Taming Your Fears Makes Your Stronger with Patricia Tallman | Meaningful Revolution Podcast

I had. When I first started this work, my first coach asked me, okay, so what do you know? She's, she's sort of logging in, like getting to know me. She said, what do you do for yourself? And I said, well, I, you know, I work out. I made a plan. My. Because I'm a stunt woman, right? So I'm an athlete, basically, and I'm having to take care of my body and I have to take care of my energy. And she's going, no, no, no. What do you do for yourself? What do you do for fun? And I was like. And she said, you really don't know, do you? And I didn't. I don't think I'm all that unusual. I think a lot of us, you know, program ourselves to accomplish things or to be the person we were brought up to think we needed to be. We don't really know how we want to feel. How, how do we really want to feel? You know, what we do, Sean? Instead, we compromise. We decide, well, this is good enough or this is where I should be, or I'm not going to get anywhere any further anyway. So, you know, sort of this again, this low lying anxiety then sort of just exists in our lives, just this kind of sadness. And we start taking Xanax, drinking too much wine or something, you know, because we don't know how to go for our dreams. We don't know how to risk. Yeah, to risk. See, the amygdala says it's a risk. What if, what if we just had like a little mini stroke and the only thing that happened was you couldn't think that thought anymore. You couldn't, you couldn't, you couldn't think. I. What will people think? What if you just didn't ever think that anymore? What would you do? Oh my God, you know, yeah, whatever it is, whatever's holding you back. What if you just couldn't think that thought anymore?

All right, in today's episode, I'm really excited to share with you somebody that. This is the first time in the history of this podcast where I was a little bit in awe in the guest, you know, that, you know, I can't believe that I'm talking to this person. You never know where these types of things will lead you when you're creating things. And today in this episode is one of those days where it's like, wow, this is somebody that, that's really cool, especially for a big nerd like me who's really into Star Trek and sci fi in general. And, you know, she's also from some popular horror films. And we'll get into that introduction here in a minute. But on top of just kind of being super excited as a nerd, it's really great to have this conversation about fear and how it's something that, that we all have, we all experience. And it's not about quashing it, it's not about ignoring it. It's about learning how to, you know, acknowledge it and techniques to live with it. So that one, you have that edge if you are in physical harm, like if you're a stunt woman trying to do a stunt where you're falling down the stairs or you're in a meeting and someone embarrasses you, right? And so fear doesn't know the difference between those, as we'll talk about in today's episode, but how you approach those fears. And so, so that it can help you drive your performance edge and not prevent you from getting into action, from getting in the game, from doing what you got to do to provide for yourself, to service your career, to help others and drive your impact out in the world. So I'm really excited for this conversation. I hope you take a lot of notes. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. And again, as a nerd, I'm really excited to have Patricia Tallman on today. And again, we'll get into her bio here in a minute, so enjoy the episode. We'll see you at the end with the little wrap up. Okay, guys. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Meaningful Revolution, the podcast where we help you ignite your passions by hearing about other people nerding out about theirs and, and hopefully inspire you to increase your ratio of meaningful work from busy work. So today I'm really excited to have our guest, Patricia Tallman on. You know, Patricia's best known perhaps for her work in the 90s cult classic Night of the Living Dead as Barbara, the beleaguered heroine. Heroine. Some may argue she's best known for her role as Lita Alexander on the Hugo Award winning series Babylon 5. But either way, she's been swept into a career that features horror and science fiction. Progress projects. Sorry, she's less recognizable, no less memorable as the whore hag in Evil Dead 3 Army of Darkness, which I love. That movie theater being her true love. Pat was delighted to be featured in Los Angeles in the Los Angeles Sci Fi Fest of plays. So, you know, she's been in tons of Star Trek things. You know, fans made it, give it, have made it a game to spot her in like 50 different appearances. The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, as well as the feature film Generations. She's got tons of zombie movies too, like Dead Air. And she also has a book called Pleasure Thresholds from Patricia Tolman's Babylon 5 memoirs, currently in its second printing, which is pretty cool. So out of all that, her favorite role is being the mother to her son Julian. And her recent work is helping people release their inner badass by leading epic quests to live their dreams, adventure and creativity, and Patricia Tomlin's magical living. So with all that, Patricia, welcome to the show. Thank you.

Thank you so much. That was quite an intro. Appreciate it.

Good to be here, Sean.

Awesome. So today we're going to be talking about, you know, how to tame your fear dragon, which is. As a certified high performance coach, I'm constantly working with my clients on how to conquer fear. As a big nerd myself, as my audience may or may not know, I'm always like, you know, Dungeons Dragons is my thing, so slaying dragons is my lingo. I really love that. So first off, let's learn a little bit about you. So why is the topic of taming your fear dragon or facing fears really important for you?

Well, I, I think that doing what I've done in my life, being a stunt person and an actor, fear has been kind of a way of life, if you will, you know, and I, I think there, you know, first of all, there was this misnomer, this, this, this idea that to be a stunt person or if you're in the movies, that you have no fear, that you're a natural show off or, you know, this is, and while yes, you do have to have a certain personality type to want to get in front of people and be someone else, you're never without fear. And I, I think that's such an unfair thing to expect from anyone from children to adults to expect that they should be without fear. Fear is a part of us. Fear has a role in our lives. Fear is there for a purpose. And I really think now that having done the work, Sean, that, that you and I both really enjoy, which is personal development and understanding our potent how to live to our potential and that have this inner potential we know we have and we want to be able to reach for it. What gets in our way, what stops us? So I've, because I'm a huge nerd and I have, I put these things kind of in terms that is fun for nerd types like ourselves to, to contemplate, to kind of mull over and the, the idea of the fear dragon occurred to me because Feyre is like the little dragon Norbert, when he first hatches out of the egg and Hagrid's got him in his hut, you know, and he sets Hagrid's beard on fire and he's just cute and that's like the worst thing he can do is, you know, burp flames. That's about it. When they're small. When fear is small, we can kind of manage it, we can work with it. But fear can all of a sudden also roar up big like Drogon in season four of Game of Thrones, you know, suddenly he's too massive and you can't control it and then what do you do? So I, I love nerdy stuff like brain. Fun facts is what I call it. If once you understand how the human organism works, what this brain is designed to do, once you really understand it, you, you. It gives you a whole new lookout on life. It gives you so much more power. We are not the brain, we are not the body. We are so much more than that. This is an incredible instrument, the body, the brain. It's an incredible thing to get to run around in. But it's like a tardis, you know, we are so much bigger on the inside. The TARDIS is a Doctor who reference for those of you. But the brain is, is programmed and we start, we start with a certain program when we're born and then we add to it as we grow and develop it. We start adding to it as soon as the brain is ready to be added to, probably still in the womb, but we certainly do once we're born and we're all the added stimuli start to come in, we start to form beliefs, we start to form thought patterns that will then inform our behavior, which then gets reinforced and reinforced and reinforced. But the first thing is that that fear is probably the most primitive part of our brain. It's instilled in this little area called the amygdala, which is like the size of a walnut. It's the oldest part of our brain. It was formed billions of years ago when we were crawling out of the sludge on the planet. And you know, that piece of the brain has never changed. We've developed these big, beautiful, gorgeous brains and that amygdala is still in there and it hasn't changed. It is designed to keep us alive. It's designed to enhance our survival. And the way it does that, it makes us hyper aware of our survival in every situation. So anything new, for example, any new thing clicks Off a response in our primitive brain that makes us go, oh, what's that? Oh, like. And we're doing this all the time. That's important. That keeps us alive, that then the species can propagate because we're, we're walking around and still alive. But it doesn't know the difference between something exciting and new and great and something terrifying, horrifying and dangerous. Everything is an oh. It's so simple. It doesn't have time to disseminate that information. It just makes us react. And how we start to react as we get, we. Our heart starts to pound a little bit faster, our breathing gets shallow, and then the amygdala starts to flood the brain case. Our, our brain is encased in, in fluid, as we all know. And it, it will flood that brain case full of stress hormones like cortisol. The stress hormones shut down the brain, basically. It shuts down anything that we don't need in the moment to survive. And it shuts all the resources out into our limbs so that we can fight flight, freeze or fawn and survive this threat. The threat might be you're going on a date with someone you're really excited about seeing, or you're having a job interview for the job of your dreams, or you're about to go on stage, or, you know, it can be a really good thing. But the amygdala doesn't distinguish. I call it clean fear and dirty fear. Clean fear is that fear that you feel when a truck starts barreling down the street out of control, right towards you all. Or you walk into the room and at first glance the baby doesn't appear to be breathing. Or, you know, your child is toddling over towards the pool, you know, and you're like, ah, that's a clean fear. That's survival fear. That's walking down a dark alley and hearing footsteps behind you. That's a clean fear. Then it's over one way or the other, right? Either, you know, the baby's fine, or you get the baby out of the way, the truck passes you, or you're dead, you know, or whatever. It, the fear is over. But dirty fear is that fear when you're afraid to make a sales call. That fear when you're afraid to step out in a new way. And what will people say about me? What will people think if I do this and I fail? What if I'm afraid to raise my hand in class because the kids will make fun of me? You know, those are dirty fears. It happens. And. But are you going to Die. Not really. Not really. They're not really going to perish. It is. It's more of an emotional response. Clean fear. Dirty. The amygdala doesn't distinguish. It's all fear. And so we find ourselves not stepping out into the world in the way we wish to pursue our dreams. Oh, what if, oh, that might make. Oh, you know, this could. And that's all that amygdala out there doing this stuff. So what I call fear dragons is when the dragon is small, it's just still maybe a thrill. You feel like I want to ask that person out and go on a date. I am going out on a date. You feeling the thrill? But it's manageable. You can manage it. Fear also employs what I call the Faceless Men. Did you watch Game of Thrones, Sean?

Of course I did. Yes. Okay.

You do you know the, the faceless men? The assassins.

Yeah.

Right. The Guild of Assassins, the most successful murderous organization in Westeros. Right. They can be anybody. They could put on any face and they can do whatever it is they were hired to do. Now I kind of think fear does that. Fear has a way of putting on a face and pretending it's something else. It pretends it's just perfectionism. I don't want you to embarrass yourself, dear. So we're just not going to set this out. We're not going to send this one. We're not going to let anyone else see it because it's not perfect. And so then you never do the thing or it's, it's judgment of others. Well, I'm, you know, I, I, I am the judgment police. And I can see that this is, you know, that this person is. Oh, dear. You know, you judge other people constantly. Fear has a whole list of amazing faces that it will wear to distract you, to keep you in what I call the cave of complacency. You know, to keep you safe in your cave where you'll never do anything. You won't risk anything. You won't d. You won't really live either. It can look like boredom. It can look like laziness. It can be confusion. It can be procrastination, which is a great one. It can be people pleasing, taking care of everybody else, getting all up in their business, never really taking care of your own. It can be very practical. Well, if I spend the money on that mastermind, you know, then, then that's, that's, how am I ever going to make that money back? Rather than thinking, this will kick, kick my butt and get me to another level. And I'm really going to invest in myself and my business. It can be criticism of yourself or others. Maybe you're really hard on yourself. Maybe you're just want to be. You're more aloof or you're disconnected or judgmental. Again, that's a really, that's a really common pairing. Those three. Aloof, disconnected and judgmental. Envy, jealousy, our faces of fear. I'll never have that. Who are they to have that? Why don't I have that? I'll never have that, you know, so we get into this victim place. Fear loves to keep us in a victim mode so that we feel sorry for ourselves but never do anything about it because then we are staying safe in that cave of complacency or the comfort zone. It's not comfortable. It's not comfortable. It's in fact it creates when we aren't going towards something that we super. We have this desire. We think I might, I really want to write this book. But oh my God, if somebody read it and they didn't like it, what would happen? What happens is you develop this low lying anxiety that's always there and you mitigate it with stuffing your feelings. Right? I mean it's, that's when you eat too much, you're a couch potato, you, you get, you get hyper busy in other people's business. You know, you go to the gym or you know, you'll just stuff it by shopping. There's all kinds of stuffing mechanisms. But all of that really is fear. Yeah, it's the brain trying to keep you safe.

If you're enjoying listening to this episode of the Meaningful Revolution podcast, there's another kind of conversation that you might really enjoy. So check out Dara here explaining a little bit about high performance coaching.

I feel like in this particular moment where all of us need massive amounts of self care, high performance coaching is one of those huge gifts you could give to yourself for self care. It's one of those things that just shapes your life in all these ways you never imagined. And I think I would just tell a friend that it's worth it and get ready because it's gonna shake up your life. It almost feels like, you know, you don't even realize as you're going along kind of these progressive steps and all of a sudden, you know, 12 sessions in or however many sessions in, you're like, wait a minute, I'm planning and thinking about a life that is, you know, drastically different in many ways. And so it's just, it's almost like this mental shaking up and getting all the crap out of your head. So I think it's, it's an amazing experience and it's incredibly energized, energizing, and it's worth every penny.

I love having deep conversations with folks, whether they're in my podcast or in my coaching practice. And so if you'd like to have your meaningful revolution started through a conversation and high performance, please stay tuned to the end of this episode for your invitation on how to get started. Yeah. 100 and as you're like talking about this, I'm thinking about in the terms of like the high performance coaching I do. You know, we always to like bridge that gap. Not to get too ahead in like solving but like there's a lot of power when you can tame those dragons. Right. If you think, think of Daenerys as she trains the dragons in Game of Thrones to continue with that and how she presents power from that and confidence from facing what could be a very fearful thing. It's probably more applicable to Tyrion when he kind of like goes into the. The if spoiler alert. But you guys should have watched this. That goes into the cave and like makes friends and is able to like touch it. One of the dragons and Isros, you know, so like, and then there's that, that kind of like, okay, like face the fear. I don't have to have it control me. Which is really so powerful.

Like what you just said. Exactly. Sean. I think that instead of putting on all this armor and getting all heavy with armor and stiff because you're. It's not flexible. Not totally flexible. Right. And you fight the dragon and then you're. Now you have to be a battle in a batt up to be a warrior. It, it's more about having a cup of tea with your dragon. It's more like sitting down and going, hey, bud, what's going on? What is this? What's really happening here? You know, why are we. Why did you go from Norbert to Drogan? What just happened? Yeah, what's going on? And getting compassionate because you're never going to be without fear. You shouldn't be without fear. That's weird. To be without fear is a problem. Right? So we need to understand. So why am I a fear? What is that about? Why do I care so much about what other people think? Really? I mean, there's some really interesting ways that I'm sure you deal with your clients when you talk about how you've been socialized and how you were brought you know, socialized and brought up in your family, in your community, in your church, in your school, whatever it is, and they teach you their moral compass, you know, where you should be, where you should go. Don't think too much of yourself. Oh, who do you think you are? And women in my age range, it was always, you know, being modest, putting everyone else first, taking care of everyone else's needs. You know, who are you to think that you, your needs are at all important at all? I had, when I first started this work, my first coach asked me, okay, so what do you, you know, she's, she's sort of logging in, like getting to know me. What do you do for yourself? And I said, well, I, you know, I work out. I, I, you know, I plan my. Because I'm a stunt woman, right? So I'm a, an athlete basically, and I'm having to take care of my body and I have to take care of my energy. And she's going, no, no, no. What do you do for yourself? What do you do for fun? And I was like. And she said, you really don't know, do you? And I didn't. I don't think I'm all that unusual. I think a lot of us, you know, program ourselves to accomplish things or to be the person we were brought up to, think we needed to be. We don't really know how we want to feel. How, how do we really want to feel? You know what we do, Sean? Instead, we compromise. We decide, well, this is good enough, or this is where I should be, or I'm not going to get anywhere any further anyway. So, you know, sort of, this again, this low lying anxiety then sort of just exists in our lives, just this kind of sadness. And we start taking Xanax, drinking too much wine or something, you know, because we don't know how to go for our dreams. We don't know how to risk. To risk. The amygdala says it's a risk. What if we just had a, like a little mini stroke and the only thing that happened was you couldn't think that thought anymore. You couldn't, you couldn't, you couldn't think. I, what will people think? What if you just didn't ever think that anymore? What would you do? Oh my God, you know, whatever it is, whatever's holding you back. What if you just couldn't think that thought anymore?

That's super powerful.

Wouldn't that be awesome? Yeah, I know, I know.

Yeah, that is, it's gotten the hamster going in my head, you know, so let's kind of maybe pull that thread a little bit. And so you talked about being a stuntwoman. I know you've been in some horror films and stuff. So you've played around being in theater or any type of performative arts, like that fear of public speaking or being out, like. So you've chosen a career in life where you have these dragons around you. So I'm curious first off, like, how did you like decide one day that, you know what, I want to be a stunt woman? Like, did you wake up?

I know. Was it, was it a dumb thing to do?

Maybe. I don't know. It sounds like, I think it sounds like a super fun thing if you can get over the fear of hurting yourself. Right. Like the cautious part in my brain is like, I don't want to like fall out of a building and then really fall out of a building, you know, like.

Right.

I'm sure. And you're as safe as you possibly can be. But you know, there's always that, that risk that you're talking about. So could you maybe tell us like, how did you get started? How did you make that decision to be like, this is what I want in my life. Whether it's maybe it was performing was before becoming a stone, but what's your journey getting to being around all this fear all the time, These fear based things.

I started acting first. I was, I was, I had my first professional job when I was 15. And then I never stopped, never looked back. I love being somebody else. I love storytelling. And I met stunt people on a movie I did called Knight Riders by George Romero for any of those horror fans out there. So Knight Rider spelled it A K, N I. It was like basically a renaissance fair with motorcycles and Ed Harris was the star of that. I met a bunch of stunt people. I really didn't even know that stunts was, you know, was like a career because this is back in the 1980. 1981. And we. That wasn't really discussed back then. And that was still in the days when they didn't give stunt people credit. They wanted the audience to believe that the movie stars were doing all of the action themselves. I mean, people don't go to the movies to watch stunt people. They go to the movies to watch the star.

Yeah.

So you don't want to know that Pat Toman was doubling Geena Davis in Long Kiss Good Night. They don't want to know about that. They want to watch Geena Davis.

Right.

So I watched these guys and I was not interested ever in Doing that kind of work. But it opened up my eyes to that, the industry. And then after that, I was living in New York City at the time while I was having a stage career. And I used to take period sort technique classes because nerd. I'm a huge nerd. So. And I met stunt people in, in that class. And one day one of the coordinators came up and said, you know, I need. I need someone, a woman 5 foot 9 with red hair to fall down some stairs for the soap opera to double this actress. And you'd be perfect. Would you do it? And I was like, sure. I had no idea. I had no idea. I'm like, okay, I'm working in the little girls department in Macy's. You know, it's like, I'm fine to try to do another way of making some money. And I did the job. I had a pretty good time. I mean, I knew I could do it. It was not a thing. And I worked out with the stent coordinator to kind of practice before and get an idea of what it was he was going to ask me to do. And then they gave me a check, you know, for like 1200 bucks for that day. And I fell down the stairs like four times or whatever it was. I know, wow. That was a. As much as I made in a month working in the little girls department. So I kind of went, what? This is a. This is a job, you know. So it. I kind of built up, but after that, just doing more and more stuff, work, and it was weird. It was just something I was good at. I don't. I don't know how to explain it. I love telling stories through action. And to speak to your point about being afraid of hurting yourself, I didn't care if I hurt myself. Now, that's not to say I wasn't trying to be safe, because stunt person has to get up and do it again. You don't just do a stunt once, right? You could do it 12 times. I mean, you do it until you get it. So until they get the shot, until it's the right thing. There are one off stunts where you're blowing up or crashing something, but. But often you're doing things more than once, so you definitely don't want to get hurt. Now, recently, I spent the past month flat on my back because it turns out I've got some degenerating vertebrae in my back. And guess why? Because of stunt work. Yeah, the. The pain has been amazing. I'm just completely bummed out, you know, that, that my body is Falling apart, the ripe old age of 65. So it's not a career I just, I recommend. But I, you know, I, there's no point in having any regrets. And it did, it's taught me so much, including facing, facing fear. So to, to be super honest, about 10 years ago I had what I call a crash and burn in, in the emotional sense. I had like a breakdown. I just lost it. I been working so hard and trying so hard to do, to live life, to do all the things to be a woman in a man's world, to, you know what we all have, we all have a thing that was part of what was hard for me. And, and finally all the armor, I call it that, you know, my, to survive in, in the world, to survive in Hollywood, it just all broke me. It broke me. And I felt like the flayed man in Game of Thrones, you know, I felt like my, all the armor came off and took all my skin with it. It felt like I was just raw, you know, and I had no barriers left. So I went through this really incredible process of putting myself back together and starting this personal development journey just to understand, you know, if I, I did my very best and it obviously wasn't enough. What else do you do? You know, I mean, how else do you do life? And that's what led me to start to understand fear and how the brain works. We can work with the brain but you can't work against it, right. Because it's not going to get anywhere. But if you understand, oh, my brain is designed to physically, when these triggers happen, it will physically shut down and then I can't be creative and problem solved because I'm breathing too fast and my heart's pounding. So the first thing I teach my people is to, to what I call box breathe. It's very common. This is not. I didn't invent this but to slow down the amygdala because the amygdala takes its cue from physical. Your body is so smart. The brain and the body have these, these clusters of neuro ganglia. We've got three pounds of it in our brain. Right, That's. But we also have a fist size cluster in your heart and you have a mass of it in your gut. So when you say I feel it in my gut, you really do. You really are. That neuro ganglia is in your body. So the body will take in all the clues out there and will know things before the brain's had a chance to process it. So before, by the time your Brain goes, oh, the heart's beating fast and she's breathing shallow. My body's done that for its own reasons. It's already started. It's. And you might not be able to control it, so you need another tool to control, to get yourself calmed down so you can think and it's simply breathing. So you inhale on one side of the box. Inhale, and remember not to stress yourself out. You're not going, because that's just setting off the amygdala again.

Right?

So we want to gently inhale, and then you float on the breath on the top of the box. Just float, float, float. Gently, gently, gently. When it feels right, then you start to slowly, slowly, slowly exhale down the other side of the box. And at the bottom of the box, push all the extra air out. And then breathe in again. And you just keep that up. Slow, slow, slow. Just float on the breath, you know, keep it light and easy so you're really calming down. And then slowly just control the exhale. We don't want to hyperventilate. And then kind of push the last bit of the air out. And the box might look more like a trapezoid, but whatever, you know, you get the idea. It's like four steps and that calms down and then it stops sending stress hormones into the brain case and your brain can start to think and you can solve the fucking problem you're trying to deal with. Right. That's why you're breathing fast to begin with.

Right.

You can take a look. Is this clean fear? Is this dirty fear? Do I. Is my life in danger? No. Oh, I'm just afraid because the girl I'm meeting is around the corner. Okay. I can handle that. That I'm looking forward. Right, Right. You can think a little bit, but it's just. It's really very interesting. Just simply. That helps. And if you get a big fear dragon, I've got tools for that too. But the. Just to. Just to control the first bits of it. Breathing is so essential, and no one ever needs to know you're doing it. You can do it so subtly. Yep. You could do it in the middle of a meeting. You can do it while you're waiting for the buzz, you know, just practicing at any time so that it's right there for you when you need it. Just practice it. Just practice the box breathing. And it feels good anyway. Yeah, it's nice and slow.

It's so amazing to me, this, like, body, mind connection, you know, that. That you're getting. It's a Feedback loop. And you can interject something, you know, to like, give me the cues that I'm calm, will calm you down. It's like, like a tuning fork, right. So like, you get triggered. Maybe you're at this like low, rumbly, like, scale and you want to be back to normal, you know, maybe a brighter, happier scale. You hit the tuning fork, your body will then kind of, you know, start to, you know, switch and tune itself to that frequency. That's maybe not the best metaphor off the top of my head, but.

Well, if it makes sense to you, I think it's important that we put these things in terms that we all understand and you can work with. So that's my minus the fear dragon. Yours is a tuning for it because it all works. It's. It's really helpful to notice your dragon when it's small because you can work with it.

Yeah.

But when they start to get really big, it's like, I can have full disclosure. I can have a full on fear dragon instantly. Drogan, who's smushing me around money, money, terror. And there's. I have, I have money trauma, ptsd. So it'll set me off, you know, like if I see an email from the irs, I'm like, you know. Right, yeah. And without even opening it or anything, I can be completely in. Overwhelmed with fear. And then you need to pull out a few more tools. That's when you start to get triggered by something that really terrifies you. Then you need to pull out a few more tools, which I can help with too. I think it's really quickly. You always have to start with your breath. Just start to breathe and then keep that breathing up through the whole process. You caught your. You caught it. First of all, you need to congratulate yourself. Like Mel Robbins says, the high five. You have to give yourself credit for noticing because. Because the brain remembers that it's. Mel also taught me this. The reticular activating system. Your RAS notices you. It's the filter. It's that beautiful neural net over our brain that filters all the stimuli. Because if you didn't, you'd go. If you didn't have it, you'd go completely insane. But it will filter what you focus on. So if you focus on saying, oh my gosh, that's so great, I caught that. I'm doing better. I caught that. I'm in fear already. Then the RAs, your brain will start to help you notice it every time you start to move into fear before it gets too big. So you want to congratulate yourself. Okay, I caught it. Keep boxing. Breathing. And then I think it's really important to distance yourself from the fear. Get a little space if you will, from whatever it is that's caused you fear. And I call it a fear busting mantra. So if you can use anything you want, it should be positive. I like to say, I like to use a piece of that serenity prayer. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. I can say that so fast in my head or out loud that you know like a blur. And I'll say it as many times as I need while I'm breathing just to get a little space just so that I can, I can kind of have perspective. And then you want to introduce a better thought. And the better thought could be I have been afraid before, I can handle this now. I, I am well, I am safe, I'm loved, I'm peaceful. Just repeating is a breathe in, breathe out. No fear, no doubt. Something like that. Something really easy that you can again just kind of puts it's a patronus charm against the dementor fears. It's a little bit, it just gives you some steadiness and you can then start to think your, your way out. You can ask for help from a trusted advisor. You know, you can, you can take some action steps then to get you out, out of the rest of it. But you do need a few, few of those pieces. I think the breathing, the congratulations, the fear busting mantra and the change your, to change your thought just slightly better. I, I want, I like to always tell people to my, my affirmations are fantastic but unless your brain can believe it, it's gonna just be so you need an affirmation that you can believe. So if you're trying to put out a blog post but you're terrified to put push, publish, you know it. And but you, you say to yourself, I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning offer. Your brain's gonna go. But if you're, if, if you say I'm gonna, I've wanted to do this for so long and I'm ready. This is my time and I'm ready. Then you can push that button. Your brain can believe that yes, you are ready. Yes, it's scary, but we can do this. Just whatever makes you feel a little bit better. Change the trajectory just a little wee bit. If you're heading towards like the Titanic headed towards an iceberg, you only need to change your position a Wee, wee, wee sliver at the very beginning. And by the time you reach that iceberg, you are so somewhere else. You are going off towards Tahiti. You're, you know, you're in a good place. So you just need to shift the thought a little wee bit to make a massive difference.

If you're enjoying listening to this episode of the Meaningful Revolution podcast, there's another kind of conversation that you might really enjoy. So check out Dara here explaining a little bit about high performance coach.

I feel like in this particular moment where all of us need massive amounts of self care, high performance coaching is one of those huge gifts you can give to yourself for self care. It's one of those things that just shapes your life in all these ways you never imagined. And I think I would just tell a friend that it's worth it.

And.

Get ready because it's gonna shake up your life. It almost feels like, you know, you don't even realize as you're going along kind of these progressive steps and all of a sudden, you know, 12 sessions in or however many sessions in, you're like, wait a minute, I'm planning and thinking about a life that is, you know, drastically different in many ways. And so it's just, it's almost like this mental shaking up and getting all the crap out of your head. I think it's, it's an amazing experience and it's incredibly energizing and it's worth every penny.

Awesome. I love having deep conversations with folks, whether they're in my podcast or in my coaching practice. And so if you'd like to have your Meaningful Revolution started through a conversation and high performance, please stay tuned to the end of this episode for your invitation on how to get started. And I love that idea that languaging matters. You know, the thing that you're talking to yourself. You know, there's a time in my career, so I come from software, right? So that was my big thing. You know, my audience knows that I, you know, worked for Walmart corporate, you know, doing web stuff, I worked at Apple doing engineering stuff for a while before doing the coach stuff. But you know, the, when I was at my first job outside of after college, right, that was a huge shock because you're open schedule, you have your projects, you plan your time, you put in effort, you get things done, you know, it's not a thing. And then you go on to this like corporate thing where it's like you need this done yesterday and there's a bajillion things that, that pile on I remember there was a time with talking about financial trauma, like I had a bunch of student loans and I was, do. I was in the point where like I was choosing, like, do I. What bills do I pay? Do I spend money on food this week? Do I fill up and put gas or, you know, gas in my car? Just terrible. And I would just wake up exhausted and stressed and I would say, like, I hate my job, I hate my life. Like, I hate my job, I hate my life. And you just get more and more, like wound up and stressed with that bouncing around in your head. And so eventually, like, I read some self help stuff and I decided to journal. And so anytime I had that thing come up, I had like a red journal like this and would just write. It's like, I don't love my job yet. Just that little shift of. It's not that I hate where I'm at, it's just I don't love where I'm at yet. I'm still in process. And instead of locking it in, like, this is a bad situation, it's that avenue that things could change and that.

You'Re still finding your way, still finding my.

Yeah, but I just don't love it yet. Like, I'll figure out. That's the, the key belief. I can figure out how to love this situation or I can switch the situation and showing you love. Yeah. And it unlocked everything for me. I think that's kind of the same, the same thing with, you know, that, that switching, you know, for positive thought. I always think about it like Indiana Jones, he like, has the sand, he takes a statue. And sometimes you gotta outrun the bad, like the bad thoughts until you get someplace safe. Right. And. But it's that brave act of. No, not. This doesn't serve me. I want this shiny thing. Let's get out of here, you know?

Right.

So.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the thing is, the other thing I think, Sean, first of all, I love that you, that, that little shift that you had in your journaling, I think that's so important. And I, I hope that your listeners take that in. It's, it's like, it's not about being perfect. It's just about being a little bit better. And, and I love this work for this reason because my people are, are a lot, I have a lot of engineers in my membership and it's all sorted. Ravenclaw, right? They're all Ravenclaws. And, and I, I, I love them so much because they make me a better teacher, because they want steps. They Want clarity. But what they. They can do is want to do things perfectly. They can, they can put on that perfectionist face of fear. And, and my job is to, to remind them that this stuff works. No matter how perfect or imperfect you are, it works. Just by you trying, you can be a complete mess, and it will still work. Yeah. Believe me. Because I have often been a complete mess, and it still works. You know, and then you have better times and you feel like, hey, I'm really on it. I'm on my good habits. You know, I'm building. You know, I'm saying the right thing and things are going well and yay, good for you, and then it'll fall apart again. Trust me. Because that's life and we're human and that's why we're here. But it doesn't matter as long as you try. And as long as you pick yourself up and try again, it's going to work. It's going to work.

Definitely. Yeah. I believe that wholeheartedly myself. So. Okay. And we could go into the engineering. Folks, I think that I have some theories on why there's perfectionism in that particular field. And I'll just say it right now real quick. It's. Everything's changing so quickly, and there's always new things you have to learn, and you get judged by your mistakes. It's not the thing that you build that's great. It's like, oh, you goofed up that check in or. And people.

That's right.

Take it so personally. And checking it is just like putting it in a safe, like saving a document for those people that aren't as technical. But. Yeah, and so you get in, you. You build up armor. You live in this thing of fear of, like, if I mess up, then all my peers are gonna, like, rag on me or, or whatnot. And personally, like, you know, I think having worked at Apple, like, you need to be collaborative. You can't actually work together when you have people you feel have, like, the daggers out chasing you around, you know.

Well, you're talking to a woman who made her living in Hollywood. So I kind of know about, you know, criticism and public criticism and humility and all of these things that I really, believe me, my heart, My heart is beating with you. I, I hear that. What I love about engineers is they're, they have. I love steps. I love breaking things down logically. And they, they help me to do that better because they, they ask questions, you know, wait, wait a minute. How did you get from point A to point B? Oh, I kind of just jumped, you know, I did. Oh, there should be a process. You're right. And I don't, I don't know too many people right now who, other than those of us in, in our, our community, Sean, but that, that are doing jobs that aren't high, high pressure. It's ridiculous how inhumane so much work is. Whether you're flipping burgers or whether, you know, you're working at Apple. It's just not, not nice. It's really brutal out there. So we all kind of need what you have to offer, Sean. You know, what you're giving your clients. We need that kind of guidance. We need these tools. And we also need a huge dose of compassion for ourselves and for those around us who are also struggling with this and maybe not as aware as to how the brain works. You know, they might not be into this topic so much. One of the things that, that you were saying wanted meter to. I don't know why, but to bring up the, the reticular activating system again. What we focus on, we create more of. We bring more to us. So we have this brain and you all. Can you do this right now? Let's say you wanted to buy a car. Think of the, Think of a new car that you would want to buy. For me, it'd be a red Honda crv. Guess what I'm gonna see everywhere I go now when I go outside, because I've been thinking about a red Honda crv. Yeah, exactly, right. It's like, don't think of a blue elephant, right? So you see, then you start to see blue elephants everywhere. You see little pictures of them. You know, it's, it's. That's what the RAS is doing. It is filtering what you focused on to bring it to you. It's like a puppy dog. Oh, you want more? I'll bring you more. You know, so if you find yourself obsessively struggling with something super negative, like a comment a coworker said or something that frightened, like a horror movie even, you know, you can't get it out of your head. You might need to employ a few tools to redirect the RAs, do some box breathing and focus on a better thought. I also want you to congratulate yourself for catching it. It's really important. Really important. Congratulate yourself for catching that. You. That you're on in a spinning story or you're in a negative place. Awesome. Just that, just that could be life changing so many people. Do you realize probably 98 of the world doesn't do this.

Yeah.

They just stay in that negative place and like I call it emotional masturbation. It just for some reason feels good in a dark way to, to be full of self pity, but it's not gonna, it's not gonna give you a life that, that feels awesome, that feels fulfilled. I call it feeling magical. I like to, I want it, I want my life to feel magical. Yeah.

And, and what I love about that is the intentionality behind it. Because I feel like when I've met people in my life or I've coached people that have been in that kind of negative spiral, like nine times out of ten, it's just, they don't know a different way. They don't know that, that, hey, I can feel magical. I can feel awesome.

Yeah.

You know, or like I didn't, there's tools, you know, that I had no idea, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can do, you know, you can cultivate joy. I didn't know that, I didn't know that until very, very recently. I, I read a book by a Google engineer, Chade Chad Ten Tang Meng. I'll, I'll send you the link. I'll send you the link so you can put it in some program notes for the, for the fans. It's called, I think it's called cultivating joy. But it's, it's all about how, how you can basically get your brain just to really start pointing out what brings you joy again. Working with the brain, the brain wants to please you. So whatever you're focusing on, that's what it's, you can tell what you're focusing on by, by the results in your life.

Yep.

You can pretty much tell. So yeah. And then it's just a matter of, you know what, you can ask for help, you can talk to people, you can look online. There's help all kinds of places now that I, I Google and YouTube all the time looking for answers and looking for more teachers. You know, when I'm stuck in a bad place, which happens, it's just, it's life.

Yeah.

It's just life. Yeah.

Part of the fun of it. You know, I think things would be so bland if you're always like winning on top. You master everything the first time you try it. Like we need challenge, we need difficulty because I mean, ultimately, especially in the high performance coaching work, you define yourself by your challenges and how you approach them and how you like most people that are not happy with how they handle a situation, it's because they have this ideal in their head. On I'm gonna be the hero. I'll stand up. And when that person yells at that barista, I will yell at, hey, no, that's wrong. Right? And then in real life, you're like, you. You hold back and you're like, why do I feel bad right now? It's like, oh, I didn't live up to that hero. I like that idea how I would want to be in the world where I stick up for people that don't deserve, you know, to be yelled at because their latte wasn't done, which is a really silly thing.

Yeah. You know, I know, but it happens.

It does happen. And the thing is, is, like, not to beat yourself up when that happens, but it's to figure out, like, why didn't I speak up? And it's like, oh, I have some trauma when I was young with anger and stuff. So now I have to figure, okay, like, that's the good stuff. You know, that's the stuff when you figure out and tame that dragon right now you have that dragon on your side that you can employ it.

That's right. That's right. It's all about that. I think you're. Exactly, exactly. You're about understanding your response. And I think there might be a little bit of grace in. If I were just to use your example, if you see someone being bullied, if you will, and you don't immediately jump to their defense, and maybe it's because you're not sure how to do that. You're not sure how to do it safely, you're not sure how to do that. That would really make a difference. You can always say something to the barista later that's supportive. Or. Or maybe it's that you might recognize that the person who is being the bully has had. There's something they need a little compassion to. I mean, it's. It's complicated. Humans are complicated. So understanding that. That was a lesson for you in that moment when you saw that and you. Maybe you didn't react yet. It's a chance for you to kind of mull that over and maybe come up with your own solution. You know, what I'll do next time? Or, what did that. You know, why did that happen? What do I. What can I take from that? Sometimes that's a really good space spot to start.

Yeah. Or just figuring out, like, what did I really want it? Like, maybe you knew, like, deep down you wanted to do something, but you hadn't, like, pushed it into the front of your brain to be like, oh, like, this is something that's important for me to do now in the world. You know, this, the self discovery part is a part of the magic, I think of just being a human, you know, and being. And like, I like to kind of bounce off what you're saying too. I think it's an underlying value of curiosity because I think you're 100% correct that I'm curious about how I'm operating, how I'm curious how I'm showing up in the world. I'm curious about why are those people acting that way. I'm curious about, like, you know, maybe there's a different way that, that you can intervene. Doesn't have to be like, hey, stop, don't do that. It could just be like, like you said, like, comforting the barista in that example or, you know, just making sure that, hey, like, you do a great job. I don't know what that guy's, you know, problem was. Like, well, I hope you don't have that impact your day and, you know, that you make an impact and just recognizing people. So, you know, so I love that. So I'm curious, as you've done a lot of work on fear, this is something you definitely nerd out. And I could see it and how you're talking and your face for those that are not watching us on YouTube. But I'm curious, did you have a couple of mentors or examples that helped you learn how to team fear in your life, whether that's in performing or stun? Stunning. It sounds like you didn't have a lot of fear with falling down the stairs. Was there Maybe. Okay, so there's a couple of things here. Is there maybe a story that you have about having a big fear, kind of go from, you know, small dragon to, you know, drogo, how did you deal with it, either successfully or not? And then we'll get into how maybe influences or mentors that helped you figure through or figure out your system for dealing with fear.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, that's a lot. So remind me if I miss, if I skip a part. I, as a stunt person, I had a lot of examples in front of me of the guys I was working with. And I also just had my own ego. It's like, I'm not going to be the one. I'm the only woman here, and I'm not going to be the one who bought buckles. I'm not going to be the one they're waiting on. I am not going to hold this up. You know what I mean? Just my Ego. I think my own pride and my, the pride of my sex to wanted, you know, just to say, no, you know, we can do this too. So I pushed through a lot of fear. I didn't have these tools and I, it did take a toll on me. It did. It was very, very hard. And I had, I had my heart broken many times on sets as an actor where I was bullied by a director or I was bullied by another actress. That happens too. Yeah. I mean, it's weird that people, because they're insecure. Even though I didn't really understand this then with their insecure, they, they need to, they need to be. They need to bring you down, bring you down to their size. I don't think they realize that's what they're doing because they are so small. They need to bring you down to their size or so or smaller. You know, they think, that's what they think they're doing is making you smaller, but it's, it just makes you stronger because you have to kind of go, wow. Oh my God. I had, I've had people say terrible things to me to try to unnerve me before I was on camera to make me do a bad job. I know. So you find, you find ways to, to overcome anyway. But I think for myself, it just, it left me after a while. You can only take so many bullet hits and you can only wear so much armor and then it's going to, it's going to crush you. It will crush you. It will either crush the joy out of your life, you stop enjoying your work, you know, you start getting really bitter. In my case, it was just the emotion, just carrying the emotional luggage around, feeling burnt out, exhausted and not loved, you know, all of that. It got to be so much psychic, psychically that it, it did make me break. But the breaking was, was important and I'm grateful for it now. I was not grateful in the moment, but I'm grateful for it now. I again, I did see what kept me going was seeing other people and how they handled it and making my own decisions and I'd see others don't. Women, I, I saw how hard they worked. I saw that they had to do 150 for everything. Every job that a man did and you know, not complain. I saw women, I, I walked around on a broken foot for a whole day without complaining. You know, there, you just don't talk about it, you know, and you just carry on. And that was my example. It's like, just don't kind of don't let them see your, your vulnerabilities. And I learned how to do that then though. Let's see. It's such a good question. It's a, it's, it's a nuanced question, Sean, because I must have been picking it up along the way as well, because when I did finally hit bottom, I, I, I had a play, I had places to go where I, I were people who accepted me right where I was at, whether I was crying the whole time or just a big mess or whatever, then nobody judged me and I could just, and then there was some guidance and you, you look for those places. 12 step programs are great for that. And you don't have to be an addict to go to a 12 step program. I went to one called Al Anon that was very helpful for people who grew up around alcoholism or addiction. And it just teaches sort of a, an emotional maturity, how to understand yourself, how to understand others, how to look at it. And I did that for quite a while. They just kind of let me muddle through until I found some footing. I think therapy is really important. Therapy is great. And, and then I found coaching and what I love about coaching and I've had had several really important coaches in my life, including Martha Beck, that the a coach therapists get you on it. It gets you to understand maybe where stuff has come from, from growing up and the traumas you faced and, and then helping you to release that now that you understand it. Sometimes just looking at the darkness in the closet that you don't want to look at, so just shining a little light on it helps it to dissipate and it's like, oh, that's not such a big monster anywhere. It's just a little spider. I can manage that, you know, but the bigger things, the behaviors and the old habits that comes with coaching, coaching gives you the tools. They're practical tools. You don't have to get into the nitty gritty of every childhood memory. You can actually just say, I have this response when these things happen and I want to change it. Yeah, I want to. I have this goal. I have no idea how, how to get over my limiting beliefs. I have no idea how to get over that. And that's what coaching does. It help gives you the tools to keep, keep on keeping on. And I, I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful.

I love that insight. I hope everyone was like hooked onto that. But you know, the idea. And I talk a lot about like the difference between therapy and coaching. Just because a Lot of times people are just like, what's the difference? And I think, spot on that, you know, therapy is when you have a trauma that's holding you back from your past. I think coaching is really future oriented. I think that's the key insight that I want to be different. I want to change, and it's different from therapy. And a lot of times as a coach, coach, if something keeps coming up, I'm like, hey, like, I don't have the skills to really address that. Like, you really need to talk to a professional. Like my wife. My wife's a therapist, so.

Which is pretty perfect. But you're a good team.

Yeah. I don't think. Yeah, she gets weird when I'm like, hey, you should talk to her. But conflict to interest stuff or professionally. But ultimately, though, you know, that coach can help you build the steps to, like, when I am in this situation, I don't want the fear to control me. And they'll help brainstorm the tool with tools and digging into your psychology and like, okay, again, you know, what can we find that's positive to replace that negative belief or to shift your language around it? Or, you know, we have. I have some breathing exercises that I also teach my clients. But box breathing, I think, is a very, very. Like, we've talked about it a bunch, and I just want to highlight how really important it is to get back into your body sometimes with that. But yeah.

Can you explain what getting back into your body means to you? That's a. I think that's important.

Yeah. So especially if, like. So I'm an introvert and a nerd and so a lot of times I could spend a lot of time in my head, which is just thinking about and processing things around me. And, you know, when it's really intense, it just looks like I'm kind of like drooling, like, not saying anything. Not really reactive, you know, so people can kind of see that something's going. Like you're having thoughts, but you're not really kind of emoting or you're not really feeling what's going on. Like, you were talking about your heartbeat, your breath rate, where you're tense in your body. Where you're not tense in your body, not in a sense. Like. Like here. I feel like I'm in a state of flow. We're in a conversation. There's back and forth. You know, it's presence. Right. That's another maybe word for being in your body. You're very present in the moment. Not thinking about the future, not thinking about the past. Not, you know, thinking about, oh, I got to take the dog out or what I'm going to eat tonight. But it's like, oh, I'm here with this human or this group of humans or with this task and all your focus and energy is able to flow into it versus getting like stopped right. Where it's like, oh, I want to talk to someone, but I'm afraid that if I say something, they're going to judge me or I'm going to say the wrong thing or offend them or, you know, like you're kind of stopping yourself in your brain. Your brain is catching you the action instead of your body expressing it.

Maybe.

What does it mean to you?

Similar. I, for me, it's. It's also the breathing thing is imperative. And I lead a meditation in my group every Monday and I really take you through the body. I really think it's important to, you know, also, just like you were saying, it's important to. Let's check in, let's see what the body's saying. If you can get really familiar with your body and you will notice sooner when it's trying to tell you something. Yeah. And like I said, the body knows faster than the brain. The body's got all these other sensory things going on. Not, you know, we can feel, we can feel vibe. We can feel energy from each other and from everything because everything's energy. So there's all kinds of information coming in. So if you just go in and check. I also like to ground. You know, I have a way of grounding in meditation with everybody that really connects you with the planet again and mother Earth. And we're, we're made of that stuff. So it's important to connect to that and then to spiritually, if you will connect to the bigger part of yourself, that bigger on the inside thing, just to start to open up all your awareness. And I feel like most of it comes in through the body. Yeah. You'll have a sense in your body, a sense of dread in your gut or your heart just opens with joy or with love. You feel a tingling or you, you have a. No, you have a knowing. But it feet. You can feel it energetically. So. And when you start to really pay attention to it, it's really amazing. All the information that's in there.

Yeah, yeah. All the information you don't realize you're picking up by seeing somebody, their body language, the tone of voice, the everything like that all is really rich. And like this person is friendly, this person is not friendly. And.

Or they're trying to be friendly and your warning system is going. And you don't know why. Really. Yeah. But there's something I just don't. Yeah. Yeah.

Every time I trusted my gut with those feelings, it's worked out. And every time I felt that weirdness and, like, it's. It's probably just me. Like, it's never just me. It's usually like, oh, like danger, danger. Or, you know.

Yeah, yeah. Or just not a. A great alignment. You know, even just. That is good to know. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really good, Sean. It's good to remind folks to be in there, to check in.

Yeah.

Where am I right now? What are my thoughts? Where am I?

How am I energetically, you know, like. Yeah, all the different areas that you're talking about. How. How do I feel connected to my community or to the higher power or my religion or like, whatever that is for you? Like, it's super important to have some connection outside of yourself and that feeling.

I don't think it matters to put a. To put a name on it. You know, it's whatever works for you and whatever. How are you erased? But to know that you are so much more than your computer brain. Your thoughts are not you. You know, even your feelings aren't really. I mean, this is all. You know, this is part of the process, but it's not all of who we are.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, connecting to all of that opens you up to more information, more resources, more help when you need it. Like, you just get your. Your. That. That higher wisdom to kick in. Sometimes you have to shut your brain up so you can listen to those quiet intuitions. Yeah.

Come in 100%, totally love that. Okay, so we're kind of at the end of the hour. Let's wrap up real quick. So what I love to ask. I love these three questions. So the first one is, if someone were to get started on taming their fear dragon, what would be the first one to three habits a beginner would do? And. And maybe we've already referenced some because, you know, maybe it's, you know, I'll let you answer that.

Yeah, I think that. That. That there's a few things that you can do, and I. We have talked about them, but why not reiterate them? First thing is you. You start to notice that you're in fear. Start your breathing. You know, whatever your favorite breathing technique is. I like the box breathing because it keeps you from hyperventilating, and it's very gentle, and we don't want to stimulate the amygdala into fight or flight. So let's calm it down by gently boxing, breathing and then to congratulate yourself that you've caught yourself in this situation. Ah, I recognize this. I'm in fear or something's going on and I'm going to check it out. So high five yourself because you want your brain to help you to remember to do this. And by congratulating yourself you are are reinforcing that for your ras. Then you say some kind of a quick mantra and it could be a piece of a poem. It can just be something, you know, a few words you put together like breathe in, breathe out. No fear nor doubt. One of my friends likes infinitely loved, always safe, no mistakes. I like the grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change that piece. So you find whatever you can say and you just say it automatically and it just gives you a little bit of perspective on that fear. You start to disconnect from it. It's still, it might be still present but now you know where you're at and you have and you. And now your brain is calming down. So then you can, you can do a few things. You can create a new thought that feels a little bit better if you're not ready to do that yet. I like, I think our brains also love ritual and symbolism. Look at how we set up society. We love ritual, we love symbolism. So symbolically imagining yourself releasing the fear like, like see the fear in your. See the fear is a little ball of like a dementor, like black smoke. And just see it then going disappear, just dissipating. It might not disappear right away, but it's getting less and you can manage that. Or imagine your dragon huge and now he's getting a little. Little and cuter and cuter and cuter. Just using your superpower, that mutant power you have of your imagination, either seeing it dissipate or seeing your dragon get to a good size where it can have a conversation with you. What's going on honey? What's happening? Being self. That self compassion. If you can't. If you're having a hard time with self compassion for yourself, feel it for your younger self. Feel it for that little person that first felt that fear who first was hurt by people saying mean things. To see yourself smaller, see that smaller dragon, feel some compassion for them and then replace it with a better thought and release that fear. I just think it really helps to use. Remember you've got this amazing brain. Might as well use this Tool for good. Use it for good control. Needs you to control it. Just like we have to control our computers and our programming systems. You have to do. It's a weird thing because it's like I'm not my brain, but I'm taking with my brain. You know, you get into that weird thing, but it really, it's, you know, it is, it is something that needs your guidance. Your brain needs your guidance or it will just. It's a, it's a great tool. It's a terrible master. Yeah, don't let your brain be your master.

I love that phrase. Just to piggyback on that with another habit that I really love to teach my clients. When you have, you know, a negative reoccurring thought or like for me it comes up in like situations like you've ever had that thing would like you embarrass yourself in second grade with like, you know, you like spilled water on your pants and everyone like made fun of you and like you're just going about your life and it pops in your head and you're like, why this doesn't serve me right now I'm a 40 year old man. Like, why is this popping in my head? Like, what I like to do is I like to like do the, this abstraction ritual where I'll picture the scene in my head as it's like a movie. I'll freeze the scene like it's a picture. I'll pull, I'll imagine pulling a picture from my brain, crumpling it up and just tossing it on the ground. And I like to call it like leaving around emotional turds. So you like, you kind of like expel it. And like there's invisible notes all around my neighborhood of just like, I don't.

Need this, don't need it, don't need it anymore.

I'll offer that up to folks as another really great example just to hop on, you know, what you were talking about earlier. So to, yeah, symbolically release that fear. So this is my. One of my favorite questions on the podcast is if you're someone that has a pretty good handle on managing fear in their life, you know, so maybe you're not a beginner, but maybe you're more advanced and you want to really, you know, get control of your mind. You really want to. And deepen your, your skill level and being able to course correct or coexist with the fear. Maybe is a better term. What would an intermittent intermediary insert. Ah, this word is tripping me up.

Would be like an intermediate student.

Yes.

Of fear.

Thank you so much for bailing me out.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I. It. I. I think. Here's some. Some I call them putting on your big girl panties. So for you, for all of us, you know, we. I think we need to embrace that we're emotional beings and emotions need to move. It takes. It might take more guts to be this vulnerable. So let's say you are. You're a little more experienced and you're willing to be more courageous when it comes to mitigating that fear. You may need to cry. I know it's a shock. You might need to let some emotion out. Emotions are meant to move. And crying is not being weak. It's biology. It's releasing some hormones that need to move out of you will clear your mind, let it happen. So it might. Like I said, you might not want to do that in the office. You might need to go take a break, but you might need to let some emotions out. It's okay. Keep breathing. I also think it's really powerful to write it out. Like Sean was talking about journaling. Journaling. There is an alchemical, magical connection that happens when you connect from your brain to your heart and have it come out of your writing hand and actually write, not type. Write it out. Then. I think it's important to talk to a trusted advisor, whether you have a coach like Sean or you have a spiritual advisor. But it's someone who understands this work. So talking to a trusted advisor is really important. And here's a little brain fun fact for you. We'll close with this. You cannot be in fear and grateful at the same time. So when you're really terrified, and you do, you got to breathe. The breathing is paramount. That's first start. If you try to think of some things that you can be grateful for. For. You're grateful for the health of. Of a family member. You're. You're grateful for being able to take a poop that morning. I don't care what it is. You know, you start to be grateful for. You have a roof over your head or you're not starving to death yet. You know, I mean, whatever it is, start to get it. Stay in gratitude. I. I mentioned earlier that I. I went through this thing. I've been going through this thing with my back. And the fear. There's a lot of fear around this. I've always lived so hard. Hard in my body. You know, I'm a stunt woman. I'm an athlete. This is my thing. And now what? I'm gonna be flat on my back. I can't carry anything. I can't. What? What? Me?

What?

You know, that just. I'm a black belt kickboxer. What do you mean? Yeah. So the. While I was laying there in excruciating pain and I can't take anything for it more than Advil. Then I thought I just started to go into to. Well, I'm grateful that. For this. This. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for this. I'm grateful for that. Because the fear wasn't helping. The fear that was mounting up around it on top of the pain wasn't helping. And if I am not kidding, the hours went by because I couldn't sleep because of the pain. And I kept staying in gratitude. Just kept thinking of things and crying and. And it was kind of amazing. It was kind of amazing. It's changed something in me. The whole experience changed something in me. It. The pain became distant. My fear took a seat with me. We all sat there. Pain, fear, me. We were all sitting there together for hours and hours and hours, just kind of hanging out, going, well, this is fucked. And you know, now what? You know. But it really. If you're desperate, if you're really scared, you must try this trick, start to go into gratitude and see what happens for you. And stick with it. You'll notice. You'll notice that you can't be terrified and grateful at the same time. It's really interesting.

That is so powerful. It's such a great insight and I'm very thankful that you were able to land on that. That one. I think it's just so helpful. Again, I got the hamster going like a million. I need. I need to. I need to be here. Okay. But yeah, hopefully you took a note on that. Guys, think about it. I'll probably have some more in the show notes a little bit as I process that thing. But I love the. The idea that you can replace that fear with. With gratefulness, with. With honoring. You know, we call it honoring the struggle in high performance. And it's that idea of being grateful that you have the opportunity, you know, as someone that's put their body probably through hell for their. Through their passion for their profession. Right. You know, I'm thinking like, you know, my. This is what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about my dad and his body. He was a contractor, construction worker. He's had balls fall on him and stuff. Not for stunts, because just on the job, you know, and so he's not moving around as nimbly as he was, when I was growing up, still doing great, but he like gave his body to his craft, you know, I think there's something very beautiful about that, you know, or like Krishna cough. Right? The ballet guy.

Yeah.

Ever seen his feet, man? Like brutal. But he did it for his craft. So I just want to, I want to honor that for you. Just in that story because that, that kept bouncing around my head. I'm like, should I say it or should I not? And like just be here.

Thank you. You're welcome.

One more quick question before we wrap up. You know what habit or habits keep you on purpose or mission every day, every week or every month, whether that's in your work and helping people work on their fear. I know you have get to your quest group, so I have to note here what that's really called. But and just kind of where.

Habits, Habits are so important. Habits. And remember, you can change your habits too. I, I see so many people who are just sort of resigned. Well, this is what I do. No, that's, it's what you do. Now you can change it if you want to. You don't have to, but you can if you want to. And I think some, some of the good habits that I've now got to relearn are having to do with my physical self. How do I take care of my body? I gotta relearn that now. So that's gonna be interesting. But building the habit of breathing, of just practicing that, like when you're waiting in line is a good time, or waiting on hold, finding time to meditate, even if it's just a few minutes, because you're so busy, your brain is so busy. You must learn to let your brain settle for a little while so you can get these downloads from your higher self, so you can get this information, so you can get in the flow, so you can get this. Take advantage of the synchronicities that the universe is trying to put out there for you. It's like I said that the ras, your brain is trying to filter for you. And if you guide it in that way, it's just going to change everything. If you can guide it towards what you want rather than what you don't want. Worrying is praying for what you don't want. So let's stop that, shall we? That's the focus of what we want, you know, and taking care of your body, so taking care of your mind with the meditation, taking care of your soul with your connecting in the meditation, and then taking care of your body, drinking better, more water. Whatever it is, you know, you need to do to create those habits. Those are the. That's the building blocks of everything. And then you can, you know, follow what Sean's saying and what other teachers are telling you. But if your body's falling apart, you got nothing. So good luck. You know, we gotta. Gotta take care of our bodies.

We do. We do. Yeah. Okay. Trisha, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It has been such a pleasure getting to know you a little bit more, hearing about the important discoveries you've made about taming and fighting your fear dragons. Before we sign off. Are there. How. What's the best way for people to follow up with you? You know, do you want to talk about your quest group for nerds? I'm totally butchering what. What it really is.

Oh, it's just quest retreats. You're very close quest retreat. So what. What that is, is I lead adventures for nerds like me. And, you know, before the pandemic, I was going for a trip. Every year we're. This year in December, we're going to Africa and. Yeah. So if you follow me on Instagram, you can message me there. Instagram, it's just Patricia. Dot. No, Patricia Tallman. Dot. Rocks. And it says dot. I like rocks and crystals.

I.

And I don't know why I did that, but I did that. So there you go. It's PatriciaTollman. Rocks. I thought it was like Rockstar. Cool. And I have a community uncircle and Kajabi. So it. Well, you could. You can find that all on my Instagram and find links there. Okay.

And I'll have your Instagram and social linked below.

That's perfect.

In the show notes.

Yeah, yeah. Everything's in the link and not in the bio. That link in bio thing.

Make sure you click on that. Make sure you're following Patricia if you're not already. This has been very, very, again, exciting for you to be on the show today. Thank you so, so much and hopefully.

Welcome. Yeah.

Okay.

So one of the most amazing things about this week's episode is Patricia's ability to kind of dig into a little bit of how the brain works, especially when dealing with fear. And fear, again, is something that, as a certified high performance coach and constantly having conversations with clients on what are they fearing, what are they avoiding because of that fear, and really helping them shift into finding their way forward. Right. And a lot of times I talk about this in my coaching practice a lot. You know, there are three different types of fear. There is process Fear that the thing that you have to do is going to be painful just by the act of doing it. So you put the example of training for a marathon. The act of training is gonna suck, right? And that's demotivating, so you don't try. Second type of fear is outcome pain. And so people, you know, basically this, like, grass is greener on the other side fear that if in that running example, I do, you know, finish that marathon, I'm not going to feel like it really helped me or I don't see what's the point. And so you are afraid that the outcome isn't going to be the way that you want it. Right? And the third type of fear is loss fear, right? So in the marathon training example, again, that you'll have to give up eating your favorite foods because you need to, you know, basically feed your body right as an athlete. So in each of these cases, you can focus on what you gain from, you know, each experience or each type of fear. And that usually gets people over the hunk, right? And I think when Patricia was talking about, you know, training your brain to look past negative things or habits or things and to focus it on the things that you want out of life, that's another way to say, focus on what you gain, right? Because I think if you're constantly training your brain to think about what, how is this task, how is this relationship, how is this, you know, career helping me advance my life, the life of my family, the life of the legacy and impact that I want. That. That is where, one, we find a lot of meaning in, and two, that. That's a recipe to be able to. To be happy as we go through life and have life's ups and downs. So I hope you took a lot of notes. I know I did. I'm just taking a look at them real quick too, see if I missed anything big. But yeah, fantastic episode. Again, make sure you go and, and check the links in the show notes because you'll find how to contact Patricia. She's got some charities that she is a part of and likes to promote, which is pretty amazing. So, you know, take a look at all that in the show notes on SeanBartner.com or wherever you watch or watch. If you watch this on YouTube or listen on Apple Podcasts, all the notes will be there. So. All right, folks, until our next next episode, I this is Sean Butner signing off. Oh, real quick. This is the end of season three, so I'm gonna do a couple of process changes, do a little bit of A postmortem on how I think things went. Probably do an interim episode and then we'll get into season four of the Meaningful Revolution podcast. We wrap up this episode of the Meaningful Revolution podcast. I want to extend an invitation for you to start your meaningful revolution through a high performance conversation. So if you go to SeanButner.com coaching you can qualify for a one hour strategy session with me as long as I have time. And we will deep dive and have a conversation like the one you just heard. So if you like this podcast and what you just heard listen to, then I know you're gonna love our one on one strategy session because we'll go in and we'll deep dive into your life through the high performance lens, this science based process that people love. And we'll find some breakthroughs for you on how you can live a little bit more meaningful or feeling a little bit more fulfilled or feeling a little bit more connected to those around you. So, but don't take my word for it. Here's more of Daria sharing their stories of how they were before and after certified high performance coaching. And again, if you're interested in qualifying For a free one hour strategy session, go to SeanButner.com coaching link below wherever you're watching or listening to this episode. So over to Dara.

Before coaching, I was just sort of like, like a machine just going along and doing the thing and like there were decisions that I must have made at different points along the way that seemed like small decisions, but they slowly added up to this life that didn't make sense to me anymore and it just came crashing down and I took a day off of work and was like, I can't do this. This doesn't make sense. Sense to me. What I do in my daily life, how I'm living my life, how I'm not taking care of my body and you know, socially, like just the whole picture was just kind of not. It just all felt long. And then I signed up to do the coaching and I think it gave me this space to pause and reflect in a way that daily life doesn't always give us the structure to do that. And because you're paying money, you're making this investment, right? And so you're committing to it in a way that if I say, oh, I'm going to journal every day about my hopes and dreams, it's not the same as sitting down with someone, having somebody hold you accountable and showing up and doing the work. So before, yeah, just sort of this machine moving along this path that was sort of unconsciously set, and then after, I just shifted simple things like how I feed myself and, like, just little things that I'm suddenly aware of and who I bring into my life and how I spend my time and energy. And it just feels so much more in alignment with my values and my goals and my community and family's values and goals. So huge change, Sam.