Hello my friends, and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited to have you here. You are in for a treat because we have my friend, the delightful Bea Victoria Albina back on the podcast. Now, if you don't recall, she was on the podcast originally, episode 3 36, that I would very much recommend you go back and listen to that episode.
Where we sort of did an introduction into her work, which focuses heavily on helping you regulate your own nervous system. She is really everything. She is a nurse practitioner, a master certified life coach, a somatics experiencing practitioner, and she helps thousands of people, thousands of women, people socialized as women, basically reconnect to their bodies.
Regulate their nervous systems and rewire their mind so that they can break this free from the cycle of codependency, perfectionism, and people pleasing that [00:01:00] so many of us are stuck in and reclaim that joy. And the reason we have her back is because of some very exciting news. She is publishing a book, which is insane to say.
Um, and it's called End Emotional Outsourcing. A guide to overcoming codependent, perfectionist, and people pleasing habits, which we all need. And I really wanted her to bring her back to talk about how do we do this stuff when maybe intellectually we understand, like I know I should say no. I know I should set boundaries, but when I get into it, when I'm at the point where my boss is asking me to do something or my mom wants me to go over and I.
Freeze up and I physically can't do it. What am I supposed to do? I love her work because I think it's such a compliment to the work, the mindset work that we do on the podcast. I think there's so much stuff you can do with mindset work and it has its limitations. And I know for my own journey, which I talk about in the episode with her a lot.
About how much learning how to [00:02:00] do this nervous system work. The somatics work has helped me really figure out how to create that safety for myself, how to get out of my own head, how to bring myself back to kind of a regulated state so that I can think of better thoughts to think. And so I think it's just a really wonderful.
Tool in our toolkit that we all need. And so I'm so grateful for her, um, that she agreed to come back and share this with us. And you, I will put all the links to her new book to her program that she helps. People through with this, um, type of coaching, as well as her podcast, the Feminist Wellness Podcast in the show notes.
So after you listen to this, if you wanna find her, which I'm sure you will, you can go to the bottom of this episode on my website and get all those links. Without further ado, let's jump in and talk to the delightful Bea.
Hello Bea. Welcome back to the [00:03:00] show. I'm so excited to have you here. I am thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me. Oh my goodness. We've been for people, um, listening. We have been cackling for the last 30 minutes and I was telling her like, we gotta start recording 'cause I I will never let you get off this, uh, zoom and we'll just crack each other up.
So it's been such a pleasure already, but we have important things to talk about, so we're gonna get our, we sure do. On, um. You wrote a book. I mean, so for everyone, I, I put this in the intro. Um, we had Bay on the podcast, uh, I think I have it right here. The first episode that we had you on was episode 3 36.
So go back and listen to that. And it was kind of the intro into somatic work and learning how to, you know, heal your own nervous system and the importance of that. And, you know, we talk obviously a lot about, um, thought work here and, and the thoughts and using that intellectual brain, which for a lot of us.
Is sort of maybe I think the gateway into like even understanding our body and our [00:04:00] brains and what's going on. But luckily, like we can add onto it and realize, okay, even if I start becoming aware of my thoughts, there's things that my body does that I don't wanna do anymore. And no matter what I think about I can't stop it.
And that becomes like more of how do I really start, um, connecting back with my body and learning how to heal that, um, or calm down my nervous system. And so we talked a lot about that. We're gonna get into some kind of parts of that again, but you have written a book now. I wrote a book, which is crazy.
That is like an insane feat. It's kind of bananas. Yeah. Thank you. I, it feels pretty wild and I think very true to exactly who I, I am. I wrote most of it from 10:00 PM to like 3:00 AM while listening to Pearl Jams. Even Flow does. Just the one song on repeat and I don't understand. 'cause it's not who I am, but it's a hundred percent who I am.
Do you know what I mean? It says [00:05:00] a lot of things. Yeah. Right. And in the three years since I graduated high school in 1997, I really thought I would've gotten other musical tastes, but apparently not. No. I'm stuck in that. And that's okay. And that's what we're gonna actually talk about stuckness. You like that shape?
Okay, great. Let's do it. Um, okay. So the, I love that and I thought it was elegant like a Leo Wood. Oh yeah. We also talked about like a Leo Wood was Leo's in our LEO season, so we are just thriving right now. Um, okay, so the book is called, that's Right. And Emotional Thriving Outsourcing. And how to overcome your codependent, perfectionist, and people pleasing habits, which let me tell you, my people need, we all like, this is something that in my group, we really coach a lot on people pleasing because as we all know, it is like a major, um.
Tenant. I feel like just the programming that women get in the patriarchy, it's no wonder that most of us kind of turn out to be people pleasers. And so this is absolutely right up our alley. 'cause I think so many people. That I [00:06:00] know, understand. Like I know I shouldn't, people like, I know I should say. No, I know I should, you know, put these boundaries.
I know I should stop trying to be perfectionist, uhhuh. I just physically can't get myself to do it, and so I wanna talk about that. Mm-hmm. Maybe we start, you know, I know I'm getting ahead of myself, so why don't you tell us like, what is emotional outsourcing? Let's like, define that first and then we'll talk about how, what we can do about it.
I thought you'd never ask. So, um, emotional outsourcing is my term that I came up with to encapsulate our codependent, perfectionist and people pleasing habits. So emotional outsourcing is when we chronically and habitually source our sense of the three vital human needs of safety belonging. Worth from everyone and everything outside of ourselves instead of from within at a great cost to ourselves.
What, and I feel like all of us do this because [00:07:00] we're just like sort of taught to do this from when we're younger. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And that's part of what, what I'm going towards, right? So the classical literature, when we talk about and think about these sets of habits, they talk about it as identities.
It's who you are. I am a codependent, they're labels, right? They're a set of guidelines that tell you who you are. I'm not jiving with that, right? I think it's some bs 'cause it locks us into believing something about ourselves. I'm not out here trying to believe. So instead, I really talk about it as survival skills.
Skills We learned to get through life the best way we could, given whatever was happening in our family structures, in our homes, in our religions, in our communities, our societies. And under the, the. Differing effects of living under systems of oppression, like the patriarchy, white settler colonialism, and late stage capitalism.
And I love that framing of it. I think for a [00:08:00] lot of people and a lot of what I try to do in my coaching as well is to like. Normalize because I think so many people think it's like an inherent fault in me. Like there's something wrong with me that I just can't say no, or there's something wrong with me because I'm a people pleaser and it's like you learned how to survive because of that.
Like what a beautiful thing that kind of helped you get out of your maybe traumatic childhood or whatever it is, like get the things that you did and maybe it's not serving you anymore. We wanna learn how to kind of. Maybe curtail it. We don't, we're not gonna get rid of it, but just learn how to kind of deal with it.
But I think that what you said is just so powerful in that this is something that has been a survival skill and it's not you, and there's nothing wrong with you. Right. No, and I honestly start at the opposite of the blame and shame and guilt, and you're defective and there's something wrong with you framework.
I think in order to shift these habits, we need to celebrate them. Mm-hmm. I love that. Like we really need to start by being, wow, I am [00:09:00] impressed. I am impressed. Right. So like if keeping others happy was how you stayed safe, your nervous system logged that as essential. Mm-hmm. So let's celebrate that nervous system.
Right? Totally. And there's like, isn't there, there's like all these, um, things that show that like babies start doing this within a couple of months. Like you learn that your caretaker, you know, responds to your coups or your smiles and so you start doing it because that's what's getting you fed and love and caring and all this sports.
So it's like, it's literally wired in us to sort of relate to people. And of course I think like. Patriarchy forces us to take it way too far where it's like we just give for sure of, uh, our whole self. But like you just said, like, what a beautiful thing that has taught me how to keep myself safe and get the needs that I have met.
And I've sort of learned how to do this all on my own, which is amazing. And now I need to learn how to, you know, regulate it a little bit. [00:10:00] Right, and how to be selective because there are times like for human social studies as women, for bipoc, folks for queer and trans folks, for immigrants, these strategies can be used strategically, right?
Like code switching and people pleasing at work, right? Like I think it's really problematic to just say that they're across the board wrong and bad, because what it takes out is agency. Because if you are being really thoughtful and intentional about how you're interacting with the world and how you're relating to yourself in the world, you can use these strategies smartly.
I love that. Yeah. And also even really thinking about like, 'cause I think. We tend to get into this like all or nothing thinking, right. And I think sometimes like even the conversation around like boundaries and stuff and it's like, this is it. It's so nuanced because like relationships require give and take and oftentimes like, you know, you can label it whatever you want, but you're gonna maybe do something you don't wanna do, or you're gonna say yes to something you [00:11:00] maybe wouldn't, you know, you don't wanna go to that party.
It's not your favorite thing, but you're doing it because your friend, like you're a friend to this person and you wanna show up for them and whatnot. And there is so much. And I think people then guilt themselves like, oh, I always say yes. Like, no. Well that's kind of having a relationship. Or like you said, like I'm at work, right?
And it's like, I wanna keep this job so I'm not gonna say what I think all the time. Or I'm gonna say yes to things that maybe I don't wanna do because I have to. And so, like you said, like being sort of selective, I'm really understanding that like there's no flaw in like wanting other people around you to be happy.
That's sort of how you create community and have relationships and all of that. It's just kind of figuring out where it goes too far. Right. And that brings us back to intentionality. Yeah. Like are you doing the things. From default. Are you doing them from your good girl programming? Are you doing them because you're trying to mine someone's model, right?
Like you're trying to get someone to think well of you, think good things about you, say good things about you. Are you being unwittingly? We're not. We cast no [00:12:00] expulsions around here. Are you being unwittingly manipulative, controlling, right? Are you trying to shape shift? How people, like, are you doing a thing or are you showing up with your full earnest heart?
Yeah. Right. Love that. And like, yeah, I went to a party I didn't wanna go to last week, but my friend was so happy when I walked in. And then once I saw her, I was so happy. Right. But it's, it is really like, I sat myself down and I was like, all right kiddo, how much do you not wanna do this? Versus you're like.
Some little part of you is like, eh. And I was like, no, this is mostly like a whiny 14-year-old who like wants to stay at home. Totally. And so I can honor that part. Love that part. Totally respect that part. And then like as her adult, as her loving, caring guardian, say like, I hear you babes. And let's, let's go.
We wanna be in community. [00:13:00] Let's fricking go like, drive your friend to the airport. You should do that a hundred percent. I love that so much. That is right. New Yorkers get a buy. Does LA get a buy on driving to the airport? Yes and no. Yes. It's terrible. You don't, but like, no, you should still do it. It's still okay.
I, I think New York often gets a buy. Yeah. It's so terrible that you, I mean, I think with Uber and stuff, it does make it difficult. It's to like justify the level of traffic that you have to sit through. But I think we do need to go back to, not. Using capitalism to solve what community was before and like helping each other out and being there for each other.
So yes, but that, that is a conversation for another time. Someone put that on a t-shirt, I'll, I'll get, it's a conversation for every time and so I love that it's our undercurrent, but yes, but it would go back to like when, when it's sort of not. Useful, right? When the people pleasing is sort of taken over us, or the perfectionist or the codependency where it's like my default because I'm so terrified that I'm gonna lose love or that people are gonna think [00:14:00] bad of me.
That I'm just gonna say yes to everything and I'm gonna bend myself into a pretzel. I wanna talk a little bit, like I said, because I think that your expertise in this is really what we seek is how, can you tell us a little bit, you say that this like lives in your body. And I think for a lot of us, again, yes, we all live in our brain.
So what does it mean that it's not just in the mind, right? But like it's sort of, this has been built into your nervous system now. Yeah, so emotional outsourcing lives in implicit memory, especially procedural memory. And so that governs how we act, um, more than what we think. So we're talking about brain regions like the amygdala, which is like your early warning threat system, like the, um, fire alarm in your brain, the hippocampus, which gives your brain context, the basal ganglia, which, um, runs your habit loops and the cerebellum, which fine tunes the timing of your movements.
And your emotional expressions. So because it's also like riding with your [00:15:00] nervous system, that that main information superhighway between brainstem, heart, lungs, and gut digestion, breath and heartbeat, all these things within us are adapting instantly to relational cues. Long before your brain has noticed anything processed, anything, or decided anything.
Right. And so we get these codes, these stories, these operating systems, like you said, wicked young. And then we ride through life in these hypervigilant, amped up states monitoring everyone, right? Like, I'm gonna set a boundary, but I'm gonna watch your face like a hawk. I got like full eagle eyes on to see if you think it's okay that I set that boundary.
And if not, ooh, I'm gonna fold like an origami swan. I am backpedaling. I am backpedaling hard as I can, right? Yeah. And it's, it's not conscious. It's, it's the body neuro accepting, which is like the, the nervous system's way of, of figuring out the world, like constantly scanning for [00:16:00] danger. Yeah. And that, and I think that's so, you know, um, there's almost a relief of kind of hearing that because I think for a lot of us, we do think, you know, we have all felt it where it's like.
You. That's why we have like, you could cut the tension in the room. It's like nobody has to even say anything. Right. But you feel something. You come in and you or you see someone. Yeah. And you already know they're annoyed. Or you think they're annoyed before they've even said that word. Because you are, you are taking in so many context clues about how this person reacts and like, let's say your mother and you know how she, and you're like, uh oh, this is, you're already bracing yourself before the woman has opened her mouth before there's any thought, before there's anything else there.
It's like, mm-hmm. We're gonna, you know, this is what we're going into. All of us feel that. We just don't know how to, you know, we haven't had the words to figure out like, oh, this is what's happening in my body. My body's reacting to all these clues that I'm not my conscious mind. Right. Doesn't really understand.
Right, right. And that's why we get to pause. And this is why I bring the science in. 'cause I'm a big frigging nerd, as [00:17:00] you know, but also because for me, it brings so much compassion in. Because it's not you. It's not me. It's not Megan listening in Cleveland, right? It's your procedural memory, right? It's that time when you were four and you said whatever to your dad, and then he had a reaction that made you feel unloved.
So now you don't talk about being sad or being mad or whatever because you've got that automatic neural link. That goes this kind of feeling, this expression, this kind of vulnerability, this want, this need equals abandonment. And what happens as a pack animal, if you're abandoned, you die cold and alone on a mountainside, or you get lunched.
Real fast. Lions, tigers, bears, T-Rex lunch, like you're toast. And we're very small mammals like, and I don't care if you're six six, you're, you're not a rhino, honey. Like you're small, right? Like a bear's [00:18:00] got a couple of 500 pounds on you. So like we need each other and. The irony, of course, is emotional outsourcing keeps us inauthentic, unintentional, spinning in our own BS and actually not present, so we're never in real heartfelt connection with others.
Absolutely. The irony, I know the thing you desperately want most, you're sort of sucks sabotaging yourself without knowing it. Not without, I mean, because it's wicked hard. But let me ask you a question. So is this, well, yeah. I mean, it's your, is this what happens when, so let's say. And I struggle very, very deeply with people pleasing.
I've talked about this, like I've been made able to manage my perfectionism with thought work, truly. Like I can. I've, I really like sort of made the connection of like, nah, it doesn't really matter. And who cares if I make a mistake And I've gotten myself to feel safe enough. Okay. Which is, yeah, amazing.
Like I didn't even think that was possible. And now I'm just like, yeah, me might as work out, just ship it out. Who cares? You know? And, which is great [00:19:00] for me. It's freed up a lot of stuff. It's awesome. It's like, yeah, I thought my lawyer mind would never, but we did. People pleasing. I feel like I can't even make a dent in it.
Like I feel like it's, like it still comes up. And what's fascinating is that obviously, like I teach this stuff, I, you know, I do a lot of thought work and I talk about this like, and so many of my, my clients talk about, it's like, I know it, I know I should say no. Like I understand that I'm doing this. I understand that I'm, you know, like in this, that I'm not gonna be abandoned.
I understand that I'm not gonna die. That I have love. And also, and then when it comes to it. Like my body literally still like vibrate, like shakes and it's like, oh my God. Say yes, Uhhuh, yes, please say yes. So how do we start kind of settling that nervous system when it's like it doesn't matter what your brain, like, your body will consistently kind of override that.
Yeah. So let me science this first so we can do some of that. Like what is relaxing? So two things, story follows state. Hmm. I love thought work. I think it's fricking great. And the [00:20:00] science is that the nervous system state that is your predominant state in any given moment is the one that rules the roost and the stories that are available to you are the ones that coincide with that state.
So you're at the top of a rollercoaster. You're scared to death. You don't know how you got up there. Somebody, I don't use a magic wand. And all of a sudden you're at the top of a rollercoaster and you want to die, and you're, and you're super duper scared. What kind of thoughts are available? None. F this.
I hate this. I I'm gonna die. Oh my God. This is the worst. I can't, I can't, I, I can't. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Ah, let's say. You're at the top of that rollercoaster and you're really into it. You're really stoked. The thoughts that are available are, this is amazing. I love a rollercoaster. Wow, this thank thank you person with a wand.
Wow. And then if you're so scared that you can't even be scared anymore, you just like wake up [00:21:00] every day and all of a sudden you're at the top of a rollercoaster. And for the first 75 times we were petrified, and now you're just kind of just, just. What? Oh, I'm sorry. My, I'm my nervous system's end dorsal shut down.
I'm just like, I can't anymore. I'm just so done with this rollercoaster every morning. So what are your thoughts? I, I can't, I can't, so the sympathetic thoughts I have to, right. I'm scared I have to get off this, I have to get off this. I can't be up here. I have to, I have to dorsal. I can't, I can't anymore.
I can't do this. I can't even scream, I can't even think about this. I just. What? Wow. So trying to change your thoughts without changing your nervous system, state it. It is not science. It's just not science. It's just not gonna work because science, right? And so we have to do that regulating work. So for you and everyone out there who's like, [00:22:00] come on, why can't this change?
It's just because science and there's nothing wrong with you. What we need to shift. To be able to shift those stories. We need to widen what the literature calls our window of tolerance. I don't like the word tolerance. Remember, I work with human socialized as women living with codependency. We tolerate enough.
Thank you. So I prefer the terms window of capacity. I love that. Or window of bodily dignity. Ooh. Ooh. Right. So. When we think of this window, it's how much BS can you put up with and stay chill is like the really short way to put it. So it's like a window in your living room, right? Like how much stuff can flop in through that given space.
And so there's some stressors that just fall in really easily. Your kid forgot their lunch. Okay, whatever. Someone cut you off in traffic, okay, jerks, whatever. But then. Your mom wants to come over unannounced, [00:23:00] and it's like trying to push a mattress through a teeny tiny bathroom window, right? It's like breaking the sill, right?
It's freaking you out trying to push it through. It's not gonna work. So we need to do the work to widen our capacity to be with life when it's super lifey while remaining grounded. We're able to bring ourselves back into grounding, which is that ventral vagal state, that safe and social state we've talked about.
Yeah. Of like, listen, I don't wanna be on this rollercoaster, but I'm gonna take some breaths. I'm gonna chill out. I'm gonna be present to what I can be present to. It's gonna be over in three to four minutes. Yeah. I'm gonna flow with it. See if maybe it can maybe be fun, but I'm also not gonna BS myself.
I'm just gonna breathe through. Right. And how do we do that? Totally. Absolutely. So, um, uh, we, yeah, right, you got, you got a couple six months, uh, 337 [00:24:00] pages. Um, we start with coming back into our bodies, and so the window of capacity in our body is directly related to how present we are. And so the more we can come back into presence, we can find equanimity, right?
We can find ease, and we can, by regulating the nervous system, can come back into our full cognitive capacity, because when you're at the top of the rollercoaster and you're freaking out, or you're fully checked out, you can't think so good, right? Science. So we need to create a a, a, I'd say, daily practice of coming back into the body and really finding our own grounding and our own mindfulness within our body.
Hmm. This can be really challenging for people whose bodies have been the site of trauma. So I wanna name that first and foremost, that if that's you and the thought of doing a body scan totally freaks you out. I hear you. I love you. And you get to work one-on-one with a trained trauma therapist to find a, a framework for mindfulness that works for your body.[00:25:00]
I love that. So with that said, with Love and Care, um, many of us, um, what's really helpful are two simple things, and it's gonna sound like. I mean, I think this is half of coaching, right? Someone brings you something complicated and you're like, what if it's not a problem? Right? It seems like super freaking easy and like annoying and you wanna give them the bird.
But, um, orienting and grounding. So when our nervous systems get activated, when you're trying to shove something way too big through the window and it's freaking you out, like the rollercoaster or shutting you down our nervous system's time travel. The amygdala time travels in a way, and so it feels like you're in the future and everything's terrible, or you're in the past when everything was terrible.
Does that resonate? For sure. Okay, so we gotta bring ourselves back, and we do that by orienting the nervous system. It's like when you start a new job and you walk in and they're like, all right. Here's the office. You're disoriented you. [00:26:00] You don't know what's going on. But if they say, here's Pam's desk, Toby's in the Annex.
Stanley's over there. Here's Jim's desk, here's your desk. You know where things are, right? So we do the same thing for our nervous system. So we look around, let's do it right now, and let's see how we feel. You literally just look around and take in what's in your surroundings. If that's not doing the trick, next step up is to name things you see and just name fricking anything.
What we're doing, the science is we're getting our prefrontal cortex involved, um, by naming things, and so that starts to take us out of amygdala. Anything you do slowly that has a pattern, that has repetition, tells the brain, I'm not being chased by a lion. Not currently at least. Which is pretty cool. So you might say light switch, calendar painting, photograph, doorframe, uh, light goy [00:27:00] photo, uh, cat plant crystal.
More plant. More plant, more plant. Right? And just name it. If that's still not doing the job, look for. Uh, rectangles. We'll pick something. Door frame, painting window and just keep getting my, like, going down in a category, right? Like pick a category and work it until you feel yourself calm down. I mean, we have our senses for a purpose, right?
So what are three things you can feel? Can you feel your own perfect little arm hair. Can you feel the different texture of your fingers? Can you feel your own hair? Ours looks fantastic 'cause we're leos. Can you feel the weight of a glass of water? The density of the glass, right? So just bringing your senses on board.
Again, when you're being chased by a lion. People pleasing, right? Um, you're not using your senses, you're just using panic. You're just using run, run, run. [00:28:00] Duh. No, I love that. So I think it's like it helps down, it really helps down. It's like what you just said. I think that the, yeah, the beauty of it's that you're right that when you're in panic, especially with so many of us that are really used to like your mind just running off, it's like off to the races and so you're spinning about everything that's gonna go wrong and everything and you're just in this panic mode of like, even like when you were saying at the top, like, I love the analogy of like the rollercoaster.
'cause it's like when you're in panic, it's like, oh my God, no, no. Now I need to go now. You know? It's like such a, like in this panic state. Which you know, is helpful if you're actually being chased by a lion. But the problem is like when you're sending an email, you're not being chased by a lion. So you learning to like bring it back, like just bring back your brain and then bring yourself online.
Where I just love the idea of when you know, I, you're right, it's so simplistic because it's like. Hey, this is the present. Nothing has happened, right? Nobody's, you know, after me and I, I'm not kicked out of the tribe, but it's like we're back in this room and there's a calendar, right? And [00:29:00] there's a computer monitor and there's this, and we can just calm down to then be able to get ourselves to a state of maybe accessing more like thoughts that can be helpful or getting ourself to do something else.
Right. And I'll even add, you know, as a first responder, the calmer we are the more likely you're gonna live. Yeah. Just to really cut to it. You don't want someone anxious showing up in a paramedic costume. Right. Or you know where the chillest, so I worked hospice for many years. I worked at the San Francisco Zen Center's Hospice.
That was not the chillest place I worked yet. The chillest place I worked was, um. At the um, emergency hospital in the Port of Prince airport that they put up in circus tents after the earthquake. The shift I was on, I remember the head of shift was like, we do not rush. We do not run. We do not move fast.
We do not raise our voices. [00:30:00] If we stay calm, they stay calm. If they stay calm, we stay calm. And if everyone's calm, everyone lives. Oh my God, I love that so much. And like. That was correct. Yeah. So it was like, pardon me, my patient's bleeding out. Could you hand me a chest tube please? But like literally. And then, and then what happens?
You look at the box of tubes and because you are in this calm, you're in this oriented, grounded energy, you grab the right tube. Absolutely. Versus ah, and then you're like, oh, um, which tube? I don't know. I, here's a cup. Fuck no shit. Here's a hair tie. Right. And we don't realize we get to do that when our mom texts.
Mm. So your mom texts and you go to the top of the rollercoaster,
find your feet, find the ground, orient your nervous system, breathe into your body. Recognize how [00:31:00] you habitually outsource. Now, a lot of what I teach is not for the moment, per se. It's prep for the moment. And so one of the things I love to have my clients do is to take some time when you're oriented, when you're relaxed, maybe you send the kids somewhere, like you've got the house to yourself for 27 minutes and you sit down and you write out.
What are my habitual ways of outsourcing? So what do I tend to do? Not to be mean to yourself, come on now, but so that you can lovingly know your habits. Listen, I have a cat who loves to dig, do I live, leave big potted plants on the ground where he can easily hop into them. No, that's his habitual way of outsourcing His anxiety is scratching like a bastard and throwing dirt all over my kitchen.
I don't invite that trouble, I don't judge him for it. He's perfect. But, um, yeah, but I [00:32:00] do recognize what's likely to happen so I can get ahead of it. I love that. So if, you know Yeah, you're gonna set a boundary and then you're gonna watch everyone's face. Am I okay? Am I okay? Am I Okay? Write it down. So then when you start to try to set a boundary, you're like, oh, I'm likely to do the thing.
Okay. And then if you see yourself doing it, it's like playing Wars Waldo. Right. And in my communities, I like make it exciting, like, Ooh, you noticed, huh? Yay. Yeah, I mean, awareness is, so much of this is just, even if you just spend the time figuring out where those triggers are, and I think that going back to what you said earlier and a lot of, I, this was how I was a hundred percent, it's how a lot of the people that come to me, because we are, we've been trained in these.
Types of professions where everything is in your brain, everything is in your head, and we've all learned to disconnect. And you may not think you're disconnected from your body. I think a lot of people, like if you say that, they were just like, no, I'm, I can feel things in my [00:33:00] body, but it's like, no. Like when was the last time that if you could, like, if.
Uh, you know, a telltale way that I see people and how I was, is like, if I ask you to describe what a feeling is to you, like what it feels like, and you can't tell me, like, where do you feel anxiety in your body? Where do you feel shame? What, what does shame feel like? And you're like, I don't know. It just feels like shame.
It's like you don't really know what it feels like in your body yet you haven't even, like, you, you totally kind of broke, which is totally fine. That's exactly what I did. I didn't, I had like. I only knew of like five emotions. I couldn't even, there was no range and like all of it, I was like, I don't know.
It all feels the same. Shame, anxiety, anger, sad. I just feel it, but I don't know how I feel it. 'cause I never slowed down enough to be like, oh, shame. Sits heavy and it doesn't move and it's on my chest and it feels like I can't breathe. And you know, there it starts crawl up my neck and there's this heat, right?
And anxiety is this flutter. And it goes up and it comes through my arms. And it's like once I was like, oh my [00:34:00] God, there's so much happening in my body that I didn't even know. And this for years to kind of really slow down enough to be like, oh, if I'm not scared of this feeling, this vibration, and I let it come in and I notice it then like to what you were saying is like.
I got so much better at knowing what my triggers were because I would notice, yeah. What instantly. All of a sudden, you know, caused that flush of shame in my neck and whatnot and stuff, and I'm like, oh. And it started becoming fascinating. Wow. I actually did this yesterday. I was like, oh my God, something happened.
And I'm like, oh my God, watch. It just starts like they, they creep and I can calm myself down now, but I'm like, it's so fascinating that it's still automatic. It's like the instant shame until I can sort of be like, all right, we're okay. Everything's fine. Doesn't matter if someone's mad, they're allowed to be mad.
You know? And I can kind of get myself back online, but. I couldn't do that. Even the triggers, everything. It was like when you have no connection to your body, honestly, I think that a lot of times it's like, like you were, everything is a fire drill. Everything is a 10 outta 10. It's like, you know, [00:35:00] my mom being mad at me and like some random barista saying, making a offhanded comment and you know, like getting fired, right?
Like they were all kind of at the same, everything's an emergency. I'm gonna die all the time. Yep. And then when I could, all the time when I started like the, I think even understanding the triggers is because it becomes easier to even trust yourself to say like, okay. This is too big for me to deal with right now.
Like I, maybe I'm not here yet. This trigger is like, this is when I go into freak out, but maybe with a smaller trigger, right? Like, can I, you know, right. Get myself more present and calm down, or breathe or, you know, name things when it's something that is smaller when it's like my kid does something that just triggers me and like, okay, I can deal with, like you were saying, the capacity.
Like I have a, a better ability to look at like, can I even work on expanding my capacity right now or am I way too triggered that I can't? Right. But part of it is just knowing this link, like understanding these things about yourself. Like you're saying, [00:36:00] just sitting down and being like, what does trigger me?
Is it when someone's mad at me? Right. Is it when someone yells at me? Is it when someone, when I notice they, you know, is it like, is it small things? Is it big things? Is it that I feel like they don't love me? Like where is it? And the more you just even like become that awareness, I feel like is. Huge. It's like, it, it's such a large part of it.
The rest of it can be is, is so much easier when you just have this like understanding of yourself. Right. And what's Mag the most magnificent in that is you said it's when you become that awareness. And that's, that's the thing. I remember this actually at a mastermind a couple years ago with a group of coaches, and one of them was really upset about something and kept saying, I keep doing all these somatics, why won't it work?
I keep doing it and doing it, and she didn't like it when I said, it's not about doing it, it's about being it. Mm-hmm. It's about being this version of yourself [00:37:00] that honors you, that respects you, that says, oh, it looks like I'm getting upset. It looks like I'm having this feeling versus identifying. I am angry.
I am triggered. It looks like I'm, my nervous system's getting triggered. My nervous system is getting activated, right? It's disidentifying with the emotion so that you can experience like you so beautifully shared. All that imagery of the somatic, the sensorial, somatic experience of. Of a feeling. Susan McConnell, who's like one of my sheroes, she does somatic IFS internal family systems.
God. This woman, I will paraphrase her to say that somatics is the shift from I have a body to I am my body. That's what embodiment ISS all about. It's about being actually present in your body for the complexity of the, of the senses sensorial experience and integrating all that sensory knowing [00:38:00] into your experience of life.
So you're not on that autopilot, which for most of us will be default emotional outsourcing. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And instead, you can actively, actively step into greater presence by, as you said, knowing your yourself, becoming that awareness, um, and stepping into a richer experience of life. Absolutely.
Absolutely. I think that is really one of the keys that I've learned. For my own, from my own journey of this, because I think I was so, you know, even finding thought work, the reason I was so happy was like, okay, something with my brain, something to do a puzzle, you know? Right. Okay. I can, I can try now.
Yeah. And more tools like. Leaned into, you know, when you say this, it sounds absurd, but so many of us think that there is some place we're gonna get to where we're gonna figure all this out. Where I'm just gonna have this like baseline never up and down. Like my emotions are just gonna be, you know, I can just not have stress and I can never feel anxiety and I can [00:39:00] be happy.
And it's absurd 'cause that's just not the human experience. And you were saying the richness of life is that. You'll always have a ton of emotions. Always good and bad. Oh yeah. And that's part of it. And when you can stop being afraid of it and learn how it is right in your body, how your body experiences it, and also then learn, okay, where am I out?
Where am I? Is this kind of going too far? Or where am I allowing this to? Where is this not really as as like, I do wanna be panicked if somebody's chasing me. I don't wanna be panicked if. My boss says he needs to talk to me later today. You know, like, I wanna figure out where this Right. Kind of where I'm regulating this.
Not to get rid of it, but I think when I embraced that I was like, oh, apparently I'm always gonna feel emotions. Huh? Who knows? Like, huh. Weird. Right? Start learning how that, how to feel that like, part of it's just learning to feel it. Right, and releasing any BS story of embarrassment, shame, or whatever about not [00:40:00] knowing.
And again, remembering that that too is a survival skill, right? Shutting down to feelings. Fricking genius. Yeah, genius. 12,000 points to you. Points for dissociating, but like being really earnest, right? Yes. Well done. Now let's learn something different. Totally. Yeah. Because if you're not feeling, you're not feeling, and I, I think it's so obvious, right?
But like, that's what we forget. Like I want to have massive joy and like massive, like the way you and I laugh. Right. Like is possible because I cry for what's happening in GAA or Sudan or Congo. Absolutely. Or Flint, Michigan. Right. Like, and it's, it's part and parcel of having this, this rich human life and living the essential task, which for me is living in our [00:41:00] authenticity from our big, open heart.
Yeah. And if we're not doing that, I just, I like I, what are we up to? Are we just robots? No, thank you. I don't use ai. I don't wanna be ai. You know, like No, thank you a hundred percent. I think that's the absolute like crux of it is I think so many of us, you're right, as a survival skill, dissociation has been beautiful, but what's happened is that we've just.
You know, closed the, like we just are closing the circle of like things we're willing to feel and that also closes it on joy and happiness and curiosity and all of these beau and that's why so many of us yeah, honestly feel so like unfulfilled or like this can't just be it. Yep. Because there is, you know, it's like, well I've managed to protect myself from not, you know, all this panic and all this other stuff, but I have cut off.
All this other part of me, and it's like the richness and the beauty of [00:42:00] like allowing emotion and knowing that your body can handle it, and knowing how to regulate it in a sense of like knowing you're safe and, and not outsourcing it and, and all of these skills Yeah. Is so, so important. I'm still very much in the, you know, beginning stages of learning to get back into my body and I already feel such a.
A, a change in how I approach the world because I'm not afraid of feeling, you know, it's just that fear of a panic of like, oh God, I can't handle this. And it's like, yeah, God, what a, that opens up to when you realize like, oh, I can, and I'm, and I'm like, I can take care of myself. Yeah, yeah. And I get to let myself have a full human experience.
I love it. Right. Which then lets us be present for the people we love, the things we love. Right. Because to loop all the way around, we've talked about the irony of our habits and how we think by not being vulnerable, not sharing things that other [00:43:00] people might not like. Right. We keep people from not wanting to be with us, but we don't bring them into vulnerability and intimacy and openness when we fear our feelings.
'cause then we don't share them. Absolutely. And then we fear them in them. Yeah. It's the whole thing. And you're hiding all your gifts. The whole thing in the world. We need you, but we need you to be able to Yeah. Yeah. We too. So how, so a couple of things and we're gonna wrap it up because I don't wanna take take up too much of your time, but.
One of the things I did hear you say that I was like, oh my God yes. Is like, I think that sometimes, and you know, well-intentioned people. Teaching techniques, but sometimes those techniques don't work for you. So if it says like, take a deep breath, take 40 breaths, and you do that and you're like, Hey, this actually activates me more.
I'm panicked. Yes. I'm having a panic full on panic attack. Yep. Maybe that's not the somatic work for you and that's okay. Like again, it's learning what works for us. So I would love if you could just set a couple words to that. 'cause I think people have, like I've tried meditation or I've tried. Doing deep breaths and it didn't work.
Yeah. And it's like, okay, well right, what do we do? [00:44:00] So who takes deep breaths? Animals being chased by lions. 'cause you gotta fill your lungs. Hyperoxygenate. Yeah. Shunt that oxygen out to the periphery so you can fricking book it. 'cause there's a T-Rex coming. So going. It is gonna make any mammal anxious.
Interesting. Right? And so remember what capitalism and whiteness does, right? It takes concepts from indigeneity and bastardizes them, sells 'em back to you, right? And sells 'em back to you. And so that like whitewashed yoga class, take a deep breath and that's, it is a, is a half misunderstanding of ancient practice.
Right When we take a deep breath in, we let it ah, all the way out because someone being chased by a lion wouldn't do that. Right? So you get to listen to your body and to be curious about what feels right, knowing that just because someone has whatever certification doesn't mean [00:45:00] they know nothing about you.
Or the science and biology or psychology of what they're teaching, quite frankly, which is a real, a larger problem. We can have a whole show about the white wellness industrial complex. I recently did one. I also did a podcast about when meditation doesn't work for you. So there's a whole study out of Brown.
What's up? Great state of Rhode Island. Greatest state in the union. And, um, I'm legally, I have to say that since I left Rhode Island. Well, thank you. Um. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you for allowing it. Um, brown did a study about anxiety and meditation, and they found that there's a lot of people for whom seed in meditation does not work.
Right. Like my partner practices Tibetan Buddhism and will sit for hours at a time. I'm a spastic Argentine Leo with a DHD. No. Uhuh. No. But I'll do a walking meditation holding the cat. I'll walk back and forth with my brain, like [00:46:00] blissfully quiet, but I'm doing something with my paws and I'm moving my animal.
But seeded meditation can F off fully for this mammal, but that doesn't make me any less anything. It just makes me, me. And so I wanna really validate and thank you for bringing this up, that there's no one size fits all. No, I love that. And I really, the reason I wanted to bring it up is because I think like.
If you have tried something and maybe that didn't work for you, that's okay. That didn't work for you, you know? And so it's okay. Yeah. Who cares? Like, okay, this, or maybe I'm like. I'm too triggered for now. Maybe you can't do meditation now and maybe six months down the road you can. Right. There's just, I think when you open ourselves up to, like you said, like how can I know me?
The whole point of all of this is how do I know my triggers all of this? How do I know what calms me down? How do I know what this body and this brain needs that isn't like the person next to me? It's gonna be different, right? And so the more I can like really lean into that and learn about that and let it be slow, I think a lot of times we have been taught.[00:47:00]
What's the quick fix? What's the 10 minute breath, you know, exercise that's gonna fix all anxiety. It's like that doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. Nope. It really, again, back to Susan McConnell, it's all about being a body. It's all about being, and that's what it comes down to is releasing the productivity of the perfectionist, the doing the somatics.
It's about being, it's about presence. I mean, you know, so the book's coming out. So I'm doing a lot of these interviews and I get on a lot of interviews where people go, you know, sorry, can I redo that? I was about to be mean to white women. Sure. And I think I shouldn't be so mean on a recorded line. You can be as new as you want, but Sure.
We'll take that out. Yeah, but like offline. Okay. Um, what people respond to is presence, right? So when we want to forge loving, interdependent connection with others, it comes [00:48:00] from presence. It comes from being earnest, it comes from being real and authentic and true. And that's how we forge that deep connection with ourself as well.
Absolutely. So, I I, if that's our take home, it sounds so trite, right? Like, just be you. Mm. But everyone's grandma was actually, right, right. That's the thing is I think certain things are cliche because they're true and it's like we just, I think we forget it because we just get caught in this world and our lives and capitalism tries to sell us all.
And then you come back to it and it's like, oh yeah. The simplistic thing is that like I am a unique body and it's just me, and I need to learn more about that. And I need to just be, and it is simple and we just complicate it, so, right. Um, yeah, it's true. We should put that on a t-shirt. Like the cliches are real.
Be yourself. Let it be simple. Leo's are the best. Right? Facts. Facts. Hashtag facts. All facts. Facts. Well, just facts. [00:49:00] Nothing but facts. Cold, hard facts. Nothing else. That's right. I think it made for me And you? We'll, the only two wearing them. Okay, great. Well look cute. And Sarah Fisk has three. It's gonna be great.
The three of us. Okay, great. Sold. Um. Thank you so much. This has been so wonderful. Thank you so much. Can you tell people where they can get this book that they absolutely need? 'cause it is, um, really the kind of, this is gonna be your gateway drug into somatic work. Oh, yay. Uh, so you can get it on my website, which is my whole name.
So it's Riz, which is Beatrice with a z Albina A LB as in boy IN a.com/book. Um, you can get it all major retailers from Amazon to bookshop and everyone in between. Um, you can learn more about me on my podcast Feminist Wellness, and I give good gram at Riz Victoria Albina, np. I love that. I will link to all those.
In the show notes. So if you're driving or not and whatnot and you can't, um, get them, make sure you check out the show notes and you can [00:50:00] get that on, you know, lessons from a Twitter website and you can find Baya because we all need this, we all need this. And you have a program that you help people. So anybody that is interested, yeah, I mean, first get the book for sure.
Um. Sure. And share the book and get it for your friends who also need it. Um, but if somebody does wanna know, like, okay, well I need help kind of really getting back into my body, yes. And I wanna learn what my, you know, specific triggers are. How do you help? Women do that. Yeah. I have a six month program where I do somatics coaching, somatic experiencing thought work, coaching, breath work, all in a super loving community.
That's called Anchored. Um, I also have several 12 week programs, some of which are community based. Some are go at your own pace so that I can meet folks where they're at. And you can learn more about that on my website. I love that. All right, so make sure you check out all of that. Yay. Thank you again.
This has been so. Thank you, uh, wonderful. And I know so helpful. And I can't wait for your book to be out in the world because so many people need it and I already got my [00:51:00] copy and I'm so excited to get it when it comes out. Thank you.
Thank you.