The Power of Emotional Freedom with Dr. Cain

Our symptoms are invitations to tell us what needs healing and how. And that when we look at our symptoms as adversaries and we try to suppress them, sometimes we think that the absence of symptoms is freedom, but the absence of symptoms may be a suppression of those messengers.

Dr. Nicole Cain is an incredible teacher. I've been following her. Her message about anxiety, her message about finding our own healing. Her message really couched in her expertise in clinical psychology and emdr. Her approach, I think, to healing and to conscious development are things I really connect with. And I'm so excited because this is the first time I've gotten to interview her and. And getting to share this message about emotional freedom with you from an actual expert in this topic. So versus a coach, having somebody who understands clinical psychology, I think she's going to bring a whole different perspective to us today. And I love her energy, too. So, Dr. Kane, how are you today?

I'm so good. I'm really happy to be here. Thank you. Brendan, how cool is this?

We're doing it.

This is amazing. This is the best. What more amazing way to spend our time than to talk about these important topics with great people?

I love it. And this is penetrating. And I know this is. So much of your work is really helping people with some of these topics, especially when it comes to, like, anxiety and overwhelm and panic. And I love how you take them on. So first, maybe you could share a little about your journey and what brought you into a love of these topics. And then I'll jump in with some specific topical questions that I hope will help people find their freedom in this area.

Emotional freedom is absolutely the most important thing. And so I'm grateful for the opportunity to share. My story is it began when I was very little, and I came from a family where there was years and generations of stress and fear and poverty and lots of cycles of trauma and abuse. And my goal, my role in the family, was to try to help heal my loved ones. And so I started out, I was going to go and be a doctor, but I had a lot of health stuff that was going on by the time I was a freshman in college. I was on six prescription medications and I wasn't any healthier. And I had found that there's this pattern of relinquishing my freedom, relinquishing my power to the authority to believe that I didn't know the best that I needed for my mind and my body, but rather bringing my heart to the doctors and the counselors and the adults in my life, bringing my Heart my hands to them and asking, can you please fix me? I'm broken. And it didn't work, and I wasn't getting better. And so I decided. I don't know if I can believe in the medical system as it is, but I really could be a counselor. And so I went to counseling school, and my goal was to prove myself wrong, to prove to myself that. That people can be free from anxiety, that. That we can take back our power and control. And I learned, and everything was going wonderful, and I got off of all those prescription medications, and I was, like, running around telling the world, yes, you can be free. But what I didn't know was what I didn't know. And the body will start to communicate in whispers. And if we don't hear the whispers, it will turn into shouts. And that's what happened to me. And I. I call it the. The rock bottom, that kind of dark circle. And I hit that dark circle, and I started to turn to all of the things that I had learned to tell my patients about. I was like, okay, we're gonna do urban herbs and emdr, and we're going to do Ayurveda, and we're going to do mindfulness and exercise and yoga and positive thinking and prayer and supplements and functional medicine testing. And nothing worked. And I found myself in absolute despair. I was having constant panic, constant anxiety. I wasn't sleeping. I felt like I had no freedom. I had no control. And then I learned something that's really profound and really powerful, and it's that our symptoms are invitations to tell us what needs healing and how. And that when we look at our symptoms as adversaries and we try to suppress them, sometimes we think that the absence of symptoms is freedom, but the absence of symptoms may be a suppression of those messengers. And so when I stopped and I looked at my symptoms and I said, what is it you're trying to tell me? That's when I got my life back, and that's been my mission ever since, is to help people find emotional freedom in the paradox of looking at our symptoms and befriending our symptoms.

So, so good.

Eager to hear how that lands with you and your audience.

Yeah, I think it's great. I think awareness is the first stage to all change. And if I talked about this concept today, I call it the four Ds. With our emotions, we are often denying them, detaching from them, debating them, or we are driving from them. And none of those are right. But all of them require a certain level of awareness to what's happening. And I think most people, when they lack that awareness, when they don't listen, when they sense them, when they don't explore them, then those things unconsciously start driving us a little bit more and bringing a little bit more conscientiousness, reflection and work into it, I think, is always really, really, really powerful when you're working with somebody. And I know your specialty. Especially recently I saw this and I was so excited to ask you about it. I was like, okay, I got to just go there right away with her. Because it's a word a lot of people don't use or are scared to approach, which is, what do you do when you feel the emotions of panic? Which I love that phrasing because often in my industry, we talk so casually about fear. And I think in mental health, we become so casual about the topic of anxiety, unfortunately, even though that is, I think, should be spoken about very specifically. Panic is not something even people think about or want to. Though panic attacks is common. You're approaching it in a very unique way. I thought, what first made you think of exploring this area more deeply? And then also let's get into, okay, if someone's feeling this sense of panic consistently in their life, what should they do?

Yeah, I think of panic and anxiety on a spectrum. And where anxiety is just a little bit of autonomic arousal, which may be that kind of fight flight, freeze, a little bit of your heart rate picking up, your breathing is faster, your thoughts may going a little bit faster. And then as we go up that continuum, those symptoms intensify. And I teach people about it in the terms of a stoplight. So green is when you're feeling really good. You may be kind of excited, you're in flow, you're happy, your body feels good. And then there's that pay attention zone. And it's like, ooh, something's a little bit off here. I'm noticing it. And then if that continues, then we get into the yellow zone, which are warning signs that our body is shifting into a more stressed state. And then I teach about the wonky zone. And the wonky zone's where you got to hit it. Because if you don't stop that process, then it's going to go into sheer panic. And that's the red light zone. And the strategies that will work will depend on what zone you're in. And one of the biggest things I hear people say is, I had a panic attack and someone told me to do deep breathing or I'm feeling nervous. And so I Was given a benzodiazepine like Xanax by my doctor. Now I feel like a zombie. And so I think the first thing is to recognize that panic exists on a spectrum from just mild arousal to crisis and then figuring out, okay, what is my body trying to tell me right now? And as you said, that means we've got to look at it and acknowledge it, but not in a way to try to mitigate or bring it down or reduce the intensity, but rather to partner with it so that we can decode what it's telling you. Because it's probably been whispering and getting through that level of spectrum into the red by the time we hear it.

That's good. That's good. So it's like being aware of your sensations as we're going. And when someone is that panic. It's interesting, you mentioned about like breathing, sometimes that's a little too late. You know, it's a great coping mechanism, but gosh, I wish we could have got to it four blocks ago, to use your metaphor. And so what is that range of knowing, okay, I'm going from yellow into red, and what can I do? What can I say to myself or physiologically what can I do to instead of going from yellow into red, but maybe maintaining, going back into green? Like, what is that coping strategy or that approach or that thought process or that biological thing you can do? Because I know you teach all of it. What do you recommend for those folks to stop that slide into crisis and into the red zone?

Your best bet is going to be the vagus nerve. Hack. Are you probably studied this? Yes, yes.

Tell me more. Tell this group this. We don't usually use that language, but yes, we understand.

Yeah, so. So the vagus nerve is your longest nerve and it goes all the way from your brain and down into the gut. And this isn't vagus, where the slot machines are. This is vagus, which is the Latin for wandering. And think of the vagus nerve like a switch. When the vagus nerve is activated, your body will switch from arousal into calm. And so your fastest way to hit that switch. Switch is going to be in a couple of different ways. And these are things that you can do almost anywhere you go. And so we discovered this, though, primarily with deep sea divers. And so we saw that when deep sea divers would jump into the water and they would go deeper and deeper, that they would get a dive reflex. And we've seen this in the research for dbt Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. And we see that when this reflex kicks in, that People are calmer, their heart rate slows down, their blood pressure drops, their body temperature drops. They're just more calm. And so we have ways that we can hack that now. And so if you're in the green zone, those strategies, taking a nice breath will work. If you're in the yellow zone, that might even work. But if you're getting into that kind of area between the yellow and the red, when you wish you'd addressed it four blocks ago, that's when a vagus nerve pack will work really well. So here's a couple of examples. So first of all is that applying cold to the face can be incredibly effective. And I teach people about creating a panic pack. And a panic pack would be a little bag or a fanny pack or a purse. And this will contain things that you can use in the moment that a crisis strikes. Like, obviously, we want to be doing the work ahead of time, but. But we can't always predict it. So cold is a very good stimulator for vagus nerve. And so there's. They used to teach about sticking your face in a bucket of ice water, but let's face it, we don't all carry around buckets of ice water. And so a better option is you can pop online and they have chemical freeze packs, and you can break that and it gets really cold. And then you can apply it to your face, around your eyes, and that will stimulate the vagus nerve. Another hack for the vagus nerve is to extend the exhale. And extending the exhale may be that you breathe in for four counts, you hold your breath for four counts, but then you extend as hard and as long as you can. So it might look something like hold at the top and then. And the vagus nerve goes through the diaphragm. And when you extend that exhale, it activates the vagus nerve and it calms the body. And I'm the kind of person that wants to see it, to believe it. I'm like, oh, don't tell me to just extend the exhale. I want the real stuff. But we've seen in the clinical literature, the research in trauma informed science, that this actually does go straight to the speed of the heart. Calms the heart rate, slows it down. And so I have an exercise that I call the three minute hack. And I would love to share it with you because it's something that you can do if you're about to go on stage or if you're about to have a meeting. You're. You're freaking out.

May I yes, please do.

So you're, you're sitting there and as you're listening to this, wherever you are, you can, if you're driving, pull over. But if you're just somewhere where you can go to the bathroom or just set it, go somewhere private for just a minute. What I want you to do is to sit down and you're going to butterfly hug. And then you're going to just slowly tap back and forth. And this slow tapping back and forth has a couple of reasons. So we do it. One is that when you tap yourself, you're telling the brain, I'm here right now. And then we are crossing the midline and making the butterfly. And so that starts to activate the different areas of the brain. Sometimes our brain gets stuck. We get in a loop and our nervous system is stuck. It's like a car engine trying to start, right? So we're crossing the midline and we see this in emdr, right, we know that there's that bilateral stimulation, but you can do this on your own. So you go into the bathroom or wherever you have privacy, you sit down and you start tapping and you close your eyes and you're gonna do that vagus breath. Cause we gotta get into the body. Because when we get aroused, our logical brain gets less activity. And so our logical brain isn't really online, it's our emotional brain. Our emotional brain's like tigers are coming, we're freaking out, just run away. So we gotta get back in the body, we gotta get back in that logical brain. So you're gonna start hacking your vagus nerve. You're gonna just take some breaths, you're going to tap, right? And then you're going to ask yourself, when was the earliest time I remember feeling this way. And you're going to allow your mind, allow your body to take you back to that earliest time. And I guarantee you that almost every time that it's not you that's getting activated, it's a past part. Because stress, trauma, adversity gets stored in, in non logical parts of the brain, the body and the nervous system. And so when we get activated, it may not have anything to do with what's going on right now. Maybe it's something, someone walked by and they were wearing a cologne or a perfume or the way that the lighting came in the window could be anything, right? So you're tapping, you're breathing, and you're asking yourself, when was the very first time that I noticed feeling this way? And then you'll notice an image or a memory or A thought. And then what you're going to do is you're going to timestamp that. You're going to say, I hear you, I honor you. And I want you to know that I'm an adult now, and it's whatever year it is, we're recording this in 2024. You say, I hear you, I honor you. But I want you to know it's 2024, and now I have resources that you didn't have. And I want you to know that I've got your back and that you don't have to be stressed or angry or scared. And I want you to trust me that I've got this. And so then you're honoring those parts of the brain. You're honoring those parts of the nervous system. And this is part of recalibration of the nervous system. This is re patterning a nervous system that's been stuck in a trauma loop. And by activating that and acknowledging not just where you are in the moment, but where that came from, that is emotional freedom. So tell me, how's that landing?

Yeah, that's smart. Yeah, that's really smart. First, I love that you're activating breath and body. We were talking about today. Sometimes when emotion comes in, I was sharing how there's ways that you can interrupt it pretty well. First is like, if it is logical going into asking, what role am I in right now? So an emotion comes up, and if I act from that emotion, it might not be the healthy thing in that role, you know, oh, I'm a loving mom, so I'm not going to scream right now, even though I feel like screaming. And that's okay to acknowledge it, but I'm going to act from a role and that might have me transition into that conscious intention. Oh, you know, oh, I'm this type of person, or I'm playing this role right here. So I'm going to move into intention, not just from reaction. But if that doesn't work, then I might also ask, what judgment am I making? What's the judgment I'm making that is coming from this emotion or started this emotion? And the third piece that I taught was this exact part of, oh, let's use our body and our breath to connect and to give ourselves a minute or to change it or to sense it? So it's not always changing. Sometimes it's sensing it. But I really love that you did a couple things because I love tapping in general. So tapping solution with the Ortners, I've studied a lot of their Work. And they're great friends and I know you're familiar with them. So I love activating the body tapping. It's really smart. Alternating. I love that you're bringing that. And I really hope everyone. I don't know if I was on camera or you guys could tell or not, but when she was doing that, I was actually doing it with her. I was like, oh, I like that sensation. That's cool. I like the going back to where that originally came up. What you do. And I appreciate what you said earlier too with the old idea like dip your face in a cold bowl isn't always appropriate. Let's take this into a real life situation. You're in a boardroom, you're surrounded by seven executives. You feel this sense of anxiety and even panic. I think there's some things that can be helpful and appropriate there. Certainly connecting with your body and breath is possible. Maybe going to your childhood or the first thing that comes up where you might need more time to process that or think through that. But now your coworker is finishing with them. You're next to talk and you've got to find an access point to maybe a more helpful emotion right there. It's almost like you gotta be able to. What we call in the athletic world, you gotta be able to lock in. And that's really hard because we don't want to deny the emotion, but we need to move into another one and we might not have time to think of. Well, I first felt that when I was five. Right. That might be good for processing, debriefing later on. I think especially helpful with the therapist. But in the moment of need, what could we do if we are able to access breath and bodies or another something we could speak or say to ourself. Is there something you have found that can bring me into the moment and into that capable part of ourselves to deal with the situation at the hand? I know this is sensitive because there's an approach. You might take it with a therapeutic perspective. But you also have to work with people in those moments. Like you mentioned backstage, I might not have the the time. So what would you recommend in that situation? I don't know the answer.

I have lots of ideas. And you ask such good questions. This is great. I'm loving every minute of this. So a couple of options is that you can. And this is more something you would prep with, but you can train a body anchor. And so one thing that I've worked with a lot of high performing clients before who are wanting to prepare for A big pitch or a big spot speaking engagement or something where they, like, need to be able to use it effectively. And this comes a little bit out of Ericksonian hypnosis, where the brain is very associative. And so just like you can smell some chocolate cookies and you're transported back into time. You can train your body to get into specific states more on command. And so a strategy that I like to use is a biological anchor. And so ahead of time, you will start to visualize yourself doing this activity. You're going to go on stage, you're going to speak in front of 60,000 people, you're going to go pick your kids up from school and talk to their teacher, whatever it is, right? And so if you have the bandwidth and space ahead of time to create an anchor as you visualize yourself successfully doing that, and then give yourself a cue word. And so it could be freedom, because today we're talking all about emotional freedom. And then while you say that, you're going to exhale and you're going to squeeze the knuckle on your ring, kind of that knuckle on your hand and your ring finger here. And part of that we could get into some of the meridians and acupuncture and all that fun stuff, but we'll just kind of focus on it just here as is, is that you practice. You say freedom, freedom. And on every exhale, you squeeze it so that when you get into that board meeting, you've already prepared for that, you can set squeeze it, activate that cue. But let's say that you have a meeting in five minutes. You're just listening to this conversation, you're like, gosh, I wish I would have known that three months ago. Yeah. Is there are a couple other ways that you can activate the calm nervous system. And one is you can take your tongue, the tip of your tongue, and if you put it on the roof of your mouth, you're going to feel the hard palate. And then if you slide the tongue back to the soft palate, the squishy part, you can activate the vagus nerve in that way. So that's something you can do very subtly on a board meeting, is you can take that tongue and press it, and that can activate vagus. Another option is chewing or sucking on ice or sour. We've seen in the clinical research that a piece of sour candy is also vagus activating. So there's a few other hacks for us.

Oh, that's great. I actually haven't ever heard of the candy Piece. That's cool.

Oh, I love any excuse to eat ginger candy or sour candy.

That's awesome. That's a great response. Thank you. When you're dealing with folks who are in the place of dealing with self judgment, they're hard on themselves. They guilt themselves, they shame themselves. How do you help them with that? We were talking earlier with our group about this topic of emotional freedom, and a lot of people had questions about guilt or self forgiveness. How do you deal with that aspect of the healing journey so that people can feel more, not just emotionally free to do stuff, but you know, at that level of self love, self respect, that place where their worth grows because they're letting go or forgiving some of those parts of ourselves where we shame ourselves. Is there something that comes to your mind there for those who are struggling with that emotion of guilt that seems to chain them back?

I feel so strongly about this question because that was something that shackled me for a really long time, is that humility was rewarded in my family and that that could often then be twisted into guilt. And so true emotional freedom is looking at our symptoms as adaptations. And so if you struggle from being hard on yourself, from feeling guilty, you desire from every cell in your body to achieve great things and to change lives and to live in your greatness. And yet there's a part of you that's like, I'm unworthy of that, or I feel selfish doing that, or I feel so guilty, or, gosh, I would love to spend time writing today, but I don't want to neglect my kids or my family. Of course, there are beautiful, wonderful reasons out of your abundance of love that you may pause and question that, and I would urge you is to look at your feelings of guilt as an adaptation and ask yourself, what did I adapt to that resulted in where I am at present? And so adaptations is. I want you to think about it in terms of they help you to be better suited to survive how you grew up. And this is with respect to either what happened to you when you were growing up, what didn't happen to you when you were growing up, and even in your present, what are your unmet needs right now? What isn't happening now that you need? Maybe it's space, it's time, it's encouragement, it's people to cheer you on, or maybe there's something that's happening to you right now that may be bringing you down. Who are the. The protagonists in your story? Who are the antagonists in your story? So I want you to look at Your symptoms that Brendan was just describing as adaptations. And then once you can identify those adaptive patterns, you can intentionally rewire it. And earlier you were talking with John about wins, and you were talking about noticing your wins and noticing your successes. And that's a part of repatterning. But we can be really strategic. We can create new patterns. You can, you can put beautiful paint on the walls, but if there are pictures that are hanging on the wall, so don't go with the new paint schema that you're doing, that's going to be an obstacle to you having the outcome that you want. So you want to take down the paintings that are on your wall and you want to ask yourself, where did this come from? Is this what I want to hold on to? Is this mine? Does this belong to somebody else? And doing an audit of those messages. And so if we think about it just in terms of pure neuroscience, let's say that you have Susie. And Susie grew up in a very critical household. And she had very overbearing, very critical parents. And so she adapted to that by becoming hypervigilant. She would notice her behaviors, her nuances. She was really good at non verbal communication. She could read people really well. She was really hardworking, she was tenacious. And so she worked herself up to a position of leadership. But she felt like if she was to go against the grain and say what she really thought, that something bad or scary would happen. And so that's holding her back. But that may be because of her programming from when she was younger, that adaptation. What was helpful then is holding her back now. And so when you have those thoughts, you want to start to question where they came from and re pattern them. It's like writing a new computer program code. It's like rewriting your story. It's like completely remodeling your house. It's identifying what is holding you back from freedom and then reprogramming that with intentionality.

We were talking about the difference earlier of like emotions, feelings and moods. What have you seen that help people move into a longer term positive mood? You know, some of what you and I have been talking about is kind of like acute. It's kind of like, okay, you've got this anxious, you've got this panic, and now we're talking about reprogramming. I love the metaphor by the way of choosing the paintings and whether or not they still fit the wall or still fit your home, or whether or not they're somebody else's in terms of establishing a long term more positive mood. Where people just feel like more alive and better about life because I don't know how you sense it, but sometimes in the world right now, a lot of people are very morose or numb or maybe sometimes they're discouraged. And those aren't necessarily bad things, but they're certainly not the positive range. People want to feel that sense of enthusiasm, love, passion, aliveness, vibrancy. And that's harder to move into. That requires more of like a longer term view. Moving into moods that stick around a little bit more, that are more of the positive range. What are some things that you've recommended or help people put together a plan so that their enduring mood is better than it has been, even if they have those acute negative emotions or responses, but their overall mood improves. Do you have strategies for that?

Absolutely. What's coming to mind as you're saying that is the way we wire it, is the way we'll fire it. And so that's back to the programming, right? And so if you've been programming your mind, your body, your nervous system and your other systems to be morose, then that's what your body is going to continue to produce. And I could go down a whole rabbit hole. I'll just do a little peek into the rabbit hole of Alice's rabbit hole, if you will, and then we'll come back to that. Because what I want us to attain, and I truly, from the depths of my soul believe that you can, all of us, all of us have the potential and you have to create the bullseye. So my very first session when I teach my clients is you create the bullseye. What does it look like? And I want you to have freedom where you are living in your mind, your body, your nervous system, in your spirit, in such attunement that you can use that vessel that you live in to reach your loftiest goals of potential. That you can live and exist in such a way that obliges wonderment from those who look on and they can say, how did you do that? What is the formula? How can I live like that? That's freedom. And we can do that by taking a whole person approach. And so when we understand and we get really concrete with it, it's about being really empowered and educated and informed. And this is what I love about your work, is that you teach people this, you bring on these brilliant guests that teach people this, and then we take ownership. And it's like the story I was telling at the very beginning about how I was relinquishing my control to the authorities and then I ended up becoming the authority. But rather you, you taking back your authority, right, and learning about what your mind, your body, your nervous system says. Because, you know, we think about Susie, who we were just talking about, and she was hypervigilant in some ways. And so her body produces stress, right? So we have cortisol. Cortisol suppresses inflammation. Suppressed inflammation changes the gut. And then now you have less of an immune system surveillance in the gut. And then you have pathogens can take over, like yeast and dysbiotic bugs. And now we have inflammation in the gut that causes leaky fenestrations. So it's kind of like gaps, right? So then all these particles and inflammatory cells and things that aren't supposed to be escaping out of the gut, that shouldn't be there to begin with are now in the bloodstream. And they say leaky gut, leaky brain. And so now the brain is being exposed to these things. And then we get inflammation in the brain and inflammation triggers the amygdala to say, oh my goodness, we're in danger. And then when the amygdala does that, now our hormones are changing and our melatonin is changing and our gut bugs are changing. And as you see, it's this whole domino effect. And so when we're talking about long term longevity and joy and wonderment is we're talking about what can I do as a whole person to promote healing? And is this life giving or is this something that may be a detour from life giving? And so this is about how you think, this is about your belief systems. This is that top down model. This is my thoughts, my beliefs, my self talk, my visualizations. But it's also bottom up. And that's that process of listening to the body. I'm noticing that I have gut anxiety, I have churning and butterflies in my gut. So let's do some gut work, let's pay attention to the gut. And then what we'll see is step by step, sequential change. I really appreciate the 10% happier podcast because sometimes I see this a lot with my clients is that sometimes when we're improving, that if I'm not anxiety or panic free, then I'm failing and it's not working and I can't get better. And so what I really appreciate is if you can write down that bullseye and then write down where you are and then be patient with the process and calculate your wins as you go and intentionally repattern because step by step you will get there. And then dopamine comes from effort as opposed to outcome. And so if you can do what you were teaching, you and John were teaching Brendan, is that we can then reward effort and then dopamine helps us feel happy, more motivated. And then you'll start building joy and then that joy will compound on itself.

That's great. That's great. I love how you use that phrase. I hope everyone captured it was like bottom up and she's talking about like believe some self talk coming from up here, more cognitive if you will. And then you know, bottoms up meaning biology, you know, sensing the body. I think that's so important because so many people disconnect mind and body and they don't really understand how both of them have to be utilized to do what she was talking about, which is create anchoring and conditioning so that what fires together is intentional. You've built that conditioning. I think that's so important for people also. I just want to tap into what she said about the idea that these are 10%, these are small wins, these are things I think that the unhealthy expectation people have is they're never going to have a bad Monday again. And it's like you're going to have bad Mondays. You might be extremely happy, you might be in love, you might have six pack abs, you might be a billionaire. You're still going to have bad days and acute emotions. And if we don't realize those are always there. That's one reason I was always attracted to like eastern philosophies that said there's suffering in life, there will always be suffering. You will never have a year where you don't suffer something. You know that there is discomfort, there is hardship, that humanity involves suffering. And we can learn to deal with that and anticipate that and sense that with honor versus fear or the false expectation that it should never be there. Do you find that expectations really fit a lot into more of a negative emotional range? Anxiety, panic, Sometimes it's just like the worldview that things have to be perfect, that perfectionism. Does that come into play here? I don't think I'm very good about talking about that perfectionism part, but I feel like some people that stranglehold on expectations can really bring up a negative experience. How do you talk about that or work through that?

That's really insightful and I absolutely see that. And I see that especially with anxiety and even ocd people who struggle with this obsessive compulsive where it's, it needs to be perfect or I need it to be this way. And so Then we see some of that rigidity and that rigidity, that black and white thinking is often an indicator of stress. And so let's talk a little bit. We haven't gotten into the brain part of the brain science as much. We've been having a lot of fun with the nervous system and the gut. And so with the brain. We have all different parts of the brain. And one of the parts is we call it the executive control network. And so think about this as a group of people in your life who are really good at getting things done. They think critically. They're your executive team, right? They're, they're thoughtful, they're analytical, they're in control. So you have different parts of your brain that they all light up and they're your executive team. And then we have another group of parts of your brain. You have another group of helpers on your team and they're the default mode network. And these people are the ones that are creating cruise control self driving vehicles. They're like, we're chilling, we're not even paying attention to what's going on around us. We're just kind of cruising along. And so what happens with the brain is that when we are in an activated state and this could be excited, this could be a very excited state. It could be like, I'm getting married tomorrow, I'm really excited. Or it could be like, oh my gosh, I have to go to court, whatever it is, right? And so when you get aroused and your nervous system is activated, you're going to find that your executive team takes back seats to your default team. And so when that default team is on board, when your default mode network in the brain is activated, it's going to be more self referential, which means you're going to think about yourself more, you're going to analyze yourself more, you're going to question yourself more, you're going to notice every little sign and symptom in your body. You might find that you dissociate or depersonalize. And so dissociate dispersalizing is like, I feel like I'm not in touch with my body. Or maybe you dissociate where you feel like you're not in the room. And so we find that when we're stressed, we tend to be more on autopilot, which is good because if you're running from a tiger, you don't want to analyze where the tiger came from and it's how many whiskers it has. You just want to get to safety. You don't want to think about it, just run. And so fight, flight, freeze. Our ancestors, who were good at that, reproduced, and we came along. And so what you want to do in those moments when you're struggling with perfectionism is say, oh, my default team is running the show. Let's stop and see if we can activate my executive team. And so what we're seeing in the neuroscience is that they don't exist at the same time. And so you have to get back in the body and then get your executive team on board. And you can strengthen your executive team by using cognitive habits and so doing sudoku, doing puzzles, doing math, taking a class, attending a seminar like this. Like, you guys, if you're really digging in and just digesting the material, your executive team's like, yeah, we got this. We're incorporating it. And so then you can use those executive players to speak about this perfectionism and say, okay, what is reasonable? What is reasonable and attainable and in what time and what isn't, so that you can start to be really mindful and audit those perfectionistic tendencies. And then again, going back into the body. So if you're in that default mode, go back into the body, do the tapping, do the breathing, cold on the face, tongue on the roof of the mouth, sour candy, ice, back into the body. And the more you can do to strengthen your dream team, your executive team, the more you're going to have control over perfectionism.

So good. What I love about perfectionism is people know they have it. It's like a symptom they recognize. Like, oh, yeah, I have that, and I know that that's making me miserable, but I don't know what to do about it. And I think the first thing is to have that sense of grace. This is an area that sometimes in letting go, you find more freedom, not in just more controlling, but sometimes in allowing grace in your life and. And allowing flexibility, I think is important. What she said, when she said the word rigidity earlier, we talked about that as a form of strictness. That when there's this strictness in our life and this lack of flexibility that can condition us to be on constant high alert of all the things that are wrong and make life feel awful. So I love this. You mentioned the word team, and it cued me to an earlier question from today's seminar where someone is asking, like, what do you do if it's your spouse or your partner, you're in relationship with somebody and they might not have, let's use the phrase, emotional intelligence or maturity, you're dealing with somebody who's just. They're constantly entrapped by perfectionism or anxiety or anger or impatience. So what do you do when you're in a relationship with somebody and they're just not as emotionally mature or, you know, they're very volatile in their emotions? How can you cope with that? How can you maybe even assist or steer in that difficult situation?

I had somebody ask me this question once, and I was on the receiving end of it because I was. And I have a wonderful husband, and he's a clinician, actually, and he was in a period of his life where he was very anxious and very activated. And I was like, oh, my God, you're stressing me out. And I went to my clinician. I'm like, can we fix him? Like, I've done all of the things, I've given him kava kava. I've given him back rubs, like, what can we do to deal with this man? Right? And so she asked me a hard question and I was like, ooh, that's a burn. But I appreciate it and I'm going to tell you what it was. Are you ready?

Yes.

She was like, what part of you is enabling him to continue in that pattern?

Hmm?

What part of you is enabling him to continue in that pattern? Because relationships are reciprocal. And so it's kind of like on a teeter totter, right? And so we engage in balancing with our partnerships. And so if they're in a space, you know, Brene Brown talks about this, relationships can't be 50, 50. Sometimes you could show up at 5% and they got maybe 25. Or sometimes you're 100. You're like, I got this. Boo. They're at zero. It's okay. But if you're finding that there is a long standing pattern where you feel like you're giving 95% and they're really struggling, is there a part of you that's enabling the maintenance of that dynamic? And if there is, what is that an adaptation to for you? What need are you getting met by maintaining that? And if you no longer want that pattern to continue as it is, what kinds of changes do you need to make from a place of love and radical empathy and support and acceptance? But one of the biggest things that I see in perfectionistic, high achieving people is that they have this urge to be helpers. They want to fix their loved ones. They want to help everybody. And you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Right? We all know that saying. And that's I think true. And I could give you lots of platitudes about, okay, get him the Gottman book, Man's Guide to Women, and have them do. Do these, like, mindfulness exercises together. And you can do all these things, but they have to really want it, and you want them to do it for them and not for you so that they can really take ownership of that. And so in that process, if you have a loved one, or maybe even a colleague or a boss even, or somebody who's really in a struggling spot, is they're a part of that dynamic where you can take your control back, take back your freedom and your power in order to make a positive ripple effect that could benefit them. But really, what is it that you need to own? And I know that's kind of like a hard swallow, but, boy, that was life changing. And I actually said that to him, and he was like, oh, dang. And it was probably the most fruitful thing. It was way better than any of my therapy tools.

Yeah. Sometimes a good question or a good framework can kind of reset it. My way of answering it is very similar to what you just said, is first, I will ask, are you leading the way? Are you managing yourself in an exceptional way, that you're the role model? And they go, hey, I admire how you're dealing with this. I want to be like that. You're modeling the way in the relationship. And I think it all starts with that because you're in power of what you are and how you show up more than them. So it's like, are you modeling the way? Are you leading the way? That's the first question. The second question is, okay, if that's true, then great. You have to sometimes love through. You have to love through. You have to meet them where they're at and allow that empathy and that compassion to know that's the season they're in. You know what, they're going through a difficult time. You know what? It does suck at work. And they are trying at work, but it does suck, and it is a downer for them. And so when they come home, they're kind of detached. And that just. That's where they're at. That's the season. That's the difficulty. Loving it through being compassionate, being empathetic, understanding, not trying to change. And then the third, if I'm using a framework here, it's like the third L, the first one was leading it. Second L is loving through. The third L is leveling them up. And it's a conscious decision. And A conscious conversation to say, this is an area, I feel like you're unhappy within your life. Do you want us to work together on improving that? I see you're struggling with it. I am too. Do we want to jointly work on improving this and not coming from a holier than thou, I'm going to coach you or I'm going to be your therapist, but rather like, wow, this is affecting us both and having that difficult conversation of calling it out but jointly saying we want the energy in this house to be better. And is that true? Oh, yeah. We want the energy in this house to be better. Okay, what are we going to do on each of our parts to make the energy in this house better? And now it becomes a joint problem solving activity, not a preaching activity. Because if it goes into preaching activity, you distance yourself. If it's a problem solving activity together we tend to have more connection and more reason to debrief it. If we didn't decide we're going to work on it and you try to debrief something. Well, husband, let me tell you all the reasons that you just did that. Oh my gosh, wreck. But if it's, you know, what we said our energy was going to be like this, this interaction we just had wasn't that, let's talk about it. That's a very different motion through this intention. And so I hope that people will hear all of those. Sometimes you lead it and you're exceptional at it and they model away. Sometimes you empathetically guide and live through it. And other times it's like a joint leveling up as a couple, which is a hard part. But I hope everyone will do it. You know, I like that.

I like that you have that framework that's brilliant because it helps like create like structure in the minds where like, okay, the three L's Got it. Yeah.

Yeah. Tell me about when you're working with a client or a patient, depending on how you're working, when you really encounter a lot of resistance. You know, they're just high level defensiveness, sometimes self righteousness, though they wouldn't use that language usually. Or you just sense that that resistance is very high. What are some things that you do in your practice to help, like break through that? Because I know a lot of people are also listening. It's their spouse who's resistant or their teenager or their boss. It's just like they're totally resistant to self improvement or personal growth or working together to feel better. How do we overcome high resistance?

You use it. You work with it. That resistance is a superpower. That person that is holding so strongly to their convictions is. I think that if we understand. Understand what is behind that resistance and work collaboratively with them to then wield that resistance to meet their goals, then those are the most powerful people. Those are the people you gotta watch out for. Is. I think of them as like the kind of fiery Pitta constitution. Pitta is a word from Ayurveda, and it talks about that, like fire inside of us. So someone's just like digging their heels in. Is we want to. We want to meet them where they're at. And there's an Olympic sport, it's called curling. Have you ever seen the sport?

Yes. It's the thing. It looks like they're mopping, but there's also this big thing moving. Yes, I've seen it.

Yes. So this is. This is the. The metaphor of the leading edge in psychology. And so the. The guy in this example is the. The puck and the person shoves it. And I just remember watching this hilarious video and they were so intense. And the camera's zooming in on her face and she's like, right there. And then you have these people that are just in front of the trajectory of the puck, right? And it's going. And so you're right there with it. And you're sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep, sweeping. And you're helping direct and guide it. You're not picking it up and being like, I need you over here. You're being resistant. You're not just like, stepping back and being like, I don't know what to do with you. I don't want to be confrontational. You're right there in it with them and you're giving them that gentle guidance and support, but you're allowing them to use that energy and that forward momentum and. And your job is to help them figure out how to get where they want to go. And so my guess is that they're even showing up because there's a part of them that knows that you can help them get where they want to be. But there's something holding them back. And everyone's trying to talk them out of it and say, like, oh, you're wrong, or you're just really resisting. And so then it creates this kind of push, pull. You know, when we think of physics, I push on the wall. It's going to push back with an equal and opposite pressure. Otherwise I'd knock it down or it would crush me. Right. And so when we think about working with resistance is we want to lean into that failure and lean into that passion. And motivational interviewing is an important skill set that I recommend all of the leaders here learn is how do you be right at the leading edge? How do you be right in front of the puck? Use that energy to get them where you know that they want to go. And so in terms of the nuance with that, it's going to really depend on the individual. But I think like really being transparent with them about let's create some goals, what is it you want? And if it's their partner, it's getting really clear with the partner. Okay, so what I hear, Susie, is that you want Joe to be here, but Joe doesn't want to be there. And so what might 10% better be? And then going back to those like steps of sequential improvement because then you're working with the puck as it's moving forward. And I think that that's a really empowering way.

Yes, that's so good. You know what I think and maybe you can speak to this a little bit. I think a lot of people when they encounter resistance, their thought is the resistance is coming from that person just has superiority issues. What are some. You said part of it is dancing with it a little bit or curling with a little bit, leading it a little bit to understand why they're resistant. Because if you can understand why they're resistant, you can kind of different metaphor. Use that like, like, like a keto to kind of guide with that resistance. What are some other common reasons why they're resisting? Is it just defensiveness? Is it superiority? Is it fear? Like what, what do you usually see? What's behind it? What's behind the curtain?

It's, oh, I love the metaphor, what's behind the curtain? Because we all want to know what's behind the curtain. And so sometimes they know and sometimes they don't know. I like to think of it in terms of parts. And so internal family systems, we all saw or heard maybe the inside out too just came out. And so that's a great example of parts. And so some we think about like I have the angry part or maybe the stubborn part, slash resistant part or the anxious part. But we can get even more nuanced than that. And so it's possible that you may have that individual who is wanting to make change but is really, really stuck and resistant. And, and it is showing up and you're like, gosh, I feel like you're acting like a 12 year old right now. And it could be that their 12 year old part is being activated and we see this. And so that's, that's the whole premise of ego state work. And parts work is who's getting activated right now. And do you want a 12 year old driving your car? Because right now your 12 year old self is controlling you. You're not the one driving your car. You're in default mode network and you're being activated and you're being triggered. Of course you would do in a much more loving and guiding and leading direction. Right. But I think what's important is that when you're looking at a person in front of you is to remember that they are a complex being with lots of parts and they may all disagree. And you know something? So for you who may be hearing about parts work for the very first time is it can be as easy as part of me wants a taco after this call and part of me wants a really good salad, right? So we crave different things, we feel different ways, we're in conflict. And so where's the root of that conflict? Where is it coming from? And what is the unmet need and what is the adaptation of that 12 year old?

So good. I also want to echo something you said so powerful and profound for people to have heard the person in resistance. They may or may not know why they're in resistance. Right? The automatic assumptions, oh, this is why they're resisting. They might not know, you know, they just, they don't. It's like they, to use her other metaphor, you know, of getting so much, they might not even know they're hungry. It's just they're acting out a pattern. They're on autopilot, they had a bad day. They're not even in intention or consciousness. There is no purpose to why they're being mean to you. Right? You're taking it very personally. But they're not even present with it. And so I think when you face people's resistance to have that openness to go, hey, they may know or they may not know. My job is to maybe inquire and try to find out and help process and think through this thing just to understand it, but don't assume it, because if you assume it, you're probably wrong. And that's what's shocking. She just wanted a taco, dudes. She wanted a taco. I mean, it's not that big a deal. She just needed some food. Everything's going to turn out fine. Your marriage is safe. She's hangry. Okay, this was awesome. Dr. Kane, how can other people learn about you and continue their journey with you. This is so great for our community. I appreciate you being on so much.

Oh, it's been an absolute blast. Find me on Insta. Dr. Nicole Cain.

Okay, check out her work, everybody. She's got some great resources for anxiety and panic on her website as well. Go follow her @DrNicoleCane on Instagram. Get her resources on her website. She's super awesome and we loved her energy today. Thank you, doctor. We appreciate having you on. So awesome.