👨‍🏫 Guest Masterclass: Nervous System Functioning & Cultivating Greater Regulation w/ Satori Clarke

Welcome, everyone. Satori and I were just having a brief catch up. She's currently living in the house that used to be our home for a year. So we had a little nostalgic moment before you guys joined. So I'd love for this session to be fairly fluid. I'll begin by introducing Satori and just asking a few questions. But if you have any curiosities, anything you'd like us to speak about, please feel free to raise your hand, your physical or virtual hand anytime, or share in the chat, because I'd love for this to just be as interactive as possible. And I think that'll make the best use of Satori's time today. So welcome. Satori. Wonderful to have you here.

Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me, Johnny. Love it.

Yeah, it's a pleasure. So maybe a good starting point would just be for people who aren't familiar with you, with your work. How did you come to be running a neuroscience research lab in Indonesia? And why are you so interested in the breath? Like, what is the backstory there?

Thank you. That's a really great question. I have to check in with myself regularly to realize this is what I'm doing in my life, really. I think it started about 12 years ago when I was volunteering with youth in the area, specifically with. With young girls, and just witnessing the impact of not only their. Their lives and their. The family constellations that they were in, but also the pharmaceuticals that they would be put on and off and on and off of to manage multiple different symptoms of mental health distress. And then the symptoms that came from being put on and off of these different. These different drugs. And then I went into a nutrition program. And that, I think, is actually what sparked. Sparked. So I'm a registered holistic nutritionist, and that actually sparked an interest in the incredible connection between our enteric brain, which is all of the neuron neural connections in the gut, and the connection between what we eat and how we feel. So the enteric brain and our cerebral brain. Yeah. And then from there, I went on to, I thought, to study further into actually our connection to our environment at a university called Quest. And I ended up following my curiosity right into neuroscience. I didn't know I was a full neuroscience nerd. And at the time, I had. I had experienced quite a few private breathwork sessions and literally rose up out of one of those and was just, like, realized that that's what I wanted to base my thesis on. So the undergraduate program I did was designed much more Like a master's. It was an honors program where we, we had to write some kind of a thesis or a keystone to complete it. So yeah, it just there I'd had such consistent, profound experiences in this modality of breathwork that Johnny is also trained in. And I just wanted to know there had to be some kind of physiological underpinning that was happening in my body that created the psychological and phenomenological mystical experiences that I had. And I just wanted to know more. So I dug in, wrote a 50 page paper, discovered that there was no research really that had been done of good quality on this type of breathing. And yeah, I had, I was in connection with Edward Dangerfield. And a few years, a year later he moved to Bali. And then a year after that he sent me a text and just invited the possibility of hey, you want to move to Bali and be our head of research. And this is definitely like it's such a dream career. I left a lot of things and spaces that felt like home in Canada because it just, it was something I needed to see where this was going to go. And we have, yeah, we have two EEG machines arriving in just under a month. So we get to really start mapping. Yeah, we get to start mapping what is happening in the brain specifically in relation to breath and our breath patterns.

Amazing. And just briefly, what are, what are a couple of like the key like research questions or theses that you're exploring with the research.

Thank you. Two of the main ones that Ed and I are looking into is when this modality works, why and specifically in the brain what is happening. And we're looking mostly at experiences that him and I have had. But also I'm sure Johnny, you can attest to this in your own experience. And so many like hundreds of clients at this point that have experienced long term changes in the way that they experience life. Specifically for me, the thing that stands out is shifting. My reactions became responses where I was no longer in reactive mode. But I was able to actually respond from the values that I knew I wanted to live from. It just started happening naturally. This is going to be more specifically looking at are we creating functional change in subcortical. So these are deeper parts of the brain and probably the brain stem through this type of connected breathing, when it's facilitated by someone looking at when it works, how does it work specifically in brain function and also when it doesn't work or doesn't work, but when it has, there are definitely people that it lands differently in and doesn't have as direct of an impact. It can take a little bit more time in breath for it to really create some observable changes. And so there's a curiosity of, I mean, being willing to be shown that we're wrong with data of what we think is happening. And really it's to be able to actually serve people better and better with the modality of being able to have them come in, see their breath pattern, have some understanding of the neural, like, the patterns of activity that are happening in the brain related to that breath pattern, and then to be able to serve the client in the best way of how to get them into. Yeah, into living in a different way and experiencing life with less reactivity.

Beautiful. So I guess one of the questions that comes to mind, this idea of, like, moving out of reactivity is a core part of this course, this training. We're coming to the end, let's say, for. For people who might not have access to an FBR practitioner, which currently is, you know, most of the world, what are some ways that you think about personally of rising out of reactivity or moving into response? Like, what are some of the other tools that you have at your disposal that you might like to share and maybe even, like, that might lead on to, like, what does it mean to be regulated? Like, what does regulation mean?

Thank you. Thank you. This is such a tricky question, and of course I'm biased, but for me, the reason that I've moved my entire life across the world and left my beloved dog and all my family and the land and rock climbing that I love so much is because this is the one thing that made the biggest shift. I will say that alongside of breathwork, being able to consciously dig into core beliefs and patterns of thinking that I have and being able to actually challenge them. And I typically do that through, like, sentence stems. And I've been guided through a couple different processes and a few different programs in my life to really, like, have a look at how I'm perceiving something that I'm experiencing. And is that actually true? Maybe being able to challenge it a bit, locating where it is in my body and getting a better understanding of where it's coming from. I find that, and I use that as well in. In any of the work that I do with Breathwork clients to be able to get also a cognitive understanding. So there are. I would recommend. It's very likely that there are some other somatic modalities that people can experience, but really, as much as we do the conscious cognitive work, that will be a lot of. Of what this program is of, what this session is of asking questions, of diving into things, of reflecting on ourselves. If we're not working with the body and with like from here down actually shifting patterns, allowing it to complete reflexes, then it's, it's really, in my experience and in my research so far, it stays kind of stuck in the mind and it doesn't actually translate down. I'm sure you've, I'm sure you've touched on this already, but the percentage of afferent to efferent fibers where we have 80% of the nerves moving between the brain and the body are 80% are bringing information up. 20% is coming from the brain down. So if we think about, if we're working with the body, we have like an 80% impact on how our brain's functioning versus that 20%. So I would say like anything like Feldenkrais somatic experiencing can be really beneficial. EMDR can be helpful. Any of the other things I could recommend, I mean, and specific with their multiple breath practices we can do on our own. But for me that's much more, it's been much more of an integration tool then creating that bottom up change where we no longer have to like fight ourselves or try to control what's happening in our body, but we can actually respond differently. I hope that answered the question.

Yeah, no, got it. No, Beautiful. So you mentioned a couple of things there. One, you mentioned completing reflexes and we touched on this very briefly in the course, but could you perhaps unpack what that means slightly for people? And related. I imagine people listening might be like, like wait, how is the breath connected to my emotional regulation? Like what's the connect there?

What's the connection there? Cool. Let me just think which one I want to do first. What is going to make sense? Yeah, I think we'll start with breath. And so I mentioned that one of our aims in this research is to map some kind of correlation between breathing patterns and brain activity patterns. So patterns and oscillations, different frequencies in different brain areas. And it's, it's wild once you start actually spending hours and hours watching people breathe. We breathe wildly differently given the same cues in the same environment. And so breath in relation to emotions. If you can bring yourself into a moment of joy where you might have been laughing really hard and just think about what, what would that the physical experience be in specifically in your torso and then maybe in your breath. And then I can also think about deep grief and sobbing. And it's actually kind of a similar Pulsation that happens. So if we, if we can for the moment just cut our, our reasoning off, cut off the, the head, basically, in the brain.

And the easiest sense.

Making sense. Yes, exactly. Making sense of like the frequency and like what I'm actually feeling in this moment. But the physicality and the mechanisms of our breathing patterns and breath mechanics are for those two are very similar. And it tends to happen that we have those mirrors in what seem to be completely contrasting emotional states. So our breathing pattern and the mechanics of our breath are going to function in a specific way in relation to an emotion. So when I am in a deep state of grief, my muscles are going to be contracting probably fairly wildly and bordering into out of control and quite strong pulsations. So when we think about our patterns of breath that are subconscious because, and I'm imagining again, I'll probably be repeating some things here that John has already touched on, but that we breathe 23 to 26,000 times a day, including through the night, when we're very, very much not consciously attending to that, that we end up getting into habits of how our body breathes us when we're not paying attention. And this is going to be influenced by all of our life experience. Genetics will play some kind of role in it, but more so it's going to be our life experience through, specifically through ages 0 to 3 and then again up until age 10, where we're going through big, big changes in development and our body is learning how to actually interact with our environment. And our breath is one of the very first things that changes to create a shift so that our internal environment can find homeostasis based on what's outside of us and the stimuli that's coming in. So the way we breathe is going to change our physiology. I'm. I'm like trying to cover a month of a program. The way we breathe is going to change. We're, we're constantly in some kind of a. I like to call it a hormonal soup. Like inside of you. There's these fluctuating levels of hormones constantly. And our body, I mean, almost the definition of being alive is that we're constantly in flux and in motion trying to find homeostasis. The moment that you stop and like, find homeostasis and like, stop there, that's basically death is like there's no more striving to balance things anymore. So this desire we have for this really predictable, stable thing is life is about fluctuation, even like on a millisecond to millisecond basis. Our body's constantly making sure we're in the right temperature, making sure our heart rate's beating the right way, making sure our blood is flowing in the right way, making sure that our glucose levels are appropriate and a whole host of other molecules that are. That are going to be found in blood chemistry. And the way that we breathe influences those different levels. So we can find that depending on how someone breathes, it's going to shift their baseline for reactivity, essentially, and it's going to shift a baseline of which emotions are actually available for them to. Based on experiences, again, that they had and what was ingrained and patterned into them as, as children. This is conditioning that we received from the world, from our families, general life experiences that we would have had, that our body learns what is safe to go into and what is not safe. And this is not a logical safe. This is a. This is again, it's like from the head down. And again, why it's so important to actually have some kind of somatic therapy to work with the body. And that will come right into reflexes where experiences that we had. I also like to think of, like, not only physical reflexes where if I needed to protect myself and physically push something away or like pull myself to safety. There's also. Emotions are a huge part of our fight or flight system and specifically our voice. My ability to scream, that's probably. If I'm in danger, that is probably going to be the. Unless I'm underwater, that's probably going to be the very first thing that I do. As long as I can take a breath, I'm probably going to scream or make some kind of big sound either to scare something away or call, like call attention to get help. So if at some point along the way in my childhood, I learned that it wasn't safe to express myself. And this is not just in screaming or anger, but if it's not, if. If I was told. And so there's so many different ways we can be given the communication that it's actually not okay to be joyful even, or to be loud or to be expressive that we learn to not use our voice. This is a really interesting. To take it like, maybe a little bit more tangibly. I've been dealing with a healing foot. It's getting so much better. But I took a pretty nasty fall rock climbing right before I moved to Bali. And it's been over a year of recovery and it's been maddening and frustrating. But there was one day, maybe, maybe eight months into healing that I jogged from my front door to, to another door, the door of the villa, to, to answer the door. And mid jog I was like, I haven't been able to jog, like not anything else exciting, but just move a little bit faster than tentative walking for about eight months. And in that moment I realized my body had been operating with more hyper vigilance. And so it was not as easy to access joy and bliss and contentment and wonder and all these things, because on, on that subconscious level, from the head down in the cerebellum for sure, my body knew that if I had to run away from something, I literally couldn't. So it needed to be more aware at a subconscious level of everything that was coming into my system. In a similar way, if I can't express myself, if I can't use my voice at a high decibel, if I don't feel comfortable speaking loudly or screaming or shrieking with excitement at that deeper level, my body knows that that is not like I don't have that resource. And so therefore it needs to be a little more cautious, maybe a little bit more on edge, maybe a little bit closer to anxiety. What we experience as anxiety, which can then dip down into depression depending on what's happening. So, so completing a reflex is essentially whatever we've experienced in, through childhood, through our lives. Lives. And these can be things that happen well into into adulthood. If we were ever in a situation that our body perceived threatening, that shifted us into survival physiology, which can even be rejection, like social rejection, romantic rejection. Our body will interpret that in a survival physiology way. I can explain that if you haven't touched into that already in this program. Yeah, perfect. So. So if, if I'm in some survival physiology and I perceive that I can't actually do what I need to do, or if I literally couldn't complete a movement that might have kept me safe, that gets. Again, our running theory is it's going to be stored in the cerebellum, which is in charge of motor reflexes and keeping balance. And among. There are actually a host of other things that we're starting to discover in neuroscience that it may actually be involved in. Breathing is one of them for sure, but it essentially is going to get stored with a bit of a red flag which our amygdala helps us with to pay a little bit more attention to any of the stimuli that were present in that moment. And so it has this incomplete reflex that it didn't ever get to physically or express that essentially gets stuck, so to speak. So Our body gets stuck in this, like, oh, I never actually got to fully go through what would have brought me to safety. So when we can actually take ourselves back into a similar. Could go back to that hormonal soup. If we can take ourselves back to that similar physiological state of hormone levels, which we can access through breathing to mimic some of those breath patterns, we can actually create changes in endocrine gland function, which are the multiple organs through the body that are secreting hormones. To find a way back to that similar state, to actually allow ourselves to go through that and then express through our voice or through some kind of movement or shaking that actually lets our body have the experience that I'm back in that same time and place, in that same internal environment. I've actually done the thing that I wanted to do to find safety. And there's a huge drop in a sense of relief that because when I visualize something, my system doesn't have the understanding that it's not actually what's happening right now. This is one of the wonders and mysteries of our visual cortex is it can't really tell the difference between what we're visualizing and what's actually happening. To a certain extent, of course, there's lots of helpful cues with tactile information. But yeah, this is essentially a way that we can actually go back and somehow complete that reflex to a space where our system is no longer like staying on edge, watching for what it needs to do because it had. We give it an experience of being able to actually complete the reflex, to have some kind of agency and. And resource itself through whatever the experience was. I'm going to pause there because I could keep going, but I want.

That was awesome. That was great. That was very well articulated. So a couple of things come to mind and then I think we'll jump into questions from the group. But one piece that feels like it's so key for a lot of this work is the psychological safety and the perceived embodied sense of safety. And so I'm wondering, obviously it's a big part of this work if you're working with a therapist or with a breath worker. But what are some ways in which, let's say someone listening is experiencing some degree of hyper vigilance at certain points or anxiety, what are some of the ways that we can actually help ourselves to feel more safe in an environment in our own bodies, besides, let's say, engaging with a therapist or practitioner to complete these reflexes?

Thank you. So these are ones. And I really actually am in this moment realizing how Much I enjoy coming into this program because I know it, I have a sense of what you will have touched on already and how it's been like already set the foundation. So the significance and importance of when it's these practices of having consistency with them to consistently give our system the experience and we think about as well neuroplasticity and that our bodies are designed to adapt to our experience. So the more that I lift a weight in this way, the more the muscles that are involved with lifting that weight are going to grow so that it can become easier. Our bodies really like to conserve energy as much as possible. So, so the, the practices that, that I would recommend to, to give our bodies and it's not necessarily going to like we're not necessarily going to have a feeling experience that I feel safe, but it's like, trust me, I guess, and whatever knowledge that I have that, that this is actually a way to give the information and stimuli to our bodies that will help to, to show it that it's safe. So one of them of course, is going to be breath. When we focus on slower paced breathing rhythms and especially when we can breathe all the way down to the pelvic floor and if not there, at least into the belly and starting our breath there, there are lots of parasympathetic nerves that come out of the spinal column in the root, in the sacral area of the spinal cord, and then as well up in the cervical area near the neck. So if we start our breath down there, we're already creating some stimulation in parasympathetic tone and then we breathe all the way up in, ideally all the way up into the throat. So if, if you notice in your own breath that it's not available to take that full deep breath, depending on the time of day, what's happening, a whole host of conditions. Breathing into the belly is the thing that I'd really focus on. But long, slow, rhythmic breathing for a minimum of 10 minutes, like as a daily practice a minimum of 10 minutes, I would highly recommend 20. And at the optimum it would be two times a day, 20 minutes each, like probably beginning and end of the day. And either box breathing is great, that can create a little bit of discomfort. So if you're really aiming to create a baseline of safety, I would encourage cadence breathing, which is simply through the nose. Long, slow inhale, long slow exhale, five counts each. And it kind of like it ends up being connected. You're not really wanting to pause at the top or bottom, but five slow counts in five slow counts out for like 10 to 20 minutes straight. And you can do it with eyes open again, like resourcing and safety. So that's, that's one specific one connected to breathing and something you can practice and then actually bring these together. And it can also help to bring the mind into the present moment. Is that using. Using orienting? Have you gone through orienting already, Johnny?

It has, yeah. We've shared that briefly, yeah.

Cool. So I can explain kind of why it makes a difference. I mean, maybe you've done it.

No, for context we call it 3, 2, 1 in the program, but yeah.

Cool.

Is that the same thing that you're talking about?

Maybe. Can you tell me about that?

So like see, see three things, hear two sounds, feel one, feel one object.

Yeah, cool, cool. Yeah, so exactly. So orienting. And what I would do is I would stretch that out even more so you can set a timer. And this is something that, especially when you're starting it out, minimum of five minutes of practicing it and it can feel a bit like, what am I doing here? This is like doing nothing. But essentially like we want to get our bodies familiar with these practices to a point where we don't have to expend so much cognitive power to like really get ourselves to do it. And it becomes more habituated. So I would extend that out where you'd spend five minutes tuning into your senses. And I mean like depending on what feels good for you structure wise, you can start with like one minute timer. I'm going to focus on physical sensation. So what am I physically like, tactile feeling? I can feel my butt like right now I can feel my butt on the chair. I can feel my hair on my neck. I can feel my one foot on the ground, one foot on the chair. I can feel like the air moving past my skin. So more of like the sensory information that's coming in mostly through the skin and then. Yes, exactly. Also when we're doing visual things, I love to encourage people to look for like what, like even you can spend a minute. What are the different shapes that I see? And spend longer than feel. Like as soon as you feel like you want to move away from the shapes, stay with it about 10 more counts. Like just continue to stay with noticing that as a circle and that's what a circle looks like. And just attending you can attend to. I'm looking over at something in the room there. Sorry. But you can, you can spend some time attending to like where, where are the shadows and where is it lighter and what's the texture. So bringing in shape, texture and color and, and spending time just without moving your head at first, like just moving the eyes around because that limits trying to find something really different. But can I, you know, I've got a wooden wall in front of me. Can I just look at different sections of the grain in the wood? And then also audio is really beautiful. Something I love to do is, is to set a timer and start as close to me as possible. So currently my voice is going to be the loudest thing that I hear. And then I can maybe hear like when my hands are moving, I can hear the aircon in the background and just slowly moving outward to a point where I try to hear for like are there any birds that I can hear outside? Can I hear the traffic that's a little further away until it gets to a point where I'm listening to the space in between trying to find something new. And then you can also, I mean, yeah, you can do texture and smell or taste and smell. But these, when we extend these practices, if you think about going into fight or flight versus being in ventral vagal tone or even low tone dorsal, which is going to be those states after a big Thanksgiving or a Christmas dinner or a big meal with someone. When we get into that state of like, okay, I'm on the couch, I'm not moving, I'm so content, maybe I feel a little full. But those states and even those states that we're in like yoga nidra or heading into sleep, that's actually low tone dorsal. And it's really healthy. And it's, it's one of. If we go into children, you think about physical bonding. When a baby is still in its parents arms and is totally safe, that is low tone dorsal. And that is a way that we actually create connection and feel safety and resource safety. So if I am, if I am sending my body all of this specific and detailed information about the present moment and where I am, first of all, when we're looking, like when we're using visual cues, I'm literally seeing is there a threat to me in this room right now? And it's like, even if I'm not thinking that that is what my body's going to be picking up on of like, oh, okay, cool. There's actually nothing for me to be scared of in this. Ideally, if there is something threatening in the room, this is not the best time to practice that for extended periods of time. But when essentially the experience I'm giving my body is that I can focus my Cognitive energy and attention on the minutiae of what I'm feeling like being so attuned to the present moment that it sends a bottom up signal that I can't be in survivor physiology and fight or flight because these types of stimuli and paying attention to these sensations when there's a tiger in the room is gone. Like digestion is off. I'm not thinking, like bladder control is off. Like all of this, all of these things that don't matter to my survival are gone. So if we go to the flip side and come fully into like fully attending to the present moment and this is where explorations like meditations in present moment and vipassana type experiences, that's going to have a similar kind of effect where we're just bringing that tone down. Because if I'm attending to the present moment, it, it inherently means that there's nothing that's about to kill me because I, I can't. If there was something actually threatening me right now, I would be gone. Like there's, there's no way to attend to those things. So those are two. I would say the, that breathing practice and then practicing orienting to a point where I, I can, I mean in many people in the world, but I can now combine the two. So while I'm breathing, I can attend to. There's a. We can multitask to a point. We can task switch to a couple things with, with pretty good efficiency. And it can also help to quiet the mind. And it's almost like the more I'm focusing on the rhythm of my breathing, the sensation of my breathing, and then also maybe the feeling of my body touching the ground and maybe some sounds. The more stimuli I can give my system to be tuning into the present moment, the less opportunity it has to go off into thoughts that may trigger a survival physiology response.

Awesome.

Yeah, no, that's fantastic. And I love the idea of like, almost like stacking the practices in some way. And I find for myself the orienting can be good if, if my mind starts to wonder if I'm just in cadence breathing because it's kind of boring. It gives my mind something to do, which also can be super helpful and avoid rumination. Okay, amazing. Well, I'd love to open up the questions to the group. Christina and Pablo have shared a couple of questions in the chat, so maybe. Pablo, Pablo, do you want to start by sharing your question? Feel free to unmute yourself.

All right. Hello everyone. Satori. Thank you, Johnny. Thank you for these last 30 minutes. And I want to take a moment to briefly honor what's happening for me right now. And it's that I'm working through this anxiety of taking down copious notes whenever I'm receiving a teaching or whenever I'm watching a video. And I decided to simply just be with what's in front of me. So I'm working with that and I'm working with this other sense that I don't have enough time so that I need to be like rushing through things. And right now I can sense that like energy inside of me of like wanting more. And then on top of that, I'm working with speaking in front of people and speaking in front of a crowd.

So.

All that, all that's going on inside. Now the question that is alive for me is as I've been practicing interoception, I've noticed that there are emotions that are stemming from like these loopy thoughts that I have received insights as to where they come from, which are not genuine to me as my own experience, but rather some story that is still living in my body from the past. Now there are other emotions that I have identified as true and genuine. When for example, someone is crossing a boundary and I have this sense of anger, I know that that's not linked to any story of the past, but rather with what's going on in this moment. So for with all that context, my question is, have you come across any skills or any practices that can help one identify any emotions that are linked to certain beliefs and emotions that are linked to authentic true nature and how I can slowly start to give space for those beliefs to transform themselves and let go in order to have more space for genuine emotions to respond to what's happening in front of.

Thank you so much. That's a really beautiful, beautiful inquiry and I'd love to bring in the. I'm really, I really love that. The example that you shared of the authentic experience is one of like maybe a little bit of anger in setting a boundary where, where boundaries been crossed and actually need to power up a little bit and activate to. To be really clear. Because there can be this really easy and almost sinister underlying concept that like my, my, the experience that we're all aiming for to be in a regulated nervous system is to be calm and at peace and content and open, you know, ventral vagal all the time. And this is so. I know Johnny had asked this as well to clarify what is a regulated nervous system. And it's actually our ability to go into, to any and all emotion basically to access whatever it is that we need to resource ourselves. So. So I love, first of all, that that was the example you brought in. The other one here is recognizing that when. If we talk about. So I'll call this conditioning versus, like. Versus our authenticity. And truly actually who we are. And recognizing that when we start talking about, like, how can I tell the difference Experience, we're creating a split in. In my identity and in my experience. And that. That in one way, it can be really helpful to observe the conditioning and be able to hold it at a bit of a distance and also honoring that. That the experience you're having, let's say, like, in this moment, because of conditioning. Is not less valid or less true or less authentic because it's from conditioning. So really wanting to kind of, like, be able to bring those together in a way that any physical sensation that we then experience or. Or make sense of as an emotion has information for us. And when we can approach it in that way of. Of what's the information here? What is my body actually telling me rather than I. And I'm like, I'll speak for myself. Like, anytime I've witnessed and continue to witness reactions I have from conditioning, there can be judgment of, like, oh, I'm still dealing with that. Like, that's still present. And that. That, in and of itself, I would say, constricts our ability to actually become free from the conditioning. And something really important is. Is. Is honoring the time that it takes for our nervous system and our body to actually unlearn and unwind the conditioning. Yeah. Is to just release the pressure and. And to be able to be like, okay, this is here. And it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that it's not valid. It doesn't mean it's not actually true for you in this moment. Because when we have a physical response, which is. We have physical sensation related to emotion, it is true. It is authentic. It is what is happening in this moment. It doesn't mean it always has to be your experience, given the circumstance. And. But the more we can befriend these experiences in a sense of. Of not judging or being upset about them or wanting to push them away or, like, be able to. Because essentially, something I'm hearing in this question is. Is a potential subconscious interpretation of how can I know the difference and then push away whatever's not real. But if it's. If it's happening, it's real, and it's your system moving through something. And this is one of the pieces as well in Breathwork that. That we take People through is can we stay with ourselves in it all? Whether it's, whether it's reaction or response from conditioning or whether it feels like really aligned with our true nature. Does that, does that make sense? Does that land?

Okay, That's a lot. And it does resonate. And what is now coming through me after hearing to your response, thank you. Is that yes, everything is true. Everything is at the end of the day in my body. So regardless if it's coming from conditioning or if it's something that isn't responsive with my values, it is living in my body and it is the experience that I'm having now. Regarding the splitting of it. It is useful for me to distinguish if something is more in line of conditioning and if something is more in line with who I want to show up as today. That is useful. And a detail that I want to share is I've been actually very curious of embracing the stories and the conditioning to figure out where it's living in my body to see what reflexes want to be completed because they didn't have a chance to do so in the past. And I'm really grateful that my body is feeling enough trust for this to happen. And it's almost in a moment to moment basis that I'm having these experiences where a shoulder will just like pop up and then my neck will like go backwards. And I, I like gauge myself like, all right, I'm at a cafe, I'll body, please, please, like, how far are we going?

Be mindful.

Like, people will think like, all right, I guess he got a bad shoulder, that's fine. But inside I know that my body's finishing a reflex.

Yeah, thank you so much. And that's so, that's going to be so important. And this is something like a modality that I don't actually have specific contacts I can give you, but a modality that I trust is the Feldenkrais method where it creates more, even more awareness of how to actually follow the impulses of our body. And in an ideal world we would all be aware enough that when we saw someone in a cafe doing something, it's like, oh yeah, cool, they're just completing. Like, I would love for that to be the standard of like, that there would be space. Because this is, this is exactly the construct and the conditioning we receive is that you're not allowed to do that. You're not allowed to actually let your system move through what it needs to in that way. So I love hearing this and this like this is going to be actually like listening to your body and allowing that to move in, in. Even if it's in those small ways, even if it's a micro movement because you're like shoved in the elevator or in a public space that doesn't feel comfortable to any, any piece of response you can give your body so it has an experience that you are listening, will help, will help for it to bring everything down, like, to drop the tone and to start like letting go and letting go and letting go of the conditioning. So, yeah, I think like, you're doing it. You're definitely doing it.

That's beautiful.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you for your reflection. And the last comment I'll end with is instead of rejecting my conditioning, I'm actually becoming very curious about it. And because of this relationship of embrace instead of rejection, I'm noticing that there's like this spontaneous transformation taking place where my awareness, which in itself is curative, is recognizing. Oh, holding on to these stories isn't serving us any longer because we're taking the time to look at them really closely. So it's in, everybody's, in my system's best interest to simply let them go, to allow space for more healthier patterns to live in the system.

Thank you so much. And this just one more. This lands in a way that when we reject or try to push away or avoid, there's a little bit of survival physiology in that. So then I'm. I was just contemplating why, because I've known this for a long time, that acceptance is so powerful, like actually accepting and approaching with curiosity rather than trying to just get it away and push or like, there's a little bit of fear in that of like, I don't want to go there, I don't want that to be here anymore. And that, that, that sets off survival physiology and that sends a cue that we need to hold on to this because it's going to help us survive because of the relationship there. So. Exactly. Yeah. Continuing to accept, to approach with curiosity and to allow it to be there. And really the deeper piece there is that we are practicing trusting that our body knows how to move through it, rather than us doing the thing, we're allowing the like, okay, you're here again. And I'm curious what's here. And I'm gonna allow my body through whatever freaking we stuff it wants to do to complete. Yeah. Trusting the wisdom that's there. You're so welcome.

Thank you.

Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Pablo. Christina, would you like to ask your question in the chat in the space.

Yeah.

Hi, Satori. Thank you so much for joining us today. So one of the things that is very much coming online for me is the shift of all of these wonderful techniques, this newfound somatic intelligence that we've been building for ourselves in this course. It's been a gift to have, you know, quite a tremendous diversity of other people who are likewise similarly curious about developing this intelligence. But then, you know, as I think about shift, we're coming to the close on this course, and I'm thinking about shifting into, you know, the sort of day to day and making this really part of my everyday routine. And I find that. And maybe other people can relate to this, that I am sort of that, like, therapist amongst friends or family. I'm that person that people just sort of want to unveil, you know, and be vulnerable to, which I love. But I'm not a trained psychologist or psychiatrist or, you know, any kind of therapist. And so as I think about, you know, embracing this role that's sort of placed upon me, someone who, you know, has really taken the time and will continue to do so, to build up this intelligence how I can, you know, without necessarily applying. We've done this in this course. It's like Feynman technique, you know, where we learn by teaching others. And that's been a joy. But I don't always get to apply that in my sort of like. Like quotidian experiences with people, you know, or just a normal conversation. And so for me, I'm really interested in, you know, being really thoughtful and developing sort of a series of techniques in anticipation of those more mundane everyday moments, how I can really sort of show up and notice what state others are in. And especially given that most people I tend to interact with are not so fluent in this vocabulary, how I could really show up for them without necessarily being a therapist or a coach or a teller of things. I want to show up as someone who acts upon and embodies the intelligence.

So.

So I'm. I'm really curious if you have some insights to share, you know, on. On that sort of the. The teaching through presence or how we can show up and notice for others what that might look like.

Thank you. And I think you already answered your question in a way from. What I'm going to say is that as you were speaking, the word that just kept or the experience I kept having was.

Was.

Was presence. And it can feel so, like, too simple sometimes, but to. To offer true presence to someone when they're in something. Again, if we think about. If I am reacting in a like pushing away or trying to control kind of thing of this conditioning that I'm experiencing that we were just talking about. It's the same thing that comes up when, when we listen to someone versus try to solve what's going on or offer advice or try to change or fix or like hold or contain or do something about their situation. We are going to be in some kind of activation when, when we are offering that. So the, I would say the strongest thing we can do aside from bringing people into the understanding especially of, of like taking long, slow, deep breaths in the midst of an experience and also orienting like unless there's an opportunity to invite that because we're really limited in creating an internal state shift in somebody else. Like I. And this is, you know, this is the interesting. One of the many interesting experiences in of being human is that there is an end to my influence on your system where I can't, I can't breathe and change it for you. It actually has to be the other person. However, if we go into evolutionary neuroscience and biology when, when we are in tribe, when we are with a family group, with our unit, with the other person that's there for us that we're maybe opening up to and feeling vulnerable with if their system goes into a survival state subconsciously, my system is also like, oh, what do I need to be paying attention to? Like it, it, it's going to ramp it up. And this, you know, you think like even thinking about monkeys, if one of them is on the outskirts and alerts to something, it ripples through the entire population for a reason. So as much as we can stay present, like maybe it's listening and orienting. Like maybe as I'm listening, I'm also orienting my body to maintain almost like ventral, maybe veering into low tone dorsal to be able to communicate on a physiological level to the other system that it's okay, okay, that, that, that we can bring things down in, in survival physiology metrics would like truly that is what I find to be one of the most powerful things we can do to affect the inner physiology of someone else. And then, and then I, I like really want to encourage just maintaining that curiosity of what if you have a sense that someone's going into a dorsal shutdown or going into high activation or in ventral starting to like parse out. What are the things you're observing? Like, what are the tangible things you could write down and hand to me to be like, this is what I saw. What state do you think they were in for you to get more clear. Like, if this is it sounds like there was a little bit of a curiosity there. Like, how can I tell what state they're in is to actually like, spend time writing down what did I observe, what did I hear, what did I notice, what was happening in their face. That will help to compound the way that your brain will make sense of things subconsciously. Where you'll be able to. To know with a like, faster intuitive hit is what it'll feel like. But actually it's because you're processing millions of bytes of information per second. And so the more we can categorize them consciously, it will. That will shuffle into the subconscious. Does that feel like that answers your.

It definitely does. But I, I do want to just pick up on one thing that you said because I want to make sure that I. I understand it correctly, which is this idea of voluntarily shifting, you said, I think, into like a bit of dorsal. If, for example, you know, I'm encountering someone who is perhaps, let's say in a. In a more primary sympathetic.

That. Because we.

Because we've sort of. I, you know, my own way, I think about dorsal as a place of like, you know, well, I want to be there as little as possible. And I'm more emphasizing, you know, the getting out of. Rather than moving into. And so, so it's a bit new for me to think about, you know, actually leveraging dorsal, that going into dorsal as, you know, a way of sort of being in balance within a situation. Of course, in this case, it's sort of a communal situation.

So.

So I'm curious if I'm hearing correctly on that point.

Yeah, so there is. Thank you so much. There is a little bit of a nuance with dorsal where if I. I'm imagining. Johnny, you've talked about window of tolerance. Like, of course. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Cool. So. So, you know, let's like, if this is a graph and this is. This is my window of tolerance. This is fight flight reactivity, like full on stress mode. And below here is going like dropping into dorsal and freeze. And like that comes with depression, apathy. Um, so within this window of tolerance, most of it's going to be ventral vagal, which. Which also involves sympathetic tone. It's not just parasympathetic, it's a combination. It's the gas and the brake. And then I would, I would say like, I would put a kind of a. A fine line here that there's a difference between high tone dorsal, where it's like firing to A point where I'm literally frozen and low tone dorsal. So there's going to be a bit of a blend. So it's not just. It's. It's not that like you're either in ventral or you're in sympathetic or you're in dorsal. It's. It's, you know, it's the gas and break thing. It's again, this hormonal soup situation. So. So it's low tone dorsal is actually even what I would say we would tap into when we are deeply present in the moment. Like in deep. In meditation. I would say that that's low tone dorsal. Deep in yoga Nidra. That's low tone dorsal. So it's. It's a state of safety and resourcing, and there's stillness and presence and groundedness, and it's. That also facilitates connection. And this is again, I'm not going to sit, like, dropping into and resourcing. Low tone dorsal as a way to support someone is not always going to be appropriate. Like, it really is going to depend. Like, if. If there is some physical accident and they're in stress and you meet them with this, like, oh, okay. Like, no, like, we need to call these people. We need to get like, these things done. So sometimes we do need to meet with activation. And then the, you know, the. The post process of that would then be finding a way back down the ladder, moving through whatever's there. But that, I mean, that's a whole other, like, properly therapeutic scenario. So it is going to depend, but I would say, in what you shared of if people are coming to you with. In conversation with things that are moving for them with vulnerable pieces, that in those types of conversations, it's very likely that an appropriate thing to do is be ventral heading into low tone dorsal, which is essentially just like, like full presence and. And bringing your body, like shifting it further away from activation to also be able to help support their system through co regulation.

It's really. It's a really wonderful way that you phrased it. It's very helpful. Thank you.

Cool.

You're welcome.

Thank you for the question, Christina. And something that a mentor of mine said, that a phrase that stuck with me is holding space without holding, which I think is another way of articulating what Satori just shared. I think sometimes there's a temptation to just like, be in someone's experience, that we're activating ourselves, but that always stuck with me. Satori, do you have time for one more question?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can do one more. Yeah, okay.

Awesome.

Ronan, if you want to unmute yourself.

Hey, so I've got to speak quietly because I'm in a small apartment with people who are asleep. Can you still hear me?

Yeah.

Cool. Yeah. So I'm not quite sure how to word the question, but, you know, you were talking about like, ideally 20 minutes a day of slow breathing, and I'm just thinking in terms of like, all the other practices you could do in a morning routine, like, like meditation and yoga, blah, blah, all these things that are all competing for your maximum wellness or whatever. Obviously that's not the ideal way to think about it, but. Yeah, and I know it's not like, about what, what can I get out of it necessarily, but I guess, yeah, what could I get out? Like, why, why do that? Why spend, say, 40 minutes a day doing that? And what, what are you either aiming for or what could you expect? And how could you keep motivated if nothing's happening in a month or something? Thank you.

And this is specific to the, the breath that I suggested, like the breath practice?

Yeah, I guess that's what I was taking away as something I might implement.

Yeah, yeah, totally. So I would. One of the pieces I heard you say is like, you know, when there's meditation, yoga, like all these other things that could be especially incorporated in a morning routine, it sounds like that for me, this type of breath practice and, and eventually in combination with orienting is a meditative practice. So it, it's like, it's. It's just a different focus, but it is a form of meditation and what you will be impacting, especially if you're able to do, and I don't want to add stress to try to fit everything in, but if you're able to do twice a day for 20 minutes each, so a total of 40 and probably bookending the day that has been shown in a few studies to actually help to shift heart rate variability, to improve it. So it raises the actual number, the data point of heart rate variability, which is tied to our resilience for. To our ability to adapt to a situation and access. Access activation or relaxation in an appropriate manner, depending on the state that we're in. And one of the things that I would encourage is maybe, maybe doing this like, you know, I'm start with a week, but then maybe maybe this becomes your meditation. Like this is. This is what you do for meditation for the next two months once and, and like, not that it has to be the only thing you do or you have to do that and then different type of meditation and then yoga, and then, you know, eight hours later, you're done your morning routine. I have a problem with that for sure. There's so many options available, but just that focusing on that type of breathing, what I notice is the days that I practice it for, like, the end, typically, like, the longer I end up practicing in a day, the more I notice throughout the day that, like, oh, my body's just naturally breathing that way without me thinking about it, because it's almost.