Your Business Can't Outgrow Your Physiology, with Alex Field

Hello and welcome to The Business of Executive Coaching Podcast. I'm your host Ellie Scarf, and I am so delighted to be here with Alex Field. So as a formal introduction, Alex is a clinical psychotherapist and naturopath with over 30 years experience working in mental health and well-being. Her work focuses on chronic nervous system dysregulation, stress, and trauma. Alex is the founder and facilitator of the HEAL Method, an evidence-based program that is quite unique in the way it combines the two clinical modalities of psychotherapy and functional body-based medicine to help us to regulate our nervous systems, restore physical vitality, and understand the root of our overwhelm. And if being in business is anything, it is overwhelming. I am fortunate enough to be in a mastermind coaching group with Alex, and I have been a part of her HEAL Method program. So trust me when I say that Alex is the real deal. Now, alongside that formal introduction, Alex is deeply kind. She is very funny, and she has an incredible Instagram page, which I highly encourage you to follow. We'll put that in the show notes. Welcome, Alex. Before we dive in, will you share a little bit more about the work you do?

Yes, thank you for that introduction. I'm going to tell my children that you said I'm funny. You are!

It's very funny.

Because sometimes I can say I'm funny and they're going, hmm, we don't think that's so funny, Mum.

So thank you. I think it'd be weird if younger people found us hilarious. Who's probably not our people. Tell us.

So, uh, yeah, I've worked for a long time. I started working as a naturopath originally. My background was in naturopathy. I really loved it, but I noticed there was a sort of a ceiling, like a cap that a lot of my clients would reach in terms of physical wellness, but then they needed to do more of a psychological work and they seemed to be resistance for some of my clients to want to go and do that. And in the end, not that I was doing the training to upskill to help them particularly, but I could just see that there was a missing piece. So I then went back and did a master's in counseling. And that's what I have been continuing to do is work more in that mental health space and bring in the naturopathy, the functional medicine in as an adjunct to support, because you can't— I don't think you can have one without the other. But I do see, and what we'll dive into today, I do see the big Game changer is when we really start to dig into what is holding us back psychologically, but also having to unravel the physiological mechanisms, the behaviors we're doing that are keeping us stuck, basically.

Oh, I love that. So today our topic, you know, broadly is that the, our businesses can't outgrow our physiology. And I think this is a really interesting topic for us as coaches, because I feel like by definition, we're quite, cognitive, right? We like to be in our heads and I speak very much for myself. And so that's part of why I've done this work is what does it mean to, to explore what, what is happening in my body and how is that impacting me in lots of different ways? And what we're going to talk about is how one of the biggest limitations to our capacity as business owners is in fact biological. And then the implications that has for what it means to grow, like how does paying attention to the body help us when it comes to growth? So to dive right in, would you take us back to basics and can you set the scene for what biological capacity means? Because I think coaches have heard somatic approaches, they've heard nervous system regulation, but a lot of us have heard the words, but we might not really deeply understand it.

Yeah, absolutely. I think if I can, first I'm going to just tell you how it's worked for me or what I've noticed in my own experience. Because I think this is one of the, the pieces of the puzzle that many of my clients go, oh, now I get what you mean, type of thing. So just to give a bit of context, I worked as a naturopath for many years. Part of the reason I went into naturopathy was because I had a lot of my own physical issues. A lot of them were gut related. Now I recognize a huge amount of this was to do with the nervous system. We're going to get to this, but I went into naturopathy, had good success seeing a naturopath, and I went on and then studied it. What I then realized years later, and I lent into talk therapy and I'm an advocate, it's what I do every week. But this bit that we're going to get to, Ellie, is around what's this biological kind of block that's holding us back. So I started talk therapy, did many years of that, had not done any nervous system work at this stage other than using various supplements and herbs to help feel better. And yes, I was getting a lot out of it. But it wasn't until I personally came across the nervous system work I do and the method that I work with that things started to really drop into place. And the key reason was, although the therapist was amazing, although I had and still have a really good rapport with her and everything she was saying made sense, I did not feel safe in my body. But she didn't put words to that. I didn't put words to that. It's when I delved into the nervous system work later on through my clinical work and searching for the same thing, working in the one-to-one space, doing talk therapy and feeling like clients were getting traction, but not where I really wanted to see them get traction. I wanted them to get more. And so this nervous system piece was the missing piece for me personally. And I do think it's the missing piece for a lot of clients. And I would suspect for a lot of the individuals listening to your podcast, I suspect it'll be the same. Now, What does that actually mean? Somatic, let's just unpack that briefly. So somatics, which is a lot of what language is nowadays, somatics simply means body. So somatic practices, somatic work means body-based work, body-based approaches. In the world of psychotherapy, psychology, counseling, social work, et cetera, et cetera, what we are now using the language of, and I think this is useful to put on the table, is we call it things, bottom-up approaches, top-down approaches. And when you talk about somatics or body-based approaches, you're talking about bottom-up. So basically, in line with what I was explaining a moment ago, what was going on for me, I was in talk therapy, which is a top-down, like you say, cognitive. We get this, we really love being in our heads. I did too, I still do. But that top-down approach was super helpful But it wasn't the right order. I needed to get my body bottom-up approach online, engaged, ready to receive the information that was coming in at a top-down level. So the order is we need to engage with the body, the nervous system, work out what is actually going on physiologically for us as individuals. And we need traction with that. So that's where nervous system regulation tools are helpful. That's where somatic experiencing, somatic approaches are helpful. But it doesn't stop there. If we just do that— and I actually did an Instagram reel on that yesterday— if we just do the nervous system work, but we don't dig into the limiting beliefs, the core negative beliefs, the behavioral mechanisms that are consistently driving us to keep doing things a certain way, often pushing beyond our capacity— and we'll get to that— if we don't get traction with this, then we can't really move forward. We'll stop, we'll get stuck. And so what I see people doing is staying stuck in constantly doing regulating exercises or regulating resources, but we're not actually deeply regulated. And there's a difference.

I feel like one of the, the elephants in the room that's coming up for me is— maybe it's not an elephant in the room, but it's not just how it applies to us as individuals who are business owners, but also if we are seeing this with our clients, right, our coachees. It's a very important understanding to have about why our coachees might not be getting results as well.

100%.

Yeah. And I think that's a great frame as well, which is let's think about all this information from the, from the point of view of ourselves, but also from what are our clients experiencing. And I mean, there's some big implications of that, right? If we accept as a professional that is true, then what does that mean in terms of how we need to upskill ourselves? Not just for our own experience, but in terms of how we work with people. So just wanted to put that on the table because I think that's important. So then the next piece of this puzzle is this idea of nervous system regulation. It feels like everyone's talking about nervous system regulation. Can you tell us, like, give us a whistle-stop tour of the nervous system and what it means to be regulated?

Okay, I was gonna get a clarifying question here. Do you want me to go through— it'll take me 5 to 10 minutes to go through that ladder concept? I would love you to.

Yes, please. Yes.

Okay.

No, I think that'll be really helpful.

Yeah. Okay. So I work with a system called the Polyvagal Theory. I'm doing this obviously in an audio form, so there's no image to accompany this, but I will basically explain how I interpret this. So some people are familiar with the Polyvagal Theory and some people are familiar with a lady called Deb Dana and her interpretation of that. And she uses a ladder. I'd like anyone that is familiar with that just to park her interpretation of the ladder because I flip the ladder around and I just feel that's important for context. It doesn't matter about why, it's just the way I'm going to explain it now. So when we are in a regulated state, I will also interchange that with the use of the word window of regulation or regulated state or endorse— I'm sorry, vagal tone. It's like the vagus nervous part of the system, and you're in that ventral vagal state. I find that really jargony, and so I'm going to just leave that on the side and just stick with the window. Okay, when you're in your window, I see you as having your feet at the bottom of the ladder. Your feet are on the ground, and so you're grounded. You're what I would say in your body, you feel safe. Now, what does safety feel like? It's not super different for everyone. We're all pretty much the same. We've got that space that, that chest doesn't feel tight. It's often the absence of tension, and that's a marker of us feeling settled and safe in our body, in our nervous system state. Now, when we're in our window, we describe this often as a flow state. We describe this as feeling invigorated, feeling alive and engaged with the world, but not from an activated place. And I think for everyone listening, and for you as well, I think when we are in this, we know that. We know it's like the sweet spot in life. We're okay, we're good, we're in a good place. Now, we'll come enter onto capacity. So I'm going to kind of just set the scene that when we have capacity, this is the place we're in, is our window. Now we need energy to live, so we're not saying that in the window we are like peaceful or calm all the time. I think people misunderstand sometimes that you're trying to get to a place of this sort of this flatline, like equilibrium, where everything's in a zen state. Yeah, that's not— so that's why really clear, I like the use of the language window. Now when we experience our emotional experiences, and we're going to come onto this in a bigger way a bit. But when we experience our emotions and just the general ebb and flow of life, when we are in our window, we can tolerate, we can experience those emotions within a way that feels contained and manageable. This is so the big focus these days is on the nervous system, and everyone is forgetting that actually we feel our emotions in our physical body, but there's not a lot of conversation around our emotions. But they're a big driver and they're a big informant to how we're going to set up and step into the world, particularly with business. We're trying to grow and expand and things. So it's— they are relevant. But like I said, what I'm speaking to now with the latter is really talking about the nervous system. But we experience emotions multiple times a day and different ones constantly. And they are informing the way we show up in the world. Depending on which nervous system state we are in will depend on how we interpret and feel those emotions.

Got it. Okay. I hadn't processed that before. Yeah.

Yeah. Which is super important to where we are going to go in this podcast. So feet firmly on the ground. I'm in my window. I've got a ladder in front of me for the demonstration. So my hands are on the ladder, but I am on the ground. If we move up a couple of runs of the ladder, we're going to move into the sympathetic state. So that is what I say is the middle of the ladder. That sympathetic state is where we are mobilized. There is energy mobilizing us to take action because we are not now feeling okay. This is where you will feel fight or flight. This is totally different experiences, but this is where you will experience the fight or flight states that most people are familiar with and have heard of. These fight and flight states, like I've said, need energy. This is also where you're going to experience anxiety. This is where you're going to experience that highly charged energy that feels sometimes where that chest gets tight and you feel like your stomach is churning. This middle of the ladder is the first layer of what I call survival, like survival body-based, survival nervous system state. And so it's the one that most people are most familiar with when they go, oh, actually I'm not in my window. I spend— most of the people that I work with that come from a sort of business, like high functioning, in inverted commas, are living more in that sympathetic state. Part of the challenge is that sympathetic state allows us to get a lot done.

That's what I was thinking. I was like, this sounds like a really action-oriented state to be in.

Yeah. And the problem is if we imagine a ladder and I say the middle of the ladder is that sympathetic state, Say we cap that sympathetic state. I'm going to give you— I don't want to make this complicated, but I do want to give information. So say we cap that top of the sympathetic state. We haven't got to the last bit at a level 10. And you come down to the bottom of your window at a— you go between 0 and 5, you're in your window.

Yeah.

5 to 10, you are in the sympathetic state. Now that is a Subjective Unit of Distress scale. It's a number. And we can work out what that number is. But the reason I wanted to give you that on the back of your reaction to what I've just said is that when we're at 5 to say 6 or 7, this is tolerable. Yeah, this is your sympathetic state, and this is where I see most people residing in. And so when we're looking at that, what does that mean in terms of capacity? What does that mean in terms of the long-term scenario, it means we're pouring actually from an empty cup because our system is not doing the normal housekeeping that it needs to do if it's in that 5 to 7, because it's in a survival state. Yeah, this is why people get gut issues. This is why people get autoimmune issues. This long-term problem of chronic dysregulation, even if it's not where someone is having panic attacks every day. But this is still chronic dysregulation and it takes its toll.

And I don't necessarily want to introduce gender as too much of a factor in this conversation, but I'm assuming that there is an interaction between women and hormones and this state. Is this where we see that show up?

So yes, and that's my area. It is very much that woman in perimenopause and why things are really beginning to fall apart for them is that what I see is a lot of the time is they've been living in this chronic state of dysregulation for years, and then they start to get those hormonal fluctuations as they move into the perimenopausal phase. So it's almost like, because the nervous system and the hormones, everything's working in tandem in the body, not everything, but those two are working. So if you're dropping and you're losing that buffering of the progesterone, then this is going to compromise a nervous system. And if it's already in a chronic state of self-preservation, basically, it's going to really wobble. And so I see this change with things like cortisol. I feel like I'm getting— it's getting too complicated. But anyway, what I see is the cortisol levels have been heightened for many years. So had you been doing blood tests and looking at cortisol levels, say, with women and men, but in their 20s, in their 30s, those cortisol levels may have looked more elevated. And they— those people might have been living in more of an elevated state of nervous system activation in that sympathetic. Cortisol also heightened. Maybe adrenaline is pumping a little bit more regularly than we would like. And so the problem is you move into perimenopause and it all starts bottoming out. Right. I see women with lower cortisol levels quite often in that perimenopausal phase, because when you look at the longevity, the long term, issue, the system's getting tired.

And I'm imagining, so a lot of people who become coaches as like a second career have come from decades of high performance in their roles. And I would dare say personally. And so I'm imagining men and women, there's been this constant, just sitting in this state, in the sympathetic nervous system state for a long time.

Exactly what I see. That, that high performer, the, the 6-figure salary person, they've done and excelled in their careers. The problem is they've never realized that their nervous system state has been operating more in that sympathetic. And even things like you, some people will say, you know, you open your computer in the morning and your email box is flooded. And so for some people, they'll be like, right, go, okay, let's get to it. Let's knock out the email responses. But their system's moved into that state. And they're just climbing. And this kind of moves us to the next part of the ladder in a way, is they're climbing up that ladder just by doing those kind of tasks. And then they're getting to the point where they cannot tolerate that feeling of, I don't even want to open my email box anymore.

No. And I'm thinking, and we'll come back to this because we're going to talk about capacity, but I'm thinking someone in that state, and then I'm asking you to go out there and send all these outreach messages that feel very deeply uncomfortable to people from your network, that's going to be very difficult. And it makes sense why there are going to be blockers that emerge, conscious or subconscious.

Yes. And I think that's a really good way of looking at it, Ellie. It makes sense. And I think when you bring in the piece, the nervous system piece, it makes sense in a way that allows individuals to have huge aha moments and to then not berate or shame themselves.

Yes.

This is a contributing factor that is often driving people beyond their comfort zone and beyond their capacity for, for everyone a day. So I think that what I notice is that once people get traction with the nervous system work, if they need to look at some of their core negative beliefs or anything like that, it becomes a lot easier.

Okay.

Because when you're in your window, when you when your feet are on the ground, like I said earlier on, you feel safe.

Yeah.

Now when you feel safe, you're not going to turn anything on yourself. There's no need to. Why would I berate myself? Whereas if I'm in the sympathetic state— and obviously the analogy that is used a lot is that we don't generally live in a world where we have saber-toothed tigers or lions or whatever around the corner. Most people have heard this analogy by now. The problem is the nervous system doesn't know this. So whether it's the emails that are flooding in or posting on LinkedIn—

hey, posting on LinkedIn, yes, our new saber-toothed tiger.

Yep, yeah, exactly. That is exactly— is that the nervous system is operating below our level of conscious awareness. And that's really relevant because like you said, we live in our heads. Yeah, so we really love using our prefrontal cortex. We really love the game of engaged thinking, bringing conscious awareness to we're doing. Now, when we're in our window, that is online and we can draw on that. So the irony is I've had many people, high-flying business people across my working life, and they come in and they're like, okay, Alex, so if we do this nervous system stuff, we still want to be earning really well and we still want to be able to— I'm like, yes, I get that. It will feel totally different for you, but you will have more ability to stay engaged and use that prefrontal cortex when you're in your window because you feel safe.

I— yeah, I love that. All right. So I have so many questions, but tell us, there's somewhere else we can go on this ladder, right?

So we're in the sympathetic. It's mobilized. We get stuff done. If we spend a lot of time in there, and this is important to put on the table, if the experience or the life experience we are having renders us powerless to affect change, and I need to just explain that briefly to give context to the ladder. Then the other next level of the ladder is what we call a freeze state. I need to give context to the very top of the ladder, which is the shutdown state, okay? Which is polyvagal terms is the dorsal vagal state. Again, I've changed the language a little bit. I say shutdown. The top of the ladder shutdown, we are immobilized. There is a lack of energy. There's a— I'm moving into— there's a collapsed state in our posture and we lack vibrancy, we lack charge, we lack energy.

So we might use the language of a dampened affect. Is that similar?

Yes, but yes, it's where you'll experience depression. So dampened affect state, shutdown state, is where you will feel apathetic and you will feel depressed and you'll be lethargic. Got it. Now, in terms of survival, the people that generally end up in the shutdown state are individuals who have been through childhood trauma where they were too small young to get away. And so the best way out was to shut down. That's— so not all of my audience have had that experience, but the ones that have had that, that is their go-to. That's where they will end up when things get too overwhelming. If you haven't had that, then you'll probably stay in that more sympathetic state. The one I'm going to bring to now, which is in the middle of that bit, is the freeze state. So let me just recap. Bottom of the ladder window, sympathetic middle, and then we go to freeze, which is in between sympathetic and shutdown. This is a blended state because I think most people that I work with end up here. So people come in absolutely identifying with the sympathetic state. By the time they get to me, they're often going, oh, I'm actually in functional freeze.

Oh yes. I'm like, oh, this sounds familiar.

Yeah. So it's that function where you've got one foot on the accelerator, which is that one foot's in the sympathetic, but you've got one foot in the shutdown. The system is really struggling, but you are functioning, but you are not thriving. You are absolutely not in your window. And so what people tend to be doing in this state, and this is where I'll see the cortisol levels begin to really plummet. Cortisol is obviously linked to your circadian rhythm. So cortisol is linked to the circadian rhythm, which is also in tandem with the melatonin. And it's like a pulley system. They affect all the cells in your body. So this is the problem, is that I see this beginning to drop in men and women. The system has been on for so long, and I'm seeing this in correlation with the freeze state. And so in this state, you are getting things done. So you might wake up in the morning and be able to do the, do the emails, get your kids ready for school, do that, balance business, work life, etc., etc. But you are kind of dragging your heels through it. No one on the outside would really notice this, but when I describe it to people, they go, oh, this is where I'm living.

Oh yeah, I can recognize it for myself, but I can also recognize it for a number of my clients. And it may be something that is not necessary. We can't really explain why we have that. We've got these goals, we want to achieve these things, we're doing so many of the things, but we find ourselves just putting the handbrake on constantly and stopping us. And there's lots of different ways we could understand it, right? It's a ceiling, it's a handbrake, but I feel like this is, that's a big one for business.

And I think when we look at it from a nervous system perspective and we see how we are operating in the world, we can recognize, oh, there is nothing left in the cup here.

Yeah.

We are in the window, you're pouring from a full cup because you, the way you live your life is replenishing topping up anything out of the window up to the top of shutdown, you're pouring from an empty cup and the cup is getting emptier and emptier, basically.

Yeah.

And so just to recap that, I gave you the number scale again. I'm just gonna make this really easy for clients to keep listening and not have to rewind and go, what did she say? Is the, the 10 I gave people is the top of the synthetic.

So we're getting past 10 here.

We go past 10, but there's no charge past 10. Sure. So in this shutdown state, there's nothing. So that's why I said you'll feel depressed. Now, for years— and I do, and it's on my Instagram page— I have a history of childhood trauma. So for me, the shutdown state was super familiar. So was the sympathetic. What I didn't realize is that I was living more in the shutdown than I was ever in my window, because what happened for me in the shutdown is I was numb. I could check out. There was a nothingness. So it was a bit— the reason I switched the ladder is it's the top of the ladder. You're a little bit more disconnected from reality, from your body. Everything's a bit more numb. So if you imagine if you're living in the sympathetic, that place is a break.

Yeah.

When I realized the ladder for me, when I realized this, I was like, oh my goodness, I'm oscillating between the sympathetic and I'm getting stuff done. And I was meditating And that meditation would push me into shutdown. Wow. So I was using a healthy tool, seemingly, to manage my anxiety. But what I was actually actively doing was pushing myself back into a shutdown state.

And I guess that's an example of using a cognitive tool to solve a more biological challenge in some ways.

It's the way, and this is, I think, really important for your clients, Ellie Scarf, it's the way where you would look at that and you would say that, oh, that looks like a healthy thing to do. That's— but for me, that was what I'd say is a coping strategy, not a healthy resource, because of where my nervous system was at.

So for someone who is in their window and maybe even at the bottom of that sympathetic state, meditation would be very helpful to help you.

Exactly. Yeah. The tricky thing is in the sympathetic, it's very hard for people to meditate. Yes. But a lot— as in the HEAL Method, I don't introduce meditation at all. In fact, anyone that does meditate when they join, I'll get get them to back off it.

Okay.

Because what I want them to do is really feel where they are and climb down the ladder. And you have to come through the sympathetic. This is the beautiful thing around the polyvagal theory and the use of the ladder, is the recognition that we don't want to flip-flop like I was doing. We actually want to come through the sympathetic and land ground, come into the window. And it's not— the thing that's beautiful for what I've found with the nervous system work is it doesn't take years to do this. Once we understand theory behind it and you're held in a supportive space to actually understand what you're doing, you can climb down the ladder relatively quickly. It's then what we'll go on to talk about around the sort of limiting negative beliefs, that kind of thing, as to what then stops us staying there and what, what kind of nudges us out. But once we understand the basics of it, it's actually super— I say easy, it's easy, but we've got to shift the beliefs that are pushing us beyond our capacity. If that makes sense.

Yeah. Okay. So I think that makes sense to, to go there now. So why is it that we don't stay in our window, right? What makes that difficult for everybody, but particularly as business owners? And I assume it's a combination of stress and past experiences, and I'd love your take on that.

So I think when we then lean into this, we're looking at the optimal space to be in is our window. But if we have a set, because it's never just one core negative belief, but if we have a set of core negative beliefs that are driving our behavior,— then we can begin to trace back and see that those have been in operation for a very long time. And most often they've been informed since childhood. Now, that doesn't mean every single person has come from childhood trauma. But what it does mean is every single person has come from a family system that was probably not optimal because it's rare. And actually, perfection is not what we're seeking. We don't need perfect parents. We just need good enough parents. That's what we understand psychologically. So that's okay that we can have some failings, that the parents might want the best for us, but inadvertently, in them wanting the best for us, they have pushed us to over-identify with productivity or outcome as being a measure of our worth.

Yeah.

And so that's a fundamental one I see. And one of the things when I had my kids, and I found it quite hard, but what I didn't want to do was to praise their product or praise their win. I wanted to— trying to do the right thing as a parent— I wanted to help them feel that praise and that internal reward for themselves because they did it.

Yeah.

Not because that was a really beautiful piece of art or that was the brilliant run and you broke the record. I wanted them to know that I felt really good doing that. And I experienced XYZ, and that was the process in its own right. Now, I absolutely know I haven't been the perfect parent either, so I'm not sitting— but this was an example that I tried to course correct, is that a lot of parents— we've grown up in a generation where a lot of parents were doing the best they could, and if your child was excelling at something, then you would be praised for your product and then nudged towards it, and you feel that reward. You were like, oh, when I do XYZ, I get really good feedback. It feels good. Oh, I'm going to strive for more. I'm going to push for more. Yeah, I see a lot of people in business really identify with that, that I've just shared, and they can trace it back. And the problem is we look at that and we're going, it's in its innocency— that's a word I've just made up— in it, with nothing, no negative connotation around it. We can't really fault that. No, you know what I mean? Yet what happens is if we're not constantly moving beyond that excellent painting to the next excellent painting to the next excellent painting, then we feel like we're failing.

Yeah, so I very much identify that unrelenting standards schema is a big one for me. And I imagine, yeah, a lot of people listening will have been excellent academically and then gone on to get promotions and chosen a career path that was expected of them. And now, so there's also something which is maybe a little destabilizing about moving from having that source of validation into business, where now we don't have that bit that sustained us, which was the constant positive feedback. And now there's no one patting us on, on the shoulder and saying good job. How do you see that with people who, who move into business? How does it play out?

So what I see is the importance of the first layer, the order is the nervous system work. Once we are feeling a little bit more regulated and getting a bit more consistency in that, it's much easier for us to begin to identify what are the main core negative beliefs that are operating within us that are compromising the way we're showing up in business. So for example, a core negative belief many people do not identify with but ends up the dominant one when I start working with people, I'm unsafe. Now, most people do not identify with that. Most people say, I'm safe, I've got a roof over my head, I've got a stable family, I've got food on the table. So I am safe. But once we chip away at it, they had parents who were doing the best they could, maybe working to give them a better life, who felt constantly unstable because they were anxious, they were stressed. Now, that nervous system state or states is the one that you're swimming in childhood. Now, if you've then spent most of your time in that sympathetic state for a range of reasons, that state says, I'm unsafe. Yeah. And so this is often driving people beyond their capacity. Then just to touch on a few others, because again, they'll land for a lot of people. I'm not good enough. I'm invisible. I'm unlovable. I'm unworthy. Like you said, the perfectionism. That relenting standards often underpins a lot of these core negative beliefs.

I feel like I've just ticked off my bingo card, Alex. Yes, yes, all of the above.

And the important thing in understanding them is that when we feel safe, like when we're really in our window, we can begin to challenge those. Now I'm going to use the word parts because in some ways, and I don't, I know we haven't got time to unpack it all, but it's useful to identify that, oh, that could be a part of us in operation. And I think that's really helpful for the people you work with in business, where if they identify that there is a part of 'I'm unworthy' and that is driving them and pushing them in business, if they recognize it as a part, then they can also begin to see that it's not the whole of me.

Yeah.

So that part of me can be pushing, pushing, but actually there other parts, there is also what I would— the language I would say is there's a wise adult self. And so we are wanting— and this obviously is more than what I can unpack in the podcast— but we are wanting to begin to feel more into safety, more into our window, and then begin to identify those parts that are not serving, that are not supporting us. Now, we can't just turn them off, but we do get to build a relationship with them. Them, and we begin to separate and untangle ourselves from them so that they're not driving us in the same way that they are when we don't know what's going on.

Yeah, and if people want to learn more about that, definitely Alex's program touches on it, but that's Internal Family Systems, Parts Work, that's sort of the concepts that you're speaking about. Yeah, um, which people will be aware of, but definitely very interesting. So coming back again to the idea that, well, okay, yes, we've got this cognitive process going on, right? These— whether we're aware or not of these automatic negative beliefs, thoughts. But foundationally, I think what I'm understanding is that we can't deal with that effectively until we can spend more time in our window. And there are other consequences for us as business owners of being out of our window when it comes to capacity. Can you talk a little bit more about capacity?

Yeah, I love the way, like, wow, it's so lovely talking to someone as engaged and insightful as you, because I was going to say the next piece to probably bring in is capacity.

Yeah.

So most people think of capacity as a mindset state, and often when you're working in the business coaching world, a lot of focus and attention on change your mindset, because if you can change your mindset, then you can really start to you want to go. And there's absolutely an element of truth in that. But for me, capacity is not a mindset shift. Capacity is biological. And that reframe, I think, is super helpful again, because what happens is when we're living in our window— I was going to say the window can be wide. Some people, the window is going to be relatively narrow to begin with, but it can widen. Everything I speak about can change. We can evolve. But if we're living within our window, like I said earlier, we're pouring from a full cup because the body is doing the normal housekeeping and maintenance that it needs to do in the background. So the gut health, your immune system, all these features and factors that are constantly being attended to below our level of conscious awareness occurs when we're in our window. Because when we're in our window, our body is not primed primed for danger. It's primed for I'm safe, so therefore I'm safe, I'm stable, body can do what it needs to do. If we move out of the window, obviously then the body is alert, activated. Something, some potential threat, whether it's perceived or real, doesn't matter, the body sees it as the same. But all those housekeeping jobs get parked. Yeah, I need to actually now be ready. It's like if you think about sending the army in, you can look at the army army, just the normal everyday army in the sympathetic, and then you can look for the special ops when you move into the shutdown. But you're drawing on resources and you're like, I've got to protect myself. So you drop all the things that are not relevant because the focus is let's keep us alive, even if this is perceived danger.

Got it.

It's really important. So it does really feed into capacity then, because if you're then in your window pouring from a full cup, what it's doing, what it needs to do, you have capacity to stretch and move to something new or to continue to grow in a business. You have capacity to navigate general life stresses and also things that are pulling at you in different directions. You have capacity because you're constantly topping up and reinforcing the health and integrity of your body, and that's biological. Yeah.

And if we don't expand our, expand our window or our ability to be in our window, how does that operate as a ceiling to our growth within our businesses?

Or even personally? Yeah, you'll burn out. So that's really where burnout is going to occur. If you were to, and there's the bit to put in here is the difference between say stress and trauma, stress and trauma physiologically. Actually operate in a very similar way. Often with stress and trauma, you get that extra adrenaline spike. Cortisol levels will be raised. Adrenaline is where you're going to feel that anxiety, that more sympathetic energy, but you're still going to have that cortisol pushing. It's not the anxious fizziness, but the cortisol pushing. So if you're constantly moving beyond and out of what you have capacity for, you're draining and you're drawing. And part of the issue around this is that you're then actually getting stuck in constantly trying to move forward.

Yeah.

And the difference between stress and trauma is really in the amounts. So we can tolerate— and business coaching would look at this really, I'd say, to be a big part of the discussion— we can tolerate stress in acute moments, like if you are building for a business launch or something like this. And actually, stress in and of its own right is not inherently a problem if we work with it in short bursts. It's when we end up in that chronic stress state, and the chronic stress is also the same as unresolved trauma.

Sure.

It's the longevity of it, and it's going to compromise the body in a very similar way.

Because I'm thinking about some of the messages that I have for my clients and people generally Ellie is that a lot of the growth comes through that, that uncomfortable space where we do feel like we're pushing ourselves. But what I'm hearing is that I perhaps need more nuance to that message, which is this is provided that you are in your window, or, or just on the edge of your window is how we expand the window. But if you are in the freeze zone and the message I'm giving you is throw yourself in the deep end and send 100 outreach messages, that's going to land very differently for that person. Yes.

I think the first thing is what is the width of someone's window?

Yeah.

And that really determines whether they're in it much. If the window is super narrow and lots of things are activating them and they're not spending a lot of time in their window, it's very difficult for them to really live and work and operate from capacity. If the window has enough width, I'd say probably in an example of where I'm at in my life, my window over time has widened, like how it's not necessarily a French window, but it's a good solid window. So when I choose to grow or stretch, I'm doing it within my capacity. And here are two words that I think are helpful: tolerable. Yeah, stress. Tolerable stress could be I get to the edge of the top of my window, or I bump a little bit in, but for a short period of time into that sympathetic, and I'm hovering on it, but I'm aware and I know I'm going to back away. And make sure I really drop back into my window, whatever that looks like. Yeah, so tolerable stress is okay. And the other word that I— the other phrase that I often use is white-knuckling. We don't want to white-knuckle. Yeah, and this is when you talk about the freeze. If someone is living way out of their window and then trying to push, and they're white-knuckling their way through business or through life, this is that road to burnout. This is that road to a mental kind of breakdown in the sense of, I can't do this, they tap out. Whereas if we're not white-knuckling it, so we can have tolerable distress, but as long as we're not white-knuckling it.

Yeah. Okay. I, I think that is such an important thing for, for me to realize, but also I think for, for, for everyone listening to think about how does this show up for your clients as well, your coachees. In terms of where they're at. Now, of course, there's so much I can ask, but the question that naturally comes is how do we spend more time in our window? What are the tools that and resources we have available? And you mentioned coping versus resources. Tell, yeah, tell us more about this.

Yeah. So if you have the analogy then of the ladder and you recognize that you'll say in the sympathetic, the freeze or the shutdown, the idea for us, and there's so much information around nervous system stuff, somatic stuff. What's good for us to do out there. The idea is— what I say is meet yourself in that nervous system state that you are in and then anchor and bring yourself towards your window, towards regulation. Now, when you do that, this is— you apply, or you do, or you are in a state which requires just that dropping down into your window. Now, this is where it gets a little bit tricky, and I I think I love the question because it gives me some really good context. We can meet ourselves in the sympathetic and there's more energy there, as an example. So the obvious thing which people will often say is move, do some exercise. Now, for a lot of the high achievers, and this was also where I went, oh, okay, lots of energy, lots of that, I'll go for a run. Yes, because that'll get rid of the energy and that will make me stay lean and kill two birds with one stone. That didn't work for me. No. So what I noticed is that was just further pushing me and I'm further staying in that. So for me, when I give that example, that would then have been a coping strategy.

Got it.

Because it would have tired me out, but it wasn't bringing me into regulation. Now, another person might find that actually they've got— they may be higher up in that ladder and they may find actually doing that that fast movement, or going for a fast walk and shaking their arms. As I'm doing my voice changing, as they shake them, and they might find— then I stop and I sit on a park bench, or I lie on the grass, and I look at those clouds, and I do that for 10 minutes. And the combination of the two, they're like, oh wow, that's just beautiful. I am now back in my window. So then you go, that was a healthy resource. So they met themselves where they were at, and they anchored into their window, and that is a resource versus doing something that is band-aiding or keeping them stuck. But like numbing, not numbing shutdown, but it's like just it's sort of paralyzing them in that same state, but it's not anchoring them into their window. Examples of this would be you get home at the end of the day and you have a glass of wine.

Yeah.

Okay. Now, if we're using the alcohol to try and calm our system down, this is a coping strategy. It's a Band-Aid. I'm not inherently anti-drink, alcohol. There is no physical benefits to alcohol, but there's a lot of social benefits. And so I'm not anti it in that sense at all. But for me, for example, if I drink, I'm not drinking to regulate. No, I'm drinking because I'm in my window and I'm choosing to have a drink. So I'm not using it as a coping strategy. We don't want that, and it's the common one in the West that people use. We can use exercise, the way we eat, the type of water we drink, the downtime we have. We can use so many things as healthy resources, but some of those things can also be coping strategies. And so the work, the art really of this work, is learning what works for you as an individual. And it is not rocket science. So for me, if I'm in the sympathetic, I don't move straight away. I actually have to step away from whatever it is I'm doing, which now will probably be having too many tabs open on my computer and not moving and sitting, but also just not necessarily feeling super stressed initially, but just feeling like I'm climbing the ladder. I've got some deadlines. I have to step away. I literally step away. I don't do anything other than go outside, lie on the grass. My dogs will come around me and I will just lie there for a few minutes and I will check in. Where do I feel like I'm on the ladder? What's the level of distress? And sometimes it's just enough to do that and literally just have that circuit breaker. Other times I've got a beautiful big rocking— it's not a swing, but it's a big circular thing. The reason I'm describing it like this is that when I lie on it, my head is supported. Super important. It's a real cue to safety in the body. So I can lie on that, not swing it rapidly, but I can lie on it. And just that gentle ebb and flow of that will bring me into regulation. So that would be— for me, that would be— I'm in the sympathetic now, if anywhere. I'm not further up anymore. So you can see there by that, that's me meeting myself. That's a resource, but I'm not actually moving. But for some people, they'll want to dance, they'll want to move, they'll want to engage in some mobilized energy to discharge that, that sympathetic charge. Also perfectly true. Perfectly right. We're all different.

Yeah. Are there times when coping is actually the best thing to do? Is that in those moments of— or never?

Look, I'd say ultimately no, we want to use something like this ladder and learn where we're spending most of our time on this ladder. And once we understand that, like for me, like I was saying, those really simple tools, that, that takes no time really now. So what I'm doing is I'm not going higher up and then living up in that. I'm constantly, but not even really working at it. I'll just have those little moments in the day where I'm like, okay, I need to eat. Most of us in simple things, simple ways, don't even prioritize that. Yes. Eating when we feel hungry or drinking water when we feel thirsty or having a bowel movement, going to the— the amount of times people will ignore their normal physiological cues of hunger or need to ablute is also a sign of dysregulation. So even simple things like that can help us cue to regulation. So I think fundamentally we're going to be doing various coping strategies if we haven't done this kind of work. So that's going to be normal. I don't say to people, stop them. I just say, work out where you are on the ladder, work out what you're needing to do for yourself and prioritize that repeatedly. So then if you're in a high stress situation and you default to your coping mechanism, you're like, okay, that is what it is. But I've now got data in in other parts of my day or other parts of my life where I am regulating and I'm noticing I'm not using that coping strategy as much. But yes, when I get more stressed, yes, I do. So you're beginning to change over time while you're doing, while you're doing this kind of work. It is way simpler than people realize, but it is the repetition that's important. Going, I need to do this, I need to do this.

Yeah, and I can see that is tricky from my own experience as well as what I've observed. Alex, look, we've kept you. I want to say a massive thank you. I think for business owners, I think it's really clear that this is a fairly under-recognized— it's a tool that we have in our toolkit, but it's also something that could be getting in our way that we are not aware of. And for anyone listening who is thinking that this might them, how can they work with you?

So I have a program that you mentioned at the beginning, The HEAL Method. So it's a 12-week program and it's online. There's 3 components to it. There's a platform that I have a lot of prerecorded information to give deep education around this and evidence-based exercises. And then there's a live component. So you join 12 calls that are run weekly, and then there's a private group where you can ask questions ad hoc in between. The real focus is initially around nervous system, but it is around the order. So it's nervous system work, but then we begin to look into the limiting beliefs, the core negative beliefs, and then build on that and what's stopping. So yeah, I say it's an accelerated process, but actually what I think happens is because you immerse yourself in you get some pretty significant transformation in a short space of time because you're beginning to learn more about yourself psychologically and physiologically.

Yeah. And I would just encourage for anyone who is thinking, oh, maybe you've done therapy before, because as coaches we believe in all of these processes, of course, and maybe you haven't got the traction that you wanted, you're seeing some patterns emerge and re-emerge business, I think Alex's program is a really good way of getting at that. And there's no, no, no exchange of any sort of financial— no kickbacks here. So I just want to say I really believe in the work that Alex is doing, so I recommend it deeply. Alex, thank you so much for being with us today. I think there's a huge amount of food for thought. Everyone, please go and follow Alex on Instagram, check out her program, and yeah, thank you again.

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.