The Power of Emotional Awareness & Mind-Body Healing with Dani Fagan

0:00:00 - Speaker 1
Welcome. Welcome, Dani. I am so excited to have you on this podcast today. Thank you so much for joining me. 

0:00:06 - Speaker 2
Oh, thank you, Andrea. It's a pleasure to be here and a pleasure to present all of this stuff to your audience. And, yeah, just hang out with you. It's really fun. 

0:00:14 - Speaker 1
Yes, all right. So why don't you start by telling people a little bit about who you are? I know there's no way we can honor your whole story, but just kind of a quick overview of what got you to where you are today. 

0:00:26 - Speaker 2
So I experienced a bunch of different types of chronic symptoms throughout my life, including anxiety, headaches, back pain. Now I look back, a lot of different things but basically what brought me to this mind body, chronic pain recovery space was a serious bout of chronic back pain. It was something that really took me out and I thought I was. You know, I thought I was never going to properly walk again and all of that kind of thing. I had the kind of crazy medical run around which I'm sure a lot of your listeners can resonate with. You know the typical visiting chiropractors and body workers and all kinds of different manual therapies taking different meds and all of that stuff. Thankfully I wasn't recommended surgery, but I did get a diagnosis of a herniated disc and disc degeneration, which is like textbook in this space, one of the most common places for chronic pain to show up. Yeah, so throughout all of that trying to recover from that, I kind of stumbled across the work of Dr Sarno, which I know that you've interviewed a couple of other of his successors and other people in this space that teach from his kind of methodology, which is a mind body approach, a more sort of psychological approach to trauma recovery and chronic stress recovery, because that is the main like genesis of a lot of chronic conditions. So that's kind of a really summarized version of a really shitty few years and then just kind of recovering from that, really with more of a psychological approach, more of a sort of therapeutic approach than a physical approach. 

I figured that I needed to kind of share this information, and this happens to a lot of us. I think that you get to a certain level of recovery and you think you know that more people need to know about this. I have to go around and tell everybody about this and my background is in web design and digital marketing, graphic design. So me and my partner put together like what was originally just going to be a list of resources for people to go to to find this kind of healing work, and that was during the pandemic and it just kind of kicked off from there. So we built a website and now I've kind of built a business around it and I help other people to recover too. So that's sort of the full circle really of how it's gone from, you know, bedbound to business owner or something. 

0:02:45 - Speaker 1
Yeah, oh my gosh, that's so amazing, and it was so amazing what you've created like from this experience and, yeah, I think it's the more of us that do go out and share right, the more this can become the way I see it's like built up alongside the conventional medical system, so it becomes yeah its own mainstream thing right. 

0:03:05 - Speaker 2
Right, yeah, and that's yeah. That's why. 

0:03:07 - Speaker 1
I left the clinic is. I am manual therapist at my original training and it was just like man and I love it there's. I miss it. Sometimes I miss there are times and places for it that are amazing, but sure this world just called to me on so many levels? 

0:03:23 - Speaker 2
Exactly, doesn't it just like so many people that I know that have kind of moved their practice from a more traditional place to a more mind, body kind of holistic place have said the same thing, like there was kind of a peace missing and it didn't really resonate so much anymore and you couldn't help certain people because you didn't have all the answers and a lot of stuff was like still unresolved or didn't you know, didn't have a solution, and it was all these syndromes and like, yes, nobody knew what the root causes were. It just is what it is and fibromyalgia is uncurable and all those things that we hear, these scary things that we hear with those types of diagnoses. Right, yes, yes. 

How couldn't you move out when knowing more, how couldn't you Like? It kind of makes sense that you would jump on that. 

0:04:06 - Speaker 1
Exactly. And, yeah, like I want to highlight the fact that it's like you had this diagnosis, because I think a lot of people listening to this podcast still and just obviously there's a lot of people out there that are getting these diagnoses and it feels like, well, because I have this diagnosis, this mind body approach can't work because it's physical. 

0:04:24 - Speaker 2
Right. 

0:04:25 - Speaker 1
And so, and the research, what blows my mind about some of this, and like the way the medical field talks about it and even within my own profession and physical therapist see talk about it, is the research supports what you and I do. Right, yes supports the mind body approach. 

0:04:43 - Speaker 2
Absolutely. 

0:04:44 - Speaker 1
And yet there's still this disconnect and so much of that fear-mongering language, right Like you. Take one search on Wikipedia or Wikipedia, google I don't know why. I said Wikipedia through Google and it's like, oh my gosh, I just had a client. She'll be listening to this and she knows who she is. Be like, oh my gosh, I Googled glute pain and it's like, oh my gosh, I fear form is syndrome and it's like this whole scary thing and I'm like it literally just means there's a tight muscle in your butt. 

0:05:07 - Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly, I think we get so attached, don't we? Like you say, and really I like to think now that diagnoses are just names for clusters of symptoms and there's someone's opinion of clusters of symptoms as well. Yes, Obviously, if you have a tumor or you have a broken bone or something, that's a very different scenario. But like a syndrome or a yeah, like there's so many things that you could list, it's like that's just the name so that they can say something and give you some drugs for something. 

0:05:37 - Speaker 1
Really, Totally Like. I would give no offence. 

0:05:40 - Speaker 2
No offence to the medical model. 

0:05:43 - Speaker 1
Well, yeah. 

0:05:44 - Speaker 2
How's its place? 

0:05:45 - Speaker 1
It does. And I mean, I just remember, as a PT being like you know I'd get someone like patella femoral syndrome and they're like I have this. I'm like it literally means knee pain, like that is what that means. It just means you have knee pain. 

0:05:56 - Speaker 2
Which? Do you have knee pain? 

0:05:57 - Speaker 1
Yes, you do, but guess what Like we can do something about it, and yeah, this. And it's funny, though, because there is something to naming thing that does soothe our system, because Definitely. Yeah, and so I'm curious, like in your, how they were talking about naming things like within this mind, body, world. Where have you found naming things to be helpful? 

0:06:17 - Speaker 2
I think when people feel like they're being heard and they feel like they're being understood by a practitioner whether that be being given a diagnosis or a name for something or just validating their experience I think that's where the power is. 

Whether that I don't know whether necessarily diagnoses do that, but certainly validation of an experience is like could be so healing in itself. So, yeah, having a diagnosis can make you feel like you're not going crazy, like you know you're not being invalidated or gaslighted by your gaslighted I always say that gas lip by your doctor, and like it can make you feel part of something, like a community. You know the Spoony community is so strong in this space that it's hard to kind of, it's hard to say anything bad about it, but there is definitely. You know, I think you do yourself a disservice by attaching yourself to a diagnosis because it almost like it's almost like you're giving yourself a life sentence, like that's what I have and that's the end, that's what I have and I can't do anything about it, or that's what I have and that will always be that way. It's like a permanent thing when you name it. But that's so untrue for the vast majority of things. 

0:07:28 - Speaker 1
Yes, yes, I think you nailed it so beautifully and it's like when is it? Because I have seen like a diagnosis, like a fibromyalgia, for instance, where somebody has been like gaslight, has been made to feel like they're crazy, and they finally get somebody named it and they're like oh my gosh. Finally somebody heard me, I was seen, and so there has this like moment, or you? 

know, maybe a period of months that it feels so validating and it feels so healing, and then it becomes. Then something happens and it becomes now no longer supportive where it's like. Now. It's become an identity. 

0:08:06 - Speaker 2
Yes, and also like I don't know if you experienced this in your practice or with your colleagues that when you're being diagnosed or you're in clinic or whatever and you know you're being assessed and stuff, and you will always usually get recommended or asked like maybe it's stress or it's possibly anxiety related, and that in itself feels like gaslighting, it feels like being invalidated, it feels like, oh well, I'm making this up then, but actually there's so much truth in it. Yes, yes, you know what I mean. It's like the doctors do kind of know, but they almost get called out as gaslight is big for suggesting it. It's like that old joke that I hear all the time have you tried yoga? Yes, and like actually, yoga is a fucking therapy. It is no, I mean. 

0:08:54 - Speaker 1
Yes, it is such this like weird space, because I'm just so with you, right, it's like you know, it's like, yes, I will get people who come to me and they're like the doctor said it's just stress and it's like I was. So you know they're infuriated but it's like, but maybe it is stress, but I think the reason why it feels so like not one. I feel like half the time the way doctors tend to say it or it gets said even like yoga is like it is in this very demeaning way. 

It's in this way that isn't acknowledging and seeing the suffering that is currently happening. It's dismissing it as like oh it should just be this easy thing. And that's the thing that cracks me up about cracks. I mean, I just laugh because that's my copin' mechanism right, but it's like the main thing to laugh about. 

The stress question is like they're like oh yeah, it's just stress. Okay, well, like, hey, I'm a single mom of four kids living in this system. That's fucked up and doesn't support me and. I can't afford my bills, Like how the fuck am I supposed to reduce my stress? And they're like just go do yoga. 

0:09:52 - Speaker 2
Go do yoga? Yeah, obviously, and it's like in what time? 

0:09:56 - Speaker 1
How am I supposed to afford, right? And so it's like. I think they're spot on. I'm like, yes, clearly it is stress and it's not an easy fix. 

0:10:04 - Speaker 2
It's not a solution either, is it? It's like it puts all of the premise and all of the pressure on the patient, and that's really not what we're used to. We go to the doctor and we go to specialists for help, and when we don't get help or we're given something really vague like oh, it's probably stress, without any kind of like scientific backing or rationale, or like help or further education or further instruction or whatever, then yeah, of course it's gonna sound like crap. 

0:10:30 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I think it's the equivalent of a doctor being like, oh, it's just cancer and it's like, yeah, so like, how do I address it Right? And like it's like stress, literally, I think. I don't think it would be an understatement to say that stress is as complex to manage as cancer. You're just only managing very different tools. Like it's not a systems but most people are equipped to navigate on their own Right. 

0:10:54 - Speaker 2
Like absolutely, especially if you're not given any direction. 

0:10:57 - Speaker 1
Yeah, Exactly so. It's just such a silly thing because it's like you're. You're announcing this very complex thing that most you know, most doctors don't have the understanding of how stress impacts our system and then, they're expecting the patient to just be able to like address it, and so right, and they don't make it particularly believable either right. No, they don't. 

0:11:17 - Speaker 2
And there's no prescription, there's no piece of paper that they can fill in and send you to the pharmacy with. Really, I mean they could, but it's not really getting to the root of the issue If they just give you some calvapentin or whatever. Yes, exactly. 

0:11:29 - Speaker 1
Yes, so I know, obviously I see on your you know, social media and everything that you really do discuss this and like delve into that deeper emotional side of things, of like trauma that bodies are holding onto right and this contributes to stress, and so you know when our bodies are holding onto things from our childhood, things that happened from medical gas gaslighting, that just happened yesterday it all adds to our stress system, and it's not easy to do this on your own. 

So I'm curious. I'm curious, and just since you've even started this work since obviously most people who are listening to this podcast are pretty familiar with the connection between the two yeah, what changes have you seen in people's like awarenesses, just around that connection? 

0:12:13 - Speaker 2
I think one of the biggest things that I've noticed is just how disconnected everybody is from their body and themselves that get into this place, how important it is in healing. This might not even answer the question properly. I've gone on a bit of a tangent. Oh, I have to apologize for that before I even start, because I may forget what you've asked and, yeah, I may be just talking about Rick and Morty in a minute. So yeah, people's disconnection to their bodies and disconnection to their emotional world was something that was very obvious from the start and still is. Even though people are following different protocols of mind body experts. If they're doing journaling or they're doing Howard Schubiner's on the pain process or anything like that, it's like you can be doing all of this work. But if you don't really have an understanding or even a perception of yourself, whether that's your physical body, because we're so focused on our symptoms and our pain that we're not really in tune with even, like you know, hunger signals or like tired signals or it's all just like this hyper, urgent, aroused state, that's like that's our default and we are really unaware of that. 

Like I was completely unaware that I have had anxiety my whole life. I thought I was the most laid back person on the planet, but I was like running a million miles an hour, 24 hours a day and drinking loads and just making stupid decisions and like really not taking care of myself. So I think one of the biggest changes that I've seen in people is learning to witness, like yourself as a human, as a cognitive human, thought, behaviors, emotions, but also to be able to feel that in your body, like, instead of thinking and over analyzing everything you think. I mean it's just true for so many of us I used to think that feelings were thoughts. Like I feel anxious, well, that's because I'm thinking loads of worrying things and I'm running a million miles an hour. 

But actually anxiety is a physical sensation, right, Like everything that we're, everything that we're feeling, is felt, not thought. Yes, like. That was that's one of the biggest revelations that I've noticed myself and in others. Like and there's a big part of what I teach is you know you're the story in your head will usually follow the state in your body, not the other way around. They can obviously play a little circus dance together, but your body speaks, right, and it whispers and you might not hear it until it's shouting, which is kind of what happens in this chronic space, right. 

0:14:50 - Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. I so so agree, and I think you said something that I wanted to comment on of that's just made me connect some dots here is that, you know, the people are approaching now this mind, body work from this very analytical state, which is a lot of, a lot of my audience and at me too, right. 

0:15:10 - Speaker 2
Me too, yeah, straight-a students. 

0:15:13 - Speaker 1
Exactly. Yes, yeah, and it's this like I feel like it gets to, and this is going to be an extreme example, but it's like it's almost to the point where people are like oh my gosh, my, my body's hungry, right, my, I'm feeling tired. Let me analyze it. What did I do wrong? To create this hunger and it's like, no, just feed your body, just go to sleep Right. 

0:15:31 - Speaker 2
Exactly. It's so common and it's where a lot of people get stuck because they think they have to figure it all out. They have to understand all of their trauma responses. They have to understand all of their behaviors and why they are the way they are. Why is their dad the way he is? Why is why is generational trauma, who's got what? Why is what? Which can help Don't get me wrong. It can really help to validate your experience and understand why you are in this place. But really it's so much more simple than that. Like if we could just switch off our cognitive brain from analyzing and and getting in the way and think, trying to think our way through something that is a feeling somatic. Experience like that would just help us speed things up by hell of a lot for sure. 

0:16:13 - Speaker 1
Oh my gosh. Yes, yes, cause I think it's so. I mean, what I experienced her myself, and I think I'm sure you can relate to yourself and your clients too is that we're approaching this work from a place of feeling broken, feeling like something is wrong with us, feeling, you know, not at least for me, it was just total feelings of like, worthlessness, right, and so it means every symptom I'm experiencing is seen through that lens of like oh my gosh, I'm feeling sadness in my body. What's wrong with me? Why do I? 

0:16:42 - Speaker 2
even feel sad. 

0:16:43 - Speaker 1
Why do I feel sad about this sad thing that occurred? I shouldn't feel this sad about it, right, and it's like yes, it's like just feel sad Sometimes. We just don't know why, and it's okay. 

0:16:54 - Speaker 2
Yeah, and we do, we do, we fall into that A lot of sadness yeah. 

We so easily fall into that self critical spiral, because I think, for a lot of us, when we're told that this is as a result of, you know, chronic stress, xyz, trauma in the past, experiences, childhood, all that kind of thing, it's like, oh, it's my fault, yes, and now I've got to fix it as well. Yes, yeah, so like, that amount of pressure is overwhelming, plus with the whole like protocol of thinking psychologically instead of thinking physically, can also make you think that you have to overthink things. Yes, do I have to be a psychology psychologist, you know, and I have to analyze myself in order to be able to do this? But it's really, it's really not about that. It's, it's. I guess it's a mixture of things, it is, it's not. This is the difference. It's not treating the physical symptoms directly, necessarily, because there's no physical thing to fix, there's no physical problem that's broken. Yes, it's an emotion, more of an emotional exercise that doesn't really necessarily mean thinking. It means feeling. It's tricky, though, isn't it? 

0:18:03 - Speaker 1
It is it does seem complicated. 

0:18:05 - Speaker 2
I totally get it, which is why I kind of created the stuff that I did with my website and stuff, cause I wanted to make it really simplified and pragmatic and like this is what to do yes, one, two, three, you know. 

0:18:15 - Speaker 1
Yeah same. I love that because I think for people who, at least I find, like to create even the safety to start feeling in their bodies, I often start with a lot more of like the education thinking stuff to like actually calm right there. Right, right the side of the brain and it's like, okay, don't worry, brain, like you're getting everything you need, Getting everything you want. And, oh man, I wanted to say something that was now I forgot. It's like it'll come to me maybe, but but, it's like it can take. 

Oh, I know what I was going to say Okay, it's. I think what a lot of people hear is oh my gosh, it's the stress, it's my, it's my emotions that have led to my pain. So then we make it wrong to feel emotions, and it's not the emotions, it's the repression of them, or it's the making them wrong or just yeah, I mean, the truth is is how many times have emotions been repressed in your life? 

It builds up, and then I always like to follow that with. There's still going to be times in your adult life where you're going to purposely repress emotions, and that's okay 100%. 

0:19:16 - Speaker 2
Yeah, right. 

0:19:17 - Speaker 1
It's the intention behind it, right, it's that you can. You can cry later if it's not appropriate to cry while you're you know in the grocery store and that doesn't feel safe. 

It doesn't feel good to cry. You know, there you want to cry with someone who's safe. That repression is okay, Cause it's, it's intentional, it's it makes sense. But it's like we were like, oh my gosh, but if I repress this one emotion, then I'm going to make my pain worse. Or, oh my gosh, now I'm feeling big emotions, or I'm in this stressful scenario, so I'm going to make my pain worse. And it's like no life is stress. Life has stressors and challenges, and it's. How are we interpreting them? 

0:19:50 - Speaker 2
Right. 

0:19:50 - Speaker 1
Is your body seeing it as a threat, or is your body seeing oh, this is like this, really, this big challenging experience that I can grow from or I can move through, and I trust my resilience to make it through. 

0:20:02 - Speaker 2
Right, yeah, it's beautifully put. I think that there's there's something in there as well that I think is relevant to what you just said, that like it doesn't necessarily have to just be and the brain will repress any way to keep us safe. So that's something to point out as well, like massive grief. Good luck trying to get to that, because it's blocked for a reason, right. 

So, it's not like you're broken because you repress. It is, you know, a biologically correct thing. It's just when we don't feel ever and we don't allow ourselves to express at any point and we also suppress our authentic selves, like that can be massively influential. Like I feel a certain way, but I'm going to not say anything around my family because it will rock the boat and we'll have an argument. I'd rather just swallow it and literally make yourself ill every time you're swallowing that shit down and you're not expressing it. 

I understand you can't necessarily express stuff to your family, to your partner, whatever, but you can express it yourself, you can express it in the journal, you can scream in your car, you can have a therapist, you can. You know there's a million one different ways to do this, but there's, there's I think it's a bit nuanced in itself the whole emotional repression thing, because it can be, you know, repressing old memories, it can be repressing your true opinion, you know all those kind of things. It's it's dolling the voice really of of yourself, your true self, and covering that up is really, really draining, like masking and perfectionism and people pleasing and all those things that we all experience usually in this space are like hugely taxing on the nervous system. 

0:21:31 - Speaker 1
Yes, yes. 

0:21:32 - Speaker 2
And that's a big part of it. 

0:21:34 - Speaker 1
Totally, and one of my favorite questions to ask is just, is it supportive? Because all of those things right Masking, emotional suppression, like all these things they can have a place where they actually feel supportive. 

0:21:46 - Speaker 2
Sure, absolutely, and we all need them. 

0:21:49 - Speaker 1
So it's like this nuance of right where you're just reading something on an Instagram, like I mean my own posts are you know, half the time I'm like, oh well, it doesn't apply in this situation. But like I can't cover all the new ones because it's like it's exhausting to you. 

0:22:02 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yes, it's like. 

0:22:05 - Speaker 1
I always like. I like to. My goal with people is like can you run whatever you see, whatever you think, whatever you experience? You know what I mean. Like, whatever you're supposed to do, can you run it through your own body check? And it's like is this supportive to me right now? 

0:22:16 - Speaker 2
Yes, yes, Agreed, and I think you can. There's something else that is kind of a big part of this is actually becoming okay with emotions that come up, allowing them to come up like, you know, not feeling, not shaming yourself because you're sad about something or you're angry about something, because that's ingrained in us. That is, you know, upbringing, society, family, peers, everybody is kind of celebrating, if anything. You know that kind of hiddenness. 

0:22:46 - Speaker 1
And it's just not it's really not helpful. It's not. 

0:22:50 - Speaker 2
No, I forgot where I was going with that. Now my brain's synapsed as well. 

0:22:53 - Speaker 1
It's not good. I mean, I think that you did. And so here's another thing that's coming up is like right, it's like the mind-body connection and I think I mean I focus a lot on the nervous system and you know the emotions and looking at all this stuff from this nuanced perspective, but it's like we also can't forget that we have a human body and I feel like you beautifully bring it in through yoga, and so can you speak a little bit more about how you know you bring these two together and how you approach yoga and movement? 

0:23:26 - Speaker 2
Yeah. So I kind of started this well, from my own recovery. Really, I wanted to practice that I could go to, that wouldn't necessarily make my back feel worse, that I could take at my own pace, that would be relatively gentle. And I did it from a very sort of physical perspective. When I started going to yoga, I quite quickly realized that, even though it did make me flare a little bit at first and stuff, because I was pushing too hard, I was trying to do too much, I used to be really bendy and gymnastic and I was like, no, I can do that, I can forward fold all the way down. Actually, yeah, of course you can, but it's going to make you hurt. 

I quite quickly realized, when I stopped thinking I needed to be perfect at this practice and I was actually hurting a lot, was that the mindfulness and the meditative and the breathing part of the practice were so much more powerful, even than getting back to movement without fear for me, which I'd never really done before. I'd done yoga from a physical perspective. I've never done breath work meditation. I thought it was complete bullshit, like I'll just, yeah, whatever, that's just airy fairy, hippy, hippy shit. But I was so in need of that when I was struggling, that I was drawn to that and I started to get almost obsessive over it because it was just so beneficial. 

So just based on the fact that that really helped me, I thought you know, if I ever get well enough, I'm going to do a yoga teacher training, and whether I do anything with that or whether that is just well. The idea was to just do it because I could do it, not for any other reason. And the more I learned on this on the course and the more I learned about my audience and stuff as I was kind of building that, as as I was kind of training and stuff, I just realized like there's a huge space here that I could occupy to offer this service to people, to help them, just as I did it, and create a bespoke type of yoga. That's not traditional forward folding, downward dogging it's not about that it's. It's very gentle, floor based stuff that anybody really can do and it's adaptable to any ability. But there's a huge self-compassion element to it. 

There's a huge nervous system, regulation part to it, connection with others in the community, just so many other benefits that like fit so beautifully into this space. That is that people are, just, you know, fucking desperate for basically. So I figured, why not try it? Why not offer this as a as a thing, a class, a course you know never bundles things I offer and help people find the benefits that I did instead of like going to a yoga studio and going? Well, this isn't for me. I can't do the splits. 

0:25:53 - Speaker 1
Yes. 

0:25:53 - Speaker 2
All right. Yoga really in its in its core format, doesn't involve movement at all, like yoga was for thousands of years, was just a meditative practice. So the physical shapes and all of that is, you know, great If you can do it and do it, but really it's about connecting to your body and to yourself and finding calm, even in a chaotic scenario. So like holding a posture that you know maybe wouldn't necessarily be the one you would choose to hold, really teaches your resilience and quietens the mind, brings focus. All that beautiful stuff that we need in this space is kind of ticks all the boxes, really not to oversell it. 

0:26:31 - Speaker 1
But it just does. Yes, yes, it's, it's so true, and I love I just. Even when you're talking about just the self compassion piece, I just felt my whole body like oh, I got all tingles Like oh, that just sounds so beautiful. 

0:26:45 - Speaker 2
So I mean, that's the most important part of it. This for me, I think, more important than really emotional work, then mindset work, then semantics, and everything is self compassion. It's like the master regulator. 

0:26:59 - Speaker 1
I yeah, I think trying to do any of the other work without self compassion. 

0:27:04 - Speaker 2
Yeah. 

0:27:05 - Speaker 1
Is I know where. I ran into banging my head in the wall for years because I was doing all that work out of basically hatred for myself, right? 

0:27:13 - Speaker 2
To make myself a different person. Yeah, right, exactly. 

0:27:17 - Speaker 1
And and it wasn't until I found the self compassion piece and the be like this is exactly where I am right now, and that's OK, yes. That's massive. 

0:27:27 - Speaker 2
Yes, meeting yourself where you are right now, today, instead of desperately trying to be where you were years ago or wherever, will change how this trajectory goes for you massively. Like you, just your wounded inner whoever is just begging for attention, like that's what I think symptoms are. It's just, it's an alarm system from your inner wounded self going excuse me, can you just pay me some attention? Stop rushing around for everybody else. Yes, oh it's just a voice. 

0:27:59 - Speaker 1
Yes, yes, exactly, when we have so many parts of us that are just never got that attention Exactly Down and just get to ourselves, yeah, yeah. 

0:28:09 - Speaker 2
It takes time, though, like that might sound if people listen now, probably like yes, shut up. What the fuck? I know she's talking about that, it's just Bollocks. I used to think it's that same thing. I'm self, love, I know you talking about. What are you on? Come on now. 

0:28:23 - Speaker 1
I remember it's so funny looking back to because when I like started as a therapist, then I'm a nutrition like was going into nutritional therapy world and I only bring that in because I have so many more like emails and documentation. I can look back on is that I've kind of reached this point where I finally found self compassion for myself and realized how mean I was to myself and I'm like, oh my God, what have I been saying to my clients? Like I remember it being like oh my gosh. 

And then it was. I looked back on emails and I'm like I was so nice I had really so much compassion. Yeah, and I was actually shot. I mean, there's a few obvious I'm not not perfect, right, there's a few people. I'm like I could just handle that interaction a little better. I was hard on them, but it's like with the emails that I'm able to look back on, I would give them so much grace and compassion and I'm like that's fast and that I could not see it for myself. 

0:29:14 - Speaker 2
Right. We don't even think it's a thing, though, do we? No, it's completely off the radar, not even a choice. It's like, well, of course we're horrible to ourselves. That's how we progress, isn't it? 

0:29:24 - Speaker 1
I had to be horrible to myself, because if I wasn't, then who would hold me accountable? Then I would just become a lazy piece of shit and do nothing with my life If I wasn't mean to myself right Like that was, yeah. 

0:29:36 - Speaker 2
Those are words ringing in your head, possibly from someone else, though right, like an inherited critic it came from, oh my gosh, absolutely, yes, yes. 

0:29:45 - Speaker 1
And and then it's just funny too. The meditation is that I, as a PT, took a lot of mindfulness based class, like I could read off the research of how well supportive meditation was and I could not do it for myself. I would sit down and be like fuck this this is terrible. And then I would sit there and go to the clinic and be like you should meditate. Here's let me tell you this research and I was like bullshit. 

Don't do it Like it was such a it's like I was living two lives. Right it was like there was a part of me that knew it was true that would come out to my patience, but then it was such a resistance when I would sit down for myself. 

0:30:23 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I don't know if this is true for you, but like do you think that's because you didn't feel like you deserved it? Or be the think it wouldn't work for you, or like you're not good enough? What's the story behind that, do you know? 

0:30:33 - Speaker 1
I want to be like all of the above. 

But one of the places that I speak to a lot is. I think for some people and this has definitely been true for myself is that the very idea of connecting to ourselves and building that self-connection is what the nervous system is interpreting as a threat. Right, so I think for my nervous system, because I've done a lot of generational work. So, like both of my each, both sides, my grandpa's were jailed for having a business, and like we have a massive generation which I did not know. I did not know any of this, but I would have recurring fears of getting thrown in jail for saying the wrong thing, but I had no idea. 

And so I think for my system it kind of knew that, hey, if I step into my authentic self, I'm going to leave the clinic, I'm going to start my own thing, I'm going to get vocal and guess what? That's going to get me thrown in jail or killed. 

0:31:28 - Speaker 2
Right, yeah, that's a threat, yeah, yeah. 

0:31:30 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so my system's like fuck that. There's a part of me right. My nervous system's like don't connect, this is bad, you're going to die. So I think there's just all these walls up and there's this, there's this, and so my authentic self had avenues to come out with my patients and with my clients. But, like for myself, it was like no, no, it's safe in the clinic. You can say it in here, where no one is hearing you. 

0:31:53 - Speaker 2
Yeah. 

0:31:53 - Speaker 1
Just this person you can trust. And so when I work through those barriers and realizing how much of a threat my system is seeing the connection myself. That's when I could finally begin to connect with myself. 

0:32:05 - Speaker 2
Yeah, that's huge. Awareness. Fuck, that's massive. 

0:32:09 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, not overnight. 

0:32:11 - Speaker 2
No, no, no For sure. And you get these weird like breakthrough moments, don't you Like? Oh, that's why maybe one or two, not every day for sure, but I think as well, like when we've experienced childhood issues or, you know, trauma or attachment issues in our upbringing and stuff then we get sort of hypersensitized or more susceptible to feeling threat anyway, or feeling like we have to people, please, to feel safe. Do we have to create that? Create that feeling of safety outside of ourselves, because we don't have it in inside of ourselves and that becomes people pleasing, it becomes perfectionism, it becomes, you know, putting yourself less on the list, if on the list at all, and that is just a pattern that we continue to play out, like it's not even a choice. Really, that's just how we behave, that's how humans behave. I thought people do everything for everybody else and they rush, rush, rush, rush, rush and they say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, it's never no, it's because that's unsafe, right, that's going to threaten my life. So that was my thought about that. 

0:33:11 - Speaker 1
No, I love that and I want to get a highlight that you said that so beautifully of like when we don't have that internal safety you have to seek extra. That was so beautiful. Oh my gosh, I love that. Thank you, you can take that if you want. Yeah, really, because it's so true. 

0:33:25 - Speaker 2
Yeah, that's why self compassion, to me, is so important, because it creates that internal landscape of safety. No matter what happens, no matter what you say, no matter what you do, even if it's horrific shit, you can still forgive yourself and meet yourself every single turn like no matter what. Imagine that unconditional like always having your own back. It's the most validating thing ever. Like you can never feel external validation never really satisfies. As much as you chase it and as much as you need it, it never really hits the spot. It's never like oh, okay, now I feel much better, I don't need to do that anymore. It's constant gagging sort of junkie is a more most into like validation and like am I okay? Am I okay? Am I doing good? Am I good? Am I all right? Like that's just perpetual. It doesn't ever stop until you offer yourself that validation. And then it's like dreamy, never need to really go anywhere else and ask for that, look for that. 

Oh life changing. Life changing really is. 

0:34:23 - Speaker 1
Yes, it really is, and I feel like I could talk to you probably for hours, but I want to. That was like such a beautiful place to wrap things up. 

0:34:32 - Speaker 2
Yeah. 

0:34:32 - Speaker 1
Because I feel like that. Right there, just summarizes this work. 

0:34:38 - Speaker 2
For me, that's it. That's the core of it. Like the rest of it is just like work. Obviously, that part's work too, but yeah, that's fundamental. 

0:34:47 - Speaker 1
How do we get to that point? And we throw it in there and being okay with the fact if you're not there at all right now, because yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

0:34:55 - Speaker 2
Compassion for that, yeah, compassion for that version of yourself too. Have compassion for the person telling us that we're completely off our faces talking shit right now. Exactly, have compassion for her because she's probably right. Yeah, exactly. 

0:35:10 - Speaker 1
I love it. I love it. All. Right, danny, where can people find you and your work, or check? Out your yoga classes and all that good stuff, yeah thank you for asking. 

0:35:20 - Speaker 2
The main body of my work can be found at mytmsjourneycom. Tms is just an abbreviation for the mind body syndrome, which is an umbrella term for all of these beautiful chronic conditions, so mytmsjourneycom is the bulk of where all of my content is in the work. I have an Instagram that I share on every day Facebook page of the same name and all of my yoga stuff and everything is all on there as well, so it's really easy to find. Yeah, mytmsjourneycom. 

0:35:48 - Speaker 1
Beautiful. Yes, that's like so many resources. Her Instagram is amazing. Highly suggest giving her a follow. 

0:35:55 - Speaker 2
Yes, absolutely. 

0:35:56 - Speaker 1
Thank you so much for being here today. 

0:35:58 - Speaker 2
Danny, my pleasure. Thank you for having me, andrea. Good luck. Thank you so much. Thank you Bye. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page