👨‍🏫 Guest Masterclass: Tools for Nervous System Regulation + Emotional Expression w/ Satori Clarke

I think quite a few, quite a few of us are still in asleep in Europe. And so this looks like it'll be quite a nice, small, intimate group, which will be really great. Okay, well, welcome, Satori, it is lovely to have you back. You are our only returning guest expert back by popular demand. Everyone loved your. Your previous session so much. So go. Welcome back.

Yeah, thank you.

For the people who haven't heard of you, would you like to give a brief introduction as to how you got into the work that you're doing today and a little bit about what that is with breath lab barley and, and the things that you're involved in?

Yeah, definitely. So I am, I am a native Canadian and I kind of, in a way, in my experience, kind of fell into the world of neuroscience and neuropsychology. It started years ago, over 10 years ago. I studied nutrition and I worked with clients. And the thing that blew my mind was the connection between our microbiome and our mood and our mental health. And then of course, we look at the enteric nervous system, which has now been deemed our second brain, that is in and around the gut. And I got really curious about psychology. I did quite a bit of work with youth in my community and witnessed it specifically with younger girls and witnessed at like before the age of 10, being put on and off of different pharmaceuticals to manage mental health symptoms. And then watching all the side effects and how ineffective it was. And it just really like hurt me that that's the state of the world is that's what we do is just prescribe some pills. So, yeah, I ended up going into an incredible program university in Squamish bc, where we got to actually ask a question rather than select a major. And I ended up following that Curiosity like, just landed me right in neuroscience where essentially studying cognitive psychology, there's so many variables it comes to assessing humans and their behavior and how our thinking works. And neuroscience just has a little bit more objective data that we can actually look at what's happening. So that got me excited. And along the way, I ended up experiencing some one on one breath work with Edward Dangerfield, who Johnny also trained with here in Bali and had these just incredible experiences and it really shifted all of these values and virtues and potentially like a lot of the things that you guys have all been diving into in this program, I got really clear on who I wanted to be and how I wanted to show up, but my reactions were still like, I. There was a dissonance between the two. And through breathwork, I noticed that My reactions actually started changing from the bottom up and it was, it was such an incredible shift into embodiment. And so then I wrote a thesis on that, actually just a pilot investigation to see if other people were experiencing similar things and looked at the literature surrounding it, the neuroscience literature. I could. And yeah, and then I got invited over by Edward. He moved here with his family and then invited me over to be the head of research. And we now have a lab and we have a couple of, well, a bunch of EEG equipment. So we're actually starting to look at the correlation of brain function before and after breath work and getting more and more into actually measuring it during breath work. Um, and yeah, and now I'm completing my master's in the psychology and neuroscience and mental health through King's College London. So overall, just a very big nerd. That's a lot of how Johnny and I first connected. I was just getting extra nerdy about everything.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. And whilst we might not spend too much time on this, what are some of the hypotheses that you're researching with. With these fancy brain scanners? Like what are some theses that you and you and Ed would have.

Yeah, the one that came out of my original thesis is a curiosity of whether we are actually able to shift and we'll. We can get into the HPA axis, but whether we're able to actually shift reactivity in the brain to stressors and that. Like, if that actually can come down a few notches so that we're not operating a hyper vigilance, increasing the space.

Between stimulus and response, basically like increasing that.

Yeah, and just. And having essentially having the amygdala not flag so big on what's happening. And. Yeah, and I don't know how we're going to necessarily be able to see that with eeg. We're coming across. I mean, it's a frontier of research. No one's done it before. We're coming across so many technical difficulties. But yeah, one of the things is actually that we have started to find preliminary, so not quite enough evidence to say that it's for sure happening, but we're seeing a shift in something called theta alpha, which is something that is popularly used to train in people to actually get them to shift out of hypervigilance, out of anxiety or anxious tendencies. And that's happening in. In multiple breath sessions that we've been able to measure.

Amazing, amazing. Well, before we jumped on, I kind of did a scan of the topics that we hit in the previous conversation, which for you guys listening is, it's in the live replays archive. And you can kind of go back and listen to that conversation we had. We talked about how breath is linked to our emotions, how to cultivate a sense of embodied safety, identifying authentic versus conditioned emotions and how to best support others. And it was a really awesome conversation. And so we have like 45 or 50, 50 minutes or so here. There's a few topics I'd love to hit. And then for you guys here, if you want to share in the chat, any questions that you have like either as we're talking or questions that you've brought with you and then I think we'll just open this up into a kind of like free flowing Q and A session.

Yeah, love it.

So some of the topics that I'd love to at least briefly speak to the HPA access you already mentioned, just kind of from a theoretical perspective, how that's tied to the endocrine system and then from a kind of practical perspective steps towards living towards a life of greater regulation, kind of whatever that means to you. And there've been a number of questions from the community relating to how to work skillfully with the dorsal freeze state. So maybe we could kind of speak to that as well. And then I think let's, let's open it up as well. So let's, let's start with a super nerdy theoretical but also very useful knowledge around the HPA axis. What is it, why is it useful to know about. Over to you.

Yeah, cool. So HPA axis is hypothalamic, pituitary, adrenal axis. So it's this line of communication that happens and it's there. I mean there's a few theories around emotions. There's one called the James Lang theory. I don't know if you've touched on this, but that essentially the theory is that we actually get our emotions are stimulated from our body's response and it's our brain just making sense out of what's happening physiologically down there. So, so this also comes into the, the HPA where the adrenals are going to be like the first thing that are going to respond. Probably even before we become aware of what's happening. We, which is this really like, it's just, I mean, I think it's a very fascinating thing to consider that our body can actually respond to the environment significantly faster than we can process mentally or even just in like subconscious awareness. So the adrenals will send a signal up through the hypothalamus which the thalamus and hypothalamus are involved in processing. Like, that's kind of where. Oh, what's the word? Uh, if, like in. In old times when you had someone on the switchboards to. To connect everyone, it's essentially like that's. That's one of the main. The main metaphors that we're given in neuroscience is that this is the one where all the information comes in and then it's redirected to, like, which other part of the brain it actually needs to go to. Yep. And incredibly fast, of course. And. And so there's going to be a signal sent there and then. And then you set off this cascade of the whole brain starting to try to make sense of what information is coming in. And do I really need to panic in this moment? Or, like, what's. What is the stimulus actually being presented? So, yeah, the piece here going into the. The endocrine system is. It's a. Have you talked about this at all, Johnny?

Only very briefly. So essentially. No.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

So it's a. It's a whole set of glands that, like, starts at coccygeal body, which is right in front of the tailbone. So at the very base of your torso, and there's a series of glands that comes all the way up and into the pituitary and pineal gland. And these are going to respond by shifting blood chemistry, and they secrete hormones to a variety of different areas. And that shift is going to happen really fast. And then essentially, and the adrenals are a part of it, and they're gonna secrete adrenaline and cortisol, and those signals are gonna go into the brain. And then as the brain turns on to start trying to process, it's essentially gonna check, like, what's the blood chemistry right now? What are the hormones going on? What are the things that are happening to be able to assess what. What action do I take? Do I fight? Do I run? Do I freeze? Do I. Can I actually just chill out and lay down? So it's. It's a really interesting piece where as much as we can train the brain and, you know, even with talk therapy or different cognitive practices, if we're not actually working with the body, then. Then we're only going to have to force ourselves to override whatever's happening in the body. We're going to have to get the brain to be strong enough to look at what's happening and try to calm things down from the top, rather than being. Being able to actually shift Things from the bottom up. And I can talk about a little bit of completing reflexes if that.

Yeah, that would be great. Yeah, we haven't really touched on that, this cohort. And I think it's a really important piece to bring in.

Cool. Yeah. Yeah. So there is a concept of completing reflexes of the body. One of my favorite metaphors, I guess, to think about that is because we're probably at this point all very used to this is if we have our phone and we have like 20 apps running in the background and the phone is slowing down, it's because it's trying to process all of the information in all these apps. Similarly, when I'm writing my research papers, I have like a hundred tabs open on my web browser and the whole, like my whole computer slows down and it's very challenging for me to choose which ones to close. But essentially that is. That's a similar concept in completing a reflex or completing a stress cycle or trauma cycle, is that we're able to actually go in and create some level of completion that the body can actually close that tab and not be directing any resources to needing to complete it or needing to process it. And the way that this looks is when. When I end up reacting to something in a disproportionate way, so it's not an appropriate reaction to the stimulus, it's triggered. This is a very popular thing now. It's triggered something deeper in me. And it's likely because that is something that's been running in the background that never really got addressed or I didn't actually get to feel that fully. And there's a couple of different ways that we work with this, specifically with. With breath work and FBR there. And lots of body work modalities can work with physical reflexes. Where I've facilitated a few people who've had rock climbing accidents. And it's. It's been really fascinating to see, like their body go through almost the motions that they would have needed to be able to stay safe or to be able to not have taken that fall. And so there's. There's physical reflexes like that. And there's also what I will say we'll call emotional reflexes or emotional responses that if we suppress and then repress and never go back and let our body move through it, it's almost like the system gets stuck in the middle of it and can't make sense that it's actually completed. So if our system shifts into a physiological state, or I like to call it a hormonal soup that our endocrine system ends up pumping out. If we end up in a similar flavor of soup within our body, then that is essentially also going to trigger the body be like, hey, I've. I know this. And this is where we might react. Yeah. And this is where I might react to something that seemingly has nothing to do with the past experience. But because of the physiology, because of the breath pattern, because of a whole bunch of different sensory cues, my system is remembering, hey, this is kind of similar. I need to panic. Yeah. So, so one of the pieces to, to move, I'll just move right into like.

Well, just, just to add something to that. I think, I think it's such a powerful idea and in some ways it's like it's an entire reframe or adds more specificity to the talk around trauma, which is now, you know, very popular to talk about on Instagram and all these things. And from what you just said, like, like when that reminder comes through, it's almost like a gift because it's like an opportunity for your, for your brain and body to close the tab to kind of use the metaphor that you just had. It's like this tab that's been running since maybe we were like three years old is now coming back up. It's like, close me, close me. This is a chance to complete this reflex. And there's also more freedom kind of on the other side of that and more agency too.

Yeah. And thank you. That's such a beautiful way that I've begun to reframe those experiences over the past few years is exactly that of like, oh, this is coming up and now I get to feel it and my system gets to actually shift its relationship to that experience. And I think that in the world of self improvement or healing or self development, it's, it can become really sticky when we're expecting that we can become this ideal version of ourselves versus like we're always actually going to be a human. Like we always carry these pieces. And I think the big, the big shift comes and this is related to how do we actually become more regulated on a day to day and over the course of our lives is shifting. It's all about shifting my relationship to the emotions and to the physical experiences that I have, shifting my relationship to the thoughts that go through my mind. This is where certain meditation practices can be really beautiful to develop, just witnessing rather than like running into it. And, and it can often happen that those thoughts and feelings become my identity in that moment. And all of a Sudden I become this weak person or I become whatever the thoughts are. And so yeah, if we, if we can actually relate to these experiences of being triggered or having big reaction with that compassionate like, okay, something, something's moving and maybe I don't actually have a clear memory, but just allowing it and bringing, and even like bringing on some, some physical touch to give your body that sensory feedback can help to contain the experience in a way that my body is actually able to process that. Oh, it's safe to feel this.

Yeah.

And then, and so this is where our relationship with, with it becomes really important and acceptance becomes so, so significant. Is if, if I'm actually approaching it with acceptance and welcoming of whatever's there, then my amygdala is not also firing because I'm trying to resist and get it away. And this isn't good and it's not okay. So you have that hormonal soup physiology and then you add this, this reaction in our brain and the amygdala being like, oh, this is, this is bad, this is negative, I shouldn't be here. Then that's just going to add to the hormone soup and you're just going to like escalate further and then probably push it further and then you just get more reactivity as time goes on.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. There's a phrase which I think I probably first heard it from, from you and Ed, but it's this idea of trusting the wisdom of the body or trusting the wisdom of the nervous system. And that's been such a powerful almost like like mantra when I found myself in these situations where it's like, like the body actually knows what it's doing. I don't need to consciously control and do something to feel. It's just like really more getting out of the way. And yes, I've, I've had many one on one sessions with Satori in Bali and my body did some crazy things. Like she, she will, she'll tell you. Like, it would just be flailing around like, like the full spectrum of emotions from like anger to sadness and grief and all these things would just come through and they would just, it was like these, these like tabs closing, just like completing, completing, completing, completing, completing. And it's at a certain point it's just incredible to witness and just like, wow, all of this was kind of stored somewhere in my body and now it's kind of coming to the surface.

Yeah, yeah, it's. And I mean it's a huge one to, to acknowledge that moving through Some of those deeper layers. It's so key to have a safe environment and almost definitely to have someone with you either witnessing, supporting like in some way. And it really is shifting, shifting from like the culture that we're in and how emotions are often shamed or put down or judged as weak or worse than, than just being able to like be logical and functional and keep going. So it's really that inner work piece of how do I relate to my own emotions? And then, and then this other layer of can I step back and just like witness my body and my, my emotions and my whole system moving? Something that I don't necessarily need to understand. That's been a big one for me to let go of, like not needing to intellectualize. Oh yeah. And then it can become a really beautiful experience of witnessing all of the energy that is present and, and moving through and allowing the expression is, is huge to allow those to complete.

Yeah, beautiful. So I think where I want to take this next, let's say someone here in the room or someone watching the recording, let's say they, they kind of identify with being in this dysregulated kind of bouncing between anxiousness, shut down, anxiousness, shut down. They're kind of in this ping pong and they're starting to build more interoception. They're starting to kind of notice the signs when this is about to happen, but they're still very much in that state. And maybe they have a job, maybe they have a kid. What are some practical ways to move in the direction of greater regulation, knowing that it can take a long time for that journey to occur. But what are some of the kind of signposts that you direct people to?

And are you thinking specifically of like things that we can do ourselves or you know, like in a daily practice?

I'd say the kind of the full spectrum. So things that we can do ourselves, different types of support that we can seek, kind of really whatever comes to mind and whatever will contribute to that kind of overall soup of regulation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I know, I know that this becomes tricky when, when it comes to like working full time. And if you had that in combination with kids and then just being an adult in life and all the things that we have to do, creating as much space in your, in your schedule, in your week as possible, where it's not booked back to back to back to back to back, because that's just adding more and more stimuli and more and more demand on our system. And I. And this is something that I continue to discover is how, how much rest is actually the rest that my body needs. And oftentimes I get frustrated because I want to study and I want to like, go adventure and go do things. And a lot of the time my body's like, yeah, how about we just rest? Like, how about we just like remove stimuli and, and just chill out? And I think, yeah, I know that can be a tricky one and I would definitely invite incrementally shifting. So if there's like, if you like block out like a minute of time in your day and maybe you do that across, across the day of just giving yourself a minute. And I always will recommend breathing. I'm very biased on this, but I mean, this is like, it taps right into our autonomic nervous system, creates shifts below cognition, like below what we can cognitively access much, much more rapidly. And, and it sounds so simple. And this is often why people don't really implement it. But it can make the world of a difference to your system to like, have an opportunity to re. Resource itself to continue to move through to the next thing. Definitely. So especially when it comes to the shutdowns, the tricky thing in there is that we, we, I mean, we want things so that we can be functional because we do need to function in daily life. And if we continue to interact with those shutdowns in a way of like, okay, how do I get myself into mobility again? Then we're essentially shutting down what, what's really there and what our body's saying. And for those types of things, like giving a little bit more spaciousness in the schedule, but then also actually seeing some kind of qualified practitioner to be able to move, move through and into those pieces is actually like you're releasing some of the allostatic load that's, and closing some of those tabs. Otherwise, if we just keep going and keep thinking, oh, I'm just going to manage this, it's, it's very likely just going to build and escalate. Whereas if we can actually take some time and dedicate some time and think of like, I'm investing in this so that I actually don't have to manage myself so much. And it definitely, I would prefer practitioners who are able to work with some kind of somatic therapy so it can be somatic experiencing with it, which I think more and more therapists are getting qualified and trained in, it's definitely, yeah, becoming very popular. EMDR also actually shows a lot of benefit and that does work, I mean, just with eye movement. But there is some, some Deeper shift in the system and then in the low brain that seems to be happening with that breath work. Of course I'm going to always and that's a big one.

Just to double click on those. I get a lot of questions. Specifically conscious connected breathing is generally the kind of breathwork frame or fbr which is facilitated breath repatterning which is what Satorian ed practice. But unfortunately there aren't that many trained practitioners around the world. They're kind of a rare, rare breed. And also NAAM and Hakomi I've heard very good things about as well.

Yeah, yeah, I would back those as well. And even Feldenkrais is, can be a. Yeah. Really, really epic practice. And it's really big to like a practitioner who knows how to work with the nervous system and work with movement and pause and actually it's essentially like retraining your system to learn how to listen deeply to the body and kind of get out of the way and allow the body to, to move through what's there. Yeah, there's, there's also like movement is a really big one as well. And like it's now being shown that five minutes of shaking just like allowing your body to literally just shake actually releases a lot of adrenaline that might be in the system. And that can be a really effective way to complete smaller stressors that we navigate through the day. And again it's one of those pieces where if I'm operating in any kind of interaction where I need to be able to function well and interact in a certain way because we have social and cultural norms that it's not an appropriate time for me to express what's there. Actually giving myself space and time to express what I felt, whether it's frustration or sadness or whatever came up is so, so important because otherwise it's like holding down a beach ball underwater and the like you can think about, you're pushing it down further and further and further. The more emotions there are that I haven't expressed and it's going to pop up in different ways and it might be in those ways of ping ponging up and down because my system can't actually like the energy it takes to hold that down. It, it doesn't actually have that long term and it's, it's really not taught that well to, to humans, to kids of, of having an emotion and actually finding a healthy expression. So we don't want to be like well I'm angry so I'm just going to express it however it comes out. But to be able to give ourselves an opportunity, usually by ourselves, potentially with someone witnessing to go and fully express and embody that. So that also this is another piece where my system, if it knows that it can express rage and anger, it knows that it can. That I can use my voice to express myself. There's actually something in there where I need. Yeah. For boundaries for sure. But in this, like if I truly need my fight or flight in a survival situation, like, it's actually about my survival. If my body has gone through the practice of actually using my body to express anger or using my voice, then it knows that it has those tools available. This was something that dawned on me a year and a half ago. I had a really annoying foot injury from a rock climbing incident and it took me a long time to recover. And I realized one day like six months into recovery, I jogged from my door to another spot and was like, whoa, that's the first time I've been able to move like that. And I recognized my body had been in more of a hyper vigilant state because it, it literally couldn't run away if it needed to. And that was like, I hadn't thought of that, but I had been experiencing like, I hadn't my. Yeah. Like my mood and my mental health was. I was feeling really challenged in it. And so it's similar in. If we don't practice actually expressing things fully and using our body to express and using our voice, then it's like it's one of those resources that my brain's like, I don't, can't like, do I actually have that as a resource? If I get into a situation which when we, when we do give the body an experience of having that resource, it's going to calm down more. Because if, if I don't have those resources, I'm going to be more hyper vigilant. I'm going to be assessing things and probably interpreting stimuli that are not, not really that like survival scary as potentially gonna impact my survival because I only have like, I can only like gently walk away because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings kind of thing. So. Yeah. So expression is really a big one.

Yeah, that's, that's such a big one. And just anecdotally speaking, I'd say maybe 60, 70% of the breathwork clients I've worked with as well have like a, a challenge with. Fully expressing anger has been one of the main blocks that we've kind of worked through and it's had the, this amazing like, ripple effect in the rest of their life from, like, from setting healthy boundaries, from having more energy, from feeling more empowered from all of these. All of these things. And it's. Yeah, it's really. It's. It's really quite incredible. And I think, like you say, because our society doesn't really have any kind of socially acceptable places for this very natural human expression. It's like, it's. It does just get pushed down and stories get built. Built up. For me, the story was like, I'm. I'm wrong or I might hurt people. For others, it's like, it makes me a bad person. For other people, it's like, I. Because I'm a girl or whatever the thing is.

Yeah, yeah, it's a big one. And it really, like, you kind of brought in boundaries earlier, and it really, like, anger is like a similar frequency or flavor of energy as setting a boundary. Like, there has to be a little bit of that power behind it to be like. Like, actually, no, this is. This is a firm no. And there's a little bit of that, like, you can just, like, take off right now, if you know what I mean. And that is going to impact the way that I can actually create more space for myself. So. So a shift in. And creating space in my schedule. So it requires boundaries. It essentially requires us to choose myself and my experience over pleasing someone else, over what I'm supposed to do, over what I should do, over spending an extra five minutes because someone xyz. And it's definitely a journey. It's not something that I would say, like, change your schedule tomorrow, but it's something to start really considering and maybe even looking at where can I fit in some space where I don't actually have to be on?

Yeah. Beautiful. So I have a bunch more questions, but I'm also curious from you guys in the room, is anything alive for you? Do you. Are there any. Any questions? Curiosities, Things you'd like to run by Satori. Feel free to unmute yourself. Yeah. Shirin?

Yeah. My question is about. You mentioned, like, nutrition in the gut microbiome. And I tend to get overwhelmed between, like, different protocols that are recommended. Like, I know Kelly Brogan has a strong one. And then a lot of people recommend keto, and I was wondering if you have a recommendation yourself on the best diet and mental health, or if that can even be generalized or if it's very specific to each person.

For that question. I. I highly do not recommend keto for women. Like, basically, full stop. I'm even tentative with intermittent fasting, partly from personal experience. And then, and then also just looking at, yeah. At the evidence that's out there and we actually require more carbohydrates because of our cycle and our hormones can go completely out of whack. Like just, I'll just share. I, I was on keto for five months, completely lost my cycle and it's taken me two years to get it back to being regular. So I would just stay very far away from that one. The, the things to bring it back to that I always worked with with nutrition clients is is it's really about actually attuning to my body and what is it actually asking for and wanting. And the kind of, the key things that I will come back to outside of any like specific dietary approach or, or protocol is hydration is huge. Eating whole foods based is a big one. And then, and then like just eating to satiation, not not needing to under eat and ideally not overeating regularly. And one of the things you can consider is, is with whole foods the main reason that that makes a difference and well, there's many reasons that makes a difference, but one of the things is that we want to maintain some level of balanced blood sugar. And if we're eating processed foods regularly, it's just our first of all, our body's mostly interacting with that as like, oh, this is a toxin that I need to get rid of. So it creates more work for the liver and that can back up all of our hormonal processes as well. Liver is also the seat of anger in a lot of, in Chinese medicine and in a lot of different approaches. So yeah, so the more that it gets backed up and has a lot of load, it can like increase some of that fire energy that can then turn into anxiety and take us into the up and down. So yeah, so keeping it really simple I think and finding like ensuring that you enjoy your food as well. Like this is, this is such a big one is like really enjoy the flavor and as much as you can be present with the food that you're eating and practicing some, some mindful eating habits. But I really like to keep it simple and it, it absolutely like beyond that it is very individual. And I like, if I work with nutrition clients, I have a huge like a full assessment that I go through to see specifically what's going on in their system and how we can create some shifts and changes. Yeah. And I mean protein is also really important for all humans and then especially making sure that we're getting iron as well as women. Yeah, that's what I would recommend.

Nice. Thank you for the question, Shereen. And I'd also add to that as well. I'm a big fan of getting blood work done. Whether it's. There's a company called Lifeforce in the States, I think there's a number of companies out there that can do it quite affordably. And that way you can kind of get a personalized approach of like, this is what my body's lacking. This is maybe what it's good. It's good for. And use that as also additional kind of information to build out the kind of eating protocol as well. Beautiful. Well, any other questions from you guys? Will, I know you wrote in the chat earlier, is anything. Anything coming to mind? If not, I have some other questions myself. Okay, great.

Thanks, Johnny. I'm running this for myself.

If anything does come to mind, just share in the chat or raise your hand. And we should definitely have time for more questions. So I think something that we haven't really touched on, which I think is a big piece of this is. Is like the journey of regulation as I understand it. Part of it is also building more ventral vagal tone. So it's like increasing the capacity to downshift naturally as opposed to relying on external substances or the kind of crutches and vices that people have. So what are some ways in which that ventral tone and that kind of innate capacity to downshift? Because you said, you know, take, like, make sure you have more spaciousness, take rest. But for some people, they might clear their entire calendar and just be lying in bed with like a racing heart, and it's like, well, that's fucking useless. Like, that's not resting. So for those people, like, how. How does one go about creating the. The kind of. The sense of embodied safety and. And then the ventral vagal tone, what kind of comes to mind?

Yeah, I think you. You have taught the process of orienting.

3, 2, 1. Yeah.

3, 2, 1. Yeah. So I would actually take that even further and do like to start creating more ventral vagal. And an experience of being safe is like five or ten minutes of that. So. So the difference there would be it. Not limiting it necessarily to 3, 2, 1, but spending a couple minutes on just scanning the environment and spending time naming objects, but also spending time with an object. So I'm looking over at the guitar in the corner and there's some light shining off of it from the window and actually spending time looking at the object and then doing that with a couple of different things and noticing textures, colors, shadows, and anything that you feel drawn to and maybe enjoy looking at. And then sounds. It would just be like listening from as close to me as possible to as far away and then trying to. I mean, when I'm in Bali, there's constant sounds shifting all the time. But then an attempt there is then can I listen to the space in between? Or here can I listen for any space in between the sound and just trying to like, extend as far as possible to listen? Yeah, as. As deeply and far away as I can. And then physically just like scan, a bit of a scan through the body. I guess it becomes a little bit more like yoga Nidra, but more about like feeling the wind on my skin right now, feeling the clothes and where they're making contact with my body, where my body is in connection with what's beneath me and spending like five to 10 minutes of this in a day. And this would be essentially an initial way to start increasing our ability to access a safe state within ourselves. Because what we're doing, even if you're going through that and like what, like what, what's happening, I'm not feeling any shift. What, what I'm essentially doing when I'm that slowed down to tuning into my environment in that slow, maybe boring kind of way is from the bottom up with like all of the afferent nerves that are coming from the body to the brain. I'm actually signaling to my system that I'm in a safe environment. If I had any kind of survival energy in me, like if there was something not safe, there was actually a threat in my environment. There is no way that I could just sit and look at my guitar for two minutes. Like there's so it's, it's giving and then, and then I'm literally looking at the room of like, oh, there's literally nothing in here. Like, so obviously you want to do this in a safe environment. You don't want to do this when there is a threat in the room. Do not sit down and do this if a cheetah walks in. But yeah, it's essentially actually creating that experience from outside in and then from the bottom up to. To be able to show our body that it is a safe environment. So that. And, and I would also recommend if like starting to build more ventral vagal. Access to ventral vagal. You would do is when I would Recommend Like a 5 to 10 minute practice a day just to get that like kind of buffered and starting to be ingrained. And then it becomes easier and easier. Like in those moments when I need it now to do a. Because my body already knows how to do it, my mind knows how to do it. It's essentially like I've built a muscle and now it's like it's easy to pick something, pick something up that's really heavy. So that's one that I highly recommend. There is. I actually do think that finding some form of expression or even also movement, like making sure that we're getting some form of movement daily. Because like with nervous system regulation we actually want dynamism. We want to be able to go in and out of things. We don't necessarily want to be ping ponging up and down. So if we, it's essentially we just want to start smoothing out those lines and then ideally it becomes like, you know, within a smaller window where we're not going to extremes, but you want to start by smoothing out those lines. And one of the things requires like we actually need to use whatever energy that's in our system that has asked us, us to activate for a variety of reasons. We want to actually use that energy and let it, let it move our body so that we can then come back down without potentially just being so high strung that we crash. So if we can actually utilize some of that energy, it's going to essentially trim how, how, how peaked we get, how high up we go to then be able to like more gently come back down. Which might be a bit counterintuitive because we're essentially aiming to find common safety, but we're going the other direction almost and, and you could find all sorts of movement that are in a safe environment and actually feel good for your body and that alongside of, of emotional expression in some form. And I can give some tools if that feels helpful. I don't know if you've done some of those. And, and I mean breathing, I feel bad coming back to that over and over again. It's huge. Like, it's so, so huge. So the other thing that we can cultivate, especially because breath is such a dynamic tool, we can, we can use breath that actually creates like actually really draws down parasympathetic or draws up parasympathetic. So our whole system kind of like slows down and we can use activating breath. The thing that's beautiful with breath is like we can really rapidly shift the activation of our autonomic nervous system. So whether it's stress or safety and, and while because I can do it in a safe environment, I can sit still, maybe close my eyes and stay with myself and ideally actually like Track what am I feeling? What's changing when I breathe like this? And maybe even, maybe it's even just starting at just feeling how it feels for breath to move in this way. Because what we want to do is we actually want, if, if our sympathetic tone is going to like increasing, we actually want ventral vagal tone to be able to follow it. So sympathetic tone and ventral vagal are not like it's, it's not a binary, it's not one or the other. Sympathetic is the gas and ventral vagal is the break. So we're. Because right now I'm actually, there's activation in my system because I'm, I'm, I'm cognitive, I'm talking, I'm, I mean I'm doing a lot of the speaking but I'm, you know, I'm tracking different faces and I'm engaged with what's happening. So there is activation in my system. Activation is so important for our lives. And my heart rate is calm. I'm not sweating profusely. Like I'm not panicking in any way. So there's also ventral vagal that is actually happening at the same time. It's part of social engagement is a little bit of both. And the, the strength of our ventral vagal is essentially like how much can ventral vagal follow sympathetic. And this is where we get that shift in, in no longer reacting to things but being able to respond better is if my ventral vagal can follow sympathetic where really charged and triggered and upset about something and I choose to take a breath. I'm really frustrated right now. I need a break or whatever might come out. So being able to access that is because ventral vagal is strong enough to be able to follow with and track along with sympathetic. So we want to be able to in a safe environment take ourselves into some kind of activation which we can do with breath and then we can downshift into, into more rest and then we also have. So currently there's, it's called cadence breathing which you can get assessed if you come over to Bali. I'll assess it in the lab. We can assess individually what the best rhythm is. But typically a 5 to 6 second count inhale and a 56 to 6 second count exhale. There's actually a fair bit of research now to show that that significantly improves hrv. Have you talked about hirp? Yeah. Yep.

Yep.

Yeah. So yeah, HRV is essentially, it's becoming a really important metric in, in literature and in research right now to be able to assess the ability for our autonomic nervous system to respond to what's there. It's our resilience to be able to activate and then also. And then also come back down and to be able to activate in an appropriate manner. So we're not. We're not like solo that when. If anything enters that we just like, skyrocket into huge activation, but we can have just a balance of sympathetic and ventral vagal.

Awesome. I was just reading the question from Brianna. Do you want to share this? You want to read it out?

Sure. Hi.

I'm sorry, I haven't watched the first one, so I'm kind of coming in late and I didn't want to ask something I was too basic that I can catch up on by watching. So in hearing you talk and just, you know, reading trauma Informed Care and some of that that's been coming, becoming more common and more conversational over the past years. You're so deep into the work and the research. I just wondered if there was something that you believe we're on the cusp of knowing and understanding meaning, you know, like the research is starting to point to something and we haven't like, landed on something. But what do you think in the next couple of years we're on the cusp of knowing our understanding that's going to catapult us into a new space in the psychosomatic. In the mind, body connection that. That your research kind of is grounded in.

Great question.

I love this question.

This is.

Thank you.

This is.

I'm just. This is so fun for me. That's beautiful. I don't think. I don't think I've ever had someone ask that. I think, like, I think research is catching up with people who have, like, for years, and probably especially philosophers before. Before the current age who are critiquing the way that our culture is actually not really designed for a functional human. And I think, like, that's something to really. To like, really take in is that the. The culture and society and all the demands on our systems is not designed for you to actually have proper nervous system regulation. So we're up against something pretty huge. And so like, just giving ourselves a lot of grace and compassion that I'm in something that's not designed for me to be regulated.

Well.

One of. I mean, one of the things that Edward and I have some curiosity about, although we're not going to push for immediately because there's so many things that come with it, is I would love to see shifts in policy change because the more evidence we have that our systems are actually really capable of healing themselves or coming back into regulation and not needing all of these exogenous substances to create balance and health is that there would be more access to. To multiple forms of bodywork for more people. Yeah, essentially. Like, the curiosity that I've been following is, is what. What is our system actually capable of if we actually follow the cues in our system, if we don't suppress the experience of being human? Like, yes, I get angry. I'm a human being and that's my power and that's my ability to protect and defend. Then what's on the other side of that? And I mean, I love this question of, like, what are we on the cusp of? I also am a little bit cynical that I'm not so sure, like, the greater society at large will be fully accepting and create a big shift. But I think especially in groups like this, we can create little pockets that are shifting the way that we interact with ourselves and with our emotions and therefore with other humans. That I think there will be an inevitable ripple effect where we're actually just able to express ourselves and then our bodies can find balance because they're actually operating as a human body is designed to. So, yeah, I mean, for me, it feels really clear that we're just seeing the cage that we're in, that it's like the society we're in is a cage. And so you put an animal in a cage and it can go a little bit crazy. And that's like, yeah, skyrocketing rates of. I mean, especially with COVID lockdowns. Like, that was just like. It just shrunk the cage so much more. And now we're seeing a huge flux in mental health diagnoses and issues and symptoms. I think the breakthrough piece and the one that I'm interested in is just an act of translation where I know in an embodied way and in my clients, I know that deeper work with the nervous system and just following what our bodies actually need creates a sense of liberation and more ease in our whole system and our mind, in our body, in our heart. And I think the breakthrough for me is to be able to translate that somehow into scientific data that then might actually be more accepted. And we, like, we can actually look at what's happening and prove or just create really good evidence for, like, this is actually a thing that our bodies are capable of. What's going to come from that? I'm not sure. I'm not sure how much it'll be shut down or embraced. But, yeah, I think just being Able to create more awareness that we actually don't need all of these external substances and that if we just actually tune into our system, that we can create a lot of shifts and change in our lives. Does that feel like it answers the curiosity? Yeah, absolutely.

And it, yeah, it seems very aligned to, you know, in lots of different fields. I know the question about diet, the idea of strict dieting and yo yo dieting, and I think just even the past couple of decades, like Michael Pollan and others who are talking about integrated eating systems and how it's not binary and it's about systems thinking. So I really think what you said echoes a lot of, of systems thinking in many pockets of our society. And maybe the cusp is that we start seeing our, you know, we diagnose systems rather than discrete pieces.

Yes.

Yeah, exactly. I loved what you said about that whole human thing.

So.

Yes. That your answer was extremely resonant.

Thank you. Cool. Yeah, beautiful.

Yeah, I love that question too. Okay, so I, I, there was a question or a thought from Norma around tools for emotional expression. And I just want to add to that as well, because this is something I'm curious about too. Like, I think if I hadn't discovered breathwork kind of in three breathwork Bali, I think I would have found it a lot more challenging to feel safe in the full spectrum of emotional expression, as I, as I do now. And so for people that don't, you know, have the luxury of spending three years in Bali kind of training with you guys, which would be great. What are some things that come to mind and to kind of give an example, a friend of mine does this thing that she calls the six positions. And there are like the six kind of core emotions that she uses, and there's like specific body positions for each one and ways in which she can use breath, sound and movement in order to kind of get into a state where the emotion kind of wants to come through naturally. And I think this will be really helpful for, you know, a lot of people that might not be able to afford like really high quality body work or somatic experiencing things like that. Like, what are some ways that people can begin to at least experimenting and, and like, start to increase that emotional fluidity for the, for themselves.

Yeah, thank you. I think you, you've already brought in like breath of fire practices like that kind of.

There was a bellows breath practice.

Yes. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, so, so any kind of, just to speak to like getting our system into that state and that. Yeah, I definitely breath work is, is really beneficial in the way that it allows an emergence and it kind of slows down the prefrontal cortex so that we're. We're less. There's less aversion to whatever arises. So it. And then we can get more familiar with those states and. And then it's just not as scary. So potentially using breath to modulate the current state of my system, if I know that I was experiencing anger and I successfully suppressed it for maybe in a very appropriate reason, and I come back to maybe I have five minutes set aside in my evening to use Breath of Fire to get a little bit more activation in my body. Maybe even like jumping up and down, just like actually going into that movement. And it's really like, it is going to end up being a choice at some point if we're not feeling the charge. I think. I think the really. I resonate with you when you share that anger is a big one that people don't express and are challenged to actually lean into. And so those are some of the tools. Like, there's a couple of tools there that I have found really, really helpful to be able to feel like it's allowed and it's okay and give my body the experience of going through it. So one of them, you can. You can scream into a pillow, of course, like, use a. Use a bolster and. And just to let your voice be used. If you have a pool or you're in the ocean often, you also can do that just underwater. It's a really good mute. Another one that I've actually been using recently is hand screaming. So it's really convenient because you don't actually need a pillow. I've done this. I haven't done this yet, but I have a friend who, if something comes up for her, like, in a restaurant setting where, like, you. You can't. She likes to get these things completed. So she'll go into the bathroom, do this. So, you know, pick and choose. Pick and choose the zones that you're in. But it's just so it's covering. I can't. I can't talk while it's on there. But like this. And you essentially create a little bit of, like, suction. And then you can, like, make big sound into that. And this is also, like, take it gradually. Like, if making a little sound is what feels available, just start where you're at. There's no. Like, you don't need to space yourself and go all the way to an extreme if that's really not available. Also taking into account how much time you Have. Because if you, if we start going into something bigger, it can, it can unlock and unleash other pieces that are there. So I mean if, if possible, if it's something that we're just doing with ourselves, I would say give yourself once a week to be able to have like, like a half an hour or a full hour even just as a buffer of like being willing to go into something just in case something arises and you actually just need to rest or have a big cry so that there's not the next thing you need to go into. If. Yeah, it's if there's something to go. To go into or something I need to be functional for later, it's way less likely that my system will really go into it. So. Yeah. So hand screaming and then you can also add shaking while you do it so you get the whole body engaged.

Like a tantrum. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, exactly. And that actually is a big one. Like chuck a tantrum. Literally lay down and chuck a tantrum. Like tune into your three year old, four year old self and just go like, like throw the hands there and like get the heels moving. Like get the legs kicking up and down and. And if it feels really silly at first, like just let it feel silly. That's okay. Like it's totally. And I think, I think once we get more familiar with those kinds of motions we can actually really get into what's there. But like there's a reason that kids, kids do that because there's a lot of energy moving in their system and their body actually knows how to get it out and they're not at a place where they're concerned that I'm in the middle of a grocery store and what are people going to think of me? Their concern is there's energy in my body and it needs to move. Like they don't. It's so, so being able to return a little bit back to our nature and what our body knows to do and just do it in a space that's safe. Another really good one is pillow beating, I guess we can call it. So you want to hit it with like this whole side of the arm. So rather than. I don't really like the punching a pillow because like. Oh yeah, yeah. Like it's. And it's just so much force on the wrist and, and can. I've actually found it more frustrating because I can't actually hit it properly. But this one I really enjoy myself. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I tend to use a bolster because it's a bit more firm or you can just do it right onto a mattress. But it's actually. I'm just trying to think if I can like, position myself to. So you essentially, you want to use the whole body and you. And you can be on your knees and bring the hands up and like all the way down. Using this whole side as. As. As where you're gonna bring force. I mean, be careful of like, whatever material you're going on to. You could definitely end up with like carpet burn or something. But being able to do that and you don't have to do it rapidly because that also. You want to be careful with your back. But being able to let the whole body engage, to actually let out some force is definitely going to mimic what we might do if we're in a fight. Like if. If we actually need to mobilize. And then you can also bring your voice into it and like, get really upset about things. Yeah. And I like, as uncomfortable as it can feel like starting wherever you can and what. Maybe it's just doing three of those, being like, oh, I really don't want to do this. This is so uncomfortable. And just do three and then walk away. Like, just. Just to start seeing that this is actually okay. And it's. It's really, really powerful to allow. Give our bodies and our minds the permission. Like, there's a lot to be angry about in this world. Let's also go there. Like, there's a lot of valid reasons to be frustrated and angry. So let's just express that I think.

Is a big one.

So those. Yeah, those. Those are some of the tools I've used the most. And then if. If we come into. Into. Into grief, one, doing our best to. To like presence with the heart and keep it as open as possible to what's moving and. Or maybe what's needed. This is a really, like a little bit of a hug. And like, this actually can make a huge difference. It's giving that feedback. Yeah. Crossing over and just like holding ourselves in that moment. And it's also like we get to hold our. Our inner child, like all the times we didn't get to express over our lives. It's just like being able to play both the witness in that and also allowing the big emotion to move and it just gives the body some feedback that like, it's. This is okay. So, yeah, those are a couple of tools that come to mind. If I think of more, I'll send it to you, Johnny, and you can.

Yeah, those are really great. And on the tangent piece, I think I remember the first time that I did this and I also felt like really silly. I was like, this is stupid. And I started laughing but then the laughter actually brought me into it and I was still in the process whilst in the laughter. And I think humor can be a really helpful tool because it also helps you kind of witness yourself in it as well. So if you find yourself thinking this is silly, just like, just laugh at yourself. And that's like. That's also a really good way to relax and increase safety and, and all these things.

Yeah, yeah. Laughter is actually a really good tool as well for, for stress release. So yeah, if that's what comes up, then great, embrace it. Yeah, it's a great way to go into. Was angry but actually I'm gonna laugh at that.

I just wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of life. Yeah. Amazing. Okay, well, thank you so much for your time story. Do you have any closing comments, remarks, things that you'd like to leave listeners with both people who are here and listening to the recording?

Yeah, I think from, from my own experience of. I just like. Yeah, I just really want to encourage that. Prioritizing these little practices and prioritizing our own self expression. Prioritizing the state of my system is like. It completely changes the way that I'm able to interact with life. And it's. I was just having this conversation with, with a client the other day about these. A few things that she's deemed as selfish and she's worried that people are going to judge her for when she actually allowed herself to go into it. There was so much that came from it that like even this vision of how she actually wants to show up in the world that like it's, it's. Yeah. The whole concept of actually filling my cup so that I can show up for people and it can look like, I mean if we have really full lives and if you have kids, like. Yeah, it can look like not having, like not having much of a social life as dictated by cultural standards and just actually ensuring that your needs are taken care of. Because we're in a system that does not support actually how to balance a human body. Yeah. From food industry to the demands that we have in. In paying bills and keeping up with everything. It's so, so important. It's a little bit of an act of rebellion to. To actually really deeply honor what my system needs, including expression, including spaciousness and rest. And I imagine that Johnny has offered many tools and practices that might seem really simple. And breath again. It's always like okay, just breathe about it. Like thank you. Sometimes we need to go into anger about it and that's also totally available and breath is such an important tool. So yeah, just my encouragement to really even give yourself a week or a couple weeks where I'm just going to commit to this and see what happens and, and taking it in the tangible bite size. Like realistically, can I give myself five minutes a day? Can I give myself 10 minutes a day, 20 minutes a day and just, yeah, the ripple of that into every other area of my life has been huge. So yeah, that's it.

Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for your time. Would you guys like to, to unmute and say thank you so much. Satori. And we will close with that.

Amazing.

Beautiful. Thank you for having me. Johnny.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

See you guys on Friday. Ciao.

Ciao.