#15 Calm Your Nervous System Fast: Butterfly Hug + Bogart Visualization | Recovery Secrets Series

Welcome to the Overcoming PTSD Podcast. My name is Brad Schipke, and this is the limited series called Recovery Secrets Daily Coaching. Now, these were private sessions that I originally ran as a paid coaching program, but now for the first time ever, I'm making all 100+ sessions available for free for all of you podcast listeners. And this series is over 100 days of practical strategies that have helped thousands of trauma survivors fully heal. So make sure to subscribe because I'm dropping a new episode every single weekday until the archive is complete, and you definitely do not want to miss it. So without further ado, let's dive on in.

All right, we are live here. Welcome everyone to a Recovery Secrets daily coaching session. We are so, so happy to be here with you today. We're talking about a couple of really important Recovery Toolbox tools that you're absolutely going to want on your journey. On Wednesday, we talked about releasing inner emotion, and one of the things that we pressed really hard on was maintaining control when you're doing that practice, when you're kind of following that, those steps to release that inner emotion. And the Recovery Toolbox tools are essential for being able to regain control. And they're also really, really important because what you're doing when you actually practice the Recovery Toolbox tools is you're building certain skills that are going to help you do your full processing later on in the journey as well, and also build a very, very strong mindset. So thank you all for being here with us this week. And it's been an amazing, amazing week. So good morning, Joe, and I'll let Brad jump in. You know, do you wanna share like your experience maybe learning the butterfly hug and how that changed?

Sure.

Changed things for you?

Yeah. So I mean, the butterfly hug was a huge turning point in both of our recoveries cuz it opened our eyes to a concept that sounds really crazy and sounds like it wouldn't work when you kind of just read it on paper. But when, when we actually put it into action, we like, cuz we, we were very open-minded. We're like, okay, well this sounds really crazy, but you know, Basically, we're so desperate, we're gonna try it. And it ended up being amazing and we ended up being able to get, you know, relief. For me, it was from my anxiety and kind of like this, like really strong heartbeat. What do you call that?

A racing heart.

A racing heart, you know, but it calmed that down in like 2 minutes. I remember looking at, like looking at my clock before and after, I'm like, it's only been like 2 minutes and I feel like calm and still. And then after that point, we dove deep into, you know, why it works, how it works, how we can use it in all different ways and started coming up with our own ways and to use it in different scenarios and things like that. But it's really cool. So it's called the butterfly hug and it's all kind of based around bilateral stimulation, right? Which is, if you can kind of work out what that means yourself, but basically what it means is stimulating kind of the left and right side of your body.

Right.

And there's, there's been brain scans done with bilateral stimulation on how it actually helps you process memory. So there's actual, actual scientific studies and brain scans and things like that behind this. So it's not just something that, like Kelly said, is voodoo, but here's what it is. So the butterfly hug, very simple, right? And basically all it is, you put your 2 hands right here. So my collarbones are like right here. It's like right underneath the collarbones. And the Positioning isn't really that important. The most important part is that you're, you're stimulating the left and right sides of your body. All right. So, and this is it, and then you just go back and forth and then you can vary the intensity. I mean, you don't want to like, like smack yourself real hard, but you can just do it at a speed that's comfortable, do it at a tap that's comfortable. And you just do this. So I would encourage you who, who are new to this or who are, who aren't new to it to just, you know, just keep doing this while you're listening. And then just be aware of how it makes you feel over the next few minutes. And I can guarantee you, you will feel better. You'll feel calmer.

So the speed and the intensity of the butterfly hug— now, I just want to point out, Brad had his hands kind of like linked like this. You know, what's most important is that you're getting stimulation on both sides of your body, which we'll talk about in a second. And we'll come up with some variations here together. The speed and the intensity at which you actually do the tap, that's where you fall into your own kind of groove. So for some people, it's very instinctual for whatever reason, and they fall into a perfect speed and intensity for them. I'm someone who typically used to like a little bit more of a forceful tap, a little bit more of a faster tap. That just works for me. And I tap with the tops of my fingers so I can get that little bit more force. Again, you're going to fall into something that works for you. So for some people, it does take a little while to get into that groove. And it can take a little practice, a couple of days of practice. before they kind of find something that works for them and they kind of get that instant relief moment. But for the most part, you're going to do this, you're going to, you're going to implement it, you're going to fall right into your groove, and you're going to feel the results of it almost instantly. Like, it's, it's really that fast and it's really that powerful.

When you're doing this tapping, what you're doing is that you're stimulating the left and right hemispheres of your brain, right? And it's actually reversed. This, you don't have to know this, but when you tap your left side, it stimulates the right. And when you tap the right side of your body, it stimulates the left side of your brain. But basically what you're doing is you're tapping each side and then your hemispheres are basically like lighting up, right? For lack of a better term, being stimulated. And what that does is it, it essentially simulates what happens in your brain during REM sleep. So all of this is kind of based around the REM sleep cycle and what happens in your brain during during REM sleep. So for those of you who don't know what REM sleep is, it's rapid eye movement. And it's a stage of your sleep where your brain is most active. It's generally, generally where you are dreaming and it's where your brain does all the processing for your day. So that's one of the reasons why we'd like to optimize your sleep is to help you get more REM sleep. So the more that you sleep, the more that your brain will naturally process memories. The faster recovery will go, the better you will feel and all of that. So basically what the butterfly hug does is simulate the REM sleep cycle processing process, right? So that's basically what we're tapping into here. And like I said, there have been, you know, studies done on this, brain scans, and it is, I don't know if we, like, we don't have to go into this, but like bilateral stimulation can, it is, it's not the foundation, but it's, it's a core piece of things like EMDR therapy. And we're gonna be going deeper into how to use this for, for deeper processing. Now, you don't need to know all of that for this, the butterfly hug. But that's kind of why it works. It's not some magical, magical thing. Like, you're not just tapping your body for no reason. It's like you're like, when you do this tapping, something very specific is happening in your brain. And it's processing, you know, what's going on in your head right now. And it just like calms it down. So.

So stimulating the left and right sides of our body Stimulates the left and right hemisphere of our brain. So I want you to think about, you know, we just gave one example of how you can stimulate the left and right side of your body, right? By doing this, this butterfly hug. Now, I, what I wanna point out about the butterfly hug, 'cause I love it, is the butterfly hug was designed for children. Okay? And basically why that's important to know and why that's really interesting to know is it's designed for elementary school use in elementary school children so that they can get relief from anxiety. For basically for things they don't understand. So it was designed specifically for children in disaster areas to be able to use it without a higher level of thinking. Okay? And that's, that's one of the reasons why this tool is so powerful. It doesn't require any cognitive awareness. It doesn't require a higher, higher level of thinking to get it to work like some things do. Like the next tool requires a little bit of a higher level of thinking. You have to be aware of what's going on in your mind. This one you don't.

Mm-hmm.

All you have to do is do the tapping, right? And so I, I like to point that out because as adults, we like to overcomplicate things, and this does not have to be overcomplicated. So that's why it's called the butterfly hug, right? Because it's designed for children. And there's one species of butterfly that can fly from New York to San Francisco in, I believe it's one day, right? So you think about this little butterfly is actually kind of a, excuse my language, kind of a badass, right? So we gave you one example. How you can stimulate the left and right sides of your body, which of course then stimulates the left and right hemispheres of your brain. So what I want you to think about right now and come to the table with, now some of you already know these, some of you don't, what else do you think you could do to stimulate the left and right hemispheres of your brain in order to do this butterfly hug? Carol sharing, I love the butterfly hug. I do the butterfly hug slowly and somewhat lightly. So that's, you know, the kind of cadence that works for you. That's awesome. Kind of relaxing. Mimi's sharing some things here, and I love this. Tapping your thighs, taking a walk. I love this, this shared energy crossover. So we're going to talk about a couple of those things because there's variations to this exercise. You don't have to use your hands. Carla's sharing tap opposite sides of the top of the legs. That's an awesome one. Awesome one. So what I'm doing in asking you this question is I'm empowering you with— this is why we explain why this works. You understand now that, okay, this is going to work because I'm stimulating the left and right hemispheres of my brain, right? Okay. So then I want you to ask yourself the question, what can I do to stimulate the left and right hemispheres of my brain? Right? So we told you, if you're stimulating the left and right sides of your body, you are stimulating the left and right hemispheres of your brain. And that's an awesome, awesome thing. So now what are the variations that we can do? So here's one-handed butterfly hug. Okay. You can just do it with one hand. Okay, I used to like to do this one, you know, when I was at the airport, when I was driving, right? I need one hand on the wheel and one hand for something else. That's a great one. Tapping up and opposite. Now, your hands don't have to be crossed for this, right? So you just take your hands, put them on your thighs. So we're sitting right now, you can't see the top of my thighs, but if I put my hands on the top of my thighs, I can tap like this. Okay, left and right sides of my body stimulating left and right hemispheres of my brain. Now look how discreet this is. You can't even tell that I'm doing this. Okay, this is a great one to do at school, on a Zoom meeting, great one to do underneath the table at a dinner table. Super, super discreet. Okay, another, another way to use that one, if you're laying down, that can be a really comfortable one, right? You're laying down maybe under the sheets and you can tap the left and right top of your thighs. Another one, right, is if using your eyes, right, using your eyes, just closing your eyes and having your eyes go back and forth, right? Because at its very, very Or if I have the mental level, when you are in that rapid eye movement sleep, what's happening with your eyes is your eyes are doing the stimulating of the hemispheres of your brain by moving rapidly, not in a perfect straight line, but back and forth underneath your eyelids. Okay? So these are all variations that you can do of the butterfly hug.

And Judy has a good one here saying maybe flexing your feet back and forth so it's really not seen by others. That's another really great one. Flexing your feet or flexing different side of your body. Or tapping your feet. That's another good one. Like, it's very easy, you know, like I'm a drummer and like I can just tap my feet. I mean, anybody could tap their feet, I think. But that was always a very discreet thing that I could do too. It's just like tapping your feet. Dale had a good one before too, when he said energy crossovers. So basically you can talk about that. I remember when I first realized this, I was like, I wonder if this will work. And basically what it was, was visualizing like energy flowing from one side of your body to the other. Or jumping from one side of your body to the other, or one hand to the other. That has the same effect. Another thing you can do is you can visualize yourself doing the butterfly hug. Like, silly as that might sound, but I've done that before, you know, where I've literally just visualized myself tapping in these right below my collarbones. And that also has the same effect. So you can visualize yourself doing it as well. But all of those are great, great alternatives that you can use in different scenarios. So it can be discreet. You can do it anywhere, anytime. Nobody has to know. And Honestly, the butterfly hook is one of, one of the most effective, one of the most powerful recovery tools that works the fastest, you know, that works with pretty much every single person that we've, we haven't met somebody who it hasn't worked for because it just taps into kind of the natural power of your brain. Carol also has one, a good one here. She says stereo music on a headset. So yeah, yeah, you can do, they have that where you can have like one sound from one ear to the other. So it could be like a beep or. Anything just going one ear to the other, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. That's another way, right? Through SAFT, right? Or I guess you could snap. The butterfly hug is great on its own, but it's also great when you pair it with other things. I don't know if you wanna talk about with like releasing emotions at all, just mentioning that, but no, I wanted to say it's, it's a great tool that you can pair with other tools. So for example, we haven't really talked extensively on deep breathing, but it's pretty simple, diaphragmatic breathing. But that's a great combo, just, you know, the butterfly hug and taking deep breaths, right? So you focus on taking deep breaths, clearing your mind, doing the butterfly hug. And that right there is a very simple, very effective relief tool you can use anytime, anywhere, no matter what the symptom, symptom is. You can do that if you don't know what to do and you're triggered and in a scenario where you're maybe not thinking clearly, that should be your default.

Yeah. Butterfly hug is a good go-to tool for any sort of extreme emotions. So Anxiety, anger, fear, any sort of extreme emotion. You want this to be your go-to because it's easy to remember. It's really easy to remember. Some of the other tools require a little bit more effort and cognitive thought to be put into them to actually get, excuse me, the results from them. So this is a go-to tool. I love your ad there about it can be paired with anything and it You can absolutely pair it with any sort of visualization, with any breathing exercise. You can pair it with grounding exercises. It's a great one. We talked about the visualization exercise Safe Space. This is a great, great one to pair with Safe Space. So when you lay down at night to practice your Safe Space, to visit that Safe Space, you know, cross your arms over your chest or put your, put your hands on your thighs. And while you're doing that Safe Space visualization, do the butterfly hug as well in some way, shape, or form. And it's gonna, it's gonna enhance the experience that you have doing that safe space. It's gonna enhance the safety. And it's, it's something you wanna practice. You know, it's, it's not necessarily one you need to practice, but it's something you wanna practice each night. So I'd recommend doing this each night before bed. Again, while you do that safe space, just practice this throughout the day and you're gonna, you're gonna find your rhythm, you're gonna find your intensity, and you're gonna really fall into this exercise in a really nice way.

Excellent. So we can dive into that.

So I want to talk about the Boggart before we, uh, before we're in coaching time today. So anyone know what a Boggart is? Boggart, Boggart, I'm gonna say in a British accent. Yeah, so for anyone who's seen Harry Potter, this is the inspiration of this, this visualization exercise. For anyone that experiences flashbacks, this is an amazing exercise. Anyone that experiences a lot of rumination in regard to a lot of visuals in that rumination, Or one specific event, one specific memory kind of playing on replay. This is an amazing, amazing tool for that. So it's a visualization exercise. So, so a Boggart is a mythical creature that doesn't have a shape, hides in dark spaces like a closet, right? And it takes the shape of your greatest fear, right? So it's a very, very scary creature because whoever opens it, it's gonna take the shape of their greatest fear. Now, a Boggart, most importantly for our purposes here, is defeated with Laughter. Okay. A Boggart can't survive in the atmosphere of laughter. So how you defeat it, how you make it kind of go away, is by laughing at it. And by, you know, what defeats fear is humor. And so the Boggart visualization is, you know, again, it comes from the inspiration of the Harry Potter books. If you've read the Harry Potter books, if you've seen the Harry Potter movie, it comes up, I think, in the 3rd movie. And, you know, how they defeat it in Harry Potter is they have wands and they are magicians and they do spells and stuff. And they defeat it with a spell and a visualization exercise.

Okay.

I don't know if J.K. Rowling knew how brilliant this was when she was writing this into the books. And so the spell that they use to defeat a boggart is ridiculous. That's the spell, ridiculous. And to make that spell work, they also have to visualize. Now they know it's going to turn into their greatest fear. So they know what their greatest fear is. So if their greatest fear is a giant spider, it's going to turn into a giant spider. So to make the spell work, they have to, you know, point and do their wand thing, and they have to say ridiculous, but they also have to visualize something that would make their greatest fear absolutely ridiculous. They have to visualize something that would make their greatest fear laughable. Okay? And so if you open the closet and there's a bogart there and your greatest fear is spiders, it's going to turn into a big, big giant spider, right? And now that's your greatest fear. You're terrified in this moment. Right now, in order to defeat that, and this is what the visualization is based on, in order to defeat that, you have to think, well, what would make this disarming? What would make this laughable? Okay, so what would make a giant spider laughable?

Well, as you were saying that, I was thinking a big balloon animal spider, like squeaky toys on its feet.

There's a great one. There's a great one. So, so you want to visualize, okay, now this big giant spider now turns into a big balloon animal spider. And instead of its little talons or whatever spiders have on their feet, it's a squeaky thing. Now, spiders have, I think, 8, right? So imagine now that's just squeaking around.

Or maybe each one has a different key and it starts squeaking a song.

And squeaks songs, OK? So you think about something like that. And now you've taken something big and scary and you've turned it into something ridiculous. Now, that's the visualization exercise, right? So if we were Harry Potter characters, we'd take our wand, we'd visualize that, and we'd say ridiculous. And in front of us, that giant spider would turn into a giant balloon animal spider with squeaky sounds all over its feet. And as it was walking, it would, you know, it would— with googly eyes. I love that, Julia. Right? Big giant spider with googly eyes. You know, that's, that's all over it. It's squeaking sounds. And we laugh enough and then all of a sudden it disappears because we've defeated the Bhagavat. Okay. And so the visualization exercise, the Bhagavat visualization is That exact exercise. Okay, so you take, and it doesn't have to be your biggest fear, but it could be whatever kind of you're playing on repeat, whatever memory. This is specifically great for a memory, but you can use it with anything, whatever memory you're playing on repeat, and you want to use this exercise to make that memory ridiculous. Okay, so you're not changing anything. You're just kind of manipulating the variables a little bit, right? So we didn't say, you know, we didn't see a big spider and say, nope, I'm not afraid of spiders. You know, it's just like, oh, we're just gonna try to pretend it's not there. It's still gonna be there, right? We've changed the details to make it— we've changed our perspective on it, basically. So again, fog art visualization, same thing. So maybe you have a memory from when you were younger. Maybe it's a parent or a teacher kind of pointing— I'm just using generic example— pointing their finger, kind of yelling at you, and you can, you know, makes you feel embarrassed. And that's, that's what you play in your head on repeat, right? That, that memory. Change the details, right? So what would make it ridiculous? That's kind of the question you want to ask yourself. What would make this— if this was a bagarre, or what would allow us to defeat this? What would make this laughable, right? And so, you know, the teacher's pointing their finger at you, and instead of their finger, it's an asparagus. Okay, that's a little ridiculous. Okay, and then instead of, you know, instead of their head, it's a balloon, right? It's a balloon and it still has their features. Okay, now we're changing the details here. And when they're You know, saying whatever they're saying in this memory, in this visualization, instead of saying it in their voice, they're saying it in Donald Duck's voice, right? Or Mickey Mouse's voice. Okay, so you see we're starting to kind of change just the details where the core is the same. Okay, and we're starting to make it ridiculous. So basically what we're kind of saying to our brain, and this is really, really powerful, is like, okay, if you are going to show me this on repeat, okay, but we're going to do this my way. Okay, we're going to change a couple of these things. So that I'm not basically in constant distress. And that's what this visualization exercise is based off of. So you can change, you know, you can think of also it like playing a tape, right? So your brain is showing you this movie on repeat, repeat, repeat. You can choose to play that movie in reverse. You know, you can have everything change colors, right? So now it's, you remember when the TV used to go like fuzzy or the TV used to make all those rainbow lines, right? You could change it like that. There's also, you can change sounds, sights, the features. You can make it ridiculous. Okay. And that's really the idea of the entire exercise. Now, I can't exactly tell you how to make it ridiculous other than to give you those examples of sounds, sights, play it super, super fast, play it backwards, you know, play it backwards. So instead of yelling, they're swallowing their words, different things like that. Change their features, change what they're wearing, change the color. You can change all those different things.

You can have like a comedian narrating it.

You, you could do anything that you want, and that's the creative part of it, right? And so the idea with this is, okay, this is what our brain's gonna show us on repeat. We are gonna be in control of how it shows it. So we're gonna change those variables until basically we make it laughable. Now, the bonus of this, and this isn't the goal of this exercise, but the bonus of this is if you do this visualization enough on a specific memory, you can kind of do what we'll call like you scratch the record. And basically, if you've ever had an old record or an actual physical CD, And you scratch it enough, it becomes permanently damaged. Okay? And that's what can happen. Again, that's not the goal of this, but that's what can happen if you really kind of do this again and again with this, with this exercise. So that's the goal of the exercise. I love that one. That one's one of my favorite visualization exercises. It combines a lot of different visualization exercises that we teach, but it's a, it's just a great fun, fun concept. And there's nothing like bringing a little bit of levity and a little bit of fun to something that— Is normally very, very distressing.

And something that you think is funny, right? Like, if I remember when I first heard this and I was like, I don't really think a cartoon voice would make me laugh. You know, if this— sometimes it would, but like, there's certain— like, we all have our own unique sense of humor and you want to bring that forward. Again, like you independently going into this, we like— Kaylin gave some amazing examples of, you know, things that you can change and alter, but bring your own sense of humor into it. You know, what would you find funny? Yeah. That's what, that's what you want to kind of make it.

That's what's powerful. Have fun with it. Makes it special. That's exactly it. And have fun with it. There's nothing wrong with having fun with this. Again, like, this is specifically for something you're playing on repeat, right? So if we're gonna play on repeat, and this is a conversation I used to have with myself, you know, I was like, okay, if we're gonna play it on repeat, I'm gonna change some of the details. Okay? Yes, we'll play it on repeat, but we're gonna do it my way. And that's kind of how I— it's, it's just an amazing, amazing exercise.

So. And this has helped you a lot, right?

Oh, tremendously. Some people have a big, big visual element to their PTSD. That's why we have so many different tools. Some people have a huge visual element to their PTSD, flashbacks, nightmares, stuff like that. So that was definitely me. I had a more visual kind of journey, and things like this were tremendously helpful for those moments, for flashbacks, for, again, just having memories kind of play on repeat. Super powerful.

So I think that's it.

Carol's sharing, I visualize scary things, so making it laughable is a really good one. It's really powerful. For those of you who, you know, ruminate, who visualize, not, not by choice, right? But those scary things or even worst case scenarios, bringing this element in, what you're also doing, which we didn't really talk too much about today, is you are building this muscle of control, right? And so you're starting to exert your control. You're starting to basically exert your power over your mind to say, okay, that's the route that you want to go. We're going to make a little tweak to this. We're going to make a little shift to this, right? So you're kind of starting to work with your mind and you're starting to build this muscle of I'm the one who's ultimately going to be in control, which is a really powerful skill that you'll notice a lot of things that we teach and a lot of things that we are going to put into action here with our coaching are also building that skill. It's a very important skill. Still asking, what about simulated laughter just to make yourself laugh? I mean, you can totally do that. You know, it depends on you. It depends on what makes you laugh. I love to laugh. I live to laugh. You know, I, every now and then I used to watch a comedy or Or I used to watch— like, I love stand-up comedy. And I'll just sit there every now and then. And I do it less and less because I don't watch TV anymore. But every now and then when I'm just needing some good belly laughs, right, I'll just sit on my own and put my feet up on the couch and put on stand-up comedy. And I'll have my headphones in and just crack up, like, all night long, just absolutely cracking up, cackling. So yeah, absolutely, because it can be— You know, it can be a skill to, to learn basically how to laugh again, you know. So, so you can absolutely do those things, and those things are powerful, and it can be really helpful.

Yeah.

Again, Boggart, just a mythical creature. So that's why we name it that visualization. It comes again from the inspiration from the Harry Potter books of that mythical creature turns into your biggest fear, and the way you defeat it is by laughter, is by manipulating it just slightly to make That fear really, really funny. So Joe asking, what was the sentence you said about kids processing using the butterfly hug? So the butterfly hug was designed for kids. I had mentioned at the beginning, or when I was talking about that, you know, it's designed so that it doesn't require a higher level of cognitive thinking is what I was talking about with the butterfly hug with kids. So it's designed as a relief tool. It's not really designed for processing anything, but it's designed so it doesn't need that higher level of thinking. of cognitive awareness to get the results basically from the tool. Okay. So for the question from the platform, so just anonymous, just anonymous question. I was wondering if you'll be covering anything, how to help extreme trigger responses. So specifically for that, I would absolutely recommend the butterfly hug and absolutely recommend these visualization exercises. Again, practice these tools and then you're going to be able to decide what's going to work for me best in any given situation. The butterfly hug, absolutely want to be a go-to for sure. Like, you don't have to operate within the realms of reality, and sometimes that can help as adults to just, just let all that stuff go. So I use the example of, you know, someone pointing their finger at you and that finger turning into an asparagus. Okay, that's not something a lot of adults would think of right away, right? So I want you to start to just kind of let those, let those boundaries of what What is, is real go and, and it's going to allow you to get creative.

And, uh, an interesting question you could ask yourself is, what are some things I can visualize that would be funny and also make it impossible for me to fall off or whatever that fear is? Yeah. Because this, I mean, this is, this is kind of different. It's a different visualization tool, the mind palace. It's kind of like safe space. But for me, I had a hard time finding a safe space for myself because I never, I never felt safe. I always felt like someone was gonna come in. So then I was like, okay, how can I ensure or make it, make it so it's impossible for anybody to come into this space? And for me it was like I visualized this invisible force field that was impenetrable, which obviously is, doesn't exist, but it was something that made me feel safe. So something that you could ask yourself is, what is something that would make it impossible for me to fall off? Or, and then you could visualize that, whatever that is.

Yeah. And also in regard to, to safety, we had a, a great share once as a, as a safe space or For a mind palace exercise, which is slightly different than safe space, a little bit more dynamic. But, you know, some would talk about like going and it was like, you know, their underground bunker and it was like their space and it was like, you know, like it was like 007 stuff, right? It was like side of a mountain and they needed like a fingerprint scan and then like an eye scan.

Mm-hmm.

And then like they got behind these doors and they were guaranteed to be safe there because of all the measures that they had like put in place. In order to, to get there, right? So that was their way of kind of guaranteeing it.

Dale says, Brad's comment about not feeling safe, are you going to talk about chakras? I don't really know anything about chakras, to be honest. So I can't really, really talk about that. I'm not sure.

It's not something I really bring into my coaching. You know, I've done a lot of reading on chakras and alignment and stuff like that. It's not, it's not something I find personally, it's Yeah. As aligning with, with my beliefs in coaching in regard to being a necessary understanding for people. You know, if, if that's stuff that interests you and like you're into chakras and crystals and alignment, like totally go for it. There's no judgment on that. Just as a whole, it, it's not really foundational or it hasn't been necessary to understand that as a foundation or to work with that kind of information for results in regard to coaching. So that's why you won't hear us kind of talk about, or you'll hear us kind of leave stuff like that out as a whole. But again, whatever works for you and whatever piques your interest, like, do it, go for it.

And, and that's awesome.

Now, next week we're going to do a mindset boot camp. Okay. And we're really super excited about that. We're going to do some mindset sessions all week. Okay. And we're really, really excited about that because mindset is the foundation to everything. You know, we're talking about processing, we're talking about relationships, we're talking about routines. But mindset has to come first. And that's why we had the conversation. We decided that we would do the boot camp next week because so much needs to be done in regard to mindset, in regard to understanding the foundation. Because things that we're talking about, you know, with, with even the tools right now, the tools are beginning to kind of go into mindset because we're building a skill, we're building a muscle. So things that we're going to be talking about next week in regard to mindset, we're going to talk about negativity. We're talking about positivity, we're talking about inputs, we're going to talk about triggers, talk about beliefs. Okay, so there's a ton that we're going to cover next week. So I'm super, super excited for that. But what you'll notice throughout the week next week is we're building certain skills and we're harnessing more and more of that skill of, hey, I'm in control, I'm steering this ship up here. Okay, because a lot of times with PTSD now, our mind is running the show, our mind is, is steering the ship, and it's, it's all over the place, and it's not doing things that we Enjoy. It's not doing things that we want to do, right? We don't want to have flashbacks. We don't want to have nightmares. We don't want to have anxiety, right? So we need to kind of start to pull the reins in a little bit and say, okay, we're going to just start to make some shifts in the direction that we're going. And that's foundational for the rest of the journey. So definitely stick around for that. I'm super excited for that. Carol sharing, thanks for today. It went fast, but the concepts will be valuable in my healing. They always, always are. You know, they always kind of— it comes back to the foundation. It comes back to these concepts, comes back to the tools. Putting them into action. So awesome job showing up, Carol, continuing to chip away at this stuff. That's the most important thing, you know, to continue to put it into action. You're going to continue to make progress. And, and that's, that's what we're looking for, right? We're looking for that progress, not the perfection. We're looking for the progress. So definitely stick around for our bootcamp.

Mindset is really foundational. Even if you, it's easy to get caught up in, you know, knowing the processing tools and everything else. And I only want to know this and whatever. But without the mindset, none of it matters. Nothing matters. You're not going to be consistent. You're not going to be able to control your mind. And that's where it all starts. And so much of the mindset material is foundational for processing itself. So if you don't master the mindset part first, you're not even going to fully get everything out of the processing when you get there. So they are kind of the, the, the foundational pieces to everything, you know, like, and just like a foundation to a house without the foundation. The house crumbles. So we're gonna get the foundation real strong for you next week. So definitely make sure to show up. Make sure to show up. It's going to be awesome. I'm excited for it.

So super, super important. Make sure to show up next week. Get ready for that. Prepare your mind for, you know, being open-minded to these practices, getting a little bit flexible. You're gonna show up here and I want you to think of it like your mind is showing up for the gym. Okay? And so we're gonna ask it sometimes to lift a good amount of weight. Okay, nothing it's not ready for, but we're going to ask it to lift a little bit more weight than it's comfortable with, and that's how we're going to start to build that muscle. So get ready for that. We already covered some awesome mindset content. You're going to notice the mindset comes up every day in every single session, but I'm so excited for next week. Cool. That's what I have for you. Thank you all so much for being here. Keep rocking on, keep taking action. High five on another great week. I want you to pat yourself on the back because you did it. You're here, you're still showing up. Continue to do that. You're going to continue to make progress. Remember, this is a journey. This is not happening overnight. Nothing is happening overnight. So keep taking that action.

So you have 2 jobs, 2 action items. Practice the butterfly hug. That's number one, right? And be prepared for, like, know it so you're prepared for when you need it, right? Number 2, come up with your BOGART if you have a specific flashback or intrusive memory that comes in. Have that ready. Know what you're going to do and practice it. So that's it. That's the summary for today.

Bye, everyone.

Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you want to learn more about how you can coach with me directly, there's a link in the description you can check out. There's absolutely no pressure. The main thing is I wanted you to get value from this episode here, but I hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you in the next one.