🧑‍🏫 Overcoming Creative Dysregulation w/ Kelly Wilde Miller

Good morning. Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to our final guest masterclass session of this cohort and the final week as well. So I am very excited to introduce you guys to Kelly. Kelly is the author of Creative Dysregulation. She is a incredible creativity coach. She is running an embodied mastermind program called Prismara that maybe she'll mention at some point. And she's also my wife, so.

She.

Is downstairs right now. Kelly, it's great to have you here.

Thank you, Johnny. Hi everyone. So good to be in the NSM community again. I like to consider myself Johnny's chief co regulation partner. That is my first and primary role in life. That and chief regulation partner for our puppy, Lola, who might walk in the background at some point. Yeah, I'm really excited to be here. There's a lot of meta levels for this moment for me because this whole idea of creative dysregulation came into my world in the early stages of Johnny and I's partnership when he was first building nervous System mastery. And I saw the contrast in how I was approaching a creative project and how he was building and nsm. And it was through that contrast that I realized I am creatively dysregulated and Johnny is creatively regulated. And so actually being in a partnership with Johnny and learning through nsm, I've been able to, yeah, just come up with this really helpful framework and series of perspectives that can really empower and heal our relationship with creativity. So let's go ahead and just start with an immediate somatic drop in. If it feels comfortable and safe for you, you can close your eyes. If you prefer, you can turn your camera off. I'm just going to guide us through a quick little somatic check in when it comes to our creativity. So taking a couple of breaths and just really landing in your space.

Not.

Needing anything to be different than how it is right now. Feeling the support of the chair beneath you, the floor under your feet, and mindfully receiving a couple of cleansing breaths that feel regulating, nourishing. And if it feels authentic for you, you can allow just a little bit of sound on the exhale. Everybody's on mute so it can be as loud as you'd.

Like.

Go ahead and bring to mind something in your life that is inspiring you. A creative project, a new endeavor, something that you feel excited about. Maybe it's something you're already doing or maybe it's something you're just thinking about. And if you don't have anything right now in life that's all that inspiring, just bring to Mind something in the past that was inspiring for you and really just staying focused on that early inspiration. Not getting into execution or action or to do lists yet, just the inspiration. And drop that into your body and see what it feels like inside your body to just be in the energy of inspiration. How does it feel in your chest, in your solar plexus and low belly areas? What's happening with your posture? What's happening with your mouth? And then tracking your mental body? Are there any thoughts that are coming along with this inspirational feeling? Just noticing those and then checking in with any emotions. Are there any emotions that are also present with this feeling of inspiration? And where are those emotions? And now imagine that you can take this inspiration feeling and just course it through the whole body, sending it down the arms and into the hands, down the torso, into the pelvic bowl, into the legs, down into the feet, letting the energy leave your body and actually ground into the earth beneath you, anchoring and rooting this inspiring feeling. And then just seeing what is it like in your whole body right now to be in a state of inspiration, receiving, grounding and integrating breath.

And then.

Allowing your body to move or shake or stretch or do some. Something that feels integrating and authentic for you. Could be a big stretch, could be a little dance, letting that inspiration express. And I'd love to just hear some words or read some words. If there's a couple words to describe what inspiration felt like in your body, please drop them into the chat.

And.

In your own time, coming back into the Zoom Room into connection with your fellow cohort friends here. Pleasantly warm, Warm, calm. Buzzing. Curiosity. Tingly hands. Opening. Lightness. A lot of fuzziness. Buzzing. Empowerment. Yeah. Beautiful light within. Oh, gorgeous. Anastasia. Okay, so creativity, oftentimes, maybe all the time, starts with some degree of inspiration. And actually what precedes inspiration is usually a period of not knowing this fertile void, as I call it. So when we don't necessarily have access to anything inspiring, it doesn't mean that something's wrong in our creative process. It actually means that something's percolating beneath the surface and we haven't quite received it yet. I know for us in the Northern hemisphere right now, it's springtime, so inspiration is a lot like the spring energy of it's new, it's fresh, it's exciting, there's an innocence to it, and we can really feel that in our bodies. It's warm, it's tingly, it's expansive, there's lightness to it. And something I want to do throughout this call One of the most important things that I'll ever teach is called resonance fingers. I don't know if you guys do this in nsm, but resonance fingers look like this. And so if I say something or if someone else says something that you resonate with, you can let us know by just doing resonance fingers. So I'm curious, show of resonance fingers, how many people just love the feeling of inspiration? Love that part of the creative cycle? Yeah, yeah. Inspiration feels so good. Yeah. And so after inspiration is when we get to work, we start creating something, and it can very quickly turn into another type of experience. We go from the innocence, the hopefulness, the anything is possible mode of inspiration, to sometimes something that feels a little heavier, something denser, something like, how am I ever going to finish this? Oh, my God, this is really hard. Turning my idea into something tangible is no longer as easy as my mind thought it would be in the beginning. And so that is what we're going to explore today is when creativity starts to shift from something that feels so good inside of our bodies to something that feels maybe a little bit more challenging. I want to start with just my definition of creativity. I like to define creativity a little bit more broadly than I think we typically see. So creativity is all of the things that we normally associate with it. It's painting, dancing, writing, publishing. It's making something. For me, creativity is bringing anything forth that comes from within you that can be. I mean, there's just infinite number of things that that can be. It could be in the form of a book. It could be in the form of music or an article.

It could be.

It can also be, in the more broad sense, it's your life. It's you creating what you want in life. And so to become masterful at your own creative process is actually to become a human with a high degree of agency who can create the life that they want. And creative projects, things like writing a book or producing a Spotify album or something like that, become vehicles to train us and teach us how to create, how to bring things into form. So I think less about it has to be a certain expression and more about where is it coming from and to what degree can we truly let it move through us? And so I. I define creativity as truly being a very authentic process where whatever you are making is a direct expression of you. And this is in contrast to more like opportunistic creativity. I'm going to go look out in the world and find a problem and then think about an idea and then go solve that problem. With this very mentalized, sort of opportunistic problem solving approach. Nothing is wrong with that. But it may not activate our creative energy in quite the same way. And it probably stems a little bit more from the mind and can stay there. But when we start to create something that's authentic, that's a direct expression of us, a book, a business that we care about, a course, something that we really. That feels very meaningful to us, that is when we start to bump up against this experience of creative dysregulation. Because we are going to be moving that idea through our nervous system. More so than just a bit of like a dissociated, like you could be dissociating and go create things. That's not what we're exploring here today. Exploring the creativity that stems deep from the body, from this authentic place. And that is going to activate your nervous system. So that's my definition of creativity. I'm curious if that resonates with anyone. If so, you could just resonance fingers with that. Yeah. So let's get into creative dysregulation and its contrast, creative regulation. So the way I define it is creative dysregulation is what happens when essentially when your body doesn't feel safe enough to create. Create the thing that you want to create is when we bump up against the fight and flight response system of our nervous system in pursuit of a creative idea. It is not a personal flaw. It's not a reason to think that you're not creative. It's literally just a nervous system response trying to keep us safe. Safe. And so you guys are experts in this now. What does nervous system dysregulation look like, feel like, what does it mean? And then you're just going to pair it with creativity. So not everybody experiences creative dysregulation. For some people, it just flows and it's all good and nothing's really a problem. I'm going to say that Johnny is, is kind of one of those people, which is why there was such a beautiful contrast that helped me see that, that I was creatively dysregulated. But for some of us, including myself, we have over our lifetime developed safety responses inside of our bodies that make it feel as though creativity isn't safe. And what creative regulation offers is a path to start to soften those defense mechanisms and to retrain our nervous system that actually I am creative and that my ideas are safe to pursue. And we may not cognitively be able to make that connection. Like writing a book is not safe. Most people wouldn't think that if they're going to go start writing their memoir, but in the process of writing that memoir, they're all of a sudden going to bump up against the parts in them, the nervous system responses, that actually have some degree of protection in place. And there's a whole lot of reasons why we develop those protections. I'm not necessarily going to go into them today, but they can stem from adverse childhood experiences. They can stem from the culture we lived in and how it relates to creativity. Things that we might have experienced in school. Just a lack of practice as we were growing up and becoming adults. But also it's when we step into new arenas of creative expression that are just unfamiliar to us. So it's not necessarily a problem. It's just an indication that we're stepping into something new. Yeah. So let's go ahead and get a real embodied experience of creative dysregulation and creative regulation, because you will know best what all of this feels like in your own world and in your own body. I'm just going to receive a breath because that was a lot of talking, keeping myself creatively regulated as we do this. So I'm going to use the same frameworks that you guys have been learning. Sympathetic, dorsal and ventral.

Hmm.

I think we're going to start with sympathetic. So invitation to either close down your eyes or turn off your cameras, or just bring your awareness away from the screen. And go ahead and recall a time where you felt like you needed to prove yourself through creativity. When you had an idea and your pursuit of it got really intense, Maybe you felt a lot of activation in your system, like, I gotta do this thing. It needs to be done now. If I don't do this, something bad will happen. What's it like in your body with this? What's happening in your chest, in your breath, in your jaw? Things you might be saying to yourself with this are, this is the most important thing ever. I need to prove myself. It has to happen now. Okay. And then go ahead and receive a breath and shake that out. Feel your feet on the ground. Receive a couple rounds of cleansing breaths, grounding breaths. Go ahead and find your center again, closing your eyes. Now we're going to explore dorsal. So collapse and just do this to the best of your ability. You may not actually have these experiences. So recall a time when you wanted to create something, but you couldn't. You maybe experienced shutting down or you froze or you hesitated. What happens here in your posture.

In.

Your shoulders and your chest and your belly? What are you believing about yourself in this state, Just going in deep enough to feel the imprint of it. And then go ahead and receive a cleansing breath. You can shake that out, Expand your shoulders, stretch your arms out, feel your feet on the ground. And so now the fun part. We're going to go to ventral. Bring to mind a time when creativity and creation felt joyful and easy and flowing. You might have to go back in time quite a ways to find that memory, and that's okay. Felt like you were just being, just being yourself. And what is it like in your body here in ventral creativity? What's it like in your posture, your facial expressions? What are you believing to be true about what's possible? And let's just spend about a minute really, really exploring this state. What does it feel like to feel so good in your creativity? If there are any positive sensations in your body that you enjoy, just staying even more present with them, maybe allowing your breath to amplify them a little bit more. And then go ahead and receive a cleansing breath. Feeling your feet on the ground, the support of the chair, the floor beneath.

You.

Letting your body stretch, move whatever feels genuine, and then taking in just little sips of light before opening your eyes and bringing them back into the space. And I would love to hear from a few folks of what that was like. If anyone feels like they want to share. Did anything surprise you? Was anything challenging? Feel free to just unmute.

Hey.

Hey, guy.

Hey. Thank you for that. I. What stood out for me that was pretty interesting was like just how different the excited the excitement was around inspiration versus, like this ventral. Just like, I can do whatever I want and just let it flow. I think maybe my interpretation for myself is like, it's the difference between dopamine and serotonin. It's like there's like an excitement and a craving to achieve something versus just like this moment is fantastic and it is exactly what it needs to be.

Yeah. Beautiful. How do you think those insights can inform your approach to creativity moving forward?

Fantastic question. Yeah. Because I would love to be just always feeling like everything is perfect as it is. Yeah. I. I don't know. Like, is he on a sensor? Like, I would love to bring in the sense of ventral creativity and at the same time, not sure if and how I can do that. And especially like, maybe there are some times when it's actually helpful for me to have more of the like, slightly jittery excitement because it means that then I at least progress. Yeah.

Yeah. Cool. We're going to talk about something called creative window of Tolerance and creative titration here in a little bit that will speak to what you just shared. And also you said, I don't know how I'll access it, but you just did in this exercise. And we're not actually creating anything right now. So there's a nice little reorientation of the order of events here where typically I think we try to go sit down to create something without any awareness of how we feel. And then we expect the project or the thing to make us feel really good. But maybe it doesn't because it's hard or it's unknown or whatever it is. And yet you could just close your eyes and go do exactly what you just did and cultivate those feelings and then approach your project. And so that's, that's definitely an invitation for everyone is to have a practice, almost like a creative priming practice, where before you sit down to do your thing, you call in these, the state of. We'll call it ventral creativity. It's not to say that that will be the state that remains the whole time, but it can at least get us to the manuscript or it can get us, get us going.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you for sharing that.

Yeah, thanks, guy. Anyone else want to share what their experience was like?

Yeah, I can share as well.

Alexi.

Hi.

Okay, well, thank you for that experience was a deep submersion for me into different vivid pictures of maybe first of all during, during the first part, like striving towards something and like delivering a project and doing it in a creative way. The second one was like having to come up with. With a drawing like in. In middle school and not having any ideas and being frozen and kind of blaming myself for it. And the third one was mostly around just dancing and expressing myself like I did a few days ago at a very close friends party. And it was, it was a miracle how different these felt semantically. And yeah, I guess my curiosity is around how, how I can cultivate the third stage, like on a more regular basis in my life and whether it's actually possible.

It's totally possible. Yeah.

Yeah.

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing the three specific examples too. I felt really moved when you shared the middle school example of needing to draw something but being totally frozen. And yeah, I'm sure some other folks can resonate with that as well. So in terms of cultivating that ventral state, it's a practice. I think the things that you're learning in NSM is that we consistently have to come back to the skills of interoception. How am I feeling? In this moment, the practice of self regulation, how do I do I need to go up, down in order to bring myself back into a state of balance. And so when it comes to your nervous system plus creativity, it's the same thing. You're just doing it in relationship to something else in life. So instead of it just being how am I in any given moment, it's how am I in the pursuit of my creativity or in relationship to my creativity? And if you have practices, creative practices that are just joyful and easeful and fun for you, it sounds like dancing might be that for you. Like, do that, do that. So all the time to really have it become a normalized experience in your body, that ventral creativity. I just made up that phrase. But ventral creativity is like a normal experience for you because you go dancing three days a week. However, I will share that. Like, you might get into a pursuit of dance where all of a sudden it becomes something else. And now there's like, goals attached to it and other experiences. And so it can change. These are all fluid states. But there's, you know, there's a couple ways of thinking about. There's creativity for therapy. So you'll get people who draw or paint or dance or make music simply to regulate themselves. That is a very important part of our toolkit of self regulation is go to the creative practices that help you regulate. And then the other side of it is in the pursuit of certain creative things, we get dysregulated. So it's a little bit different. For me, my version of creativity has often been about entrepreneurship. I want to create businesses. I want to create things in the world that help other people. People. I've gotten very disregulated in that pursuit. But I grew up tap dancing, and so I can just go tap dance, and I don't feel disregulated in that. And it's a type of creative expression, but it's so built into my system, my operating system, that it doesn't bring up fear or panic. But building a business has. And so, yeah, you can both regulate through creativity and these other skills I'll teach in here. Just a second about the creative window of tolerance and creative titration. That's where that comes in too. But ultimately it's just a practice of getting more of that familiar inside your body. Does that make sense?

Yes, totally it does. And thank you for that idea.

Yeah, you're welcome. If anyone lives where Alexi lives, you guys should go dancing. Let's take one more share. Yes, Johnny. I actually did tap Dance this morning.

So, Kelly, I want to ask a question, but I don't know if that's the time or maybe you have time in the end.

Either. Yeah, there's definitely going to be an open space for just Q and A, but I'm happy to answer now.

Okay.

So I'm so glad that I'm in this meeting. So I've been doing somatic experiencing for a while, and then something happened. When anger started being removed, there was a flow in me, and I was writing songs daily. Like it was an impulse that I couldn't stop. It was like the creative energy had gotten over me. So daily creating songs after songs after songs that maybe I would stay overnight to finish them and. But I didn't care the next time. Inspiration was endless. Like, this took about a month or two months. Then I started playing my songs out in the open, and then I got reactions from other people and such. And I also moved to a new place which is more noisy, and I don't feel that maybe that's safe. And since then, I've been blocked and I have tried so many things. And so the. The title of this zoom call really appealed to me. Like, I think that something happens in the process and inspiration stops. And I know I don't know what it is. So any insights or something would be really helpful.

Yeah.

Thanks, Yanis. This is a really powerful example. And first of all, so cool that your channel was so open to just receive inspiration for months and just writing songs like that. You mentioned a couple things that stand out to me. One is that once you started playing your songs for other people, you went from a different mode of just writing to now expressing in front of other people. That is a very different part of the creative cycle. It's a very different energy. And then also the fact that you moved houses and it's noisy where you are, you know, this. This week for NSM is environment design. And so, of course, environment deeply impacts our nervous system and our sense of feeling safe and inspired. So I'd be very curious to what degree where you live now is maybe not supporting, you know, the Muse, if you will. Yeah. What stands out for you there?

Yeah, I mean. I mean, it doesn't support the news that much. I also had a habit of going to the mountain, like, twice. Twice per week. So maybe I. I drew inspiration from that as well. But I think that something got twisted when I started putting myself out there and exposing the content of my songs. And maybe there's a part of me that really resists again, writing like that, because it doesn't trust me. Because, okay, it was really vulnerable and I just went out in the open and playing my songs. But, you know, when we were doing the previous practice of like feeling creative, and I recall this moment, it was like, this is me. It felt like it was me. And the flow of creativity was making me so alive and so in alignment and purpose. And now that we're talking, there is a grief coming up that I don't know how to access that. Yeah. And so.

Yeah. Yeah.

Beautiful.

Thank you, Yannis. So this is a beautiful segue to our next exercise that I do think is very relevant to what you shared. But first, I want to just like honor your grief. The grief of not knowing how to get there. Inspiration, very mysterious. You know, we can't strategize our way into inspiration. It really is. I believe we're like a tuning fork. And when we are in tune, you know, we can receive the things that are meant for us. And it really sounds like that chapter of writing, you were very attuned in tune, you know, if you will. Johnny talks about the nervous system being like, oh, like we are tuning our instrument. So maybe your instrument was very tuned during that time and now it's kind of out of tune. And. And also the. The self pressure, the self talk of like, how do I get back? Actually, I feel very. That's very constricting attitude, I guess, of like, I have to get back to where I was is probably blocking to some degree the ability to even get back there. And creativity happens in cycles. So it's. Actually, I don't think it's possible for someone to be constantly in the inspiration stage. Things start to mature and things need to move on to new stages. Inspiration will come back. But again, it's mysterious. It's like we have to just trust that it will come back, but keep going forward. If that's. If the inspiration wants you to go forward to produce music, well, then, yeah, you're in a next chapter of it, which is maybe refining, sharing, editing, publishing, who know, you know, do you have a desire to publish this music and actually have it go through a full creative cycle?

I mean, I. I have started publishing and then I'm. I'm bumping up against fear of exposing myself. And so there's a block there. Luckily, I do have drawing as well as a skill. So now my creativity goes into drawing. But I think. I think I will. I'm afraid that I will run again, the same obstacle when I expose myself. Something in me will protect me. And starts.

I don't know.

Yeah, Cool.

I'm going to take this as a jumping point and we can come back to you if you'd like to integrate it. Absolutely. Yeah. It sounds like you are very skilled. Very.

Not.

Not skills, not even the word. You're just very, very natural for you to be an inspiration. How many other people here feel like inspiration is like the most natural place for them to be when it comes to the creative cycle, like ideation and just letting stuff like spill out onto the paper? Yeah, some. Okay, I'm gonna bring in this idea of our creative window of tolerance. Johnny, you guys talk about the window of tolerance, right? Yeah. Cool. So just like the nervous system as its stress window of tolerance, we can go above it into sympathetic. We can drop below it into dorsal. We have that with creativity as well. And now creativity in this moment, I like to break it out into. I call them levers, creative levers that you can press on. So one lever that Yannis was touching on is visibility. That when all of a sudden our creativity, we start to press on the lever of visibility, we can get out of our window of tolerance. So our nervous system basically has a comfort zone. How much creativity can we hold in our bodies and how much visibility do we actually feel comfortable with when we go beyond that threshold of our comfort zone? We get into the discomfort zone, we get into the sympathetic response around visibility. Some of the other levers that I find are very common visibility. How many people are seeing me in my work, in my expression, monetization. You start adding money to the equation and that can just skyrocket us out of our window of tolerance, scope and complexity. If a project gets really big, I hear people a lot who are like, my inspiration has built a mountain and I can't even start walking up the mountain. And it's just too big and grandiose that they can't even take the first step. And then authenticity. Like, to what degree am I truly revealing who I am in my work? Those are some of the main levers that I see. And maybe a couple of them, maybe you have all of them to some degree. But we have varying degrees of sensitivity. So, Yannis, actually I'd love to just spotlight you again if we could, Johnny. Yeah. How does, how does that land with this idea of visibility sending you out of your creative window of tolerance?

Yeah, I mean, there's a part of me that resist it and say, I don't want to go in that framework and then like make it a self fulfilling prophecy. Like, oh, I'm afraid of visibility. That's why I'm stuck. But at the same time like, so there's again parts I like to show my work and to play my songs and at the same time there's another part like I'm feeling this rush inside that's. Don't, don't you dare do that. Like it's.

Oh.

Yes. Yeah, you guys did the parts work last week with, with Ian. So yeah, there can be parts of. This is oftentimes what creativity does. One part of us wants to produce the big mountain and be on the stage and have the audience and do the thing. And then another part is like, that's terrifying. I am not doing that. And so we activate these different parts. So I'm not. Yeah, there's parts of you that are sending into the sympathetic response and you don't have to take on the identity of I am someone who's afraid to be seen in my creativity. It's just, it's really this like, oh, a lot more compassion of like, yeah, it's tender. It's scary to be seen in my work, in my expression. And I'm going to gradually build my way up. So the next layer to this is creative titration. I'm going to use, I'll use music as an example. So let's say inside of your creative window of tolerance, you feel very comfortable with writing your own songs and you're just in your house and you're like playing them on your own and that feels really good. And then you all of a sudden like try to go play a live show with 300 people in the audience. Like that jump from living room by yourself to 300 person audience might blow you out of your window of tolerance because it's just too much visibility. So if that was the case, I would say what are some titrated experiments you can run to gradually expand your creative window of tolerance? So it might be like, I'm going to invite my three best friends over to my living room and I'm going to play music for them. And they can only say nice things like maybe that is actually just the right next step. And then after that it's okay, now I'm going to invite some strangers and it's going to be a 20 person show and so on and so forth over time. How do any musicians go play sold out shows with a hundred thousand person stadium is because they probably started with five people, you know, decades ago. You don't just jump to that, you build up your tolerance to where that actually for Some people is comfortable.

That makes so much sense. Thank you for highlighting that. I mean, I have started doing that slowly, like to a friend, a new song. And I remember playing, playing a song that's out now to a dear friend of mine. And it felt like I was ripping something from the inside, like exposing myself so much to my best friend. And so. So I started doing the titration and then on one side decided, I'm going to go all in. I'm tired of feeling same for my cribbit creativity and hide my songs. And so I played like 10 of my most vulnerable songs that expose my journey with mental health and stuff. And then. Then I think when I was journaling about it then it was like I was blocked, that the part of me didn't trust me because I exposed it out in the world without its permission. And it's. Yeah, it felt violated and stuff. And I think there's a rupture there that it's still not being repaired.

Yeah. What would be the next step to help repair that rupture?

I don't know. Just feeling and being more like the compassion. I struggle with compassion still. So as we're speaking, I'm feeling more embodied and more spacious and more grief is coming up. So maybe again, sitting more with these.

Parts, even just a I'm sorry might go a long way. Like, I'm sorry. What do you need? What pace do you need?

That's. That's so helpful.

It's.

It feels really soothing. And I haven't actually haven't apologized to that part, so I will definitely do that.

Yeah. Thank you, Giannis. Thank you so much. Julia Cameron, from the author of the Artist's Way, she talks about how our. Our artistic self, our inner artist, is actually an inner child. It's a really vulnerable part of us who needs to be tended and loved with so much presence and warmth and compassion, just like a child does. And so it is tender. You know, I talked about these levers. Giannis is touching on authenticity. He's revealing the deepest parts of a really important journey, healing journey for him, while also then going and being very visible. So there's a couple dynamics at play that then show that have the nervous system respond and say, it's not safe. And the part that got activated of, like, we went too far. And so for all of us, no matter what your creative ambitions are and where your inspiration wants to go, we can very methodically and intuitively expand that creative window of tolerance, creative comfort zone, if you will, by taking just small, little, little steps. The other example that I like to give is for writers. So many people are embracing writing these days, and it's very enticing to go start a sub stack and have your focus be on generating, you know, 10,000 subscribers. But if you're still brand new to writing and sharing your voice, that actually might be a very dysregulating experience that then has a negative impact on your ability to write and express. What I wish I had done in the beginning of my newsletter journey was I wish I had started a Google Doc and then I would just write whatever I wanted and just start there. No one even gets to see it. And then the next layer would have been, maybe Johnny and, like, another close friend get to see it. And I tell them, I don't want any critical feedback. I just want you to, like, cherish this and celebrate me. And then the next round would have been, okay, more people. Then maybe I get my substack and I only invite people to join. I don't try and get strangers to join. And then gradually, you know, you expand and it all becomes more comfortable, especially when we're in the process of finding our voice, finding our expression. If we're not fully masterful yet at the craft that we're exploring, getting a bunch of eyes on you and a bunch of people waiting for you to do the next thing is. Is so much pressure. And so how can we be more gentle and kind to our own creative unfolding? Yeah. So let's go ahead and. Let's see. I'm curious if people want to drop in the chat. What part of your creative life tends to push you outside of your window of tolerance? And you might even want to just spend a minute journaling on that. Johnny, we have until 11:30, right?

Okay.

We got lots of time. Great. Yeah, let's actually just go ahead and spend three minutes journaling on your computer or a piece of paper. What part of your creative life tends to push you outside your window? I'm going to write the levers in here. So we have. Here's just a couple of the areas where regulation can arise. Sam.

Sa.

Tim is asking, what do I mean by a part of my creative life? You could also orient that towards what part of my creative process or which aspects of my creative projects send me outside my window of tolerance. It. All right, go ahead and bring your thoughts to a close. Oh, thanks for sharing yours, Johnny. Yeah, feel free to share what you wrote either in the chat. Let's take. Let's take two or three shares. If anybody wants to put their voice into the space. This will actually be a little mini coaching moment. So if you bring your, your area will actually work on one thing that you can do to support.

Hi, Kelly, I can do voiceover or what I just posted in the chat.

Who's. Okay, I actually can't tell who's talking.

It's Alex here. Maybe I should. Great, put me somewhere. Yeah, so sorry. Yeah, so basically I was. Yeah, yeah, I was saying that for me personally it's relatively easy with visibility because I don't feel responsible for it. You know, just like I have to show things and I don't, don't mind what people say. And scope, complexity, you know, typically when you start reasoning about it, you can decompose things. It's. It's easy. Whereas getting harder for me personally is on the initial stages of the project is monetization because it's hard to tell if it's actually useful for other people.

Yeah.

Or better to say if it's valuable for other people. So there is always a moment, you know, if it's something small, you know, product or service, to charge and to charge maybe to wait, maybe to give it for free first. So this is, I would say, the first moment of this when I can get stressed also emotionally and. But typically in one other way it's being overcome. But it's a bit more relevant right now because I'm co founder of not so small company of 50 people. And now, you know, we have investors, people, clients, etc, and there's a lot of things to be aligned and often I don't feel that this authentic project for me. So it's not like a small niche, authentic thing. It's actually organization. There's a lot of interests and I often catch myself, myself on the thought that, okay, there's actually not so many things that they do that I want. I know I can get authoritarian about it, but then interests of many other people also can get ruined. So it's, it's challenging at times.

Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing, Alex. So what I, what I'm hearing is there's kind of two things. The one is like a smaller one that you kind of hopped over, which is early stage monetization, kind of some emotions. But then the one that feels more like a problem right now is your business has so many other stakeholders that the work that you do can start to feel inauthentic.

Correct.

Okay, yeah, that's juicy. I'll just preface by saying I'm such a proponent of people doing work that feels so authentic for them. Because I think that's where aliveness and vitality and health and well being can really stem from is when we're truly in alignment with who we are and there's congruency there between who we are and what we do. So my follow up curiosity is within your role. What does feel authentic? What does feel like a natural extension of of Alex?

Basically kind of what they said. What is easy for me is visibility. So I'm a face of a company. So every time I need to go and demonstrate something can be, you know, or marketing, sales activities, also hiring. It's very natural and I like it and do it really well. And also dealing with some kind of complexity, it can be, you know, some kind of organizational change or maybe creating new products. So basically things that are, you know, a bit more like logical because as a founder I know kind of everything about the company, so it's easier for me to deal with this kind of things and but I would say that's not the majority of the activities. Most of the activities are pretty much operational negotiation during these people inside, outside. And basically that's where I tend to think more about alignment of everyone else for the sake of the company, clients, etc. Rather than what is authentic for me. And actually looking back at like years of the company, you can see that it's going to maybe in the correct direction when you measured by, you know, finance, etc. But kind of further from what maybe I truly want to do and how I truly envision the company.

Yeah. What is that like to share that you have another vision that might be more true for you?

You mean to share with my team?

No, no, just right now. Have you acknowledged that within yourself before?

Within myself, yes. Even with my co founder as well. But I would say we always kind of rationalize ourselves back to do what's kind of better for the company in a way and also for the financial results. So yeah, I, I discuss it with my co founder from time to time, but we always kind of rationalize other decisions. Actually he feels pretty similarly about it. So we can discuss it and then we go back and do what feels right.

So both co founders feel some degree of inauthenticity in what's being done.

Yeah. Correct. Yeah.

Okay. What would happen if you steered the ship back towards authenticity?

Feels scary, to be honest. We, when we discuss it, we, our kind of like main thought is that we can, can ruin what we have built and there is a lot of logic in it. I also cannot say that our company is perfect shape so it's growing, but it's. I'll say it's not easy. So we always kind of decide what is better to take the course that we're more confident in. So as you can see, it's less about creativity and authenticity, more about optimizing what looks correct.

Yeah. And how many more years of that do you think that you can hold in your body and in your heart?

You know, the thought that I haven't discussed that, look, it's like we just need a little bit more. We just need to make it right and then we easier, you know, like, or start another company together or maybe we can feel more confident to change things. But yes, you can imagine this common moment never comes.

Yeah. Are you trying to exit the company?

It is the scenario that we also discussing. But again, to exit it has to be in the good shape. This is one of the scenarios.

Yeah, yeah, I understand that one of my. One of my clients works for JP Morgan Chase and he feels like he has to compartmentalize who he is at work in order to do the right thing for this corporate company. But he has his soul, he has his heart. He has the real artistic expression that he wants to give. And what I say for anyone who's balancing that kind of intersection is think, zoom out. How can you think about your life holistically and still have authentic creative expression in your life? Maybe it doesn't come through this work. Right now I want to talk more with you about like the intersection, what I call the intersection between soul and strategy. How can you actually build something that is a direct expression of you that like works out in the world, but maybe you're too far along now it sounds like the train is. The train's going right, so.

Exactly. It's gone really quickly. So, you know, just to jump doesn't also doesn't feel like correct decision. So yes, as I said, and you get it right, one of the ways is to bring it to some state and sell the company. And also what I'm recently thinking more about, also what you're saying, like to find creative expression in other areas of my life. It can be family with my newborn child, etc. Which actually has a lot of space for creative interesting things. So. Yeah. But I would say it's not easy so to say.

Sure.

So there's an interesting part of you that. A part in you that prioritizes maybe optimization or doing something right or having it be. How would you. How would you call it? Like the way you're moving your business.

Now, maybe rationalizing can be the right word.

Yeah. So it's almost like rationalization Leads. Leads the show.

Yeah, I think. Yeah, that's right.

And these other things, like, maybe nice to have, but it comes. Comes later. It's easier to. Yeah, yeah. So if you were to sell this company and then go build another one, my concern for you is that you would go build the same exact type of structure and that.

That's. Yeah, yeah. Sorry.

What is needed is not necessarily an overhaul of your entire business right now, but it's you learning to actually give that authentic part of you some space. Really. It's like a muscle that you're needing to flex. And so can you even sprinkle in a little bit more of your. Your authenticity into your business? You know, can you have, like, 5% more of it just to advocate for that part of you more and more?

Definitely. There's always better, I think, even more than 5%. I just need to maybe push myself a little and acknowledge that it's a problem right now when we talk about it. I embody a bit more that, you know, that it's. I can change it.

Yeah, yeah. The downstream impact of building something inauthentic from my experience is resentment is that you've given a lot of your life to something. However, there's always. There's payoffs, too. Right. Like, it's providing for your family, so it's not so binary.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But resentment. Yeah. It happens sometimes, especially in the worst moments, like, why I doing this all? But. Yeah.

Why are you doing it.

First of all? Yeah. Just kind of purely to provide for me, for my family. This is, say, main concern at the moment. Second is I. It would. I would feel bad just quitting because I. Let's say I. It's not authentic, but I still like what is built. I don't have, you know, like, pure, deep resentment. Like, it's the thing that I don't like. It's. For example, you mentioned, like, this guy who works in some corporate environment. I would maybe resent that kind of work. I still like all the things about what I do, but it's not authentic. And I know that it can be brought to a level that I can be proud of and definitely won't be proud of. Quitting right now.

Yeah.

So I would say two main.

I feel you in integrity with yourself and the business. There is. There is an alignment here.

Yeah. Yeah. Some. Some kind of. Yeah.

Okay. So what is one thing that you can do to just bring more of that authenticity into your work.

While we're speaking. There's still plenty of things that I do that are authentic to me, but I think I can treat them more with the attitude of actually it's a creative endeavor even. For example, like I, I regularly go into some public speeches, I work on the content, which is. Feels creative to me. But right now as we speak, I realize that I don't always do it as a creative work. I do just because things that has to be done, but they can do it differently. Just you know, changing my state, et cetera, that's definitely number one. And yeah, this is the at least, the least I can do.

Yeah, yeah, here's one. One suggestion and this could apply to anyone who's in the middle of a long standing project and is that we typically need to recommit because the honeymoon phase is over.

Right.

That early inspiration that led to you birthing the startup, that's done. You've had to change the fuel source. Inspiration can only carry us so far into execution. And then at some point it becomes something else. It becomes commitment. It's like, it's like a marriage. You know, you're deeply committed and there's an integrity and there's a showing up and we have to learn how to orient through that and not just wait for the spark and the sparkliness of inspiration.

So maybe to create the spark.

Yeah, myself, Exactly. So maybe at this point there's both you and your co founder can have like a recommitment moment. Like why, why are we doing this now? Okay, let's recommit to the why now? And that I most likely will create a surge of new inspiration, new love of the project. And then you could say from then on, all of your tasks, they're no longer just the things you need to do and the to do list. They're actually there's something more meaningful that is propelling them forward.

You're right. That's a good idea. I should talk to him about this next time we speak.

Great.

Let me know how it goes.

I like it. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for advice. It's really a very good one.

Yeah. Divya. Sorry if I mispronounce your name.

You got it right.

Hello.

I have a guess for me. One of my family's distance friends recently asked me to do a painting for their new home. And I'm not a painter in general. She just saw the stuff I did around my sister's house and this has brought on like an overwhelming. I don't know if it's fear or anxiety or something. It's like, I want to do it. I already have an idea. But then I find myself hearing in a way the judgment of what I might create or coming up with excuses. Like, I am working full time, I am also going to school. Like, should I even be adding this on? Like, it's like a constant in back and forth trying to figure out, like, I have the idea, I kind of know what I want to do, but I'm finding ways to not do it.

And what is the idea that you want to do?

The painting idea that I want to do, like, yeah, she had given me like some of the things that she had gone through in her life. And the biggest thing that, that I connected with was her hope. So I have this idea of how to paint what I think is hope on this painting. But to get it started, I'm like, like the judgments of my own self, like, would it come up as something worth giving to someone else? Like, it just, it just kind of stops me from going forward.

Yeah, that sounds like a lot of pressure.

Yeah, definitely.

And this is a painting in like a frame that hangs on the wall or it's like a mural on a.

Wall, a canvas, a large can, a large canvas painting on a wall. And I've never done this. Like, it's not something I do. I just usually play around with paints and stuff and for them to ask me, I was like, I want to do it as a way of challenging myself, but then I have like a stop and I don't actually do it.

Yeah. It sounds like this is your version of going from like the at home dabbler to like you're in an auditorium with a whole big audience.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a big leap.

It is. Yeah. So I'm constantly trying to figure out whether I should do it or not, but then also judging myself for not doing it. So it's.

Yeah, yeah.

I can't figure out a way forward. I just keep stepping in the quicksand that I'm in.

Yeah. So what's the story you're telling yourself about what this all means? What this, what does this painting mean?

What does the painting mean? A challenge to myself to be, I think, I think almost like a way of pushing myself, like, can I do this to see if I can do this kind of thing?

And what about in the relationship dynamic? This is your sister.

You said my sister's like long time friend. So it's not even like someone I'm close with. It's someone else that asked me to do this. And I'm like, oh, okay.

Does that change the dynamic?

I think just in the judgment sense, like, is it going to come out to be as good as I want it to be or something?

Yeah.

Okay.

And what's the worst case scenario that could happen.

Honestly? That I won't like what I come up with?

What happens inside of you, in your body, when you don't like what you've done yourself, what you've come up with?

Disappointment. In the sense that I had pushed it off for a year. I'm like. I asked. I told her. I'm like, I have all this other stuff going on. It'll take me a year. She goes, yeah, yeah, that's fine. And I'm like, crap. I kind of hope she said no, but by the end of this year, like, what was the question? I already forgot, so.

Okay, so you. You found the disappointment. You're disappointed in yourself.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If I finish it, if I take the whole year, do this painting, then it would be like disappointing them and myself.

Yeah. And what's the worst thing that could happen then?

Disappointing them? I think I would feel.

Yeah.

Wait. Yeah, I would feel like at least I did it. Just buy themselves another painting. Okay.

Is it okay to disappoint people? I don't know.

I mean, the rational sense would be no, because I don't really care as much about them. Like, they're distant friends. It doesn't really matter. Yeah. No. I think it's disappointing myself that matters more.

Okay.

Just as an experiment, can you say the words? It's okay to disappoint. It's okay if I disappoint myself.

It's okay if I disappoint myself. And I don't believe it. Okay.

Say it again and then just pause.

It's okay if I disappoint myself.

What happens inside your body?

Scrunchy.

Yeah, just scrunched up. Where's the scrunching?

Shoulder, heart, throat.

And if you had to. Does it actually want to scrunch?

I mean, if I'm. If I. If I pay attention to it, I know I can, like, widen it out.

Go ahead and pay attention to it.

Yeah, it loosens.

Great. What does that loosening feel like now?

More open, but it just loops. Like that thought of. Yeah. And then I guess frustration that it loops and then also, like, telling myself it's okay. It's patience, practice.

Yeah. Okay. Go ahead and shake that out. Thank you, Divya. Okay.

Okay.

So what I'm. What I'm picking up on is that this painting is. It's actually just. It's a. It's a way that life is showing you that disappoint to feel through disappointment. To feel through the possibility of disappointing others. And this disappointment being a. The fear of disappointing people is stopping you from actually taking action. Does that feel right? Yes. Yeah. So my curiosity is like, what is the worst thing that can happen if you disappoint someone?

Almost like I didn't do enough. Yeah. It's like putting pressure on myself that I should have done more.

Yeah.

And what's interesting is that you haven't started the painting yet.

Yeah, I haven't.

Becoming a self fulfilling prophecy.

Definitely. Yeah.

I don't want to disappoint people. I don't want to have done too little. So I'm just not going to do anything at all.

Yeah.

My invitation for you would be to take the very first step towards this painting, which might just look like setting the canvas on the easel.

Yeah. I've actually brought it into my room. Like, I'm looking at this every day.

Next step, it's in your room. What is the next step now?

Probably figuring out how to get the color tone that I want.

Is that the next step? If the canvas is just sitting on the floor.

Okay. Maybe drawing it on there.

Is it gonna sit on an easel?

No, it's gonna be on a table.

Okay. And is it. Is it on the table or is it on the floor Right now? The next step would be to put the canvas on the table.

Okay, I see what I mean. Baby steps. Okay.

Baby steps. So from no painting to this whole masterpiece of hope on some stranger's wall are a million small little steps. So my invitation is stop thinking about the end result right now and just take the next couple of steps towards the project.

The instant thought that comes into my head is, what if it's not enough time to finish? Then.

Giving you all the time you've needed.

Well, till this December.

Great. Keep showing up in the small ways and momentum builds.

Okay.

Yeah.

And if you're. If your nervous system wants to come back to no action, like, you just go back into thinking about it. That's your. Sounds like that's your window of tolerance. It's like I'm just going to think about the painting.

Yeah.

Then you just take the next step from there. And over time, small, little deliberate action, like Maybe it's literally 10 minutes a day is all you do. And that actually feels safe and comfortable. You don't have to paint for six hours at a time. Break it down to where you're just getting a little bit more activated, but you're not in the fear response or the stress response.

I see. Okay. That actually made sense. Cool. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thanks, Divya. Okay, I'm just going to share one more concept for you. All that is to me, the foundational principle of applying all of this. And then Guy, I will get to. I just want to put this in the space before it gets too late. It's called project based transformation or project based healing. And this is what allows us to say yes to all of our creative ideas and inspiration and meet whatever arises in the process. So as I said in the beginning of the call, when we have an authentic idea that wants to come through us or inevitably going to bump up against our defense mechanisms, maybe those are avoidance or procrastination or self doubt or fear, you fill in the blank of whatever those creative dysregulation symptoms are for you. We're going to bump up against them. That is not a problem. If we welcome them and we welcome the opportunity of what they're teaching us about our own bodies, our own nervous systems, our own capacity to create, then we actually can start to move them. So project based transformation says yes to the ideas and to whatever we bump up against along the way. When you can really embrace all of that, I truly believe that you can create anything that you want and everything you learned in NSM will apply here. So you say yes to your project, the inspiration you go along and then all of a sudden you realize your state is changing through interoception. You actually see, oh, I'm very activated right now. I feel grief, I feel fear, I feel overwhelmed. You feel through that. You let it come up and through, you do the emotional fluidity work and then you land in your self regulation practices. Have you gone into dorsal shutdown creativity mode where you're frozen and you're can't, you can't even move. Are you avoidant or have you gone into some type of sympathetic activation of like you're almost manic or you're angry as you create or this thing just feels so pressurized. Come into your self regulation practices, your breathing, your somatic awareness, the eight protocol, literally everything you guys have been learning, you just pair that with creativity. Once you're regulated, you step back into the project, you keep going, you go a little bit further. The next stuff, next round of stuff you bump up against, you rinse and repeat. We keep doing that throughout a project. We actually move it all the way through. We can get from inspiration to completion, meeting ourselves at every different moment, seeing, okay, I'm really sensitive to monetization. Execution felt good, but I'm sensitive to monetization. So you're probably going to be doing that a lot when you start to monetize and you titrate up and up and up. So when you balance, when you, when you create from the place of that ventral vagal creativity, but then you have your practices for when you go into either ventral or sympathetic, I'm sorry, dorsal or sympathetic, then you know how to get yourself back into ventral. And slowly over time, taking these incremental titrated steps further, you expand your creative window of tolerance. Let's say a couple of years from now, your headlining shows with 30,000 people in the audience, because you just followed this, you moved at the pace of your nervous system capacity opening and your projects are the way. So I, I always say the project is the way. It will reveal where those things are within you. You don't have to wait to go be fully healed and have the most perfect nervous system ever to say yes to your creativity. You say, yeah, it's a yes and approach. Yes to the inspiration that's here. And I trust myself to meet what arises. Okay, Guy.

Hi. Thank you for having me back. Yeah, I, I'd be keen to riff with you a little bit on one thing. When you were talking about this sense at the start of like, this has to work, I was feeling this. And yeah, my, my situation right now is I spent the last couple of years working on a startup which was very much based on ideals. It's like climate advocacy. And very much like I want the world to be a better place in this way, but it was like I had to step away from it because it wasn't making any money. And that was, yeah, it became this big source of stress. It was like, oh, here's this thing that I really want to happen and it has to work, otherwise I can't survive and the world will go down. And then the last few months, then I have stepped away from that and been figuring out what to do next. And now I've as my edge challenge taken on to do a new kind of minimum viable project where there is, I'm planning on making this kind of weekend retreat and for that to be like an exchange of money as part of that, as like some kind of small proof of concept. And I can feel in myself like a lot of the excitement of like, this is a new idea, this is fantastic. Like, let's go. And also, again, Like, a sense of, like, this has to work. Because if this proof of concept does not work out, then, you know, that sucks. And then I have no money and da, da, da. And so at the moment, I feel very much like. And I've been trying to use the gifts of nervous system mastery along the way, but I'm aware of how I'm kind of teetering on the balance between excitement and nervousness and anxiety and sometimes feeling overwhelmed. And also the complexity thing also plays a role because I'm.

Yeah.

And then I want to do everything and trying to stay in the present moment. So, yeah, that felt like quite a lot. But if there's anything other than what you've already shared with us, I'd be curious to hear it.

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for sharing, guy. And it's exciting that you're on this new threshold. Sounds like you're really wanting this next project to work and that it is an authentic expression of you. I also hear that there's a lot of pressure for it to be successful and. And to work. Those are the words. It needs to work.

Yeah.

And if it doesn't work, what's the worst thing that can happen?

I think there's like, maybe a. An identity that needs to die. Because it's like, I want to be someone who is creating their own projects in the world. Like, I want to be an entrepreneur and I also want to be an impact entrepreneur. And at some point, like, I can't live off savings forever because I'm not making any money. So at some point then it would be like, ah, I've gotta, like, find a job. And then there would be like a whole, oh, no, I'm selling out to the corporate world because I'm making money or because I'm an employee and I have to, like, give up my autonomy. An agency which I hold right here.

Yeah, yeah. That's a lot of pressure to put on one beta project, essentially. Yeah.

Yeah.

Just for a second, what does the project want from you?

I'm not sure how to answer that. Like the. The project as an idea that exists in me or as a thing that the world might want to happen.

Let's say you could have a conversation with the project. What. Whatever exists of it so far. The inspiration, if it was a being, if it already had its own identity, what is it? What does it want to share with you in this moment?

I think it wants to be treated as an end in itself and not a means to an end.

What would that look like?

I guess, like making it the best it can be rather than seeing it as like ticking a box in order to get to the next step.

Perfect. I'm just gonna pause. I'd love to continue with you if you can go over time, but I just want to also be mindful that we're at time. So we'll just pause this here. Yeah. Anyone who has a project you can talk to, your project I think about all the time. Like, what does my book want to tell me right now? What does my business want to tell me right now typically gives us a more beautiful perspective of how to relate to it. We are in relationship to creativity, we are in relationship to our projects. And sometimes that relationship actually knows what we need. And if we, if we view it that way, if, if creativity was really this other person, this being that sat on the other side of the table with you, how would you be treating it right now? Would you be going, you're not there for me or, you know, why are you so hard? Why are you so difficult? Like, how would someone else feel like if that's, if that's how we were approaching it versus like, oh gosh, I love you. I love you. I love how you show up authentically. I love when you come into my life. It feels so good when you're here. So in some ways it's like becoming more intimately connected to the relationship of creativity. Thank you all so much for being here. There's a couple of places where you can go after this if you want to get go a little bit deeper. This is also the very first group that I'm going to be sharing a new course with. It's called Safe to Create and it's essentially going to be a nervous system and creativity course where we apply a lot of what we did today into establishing a nervous system that feels safe to express, to share, to create, to be visible, to monetize, since that really is where it all begins. There's also a free self assessment which is linked. It's also in the event description for today, but I'll put it all here. And then for those who feel really ready to just like go all in on a project and let the project be this transformational moment for them. I have two more spots in my six month embodied creative mastermind. It's called Prismara, so you guys can check that out too. We start next Wednesday and I am so available if anyone wants to just DM me in the circle group, ask follow up questions. I'm really here for that and I just. Thank you all for your time. I'm Happy to stay longer. And Guy will. I'll keep working with you. And if anyone else wants to chat after that. Yeah, I'm here for that. And Johnny, I'll just pass it over to you to do a. Your beautiful closing ritual.

Do you have a phrase in mind that you think we should close out with, like, a checkout phrase?

What is yours typically?

It changes every time.

Oh, shoot. Okay. Oh, pressure. Let's see what. Oh, we all say it together, right?

We'll say it together.

Yeah.

Okay.

How about just thank you, creativity.

Love it.

And we'll do. We'll do the resonance hands at the same time. So on the count of three, unmute resonance hands and say, thank you, creativity.

Okay.

Three, two, one.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone. And see you guys on Friday. And for anyone who wants to stay, I guess we'll be staying on for a few more minutes. And if you guys have other questions as well, I don't think Kelly has a hard stop.

Yeah. And Johnny, I can stay on if you need to jump off.

I'm enjoying the conversation.

Cool. Thank you, everyone. Yeah, Vagal creativity. You can let that phrase go. Move that phrase out into the world.

That got created today.

That's great.

Okay, Guy. All right, all right. Did anything come up for you? Just while we took that little break.

I was really just enjoying what was happening, I'm afraid so. I wasn't, like, thinking about what you would. What we'd spoken about before, but, yeah, it's super. I mean, actually, the one thing that came up to me was, like, I would love to do a dyad group where it's like one person becomes the project and the other person is speaking to it. Yeah, but, yeah, we were talking about what is the. What is the project wants to say to me. Yeah, so the. The thing that was coming to me, I was mentioning earlier was, like, this not being treated as a means to an end. So, like, not like, what I have in mind is I want to do this weekend workshop thing, and I feel like a really strong need to make money out of it, because if not, then I fear that, like, this working and not making money from the work that I'm doing will just be like a continuous thing.

So how's he there? So this one weekend workshop is. Is holding your forever financial reality of being an entrepreneur.

A little bit. Yeah, yeah. Because it's like the counterbalance to the last couple of years that I experienced.

Totally.

You want to be an entrepreneur who. Who earns great money doing impact work that is authentic to you. Yeah, yeah. And this is the first step in that direction. Is that right?

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. And what would it be like to treat it like an experiment?

In a way, I feel like I am treating it like an experiment. It's like hypothesis. People will pay for this general type of thing. Yeah.

So let's come back to this sort of like this dyad practice with your project. What I'm hearing from you is if I was speaking directly to the project and I'm. You is. You matter so much to me, and I need you to work because my identity as an entrepreneur is like. Is riding on you and how successful you are.

Sounds like a really bad parent.

How do you think the project, like, what's happening on the project's end after it hears that.

Doesn'T feel like it's able to be its authentic self because it has to kind of match up to these expectations.

Yeah.

So in the early stages of creativity, which is what you're in right now, the energies that are most supportive are experimentation, innocence, play, iteration, trying things, seeing what works, seeing what doesn't work as a very practical way of getting clear of, like, what the real thing is, but also to not put too much pressure on the beginning. And so I hear that you want to be at a certain point where it's thriving and working and making you money and you've got the identity and you do this thing and you can talk about it, People are signing up. The path to get there, whether we like it or not, requires more of that early energy of experimentation, seeing how it goes, learning, growing. And when we try to suffocate it too much with I need you to work, it doesn't typically have the space to grow in the ways that it wants to.

Yes.

And, Johnny, experimentation never ends. We're just going to keep. Keep experimenting. But at some point, you feel like your experiments are working too, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that makes a lot of sense to me. And I'm also holding the. Like, I would love to be in a space where I'm just, like, ventral chill. Like, try things out. Playful experimentation. And there is also, like, a financial reality.

Yeah.

That I like. I also feel like I kind of need to meet after a while of not really meeting.

Yeah. So if. If you have the project here, money can start feeling like this, like, brick that gets, you know, like, I really need this to make money so that my needs are met, so that I'm secure. I don't know what your financial story is. I get curious. If it doesn't work, what is the worst scenario? That can happen to you financially, does it actually have to work or is it more of an identity piece of I am an entrepreneur who makes money from my offerings.

No. At this point, like I'm eating into my savings and that feels very uncomfortable.

And.

The longer I'm there, like the less comfortable that feels. But yeah, it's also like not the case that if this doesn't work, then I'll be on the street tomorrow.

That is so good to acknowledge you're actually safe if it doesn't work. Does it feel like that in your body? Can you let that land that you're actually safe if this doesn't work?

There's, there's some resistance to that.

Yeah, yeah. So there is a. There is a sense of unsafety, lack of safety in your system as you are creating this thing, which adds a lot of pressure and might actually create the result that you're trying to avoid.

Yeah.

So to. To. For your nervous system to feel safe in the identity of being an entrepreneur who offers things in the world and makes money from. Takes time to switch our identities and let that become the new reality of our bodies. And it's through titration and experimentation that we get there. I heard you say I want to be an entrepreneur who offers things that are impact driven. This weekend workshop is already you offering something that's impact driven. So in some ways, like had you not told me that I want to be an entrepreneur, I would have already labeled you an entrepreneur based on the fact that you're doing something. So there is a story like it needs to make money and then I'm the entrepreneur.

Yeah. As there's that and I think there's also. I think that was also a little bit like talking about the identity that would need to die. It's like I can see myself as an entrepreneur now while I'm doing stuff, but if it doesn't start making money and I have to change the way that I live my life, then I have to like let go of that identity.

Yeah, yeah. Do you know other entrepreneurs who've had to try lots of things in order to make money from their ideas?

Yeah, yeah.

It's pretty common.

Yeah.

So welcome to the identity of being an entrepreneur. The resilience to try and experiment and see what happens is part of this path. And knowing that, that you're safe in.

That.

And really getting clear of what does it working. My recommendation for you is to spend some time today in the relationship with your project and seeing how you might be able to relate to it more greater Openness to its timeline, its unfolding pace and cadence and what it really needs right now.

You're.

You're a steward of something beautiful.

Yeah, that. That sounds like a great next step.

Yeah.

Thank you very much for this.

You're welcome. Yeah, thank you, guy. I wish you the best. Sounds like it's going to be amazing.

Thank you. Yeah, I hope so.

Divya, I have a quick question. When it comes to. I'm sure there's like a line when it comes to feeling safe and pushing yourself into the next space, how do you find it? Where you act, where your body feels safe. And then you're like, okay, let me try saying this to myself to see what the resistance is and then to move forward. Like, where is that space of safety? And then you take the next step.

So your space of safety will be your own unique place. What is inside your zone of safety is unique to you. So I can use myself as an example. I'll use my example of I'm in the middle of launching a six month container. And that to me, typically in the past I would have completely shut down and run away and not been able to do this. And so it is now in my zone of safety to do it, to ask for money for an offering out in the world and to keep showing up for it. And in the process, Johnny has seen this. My fear will come up. I'll meet the edge of that comfort zone mostly every day. I like touch it a little bit every day and then I regulate self soothe. I understand. Like, okay, I've reached the limit of my. Is this the right example? Am I taking this in the direction you want to know? Like where my safety zone is and what do I do when I start to feel unsafe?

In a way, yes. Like I guess for someone that struggles with meeting the insides at the moment, or at least feeling emotion, the sense of safety. I think I question myself a lot and like, am I actually safe? I don't know, like that. That part kind of like makes it hard for me to be like, okay, I should challenge myself. Like the part that I'm in right now, should I be challenging myself to do this? Like, it's just like, where is that safety sense of level? Like, hey, I should do this. Not should, but I can do this. And am I safe? Like, I can't figure out what my sense of actual safety is. And then how do I know where the line is to push myself.

To me? Your body is the feedback mechanism here. So when you're safe, you're in ventral you're calm, you're grounded, you feel present. You're not in a state of overwhelm or panic or shutdown.

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

No, no, no, go ahead.

So, like doing that creative, cultivating that feeling practice that you did earlier where you remember the things you did before and you stay in that moment. I felt an openness there. And then after that it went away, just normal. So I'm like, which one do I trust? The one where I was feeling open, safe. And then the normal part of the normal day life, like, hey, am I. Am I actually unsafe? Like, it's kind of like hard to tell in that moment. I guess it's just experimenting at that point. Be like, hey.

Yeah. Well, it sounds like you touched into it. You're like, I'm safe. I feel open. I feel really good here. So that, that is safety.

But that's when you're imagining what you did before. Not imagining. That's when I was like vision, visualizing what I did before and I felt. And that.

That's different than your day to day reality.

Yeah.

And how do you feel in your day to day.

Sometimes overwhelmed with all the things that I have to do at the moment. So, yeah, that's where I guess where I was trying to figure out, am I actually safe to move forward or not?

Yeah, yeah. I would actually start using the words like, do I feel regulated enough to move forward? And so if you're in a perpetual state of overwhelm, day in, day out, then maybe not. Like, maybe there is just too much going on and there's kind of this chronic state of activation that's taking place. And what is needed is just more space for regulation, for nervous system healing, for doing the work that you did in this container before you go add more complexity to your life.

Yeah, I noticed the two, the two separate things where you were telling me to tell myself I'm not disappointing myself if I move forward. And the resistance I felt there and then to what you were saying to Guy, where you were saying, I'm actually safe if this doesn't work. Like, that felt a lot more like. Like safe, I guess. I guess that would be. That felt. That opened me up a lot more than the previous statement. So that's why I was like, that's where I was trying wondering where the resistance is. Should I actually say the first set of words that I said where I actually felt resistance and work through it, or should I go through the one that I was already feeling safe in?

I don't think there's A right answer there. I think you can play with both. Yeah. I mean, leaning into resistance is helpful too. It's a certain type of key that unlocks something eventually, but that might not be appropriate for this moment. What might be more appropriate is just reclaim that sense of safety, that sense of regulation. Yeah.

Thank you.

You're welcome. I don't know if, Johnny, if you have anything you want to add to that.

In terms of like creating safety.

Yeah, it's like identifying when she's safe enough to take on risk.

It's definitely helpful to like, for me, I kind of track my sense of awareness as like a kind of proxy for that. So if I feel, to what degree is my awareness like somewhat expansive and expanded? And can I like, can I kind of like sink into the back of my body? Because usually if there's contraction, I'm almost like, awareness is shrunken and I'm like mostly in my front body. And there's a way that you can just like even do it right now, just like. And there's a kind of like an ease that comes through, but I think it really is just trial and error and experimentation and like the feedback loop, like Kelly was saying, just like constantly listening to your body and like learning what that's like and asking. You can ask your body questions and see how it responds.

Divya, I have one more follow up for you. I want to just like add context to the statement I had you say earlier around disappointing people. When we actively try to prevent a certain situation from happening, like disappointing people, we end up creating situations where we disappoint people. Joe Hudson calls it the Golden Algorithm. So as we are trying to avoid a certain experience, we end up creating all these moments where we have that experience. So in the, in the resistance to not wanting to disappoint people, you're creating these moments where you're disappointing yourself and maybe you're disappointing this painting lady who's hired you to paint. So when you can change the charge in your body and you're actually like, it's okay to disappoint people and you're no longer pushing up against that, it neutralizes. It opens up space for you to actually, there's movement that takes place. Does that, does that make sense for you?

Yeah, it's just like once you hit a certain sense of clarity that you feel sometimes throughout your life or this just one action or experience, you're like, oh, I didn't think of it like this before. And it completely changes your reality from the next point forward. So, yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah.

In my own world, I've had issues around guilt where I didn't want to feel. Life brought me opportunities to feel guilty, I should say. And because I myself wasn't willing to feel guilty. And so I felt through all the way, what is it like to feel guilty? What is it like to actually disappoint someone? To let that land in the body? Like, okay, I now know I'm not going to die. I know. I feel like I'm going to die by disappointing someone. I'm no longer going to feel like I'm going to die if I'm guilty. And then it sort of just neutralizes it.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Yeah, yeah. Hi, everyone else. Thanks for still being here. Hi, Heather.

Hi. Nice to meet you. I'm just, like, absorbing everything and trying to bring it into my experience and see how I can apply it. I haven't really been forthcoming about things on the calls myself, but I'm definitely thinking in my head the whole time about how it relates to me and my situations.

Yeah.

Is there anything you want to share now?

Sure. It might not come off super crisp, but for me, I'm struggling with my relationship with work in particular, and then maybe after that, like, my romantic relationship. And I find that I'm more than likely probably in a burnout phase. So I've. I've left work and I'm reflecting and I'm thinking about redefining my relationship with work and even with romance and just trying to figure out how to approach those two things with more safety. I think I've had so much passion. Like, I'm a very passionate person, very bright, and somehow it's. I feel like there's. It is very rewarding a lot of times, but then there's some areas where it's creating this really chronic, tired feeling, and I can't seem to get out of it. And I would like to get to a place where I feel not so tired anymore. You know, like, I'm very creative and, you know, I bring that into my work and into my relationship with ideas for what we could do together. And I find I can find myself in, like, this dorsal phase when I'm rejected. And I feel like I've been rejected a lot. Like, maybe at work, more so with, like, leadership rather than the people I horizontally work with or my partner. And I'd like to not feel dorsal anymore. I'd like to feel that brightness back where I'm more. Hold on. I wrote it down. The more Safe, grounded, but also still like fuel pushing me forward. And I'm struggling with that hardcore right now.

Yeah, I'm really sorry to hear that, Heather. It sounds really hard.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And so, yeah, I just don't know what to do. I'm just really taking everything I hear in from everyone else stories and seeing what I can do to get myself out of it.

Yeah. Yeah. I find that with any of these chronic states that we're in, you know, we can really develop an aversion to them and we're like, I want this to end, I want to get out of it. And sometimes the only way out is through. And I find, I find it interesting you use the word passion. You know, it's like to me is this very like elevated, fiery, bright, sparkly energy.

Right.

And then dorsal, which is like the complete opposite of just like numbness. Shut down, can't do anything.

Yeah.

And so if you are a naturally sort of. Would you call yourself like a fiery person?

Yeah, I'm a Sagittarius. If that means anyone, anything to anyone.

I can, I can rock with that. So, yeah, for someone who's really fiery or someone who just has a lot of fight, like a lot of passion, a lot of action, lot of extroversion, these very like big outward behaviors. Burnout is just the hyper expression of that. It's just, it's too much of that energy. And the antidote is two things actually. It's. It is to. To get to the other end of the spectrum, which is rest, restoration, stillness, the healthy version of dorsal. So if you think about dorsal being collapse up the spectrum from it is like rest.

Right.

Chilling, not doing very much.

Yeah.

The other thing though is not. You can think about. A lot of people try to operate like a light switch. On, off, on, off, fully on is like, hello, world, I'm big. Right. I'm doing it. And then fully off is like, I'm comatose, I'm sleep, I'm sleeping, I can't do anything.

Yeah.

Whereas we are more like a dimmer switch where we gradually turn on and we gradually turn off, which is why like a morning routine is really helpful. So we gradually turn on and we have an evening wind down routine. So we gradually turn off. And for someone who's really passionate and has a lot of fire, I actually feel like one of the things to really get good at is that gradualness of how do I pace myself more in life, how do I, Instead of going 0 to 100, how do I nurture those in between stages. And then how do I gradually turn off so that your body doesn't event? So your. Your body's already done it. It like freaked out and it pulled you into dorsal. It pulled you into burnout as a way of healing and offsetting so much of the big brightness energy. I don't know how long you'll be in a burnout healing stage. It takes. It's a different process for everybody. But as you get out of it, one of the things to really get good at is the pacing in between those two modes.

Okay.

Not all on and all off. It's. You can be in the in between.

Yeah, I like that. That's. And it's like actionable advice, you know, so like, okay, thinking of what works for me and my rhythm to bring up and bring down and that's something I can put some thought into.

Yeah.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Yeah. One of the frameworks I love is cyclical creativity which actually maps onto the four seasons. And the four seasons offer us a really cool blueprint and archetype. So like Guy right now is in the spring season of his project. Right. It's early stage. He doesn't know what it's going to become yet. Summer is like full blown. You're out in the world, you're marketing, you're selling. It's this, it's big, it's very masculine on yang energy. And then fall is like you're winding down, you're iterating, you're reflecting, you're reaping the bounty of your harvest. And then winter is. You're in the in between, you're resting, you're recalibrating, you're hibernating. And we actually need all of those modes in our life. And we live in a summer dominated culture and time where we just want to be bright and on and vibrant and passionate and successful. And then we burn out. And so then you get pulled aggressively into a deep winter. Like a painful.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

And what is needed is like those in between stages is reclaiming the spring and the fall, the autumn.

Yeah.

Of gradual winding up and gradual winding down.

It's literally so funny that you say that because I was actually thinking about that myself, like how I appreciate living in a place. I think it came up when you said that it was split spring where you are. Because I was thinking like I'm actually. It resonates with me that I live in a place where there's four seasons so my body can go through those cycles and it's helpful for me to have that time, like, let's say in the winter, in January. Like, January is very, like, I kind of go into hibernation and I get a little bit of, like, I don't have to feel guilty that I'm not doing as much social stuff. Like, I can just take some time to be with myself and take a chill pill. And, you know, there's not so much many expectations of me. And I find it really challenging for me to honor what I need when my partner is complete opposite of me and doesn't understand what I need. And I feel like he's kind of judging me, and it puts me more into door's hole because I'll try to express what I need. And, like, let's just say he wants me to do all these social things with people. And, like, I love it. That's. It's great, but sometimes I just don't have the energy for it. Or I need to honor that. I'm tired and I need to take a break. And. And he's like, well, you just don't like these people. That's why you don't want to hang out with them. And I'm like, oh, my God, no, I can hang out with them next week or so, you know, but, like, it's not coming across. The message is not getting through. And then I'm. I feel these feelings of, like, judgment or, like, makes me feel like a bad person because I'm not doing these things that he wants me to engage in. And so then it's like another approach into my romantic relationship. Like, how do I navigate that? Like. Like, I just don't want him to take it so personally, you know?

Totally. The. The number one tool is to get really good at loving. Boundaries. Yeah, Boundaries around your own energy and capacity so that you can heal from burnout and because you know best, you know what? And then how do you communicate and set those boundaries with the people in your life to where they don't feel like you're pushing them away in the honoring of them, but they also get to learn, like, oh, you know, Heather, she's a cyclical being. I'm sure you might have a menstrual cycle that you also could align with, and that has an impact on things. And the more you honor yourself and kind of onboard the people in your life to help you honor that, which some people might be open to and others might not be, and then that's a whole different conversation.

Yeah.

But ultimately, the thing I always preach for everybody, especially when you're healing. Burnout is. You need boundaries.

Yeah. Thank you. For.

Big social life now.

Right.

For rest and recalibration.

Yes. Thank you. That feels reassuring.

Yeah.

It'll all be okay.

It will. It will just keep attuning to what you need, and it's very courageous work to then verbalize what you need and get other people on board.

Thank you so much. It's nice to hear some validation.

Yeah.

I've been in burnout. It takes. It takes time to heal from. And these are the. We burn out because we don't have boundaries.

Yeah.

Because we overwork and we overdo it and we override our bodies. And then what I believe burnout is, is a massive gift for us to unlearn and relearn how to stay in alignment and attuned to our needs.

Yeah.

We don't learn it, then we're going to just keep creating it.

Right.

Like rock bottoms. To me, are these really cool moments where you're like, something wasn't working. I'm going to reassess.

Yeah.

Come out with new. A new framework for life, I guess.

Yeah. And this is my second time, so I really want to, like, not get here again, you know? So I'm really, really working on it. And this is one aspect of it.

Yeah.

I would. I mean, last thing I'll say I was like, I would, if I were you, just be so radically selfish in asking for what you need. And first, that's like an inside job. Like, you need to give yourself that. And then you go communicate with the people in your life. And if they're uncomfortable.

Yeah.

Like right now, you need to serve yourself first because that is the only way burnout heals.

Right. Totally. Thank you.

You're welcome. We ever need a pep talk, I'm like, I got you.

I really appreciate it. I feel more empowered, which is really beautiful feeling.

Thanks, Heather. Yeah.

Thank you.

Looks like Sarah also setting some boundaries.

It's hard, though. Yeah. After so long of just being shut down, it's really hard to come out and to set the boundaries.

So nine years. That's a long time, Sarah.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm getting there. But so slow and so hard. It's hard to find the courage in.

In the socializing. Is that what you mean?

Just to. To.

Move forward?

To. To do anything, really. Just to move out of that being shut down completely. But I. I've just avoided. Yes. Avoidance. And that is my go to position. And. And I know it's not the right thing to do, but in the moment, it's always Easier. And so it's so hard to not. Not do that. So it's a daily sort of struggle to make myself not avoid everything, especially something challenging.

And avoidance is a strategy to keep us safe.

Yeah.

So there's. There's deep wisdom there.

Yeah.

And it might be an outdated strategy for certain things and it might still be a good strategy for other things. Well, you can know, you know, where, where can you. Are you familiar with attachment strategies, attachment styles?

Yeah.

Yeah. So, like avoidant attachment is a strategy that we use to keep ourselves safe when we feel like some. Some person or something is not safe. I was very avoidant attachment with work and money. Like, I really think we are in relationship. Right. There's a romantic partner, there's work that's in its own way, another type of partner. And I avoid it so much because it didn't feel safe. And through again, it comes back to titration gradually bringing in more areas, more aspects so that they can feel safe but not going for the big challenge.

Yeah, yeah. It just kind of. You get to the stage there. It's like six years or however long it is. I should be out of it by now.

And, and where in your life right now is there. Is there joy and is there fun and play and a sense of ventral.

Yeah, there is. Yeah. I've got some little dogs, so they're. They're sweet, but then they've got behaviors that are stressful as well, you know, so it's. I don't think there's any. Where that is completely. Yeah, yeah.

Central.

So what would it be like to go do one thing that, you know, brings you joy?

It would be wonderful.

What could that be?

I don't know. Just go for a walk with the dogs and then behave themselves.

Maybe it's. Maybe you go for a walk by yourself and then you don't have to manage it.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. It always feels like you need an excuse to go for a walk, so. But I know you don't. But I always say, oh, you've got to take the dogs. So that's the excuse to go for the walk. Tough. What you tell yourself.

So part of boundaries is doing things for your own sense of, well, being. Having to go take the dogs for a walk is actually you caring for the dogs. You are still second in the order of priority there.

Yeah, true.

So really, like what. What can you do where you are the only consideration for yourself?

Yeah.

And that. That might be hard if you've lived a life of caring for lots of other people or prioritizing other people's needs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's hard. It's hard to think of anything.

Start super small. It could just be what is the one thing I want to make for lunch today that would bring me joy?

Yeah, yeah. No, that's good. I'm doing a diet so I'm cooking fresh for that and that's. I'm quite enjoying doing that so.

And receive it. Receive it as a gift for yourself.

Yeah, that's what, that's the hard bit.

Like I'm doing things for myself. I'm taking care of myself.

Yeah, yeah. It's the feeling it. That I find really hard. I've been trying really hard to concentrate on the interoception and stuff but. And I can hear what other people are saying and I kind of like pick up on what they're saying and imagine that that's what I'm feeling. But I still really struggle to. To genuinely feel anything other than anxiety and anger. There's still. I'm still on those really primal emotions. It's surprising because you. I. I spend all my time up here. So I've talked myself into a position where I thought I was making more progress but then I've kind of realized that I'm still stuck in. If I genuinely am on honest about what I can genuinely feel, then that's about it really. And that's quite upsetting to realize that's where I'm still at. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we can only start from exactly where we actually are.

Yeah.

And so I really see you as being so brave and, and very self aware.

Yeah.

The nuanced layers of like I'm aware that what my awareness was before wasn't really gen. Like wasn't really authentic. Now you know, you're. You're finding those deeper layers.

Yeah, yeah. I. And that's where the. I can. Can see that progress. But like you say, there's such small steps. It's. And everybody kind of like it's a broken record and that they've lived with it for so long that it's hard for any of you, anybody to tolerate it still.

So it's practiced. So we end up practicing these states for years and years and decades, you know, to where that we've completely identified with them. And so you're practicing new states which are still going to feel foreign for quite some time. But you keep practicing them.

Yeah, I will. But I find it hard to motivate myself to do it. And then I get across with myself because I'm Supposed to have done all of these things when I wake up and do the practices and then I forget or I don't do it and then I feel bad.

It's pathetic.

Set myself more alarms or something.

I don't. I don't think more discipline is what you need.

No, maybe not.

From what I'm gathering.

I.

You know, I'm just meeting you for the first time, but thank you.

Anything.

Anything that could be weaponized against yourself.

Of.

I'm not doing a good enough job. Ditch it.

Yeah, I'm good at weaponizing things against myself.

Yeah. Like, oh, I didn't meditate for 10 minutes this morning. I didn't do the NSDR. I didn't do this, I didn't do that. I'm clearly not. It's not working. I'm not working.

Yeah. Yeah.

That approach will just keep self combusting and so. Yeah, I start where you are in. Sorry, that's the alarm. That's the alarm to read the practices.

It is, well, altering my son, actually. But.

Be kind to yourself, Sarah.

Yeah, yeah.

Start. Start there.

Yeah.

Being on NSM is already. You being really kind to yourself. Taking these steps.

Yeah.

Let that be enough for now.

Okay. That's lovely. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time. It's gone on for so much longer than.

Yeah.

Thank you, Sarah. I also. Yeah, let's. I want to talk to Anan. Because you've been just so patiently hanging out there this whole time.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

Hi.

Am I audible? Yeah. Hi, Kelly. I have quite a few things on my mind, so. I'm actually from India, but I moved to the Middle east four years ago, so I guess I was in a state of burnout back in India. I work as a software developer.

Paper.

So usually there's like a lot of work. End up working maybe 12, 13 hours a day. It reached the point where I had this opportunity. I came here, but now it feels like I've run away from what I wanted to be. It feels like I'm a lesser person for running away from maybe what I was supposed to do. So. I like the Middle East. It pays you well. It's a. There's no tax and. But then I. I really struggle at work. I. I think there's not. There hasn't been a single day where I haven't felt anxious. I would say the work environment is a bit toxic. So, for example, it's frowned upon if you're going down for a walk. You're not allowed to go down or take a break. You're just supposed to sit there for eight hours even though you don't have anything to do. It's, you know, the. The. The fake busyness where you're just supposed to sit and act like it's okay to scroll on the phone, but it's not okay to go down and take a walk.

Wow.

So I. I find that a bit challenging. I've got. I'm not really. I would say that I had a lot more friends back home. My parents and my friends. I don't have much of a circle here, so I feel disconnected. And I think there's. There's a sense of shame, there's a sense of guilt, wherein I feel like I've. I'm just running away from who I'm supposed to be. And I don't know. I've reached the stage where I feel like after coming back from work, this is just my safe zone at work. And I don't know how to express this further, but I don't know if there could be a day where I don't feel anxious. I mean, if I could just be myself for a day, I mean, that would be wonderful. It's come to a point where I have started to doubt my abilities. I don't know if I'm really good at what I do.

And.

Yeah, I guess it's just a lot. It's just a lot. I don't know. But. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. There's no question. I guess I'm just venting or.

I'm sorry.

Your venting is welcome. Anand.

So, yeah. So, yeah.

That you are not living in alignment with who you truly are.

Yeah, it could be.

It's not a flaw on your part. It's that you're just in environments that actually aren't right for you.

Got it? Yeah. But I'm just scared if I go back to where I was, would I get burnt out again? Or maybe it's worth it, just trying out some other place altogether. Maybe that could be a solution.

So if you. If you take a. A plant in a garden and then you try to move it to another environment, it may not grow and flourish in that other environment no matter how much you want it to and you force it to and you ask it to. It needs a correct environment for it. And that correct environment is the right geography, the right weather, the right kinds of people, the right opportunities. And then it just. And the plant just flowers and grows and is beautiful. And it just. It just works because everything around it and where it is is in alignment.

Yeah, I have a question here. So. So let's take an example of. So my family, my cousins, my sister, everyone stays in the US So that was my path. The path was always to go there. But then my parents are quite old, my dad 74 and my mother 65. So I thought the Middle east was like a middle ground. I could go back if there's any health concerns or something like that. I'm just three hours away. But I realized that four years have passed and I'm still unhappy. And I'm not sure if that's the right answer. So I guess, I guess I might have to. I feel like my. I would be happier if I moved to the West. I've got my cousins and my sister and my close ones around. I guess the work would be better. I Not sure if it would be as toxic as it is here. But then I would be giving up on my, on the proximity with my parents and if anything bad was to happen to them, then I would not be there for them. So that's, I'd say I wouldn't be a good son. So yeah, it's something like that.

Yeah. What is your definition of being a good son?

That I'm there for them when they need me the most. That's, I guess if that's an answer because they were there for me when I. And I was growing up and it's only right and fair that I do that I be there for them. I can't, I mean. Yeah.

Yeah. What if your definition also included that being a good son means that you're happy and that you love your life, the life that they've given you.

And.

That you love them too and you'll do your best to be there for them. That you also acknowledge that you have a life to live which they brought you into this world to do.

Am I being too selfish to pursue?

I believe, I believe there's some cultural. There's some cultural things here that are a little different for me being from America. And I know many people who've moved from India, Asia, different places to America and have had to wrestle with these similar questions around parents and grandparents and are they being selfish or self centered. And when your happiness and health are the priority, it might require some uncomfortable decisions, but it also doesn't mean that you don't love your parents. Doesn't mean that you won't still try to be there just on a longer flight. Might just take a longer flight to go be there.

Very true.

We live in a time where we can just catch a flight anywhere, any day, and we'll be there in due time. So it's.

That's true.

That's instead of an either or. I can either love my parents or I can be happy. There's a new framework for your nervous system, which is I can love my parents and I can be happy.

Got it.

How does that feel?

Yeah. Yeah. I've had similar thoughts, but I don't know. It's just been. Just not being able to. Yeah. Just put it across. I don't know. I guess it has to do with.

Yeah.

A lot of cultural issues or like, we brought up with those sort of values. I'd like to. I'm so. I'm so sorry for taking your time. Just another two minutes. Do you have time for, like.

I have time in India.

So. Thank you. So there was another question I had. Yeah, thank you. I'll keep that in mind. Hopefully I make the move. I think I really need to write down and work my way out of this situation. Another question I had is. So I've been brought up as a Catholic, so my. It's quite an orthodox sort of childhood. Quite strict. And. Yeah. So I've always struggled with boundaries. And I've always been taught that you forgive your. You forgive others as they forgive your shortcomings. And even though when I've set boundaries with my friends or people who wronged me or have done injustice against me, I've always thought, okay, it's okay. I've been taught this way. And it's. I. I keep seeing this pattern, repeat. Is there ever going to be a time where I can keep my faith aside and my teachings aside from actually having boundaries? Because I struggle with this. I've spoken to my therapist about this, but I'm honestly. They call me a doormat. I don't know if there's a term for the. Yeah, I know it sounds so stupid, but I'm sorry.

No, it's okay. I'm trying to just understand. So are you saying you struggle with setting boundaries and. And how does that relate to your faith?

Yeah. So let's say a person. Let's say a friend of mine, a close friend of mine. Let's say I did not speak to this person for two months. And let's say that I just trying to keep him aside. I'm just struggling with a lot of things. That's my boundary of, you know, let me be in my zone. I don't want to talk to other people because I feel like I might not be at my best but then when I reach out to them in a couple of months, they would say, that looks like you're just numb emotionally. You've forgotten all of us. And I would tell them, no, I'm so sorry. I'm just. I've been trying to work on myself. It always feels like I'm the one who has to reach out or I'm the one who's. What do you call it? I would say that I find fault in myself, even though others may have wronged me, I don't know what it is. So I would say, okay, sorry, that's fine.

So, yeah, Yeah.

I struggle with this.

I imagine that brings up some sadness, not feeling to your friends.

Yeah.

Yeah. There's no easy answer here. Anand there's a lot of layers. I hear you working on yourself and needing time to do that. There's also maybe a story that in order to work on yourself and feel better, you can't have these people in your life at the same time.

Yeah.

And that when you do feel better and you reach out, they push back. And maybe they're upset because they reached out and then you push back. You know, it's kind of this back and forth.

The game of tennis.

Yeah. Yeah. So in relationships, there's a framework called repair. When there's a rupture, does that make sense for you? Like when there's a rupture, when something breaks in a relationship, we have to come back and repair it, which is a more elaborate process than just saying I'm sorry. It's where we really hear how the other person's feeling and we share how we're feeling. And you can look it up. There's like repair models out there.

Okay.

So it might be helpful to bring in a repair model to some of these relationships and usually have to lead with vulnerability of I, I really miss you and I want you in my life. And it was hard for me before, and now I'm ready, you know. Can we talk about it?

Yeah.

It also takes a very emotionally mature and psychologically mature person to go through these kinds of processes. So you may not get the result you want. Whoever based on who these people are.

Yeah.

But you at least advocating for what you want. To be honest, this is. This is the through line. I see with everything you've shared is like you advocating for what you want. You want your friends, you want. You want to feel good in your workplace. You want to feel happy, you want to like where you live.

First.

Really just like letting yourself acknowledge that these are things you want and Then not making yourself guilty or wrong for wanting what you want.

Got it.

Which is actually a physical experience, not just a mental experiences. If you grew up in a household or in a community where people were made to feel guilty for wanting things or wanting to be different or wanting a different life or wanting to stand.

Out.

Yeah, we can. It trains our system to think that it's dangerous to want what we want.

Yeah. So true.

And it's. It's the. It's the conditioning of your family, of your parents, of your community, of your culture. It doesn't actually have to be your reality. And so turning toward it and just start questioning it, like, why do I feel guilty? Why do I think I'm selfish for wanting to be happy? Start chipping away at these stories, and.

Maybe I journal a bit about everything.

Journal about it. Ultimately, you'll need to feel through whatever feelings arise, which are most likely going to be anger and grief.

Yeah.

And anger might be the first one. And it's so healthy to let yourself go towards anger, because what anger represents is that you acknowledge that there was an injustice done, and the correct response to that is anger. But most people, most children were not allowed to be angry. So we learned to swallow it, suppress it, make ourselves small. But the anger is still there. It needs to. It needs to come out. Anyway, I could. I could spell out a whole path for you. Um, ultimately, the guiding thread here is advocating for yourself and your needs.

Got it. Yeah. Maybe not being. It's okay to be selfish sometimes. I suppose for one's own happiness, it.

Is very much okay to be selfish. In fact, let me drop a podcast episode in here.

You.

Were you on the Joe Hudson call?

Yeah, I was. I was. Amazing.

Yeah.

They've got a podcast on selfish, and it will completely reframe what selfishness is. And look, I had a mom who loved to tell me that I'm a selfish daughter. I. To make me feel guilty because she couldn't. She wasn't allowed to be selfish. And it just perpetuates through the lineage. But when we reclaim selfishness from a healthy perspective, we. We live a life that is authentic, that is joyful, and we become a better human for everybody else.

So true. Because I've been brought up with a. My grandmom used to tell me, obedience is better than sacrifice. That's always been about. So this is something that comes up every day. When we would pray in the evening, she would always repeat this, Anand. My name's Anand. So she would say, anand, always remember, obedience is better than sacrifice. Never quite understood at that time, but as I've grown older, I've realized, okay, it's always been about, you know, just sticking to the norm and not breaking out of, you know, expectations or something.

Yeah, yeah.

Obedience, that's that phrase. That's say yes, grandma.

That's.

That's your framework for life.

Yeah.

You get to choose again, what, what framework do you want? The other concept that might be helpful for you to just be aware of is tall poppy syndrome.

You spit it out.

Yeah, I'm just gonna try and like, I don't know if there's a good article on it, but. Well, I'll just send this to you. Let's see if this works.

So.

They talk about it in terms of like success, but it's essentially what someone from the tribe or the clan or the family starts to individuate and rise up in their individuality, in their uniqueness. They want something different than the rest. In a culture that wants everyone to do the status quo, they chop down that poppy so it doesn't grow taller than the rest of the. And this is like this unconscious implicit agreement that a whole culture can make. It happens in England taught, this comes from Australia. It happens in these certain countries where it's been hard for people to go become their themselves.

Yeah.

And then what happens is we get people who are depressed, anxious and unsatisfied with their life. And the healing is to recognize that you're actually allowed to grow tall as yourself. And the people who want to chop you down, you set boundaries with them and they might be your family, which means it's hard to set boundaries. But you can no longer, you can no longer stay in the status quo because it comes at the expense of your own health and well being and happiness. So the reason people come to America is America is a country of people who like go become themselves and they shine and they do big unique things.

It's the pursuit of happiness.

It's the pursuit of happiness.

Yes.

I mean, I'm not going to say that you land in America and it's all going to be great, but there is a more of an atmosphere here that people just get to do whatever they want.

Yeah, totally. I guess it has to do with it's a lot more secluded here in the Middle East. It's a lot more.

Yeah.

I don't know.

You have.

You know it when you're here, you just feels a lot different. So.

Yeah, maybe.

Yeah. What do you think? Right.

I really see you Anand as this beautiful flower that just wants to grow and bloom and be in the soil and in the environment. That's right for it.

Thank you. Thank you so much. It means a lot.

Yeah.

To your happiness and. And again, to bring it back to this workshop. Final thing is like, you can take these entitrated steps. You know, you don't need to move to America, start a new job. You don't need to do all of that at once.

Yeah.

But just taking the small steps of even thinking about it, asking yourself like, well, where would I want to live? Live is a really big process in and of itself.

But I've done this. I was always. I was almost moving out a year ago, but then the guilt of leaving my parents alone sort of stopped me from moving, so I. I thought I would be a bad son and sort of stayed back.

Not be a bad son for pursuing your happiness. I don't know what your parents think about that, but you get to define what it means to be a good son.

Go ahead.

I can tell you will always love your parents and want to do. Do good things for them, just not at the expense of your own well being.

Thank you. Thank you.

You're so welcome. Have a. Yeah. Have a beautiful rest of your week and. Yeah. Enjoy the rest of nervous system mastery.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

You're welcome. Bye. Bye.