:46:57.710 a very specific and concrete situated in gravity stimulus. You know, 707 00:46:57.809 --> 00:47:04.199 somebody actually providing resistance, physical resistance to resuscitate the system 708 00:47:04.239 --> 00:47:07.760 again and mobilize its animal potencies. And that, and it's 709 00:47:07.780 --> 00:47:12.360 almost like breaking through the domestication barrier. And this is 710 00:47:12.420 --> 00:47:15.639 why I like rewilding as a concept. I think it's, 711 00:47:16.599 --> 00:47:21.199 I think it's sort of overused a bit, but insofar 712 00:47:21.420 --> 00:47:28.340 as embodiment connects us with natural animal intelligence about how 713 00:47:28.380 --> 00:47:30.860 to shake stuff off and how to get the spark 714 00:47:30.900 --> 00:47:34.519 going again, it's a really important term, rewilding. 715 00:47:35.679 --> 00:47:38.300 Yeah, I'd like to explore that a little bit, and 716 00:47:39.440 --> 00:47:41.119 with the permission of the. 717 00:47:42.690 --> 00:47:45.389 Women and females in our audience to talk a little 718 00:47:45.429 --> 00:47:47.730 bit about men's work. And I know there are some correlates. 719 00:47:48.369 --> 00:47:51.050 I think we both had some involvement with the Mankind Project. 720 00:47:51.130 --> 00:47:55.050 And I know there is a female version of that 721 00:47:55.090 --> 00:47:57.159 was developed for women. I can't remember the name of 722 00:47:57.179 --> 00:47:57.590 it right now. 723 00:47:57.659 --> 00:47:59.820 Woman Within. Yeah, Woman Within. 724 00:48:00.219 --> 00:48:02.820 I don't know that much about it. I do know 725 00:48:02.920 --> 00:48:05.239 that in this training I was referencing that I led 726 00:48:05.260 --> 00:48:09.019 for more than 25 years, I actually started leading it 727 00:48:09.039 --> 00:48:10.719 in prison. It was all men. But then out in 728 00:48:10.739 --> 00:48:13.849 the community, there was always a mixture of men and 729 00:48:13.889 --> 00:48:15.789 women together in the same

training. And so I did 730 00:48:15.829 --> 00:48:19.190 that that way for more than 20 years. And so 731 00:48:19.610 --> 00:48:22.809 I definitely seen both men and women accessing this work 732 00:48:22.849 --> 00:48:26.190 and benefiting from it. And at one point we brought 733 00:48:26.269 --> 00:48:28.590 into that, that training was called the event in case 734 00:48:28.610 --> 00:48:32.860 people are curious, curious. We, we started bringing in an 735 00:48:32.940 --> 00:48:36.000 archetypal element. You know, I had worked a lot with 736 00:48:36.039 --> 00:48:40.599 the King warrior magician lover archetypes and, and, and, the 737 00:48:40.619 --> 00:48:44.139 men's work and that wonderful book, as well as some 738 00:48:44.179 --> 00:48:50.090 of the Jungian archetypes in work with women, right? And 739 00:48:50.110 --> 00:48:55.969 just some amazing work there. And probably the majority of 740 00:48:56.170 --> 00:49:00.429 really incredible Jungian authors are women, I think. There's just 741 00:49:00.469 --> 00:49:03.070 so many that have been such an influence on my life. 742 00:49:05.769 --> 00:49:07.030 But at any rate, I wonder if you could talk 743 00:49:07.070 --> 00:49:11.130 a little bit about the role of, you know, I mean, psychodrama, 744 00:49:11.170 --> 00:49:13.480 we've been referencing that a little bit, or drama therapy. 745 00:49:13.940 --> 00:49:19.969 Then also ritual and archetypal work in the healing process. 746 00:49:22.730 --> 00:49:26.389 Yeah, I love this topic. One of the courses that 747 00:49:26.429 --> 00:49:31.239 I developed for the California Institute of Integral Studies was 748 00:49:31.280 --> 00:49:36.590 a DSM course using archetypal theory as part of diagnostic 749 00:49:36.630 --> 00:49:39.670 process and the students absolutely loved it. So it is 750 00:49:39.730 --> 00:49:43.739 very much informed by Robert Moore's work, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. 751 00:49:43.780 --> 00:49:46.300 But towards the end of his life, Robert Moore wanted 752 00:49:47.559 --> 00:49:52.559 his research to be available to all genders. And so 753 00:49:52.639 --> 00:49:58.849 he recasted the term king with royal, the royal archetype. 754 00:50:00.079 --> 00:50:03.960 which is the narcissistic line of development that's coming from 755 00:50:04.039 --> 00:50:08.559 Kohut's work, where it's not just, it's only narcissists that 756 00:50:08.619 --> 00:50:12.260 are narcissistic, which is kind of where narcissism discourse has 757 00:50:12.300 --> 00:50:15.239 gone in a bad direction, and it doesn't account for 758 00:50:15.260 --> 00:50:20.809 the archetypal needs. And Anthony Stevens' wonderful work about the archetypes, 759 00:50:20.849 --> 00:50:25.489 and this is the evolutionary psychiatry approach, is that if 760 00:50:25.550 --> 00:50:31.699 an archetypal need is thwarted, bad things happen, psychopathology happen. 761 00:50:32.219 --> 00:50:34.760 And so, and I really, I really believe in that. 762 00:50:34.800 --> 00:50:37.469 I think this is what happens. And, you know, my, 763 00:50:37.590 --> 00:50:42.090 my book looks a lot at the, um, the neurophysiology 764 00:50:42.170 --> 00:50:44.949 of the archetypes in the case of the warrior archetype, 765 00:50:44.969 --> 00:50:48.909 for example, we're looking at aggression, the aggressive circuitry in 766 00:50:48.929 --> 00:50:52.639 the brain. And, um, because we're kind of a mess 767 00:50:52.679 --> 00:50:56.670 when it comes to aggression, it's like, um, especially men, 768 00:50:56.730 --> 00:50:58.909 but all of us, you know, like we need to 769 00:50:58.969 --> 00:51:04.909 have containers for aggression so that it's not either passive 770 00:51:04.949 --> 00:51:09.550 aggressive and seeping out radioactively into our relationships, or it's 771 00:51:09.590 --> 00:51:13.110 not aggressive aggressive where there's no container and it creates violence. 772 00:51:14.030 --> 00:51:18.969 And what's the in between? A consciously created container for 773 00:51:19.010 --> 00:51:24.019 the creative expression of aggression. That's ritual. That's ritual. And 774 00:51:24.079 --> 00:51:30.980 we often shy away from ritual terminology because it can 775 00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:36.869 be a kind of loaded term in the Abrahamic religions, 776 00:51:37.210 --> 00:51:42.230 even though they use rituals. But in psychotherapy, right? This 777 00:51:42.250 --> 00:51:45.150 is why I like the Jungians because they know that 778 00:51:45.210 --> 00:51:48.170 psychotherapy is a ritual. It's a modern ritual with the 779 00:51:48.210 --> 00:51:51.960 sacrifice of money and it's a meaningful space and also... 780 00:51:52.389 --> 00:51:59.039 the Western medical surgery procedure and medical procedures are heavily 781 00:51:59.139 --> 00:52:04.380 ritualized as well. To the extent we know that, we 782 00:52:04.400 --> 00:52:08.699 know that sham surgeries work, right? So like a fake 783 00:52:08.760 --> 00:52:12.650 surgery on a knee will actually work and fix somebody. 784 00:52:12.690 --> 00:52:16.070 So like the ritual meaning making process is so deep 785 00:52:16.110 --> 00:52:18.849 in the human psyche that, that just the meaning making, 786 00:52:18.889 --> 00:52:21.659 just the, Just the ritual portion of it without the 787 00:52:21.699 --> 00:52:25.380 mechanical intervention on the knee will fix some knees. It's 788 00:52:25.420 --> 00:52:28.639 just incredible like that. So ritual is deep in the 789 00:52:28.699 --> 00:52:32.710 human imagination. And insofar as aggression goes, like, you know, 790 00:52:33.389 --> 00:52:41.170 couples therapists and teachers of couples therapists, they provide meaningful 791 00:52:41.349 --> 00:52:47.730 activities for couples and frameworks for communication. You know, nonviolent 792 00:52:47.750 --> 00:52:53.289 communication is a really lovely. framework for couples to engage 793 00:52:53.349 --> 00:52:58.480 in empathic communication, and that's a heavily

structured approach. Well, 794 00:52:58.579 --> 00:53:03.280 ritual is heavily structured. And, you know, so when I'm 795 00:53:03.320 --> 00:53:06.900 working with couples, you know, I want to, and this 796 00:53:06.960 --> 00:53:10.090 would be more of an advanced stage in a couple's 797 00:53:10.130 --> 00:53:15.679 development and couples therapy, where they can actually express, create 798 00:53:15.719 --> 00:53:19.900 a container. And this is often after we've talked about 799 00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:23.900 aggression and given a psychoeducational framework about how we all 800 00:53:23.940 --> 00:53:27.210 have aggression, we're animals and We got to figure out 801 00:53:27.630 --> 00:53:30.119 ways to do it creatively or else we're going to 802 00:53:30.340 --> 00:53:34.800 do it not creatively and destructively. So I'll have, I'll 803 00:53:34.840 --> 00:53:39.739 set up rituals with my couples to let go of 804 00:53:39.780 --> 00:53:43.300 their aggression in a way that they mutually agree upon 805 00:53:43.360 --> 00:53:46.010 the rules and the dynamics and stuff like that. So 806 00:53:46.050 --> 00:53:50.489 then there can be this expression. And, you know, one way, 807 00:53:50.550 --> 00:53:52.889 and I'm not saying that I do this with all couples, 808 00:53:52.989 --> 00:53:57.980 but I think people can relate to this because it's 809 00:53:58.079 --> 00:54:00.639 out in popular culture a bit now or becoming more 810 00:54:00.699 --> 00:54:08.190 prevalent is BDSM work, BDSM play. You know, where bondage 811 00:54:08.269 --> 00:54:11.369 and sadism and masochism, this is where you bring in 812 00:54:11.389 --> 00:54:17.170 a bit of aggression into the lovemaking scene. And if 813 00:54:17.909 --> 00:54:21.590 it has consent and both couples are interested in it 814 00:54:21.610 --> 00:54:24.730 and they have a framework for it, then the couples 815 00:54:24.769 --> 00:54:29.559 can work through their sadistic energy and their aggressive energy 816 00:54:29.699 --> 00:54:34.420 in an environment that's mutually agreed upon. And that energy 817 00:54:34.559 --> 00:54:38.360 is then transmuted and held in a ritual container that's 818 00:54:38.420 --> 00:54:41.269 pleasing to both of them. And then there's less aggression 819 00:54:41.289 --> 00:54:47.070 that spills out into day-to-day life when so-and-so walks in 820 00:54:47.090 --> 00:54:51.559 the door and they say something mean or something like that. 821 00:54:51.619 --> 00:54:56.219 And then just another enactment of the aggressive energies and 822 00:54:56.239 --> 00:54:59.719 the withdrawing and the stonewalling and all that stuff. No, 823 00:54:59.780 --> 00:55:02.900 now we have a meaningful ritual container based on consent. 824 00:55:04.730 --> 00:55:10.150 Yes, really, really interesting work. So in the event that 825 00:55:10.190 --> 00:55:12.909 training I was referencing, we ended up using the term sovereign. 826 00:55:12.969 --> 00:55:17.469 So it would be a general neutral term. and also 827 00:55:17.510 --> 00:55:20.489 really drawing in a lot from Marian Woodman's work, and Clusip, 828 00:55:20.550 --> 00:55:30.050 and Colastus, and many of Gene Shinoda. There was something 829 00:55:30.110 --> 00:55:33.449 I discovered kind of experientially through that work, and I'm 830 00:55:33.489 --> 00:55:35.480 curious about your thoughts about it. It seems like it 831 00:55:35.599 --> 00:55:38.519 aligns with some of what you've been saying, because I 832 00:55:38.699 --> 00:55:45.250 wouldn't have thought this prior to that work. You know, 833 00:55:45.409 --> 00:55:48.969 I'd come through, you know, I had my own struggles 834 00:55:49.429 --> 00:55:51.469 as a young person and got bullied here and there. 835 00:55:51.489 --> 00:55:55.659 You know, kind of was able to defend myself, but 836 00:55:55.699 --> 00:55:57.420 it was kind of on the edge. You know, I 837 00:55:57.460 --> 00:56:01.059 was kind of somewhere in between feeling completely comfortable defending 838 00:56:01.099 --> 00:56:04.739 myself and not, you know, not completely giving in to 839 00:56:04.780 --> 00:56:10.539 being bullied, but certainly suffered being bullied and things like that. And, yeah. So, 840 00:56:11.539 --> 00:56:14.159 and then, you know, the whole counterculture and a peace movement, 841 00:56:14.440 --> 00:56:19.550 really valuing non-aggression and peace and all that, right? And so, 842 00:56:19.679 --> 00:56:22.789 but through that work, that workshop, that training, I was 843 00:56:22.849 --> 00:56:26.050 referencing the event. Something I, an insight I came to 844 00:56:26.110 --> 00:56:29.610 see was that on some level, if we're man or woman, 845 00:56:30.670 --> 00:56:33.619 if we're not willing to defend ourselves when push comes 846 00:56:33.699 --> 00:56:37.420 to shove, you know, if we're not really to really 847 00:56:38.070 --> 00:56:42.250 you know, if we don't ultimately have a boundary where 848 00:56:42.289 --> 00:56:45.610 we're willing to protect ourselves when push comes to shove, 849 00:56:45.690 --> 00:56:50.590 even physically protect ourselves, then what happens instead of that 850 00:56:50.769 --> 00:56:54.530 is we start developing all these kind of neurotic adaptations 851 00:56:54.670 --> 00:56:58.440 that can take every form, probably cover the whole DSM-3, but, 852 00:56:58.500 --> 00:57:00.579 you know, it can be passive-aggressive thing, it can be 853 00:57:00.679 --> 00:57:03.699 overt aggression, there can be all kinds of things that 854 00:57:03.760 --> 00:57:08.340 evolve from somewhere where we never got permission in our family, 855 00:57:08.760 --> 00:57:12.380 or it was never modeled for us, that you have 856 00:57:12.420 --> 00:57:14.760 a right to stand on your own two feet and 857 00:57:14.840 --> 00:57:18.889 protect your space. And I'm curious about your thoughts about that. 858 00:57:20.090 --> 00:57:24.949 Well, it's interesting, this phrase, standing on your own two

feet, 859 00:57:25.309 --> 00:57:28.260 that you That you set it at the end of 860 00:57:28.340 --> 00:57:33.300 a riff on boundary making. From a somatic psychology standpoint, 861 00:57:33.699 --> 00:57:37.570 the feet and the legs are all about establishing and 862 00:57:37.630 --> 00:57:44.849 protecting your autonomy, your individuality, your sovereignty. And that is 863 00:57:44.969 --> 00:57:50.420 warrior archetype stuff. And the warrior is very territorial, very concrete. 864 00:57:51.400 --> 00:57:53.139 If you go to a zoo or something like that 865 00:57:53.179 --> 00:57:56.559 in the San Francisco Zoo, there's a wolverine exhibit. And 866 00:57:56.699 --> 00:57:59.489 what does the wolverine do? It paces in a circle 867 00:57:59.780 --> 00:58:04.409 all day long. OK, it's deeply and wolverines are classically 868 00:58:04.449 --> 00:58:07.190 known for their aggression. Right. So I really like this 869 00:58:07.389 --> 00:58:12.030 image is that the the warrior draws lines and when 870 00:58:12.070 --> 00:58:15.789 it's drawing lines, well, it's not imposing on other people. 871 00:58:15.889 --> 00:58:19.559 It protects its territory and And what's good to know 872 00:58:19.579 --> 00:58:23.590 is that it is very, very clear when you cross 873 00:58:23.630 --> 00:58:29.510 that line. And, you know, if a person doesn't have lines, then, 874 00:58:30.130 --> 00:58:33.090 you know, all sorts of messes are going to happen. 875 00:58:33.679 --> 00:58:37.440 And you can often see this in a person's body, right? 876 00:58:37.659 --> 00:58:39.800 In terms of how they stand. So like from a 877 00:58:39.820 --> 00:58:43.519 somatic psychology perspective, if I was working with somebody like this, 878 00:58:43.639 --> 00:58:47.449 I'd get them out in nature stomping. Actually, I use 879 00:58:47.510 --> 00:58:50.150 stomping a fair bit because they need to get that 880 00:58:50.309 --> 00:58:54.820 biological energy downwards. And I'll often have them say the 881 00:58:54.860 --> 00:58:59.860 simple and profound word no while they're stomping so that 882 00:58:59.900 --> 00:59:03.949 they can stand their ground and establish their territory and 883 00:59:04.070 --> 00:59:09.110 know when a person is intruding on their territory. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. 884 00:59:10.019 --> 00:59:13.599 Know, the training I was referencing, getting people to get 885 00:59:13.659 --> 00:59:16.280 in touch with know was a big part of that training. 886 00:59:16.300 --> 00:59:19.380 We would do a lot of exercise and people. And also, 887 00:59:19.400 --> 00:59:21.929 we even sometimes had people get in touch with being 888 00:59:21.989 --> 00:59:24.789 able to growl in the way that an animal does, right? 889 00:59:24.809 --> 00:59:28.900 You know, to communicate that. And I often, you know, 890 00:59:28.980 --> 00:59:31.400 especially with childhood trauma, one of the reasons I think 891 00:59:31.440 --> 00:59:37.860 it imprints so deeply energetically and physically, neurophysiologically, is because 892 00:59:37.940 --> 00:59:40.179 a child is in a situation where they can't escape. 893 00:59:40.699 --> 00:59:41.619 They can't fight back. 894 00:59:41.659 --> 00:59:43.570 They don't have the ability to fight back against the 895 00:59:43.610 --> 00:59:46.789 adult who's traumatizing them. They can't run away. They can't escape. 896 00:59:46.829 --> 00:59:50.610 So it embeds really deeply in a complete overwhelmed situation. 897 00:59:52.050 --> 00:59:55.329 And so I found very often that in the psychodrama 898 00:59:55.369 --> 00:59:57.880 work we were doing, there was a need for people 899 00:59:57.909 --> 01:00:01.159 to model out fighting back, or in some cases, escaping, 900 01:00:01.219 --> 01:00:04.539 running away, but both, or sometimes an integration of the two. 901 01:00:04.559 --> 01:00:08.440 But the ability to get out of that experience that 902 01:00:08.500 --> 01:00:11.679 originally imprinted that trauma so deeply in their psyche and 903 01:00:11.739 --> 01:00:14.599 their neurophysiology of not being able to escape, not being 904 01:00:14.639 --> 01:00:18.079 able to fight back. And so that definitely seems to 905 01:00:18.119 --> 01:00:21.860 be part of the healing process. We could go on 906 01:00:21.920 --> 01:00:26.019 forever with this. This is fascinating. I'm really enjoying our conversation, Brian. 907 01:00:26.489 --> 01:00:29.579 I wonder if you'd be willing to guide us in 908 01:00:29.639 --> 01:00:35.480 some kind of practice that people could embrace a little 909 01:00:35.500 --> 01:00:38.860 bit just to begin the work of their own kind 910 01:00:38.900 --> 01:00:42.940 of reacquaintment with their somatic experience and the beginning of 911 01:00:42.980 --> 01:00:47.010 their healing or awakening work and something they can titrate 912 01:00:47.030 --> 01:00:48.690 in a way that works for them. But I wonder 913 01:00:48.730 --> 01:00:49.949 if you'd like to offer something. 914 01:00:50.869 --> 01:00:53.710 Okay. So go ahead and just close your eyes and 915 01:00:53.769 --> 01:01:01.309 take a deep breath. And, you know, over the next 916 01:01:01.309 --> 01:01:05.309 30 seconds or so, just deepen into the rhythm of 917 01:01:05.409 --> 01:01:10.219 your breath. And, you know, on the exhale cycle, you 918 01:01:10.260 --> 01:01:13.599 can just offload any stress that you might be carrying 919 01:01:13.639 --> 01:01:24.000 in your shoulders. So that each breath, each exhale gives 920 01:01:24.039 --> 01:01:28.059 you an opportunity to connect with a kind of downward current. 921 01:01:30.570 --> 01:01:35.309 a letting go current. So we're looking for maybe a 922 01:01:35.809 --> 01:01:43.150 six to eight second long exhale. And the muscles of 923 01:01:43.190 --> 01:01:48.849 the face are high ticket muscles for full body relaxation. 924 01:01:49.909 --> 01:01:54.519 So the little muscles around your cheekbones and around your 925 01:01:54.619 --> 01:01:59.039 lips

and your eyes, just let those little muscles go. 926 01:02:00.300 --> 01:02:05.820 What you'll often be able to notice is that the 927 01:02:06.199 --> 01:02:10.519 whole body relaxes in response to those little facial muscles, 928 01:02:10.599 --> 01:02:15.639 which are working a lot all the time. So over 929 01:02:15.659 --> 01:02:21.429 the next several exhale cycles, you can just continue to 930 01:02:21.530 --> 01:02:31.010 relax the muscles of your face. And like Fleet did 931 01:02:31.369 --> 01:02:35.780 about a minute ago, you could try on an exhale, 932 01:02:36.639 --> 01:02:41.539 just making a sound and letting the sound vibrate through 933 01:02:41.579 --> 01:02:52.730 your body as a relaxation signal. And I'd like you 934 01:02:52.789 --> 01:02:59.400 then to bring your awareness to your toes. but specifically 935 01:02:59.739 --> 01:03:05.159 the bones in your toes. We're going to do a 936 01:03:05.860 --> 01:03:10.550 skeletal meditation. We're going to meditate on the bony structures. 937 01:03:11.369 --> 01:03:15.889 Bones are a mineral matrix. And I like to think 938 01:03:15.949 --> 01:03:19.230 because the bones are the densest structures in the body, 939 01:03:19.289 --> 01:03:23.369 the bones are our grounding. The bones are our earth. 940 01:03:25.449 --> 01:03:28.829 And so when you bring... your awareness to the bones 941 01:03:29.010 --> 01:03:32.989 in your toes. Just connect with the sense of the 942 01:03:33.070 --> 01:03:40.340 three-dimensional shape of the toe bones. And we're gonna just 943 01:03:40.400 --> 01:03:44.139 move the awareness to the rest of the foot. So 944 01:03:44.179 --> 01:03:50.050 you're getting a sense for the bony contours of your feet. 945 01:03:52.579 --> 01:03:56.579 I like to think that there's trace metals in the 946 01:03:56.639 --> 01:04:01.500 bones and that the earth is like a magnet. So 947 01:04:01.559 --> 01:04:03.860 that again, when you exhale, you can just let the 948 01:04:03.920 --> 01:04:07.519 bony structures connect with the magnet of the earth and 949 01:04:07.559 --> 01:04:11.489 just get grounded and let go into the embrace of 950 01:04:11.550 --> 01:04:17.630 the earth. And so the bony flows go then up 951 01:04:17.710 --> 01:04:24.420 into the ankles. And then the long bones in the 952 01:04:24.500 --> 01:04:31.219 lower legs, there's two bones there. One of them is thick. 953 01:04:32.760 --> 01:04:35.340 One of them is little, it's on the outside of 954 01:04:35.409 --> 01:04:39.389 the leg. But just to really get a sense for 955 01:04:39.429 --> 01:04:46.789 the sturdiness and density and how these bones hold you 956 01:04:46.989 --> 01:04:52.650 up when you walk. There's a transition point at the knees. 957 01:04:52.670 --> 01:04:59.110 And then a flowing into the femurs, the long bones 958 01:04:59.210 --> 01:05:05.730 of the upper legs. And just feel into the femurs there. 959 01:05:05.750 --> 01:05:15.909 And how the femurs sort of flow into the pelvis. 960 01:05:18.130 --> 01:05:28.250 Pelvis is very sturdy. bone. Just consider that when you 961 01:05:28.409 --> 01:05:31.849 breathe that the soft tissue when you take an inhale 962 01:05:31.869 --> 01:05:36.659 and breathes down when you're relaxed sort of breathes down 963 01:05:36.820 --> 01:05:40.179 towards the pelvis and just let the pelvis be a 964 01:05:40.300 --> 01:05:46.440 structure that you breathe into. Sturdy structure that you breathe into. 965 01:05:47.519 --> 01:05:58.869 Feel the sturdiness there. And there's the sacrum. It's kind 966 01:05:58.909 --> 01:06:04.440 of like a triangle that's driven into the sturdiness of 967 01:06:04.500 --> 01:06:08.750 the pelvis. And this is where the whole of the 968 01:06:08.789 --> 01:06:15.429 spine is anchored. And the sacrum is very, very sturdy. 969 01:06:15.429 --> 01:06:23.559 35 ossification centers, that is where bony osteoblasts create bone 970 01:06:23.619 --> 01:06:27.820 tissues from little centers. 35 ossification centers is a lot. 971 01:06:27.889 --> 01:06:33.349 That means dense. During cremation, it's often the sacrum that 972 01:06:33.429 --> 01:06:40.610 is left because it is so dense and sturdy. Just enjoy, 973 01:06:40.690 --> 01:06:43.489 find a way to enjoy the sturdiness of the sacrum. 974 01:06:45.170 --> 01:06:49.230 And then just appreciate how the spinal column rises up 975 01:06:51.199 --> 01:06:56.719 out of that foundation stone in a sense for the 976 01:06:56.800 --> 01:07:04.639 vertebral column moving upwards and how the ribs sprout out 977 01:07:04.800 --> 01:07:10.239 from the vertebral column and respond to your breath, how 978 01:07:10.280 --> 01:07:15.300 your ribs, bony structures of your ribs respond to your 979 01:07:15.340 --> 01:07:28.780 breathing rhythms. And then there's a flow of the ribs 980 01:07:29.099 --> 01:07:33.179 up towards the collarbones. The collarbones are one of my 981 01:07:33.239 --> 01:07:37.449 favorite areas of the body in terms of bones. There's 982 01:07:37.510 --> 01:07:45.429 lots of stem cells there, red blood cells. Really great 983 01:07:46.010 --> 01:07:49.780 place to nurture health is when you place your awareness 984 01:07:49.840 --> 01:07:53.139 in your collarbones and how the collarbones respond to your 985 01:07:53.199 --> 01:07:58.300 breathing and how they branch out towards your shoulders. And 986 01:07:59.019 --> 01:08:03.300 then we have the long bones of the arms. Just 987 01:08:03.340 --> 01:08:08.559 appreciate the sturdiness then of the flow of bone down 988 01:08:08.639 --> 01:08:24.270 towards your finger bones. And then flowing back from the 989 01:08:24.369 --> 01:08:30.510 finger bones, back up to the shoulders. And then that 990 01:08:30.609 --> 01:08:38.630 place where the spine meets the head. The cranial base. 991 01:08:41.449 --> 01:08:46.649 And then flowing up and around to the whole of 992 01:08:46.710 --> 01:08:50.800 your skull. So... You know, the occiput and the back 993 01:08:50.840 -->

01:08:56.520 of your head and the frontal bone and the whole 994 01:08:56.670 --> 01:09:03.689 cranial dome. Just appreciate the connection. sturdy container for your brain. 995 01:09:03.720 --> 01:09:13.699 And then there's the cheekbones. And then the jaws and 996 01:09:13.720 --> 01:09:21.210 the teeth. The jaw and the teeth. And so now 997 01:09:21.250 --> 01:09:25.470 that we've gone part by part, piece by piece, I 998 01:09:25.489 --> 01:09:27.069 want you to see if you can get a sense 999 01:09:27.109 --> 01:09:32.500 for the whole of your bony skeleton. The skeleton is 1000 01:09:32.539 --> 01:09:37.979 an organ. It's a living tissue that is an incubation 1001 01:09:38.020 --> 01:09:41.119 zone for a lot of your red blood cells. And 1002 01:09:41.439 --> 01:09:46.020 it really is a living organ. So just appreciate this 1003 01:09:46.140 --> 01:09:52.119 living organ as your ground. And if you're feeling anxious, 1004 01:09:52.199 --> 01:09:55.130 this is a place where you can establish your ground 1005 01:09:55.189 --> 01:10:03.300 in the field of gravity. And maybe as we move 1006 01:10:03.340 --> 01:10:05.539 towards close here, you can just kind of bring some 1007 01:10:05.600 --> 01:10:19.119 appreciation to the sturdiness of this structure. And the transition, 1008 01:10:19.159 --> 01:10:22.380 we'd want the transition to be relatively slow so that 1009 01:10:22.399 --> 01:10:25.739 when you do open your eyes, you would look someplace 1010 01:10:25.840 --> 01:10:28.979 other than a screen or something like that. You would 1011 01:10:29.680 --> 01:10:33.659 want to appreciate something in your immediate environment that's pleasing 1012 01:10:33.739 --> 01:10:39.399 to look at and just hover your attention there for 1013 01:10:39.460 --> 01:10:44.550 a bit and maintain a relationship. with your breath a 1014 01:10:44.569 --> 01:10:58.840 bit before you move on to your next task. Wonderful. Wow. Wonderful. 1015 01:10:59.600 --> 01:11:01.100 Fabulous. Thank you so much. 1016 01:11:02.119 --> 01:11:04.689 You're welcome. Yeah. 1017 01:11:04.739 --> 01:11:12.680 Deep journey. Yeah. I can definitely feel the, you know, alive, 1018 01:11:12.720 --> 01:11:19.449 pulsating presence of my own skeletal structure at the moment. Well, 1019 01:11:19.470 --> 01:11:23.590 thank you very much, Brian, Dr. Brian Tierney, and for 1020 01:11:23.630 --> 01:11:26.979 your incredible work and the breadth of your work and 1021 01:11:26.989 --> 01:11:28.979 the depth of your work and for sharing that with 1022 01:11:29.039 --> 01:11:31.880 us today. We could probably go on for five or 1023 01:11:31.920 --> 01:11:35.539 six conversations like this and wish you all the best 1024 01:11:35.579 --> 01:11:37.760 with your work. How can people find out more about 1025 01:11:37.819 --> 01:11:38.659 you and about your work? 1026 01:11:39.810 --> 01:11:43.949 So my brand is called Somatic Doctor, The Somatic Doctor 1027 01:11:44.109 --> 01:11:47.130 on Instagram. And I also do a podcast called The 1028 01:11:47.189 --> 01:11:51.350 Boundless Body, where I talk about the cerebellum quite a bit. 1029 01:11:51.449 --> 01:11:54.069 My book is with the editors right now. It's called 1030 01:11:54.130 --> 01:11:58.949 Visionary Somatics, and it's an update to trauma neuroscience. that 1031 01:11:58.970 --> 01:12:02.140 I'm very, very proud of. I think it's, it's go 1032 01:12:02.180 --> 01:12:05.600 deep into the cerebellum. I'm just, I'm a cerebellum researcher. 1033 01:12:05.680 --> 01:12:08.560 So if you're interested in how the cerebellum is central 1034 01:12:08.659 --> 01:12:12.220 to trauma resolution work, then, then actually just contact me, 1035 01:12:12.279 --> 01:12:16.390 you know, somaticdoctoratgmail.com and we can riff on it. If 1036 01:12:16.430 --> 01:12:19.010 you're a clinician or teacher and you want to learn 1037 01:12:19.050 --> 01:12:22.649 about why it's, why I believe it's crucially important to 1038 01:12:22.710 --> 01:12:27.560 know cerebellar computation and why that's important for trauma resolution work, 1039 01:12:27.989 --> 01:12:31.039 contact me and, you know, ask me to speak, whatever, 1040 01:12:31.060 --> 01:12:34.359 you know, we'll riff about it. Wonderful. 1041 01:12:34.739 --> 01:12:36.239 Wonderful. Thank you so much. 1042 01:12:36.579 --> 01:12:38.399 Be well. Thanks, Fleet. You too. 1043 01:12:41.300 --> 01:12:44.859 Thank you for joining me on the Radical Responsibility Podcast. Remember, 1044 01:12:45.039 --> 01:12:48.409 real change happens when we commit to our growth, face 1045 01:12:48.470 --> 01:12:52.409 our challenges with compassion, and stay open to transformation. If 1046 01:12:52.449 --> 01:12:55.229 you found this episode helpful, I encourage you to subscribe 1047 01:12:55.289 --> 01:12:58.399 and help us spread the message of healing and personal empowerment. 1048 01:12:58.720 --> 01:13:02.260 Until next time, stay grounded, stay present, and stay true 1049 01:13:02.279 --> 01:13:03.359 to yourself. Take care.