Ep. 43 Ready to unsubscribe from the hustle culture? (with special guest Rachel Posner)

Ready to feel more calm and unsubscribe from the hustle culture?  Join me as I visit with Rachel Posner, a yoga therapist and mindfulness coach as we discuss how our everyday stressors can have an impact on our nervous system. 

Our bodies respond to daily pressures in ways that often leave us in a perpetual state of fight, flight, or freeze. Together with Rachel's expert guidance, we peel back the layers to understand how the stress response system works and why achieving a state of balance is crucial for transforming our perception and interaction with life's challenges.

In this episode we discuss:

• Physical stressors we experience daily and how to work through them
• The power of the pause
• The difference between top down and a bottom-up approach
• Co-regulation and the science behind it
• Interoception: what it is and why it matters

You can learn more about Rachel at her website here  (https://www.rachelposner.com)  and her other offerings below:

Take 5 To Relax and Reset: A Simple Practice You Can Do Anywhere   (https://www.rachelposner.com/take-5-practice)

Your Yoga: A Virtual Community  (https://www.rachelposner.com/your-yoga-a-virtual-community)

Compassionate financial mentor and guide to female entrepreneurs so that they have peace of mind and fun with their money in order to live life now and in the future.

To join the waitlist for Grow the CEO cohort click here.

Generate a Life Well Lived website

Generate a Life Well Lived YouTube Channel

New to Human Design? You can receive your Human Design chart here

As always, thanks for listening.

From my soul to yours.
Erin

Transcript

Erin Gray: 0:00

You're listening to Generate a Life Well-Lived podcast. I'm your friend and confidant, erin Gray. I'm a former certified financial planner, turned human design, financial mentor and guide to entrepreneurs. I believe our money and our business can only thrive at the level of our emotional wellbeing. I empower entrepreneurs to feel confident with their money and in their business so that they can have fun now and in the future.

Erin Gray: 0:23

On this podcast, we will explore all things money, business and self-development, including human design. I hope you enjoy the journey where I share everything that I know and am continuing to learn along the way, as I honor my heart's desires while inspiring and encouraging you to do the same. Hey everyone, how are we today? I've got Rachel Posner on the podcast and I'm so excited I always say this at every podcast like I'm so excited to talk, but like I literally am, like I love to pick brains, I love to like get all of the information, and so, first of all, thank you for being here, and Rachel is a yoga therapist and mindfulness coach, and so, if you just want to, if you're open to it, just sharing with the listeners, you know just kind of how you help your clients, you know what you do, and then we'll dive into some questions that I have.

Rachel Posner: 1:14

Okay, first of all, I also am very happy to be here, and that's kind of a mixed bag question, because how I help my clients looks different depending on the client.

Rachel Posner: 1:24

There's a lot of ways that I work with people, whether it's one-on-one, I guide retreats, I have yoga and mindfulness memberships, I teach online courses. There's lots of different ways that I work with people, but I'd say there's sort of an umbrella thing that I'm doing which is helping people to understand their stress response, helping people to understand their specific nervous system, how it works, why it works, why it throws us into fight, flight or freeze sometimes and why other times the same stressor doesn't do that. People come to me for all different reasons. Oftentimes it starts with stress, but we could be working on anxiety, depression, trauma, grief or simply how to pay more attention and enjoy our lives more. So I know that's a sort of rambling answer, but I do all of those things and I do them. Using yoga therapy and mindfulness is kind of my primary perspective, but I'd say I'm generally looking at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology and mindfulness. So what actually happens in the brain when we work with these mindfulness practices?

Erin Gray: 2:38

I love this because I think at least old Erin used to think like, oh, this was the problem. But like, at the end of the day, like I think we all want to feel calm and we want to feel peaceful and we want to feel present and we want to go at our own pace and we want to feel good in our bodies, right, like we think we're searching and we want to, like you know, get help in all of these areas and like you're saying, like these are like the presenting I don't even want to say problems or issues right, but that's what we would describe them as but like, ultimately, it's like we want to feel good in our bodies and like that piece is what I like to think about you know, yeah, and I think when your nervous system is calm, when you feel pretty balanced throughout the day, the things that you thought were issues or problems turn out to not be issues or problems.

Rachel Posner: 3:29

So what I love is that when you take a slightly deeper dive and you work at the level of your nervous system and the way you deal with the stressors in your lives, lots of those stressors turn out to not be as big of a deal as we thought, but when we're experiencing those stressors from a physical not be as big of a deal as we thought, but when we're experiencing those stressors from a physical stress response, they can feel really overwhelming.

Erin Gray: 3:52

Yes, very much so. So let's talk about that, like, can you dive in a little bit deeper about? You know, the stresses, the modern day stresses that a lot of us experience, and then what that actually like the impact and, like you're saying, the science and like the, the actual impact that it has on our bodies, like how is it actually playing?

Rachel Posner: 4:14

out, sure, um? So I like to talk about the difference between stressors and the stress response. So stressors are just the things that come at us all day and we live in a stressful society, a stressful culture like there's. That is not going to change. We are going to have too many things thrown at us throughout the day and it's the nature of the rhythm and speed at which we live in these days. But how we respond to those stressors is really a reflection of what's happening inside. So one too many stressors from an already kind of stressed out place will throw us into the stress response.

Rachel Posner: 4:54

When we, when our bodies, feel, when our minds and actually it's really a more unconscious experience it's not necessarily something we think through in the moment, but when, at this deeper level, our nervous system feels like we are threatened, like we're not safe, it turns on the fight flight response, which throws adrenaline and cortisol into the system, which raises our heartbeat, our blood pressure and it narrows our vision.

Rachel Posner: 5:22

It's basically preparing us to fight or run literally, but we're usually not. It's basically preparing us to fight or run literally, but we're usually not in a situation where we need to fight or run. So that means we're trying to handle a stressor from. It's like an illogical place to handle a stressor. When we want to handle a challenge, we want to be calm and collected and in our parasympathetic nervous system, which is our relaxation response, that's where we do best when we handle stressors. But if we get too stressed out and then we wind up in that fight or flight response, we don't handle the stressor well and that's when we get overwhelmed. We think it's a bigger problem than it is. But it's really just. We're not in a physical, a physiological place to handle it well.

Erin Gray: 6:07

Yeah, the image that just came to me is like, you know, when you try to like fit in jeans which this may not resonate with some people but, like you know, when you fit in jeans and they're too tight and you're just like constantly at this, like okay, sucking in, like this feels terrible, like that is what is. The image that came to me is like when we're constantly under this stress response and I think so many of us. I remember, oh gosh, it was when, maybe back in 2017. So what?

Erin Gray: 6:35

Seven years ago, when my husband was changing jobs, he had taken off some time because his mental health was, he was experiencing some things and he was going back to work and I felt so stressed and I started having heart palpitations and I went to the cardiologist, which I've never been. I was maybe like what? Was I 37.? And she's like what is your stress like? And I'm like not that much. And I think for so many of us, we live in such intense stress that we don't even we haven't been out of it long enough to be like like Aaron. Now, looking back at Aaron then is like holy smokes, like what your amount of stress that you were under? But we, we sometimes don't acknowledge it or we don't even realize how much we are in that stress response and so we think that that's just air quotes, normal right, Like we don't even even question or like think that there is another way to feel exactly right, like so.

Rachel Posner: 7:39

some of that is because our stress response is very physical. So, for example, if you have a very tight hamstring and every time you do a forward fold, you can only, let's say, your feet, your hands go to your knees when you do a forward fold, that becomes the norm. This is my hamstring, this is normal. And if your hands always come to your knees, you will think this is exactly as it should be. And then one day your hands come a little knees. You will think this is exactly as it should be. And then one day your hands come a little lower and you think, huh, this is different, and actually it kind of feels better. I don't feel the same level of tension when my fingers come a little lower now. So part of it is staying in that parasympathetic response long enough for your body to feel something new.

Rachel Posner: 8:25

So if I wake up and this happens often in our culture we wake up, we're already stressed. There's like we're already late. There's seven things that we have to do before nine o'clock, you know. And if I wake up and let's say, on a scale of one to 10, I'm already at a four. Then when the next five things happen that bring me to a six. Okay, I'm handling a six, but then when the next thing happens, it brings me into fight or flight. Now I'm like at an eight and I'm bonkers If I woke up at a one and I stayed at a one for a few hours. You start to get used to a different physiological feeling because the stress response is a physiological one. So we get used to however we feel and we really have to kind of try it feel something different for a while, to reset, so that we have better perspective on oh, this is too much. There's something I need to do right now to settle myself down. Yeah, this is too much.

Erin Gray: 9:25

There's something I need to do right now to settle myself down. Yeah, will you explain to the listeners, like what is parasympathetic response, what is sympathetic response? Like what actually is that? And like, because you know people might hear this and think, oh well, I'm like your body is supposed to be stressed, like there is stress is an okay thing for your body to feel right In.

Erin Gray: 9:47

I don't want to say correct instances, but like when you are, you know, when you are driving and you are about to be hit, like you want that adrenaline right. Like you want to be able to get out of the way right. Or you know you're walking down the street and somebody's not paying attention. They almost hit you. Like those are the things you do want to run from. And most of the time we live in, like you know, we get a bill in the mail and we are having all of this. You know stress response because of what we think about money or our business or you know, and so I think I would love it if you would share like parasympathetic and sympathetic response and then like, yeah, our bodies are supposed to feel it. It's just how often are we feeling it?

Rachel Posner: 10:25

Yeah, okay. So the nervous system is brilliant. I am a huge fan. I am in no way saying it stinks that we have to go into fight or flight. Fight or flight is a brilliant thing that saves our lives. So the nervous system evolved to keep us alive, which means it's always vigilant. It's always on the lookout for threat. It's really really good at looking for threats and when it sees a threat that it perceives as dangerous, sometimes we move into that fight or flight response.

Rachel Posner: 10:57

In an ideal world, you get a little boost of adrenaline or cortisol. Those help us to fight or flight. They give us more glucose, they narrow our vision and they shunt a lot of energy into our big muscles. They're not preferencing reproduction and endocrine system and digestion. They're saying, like, those aren't emergency systems, we don't need those right now.

Rachel Posner: 11:21

So when too many threats come in, the nervous system basically decides for us, right? Because when that turns on, we don't have as much access to our executive thinking. Our prefrontal cortex is the part of our mind that says, the part of our brain that says, oh, actually, this isn't a problem. That is, for example, a stick, not a snake, right? So in an ideal world, we see the stick. We think for a second it's a snake. We get a little adrenaline and cortisol boost. We recognize that it's not what we thought. We calm right down, so that boost puts us into our sympathetic nervous system. That's the part of us, that the system that gives us that adrenaline and cortisol rush and the parasympathetic is the calming end of the nervous system that says all is well, settle down, everything's fine, turns on the immune system, the digestive system goes back on and we're fine.

Rachel Posner: 12:16

So it's a great thing that we can turn those. We can move from one system to the other. We need that when we're in danger. The problem is that oftentimes we perceive danger where danger does not exist. Right. So my nervous system can turn on because my daughter can't find her shoes, and now I'm late, right, that is not a danger. It is stressful. I do have to take a few deep breaths and recognize I might have to call someone to say I'm going to be a couple of minutes late. I'm not suggesting it's not stressful and it's not impactful in my life, but I am going to survive that. So the issue is that we evolved to survive, not to thrive, and sometimes all of that surviving, all of that vigilance, stops us from really thriving, because we're on edge a lot looking for these threats.

Erin Gray: 13:07

Yes, so in terms of because we live in a fast paced society, like that is one of the things that I encourage. You know, clients and everyone that I come in contact with, right Like we can unsubscribe to the hustle, we can, we can pause, we can slow down, like that it's. I think there's several things that come in right Like it doesn't feel safe to do that, right when you're in that survival state. Right when you're when you're in that stress response. It is to to, to rush to get out of there, whatever it might be. And so you want to talk a little bit about, like the power of the pause and slowing down and like how that is actually beneficial, because I think our brains want to be like, but I have so much to do, and it just like wants to go off on the the train of like, but I don't have time, I can't do that, I can't stop all the things.

Rachel Posner: 13:58

Yeah, um, first of all, I just want to quote and say this very loudly that unsubscribe to the hustle is maybe the best tagline I've heard so far. I love that because I think it's true. We think we have to subscribe. It seems when we are in that like one too many things place, it seems like we have to, like it's a survival mechanism to always be hustling, and it's just not true. And that can sound really condescending and that's certainly not my intention. It's. You know you could say, well, it's not true for me, but I just know I've worked with too many people to think this is just a unique thing to me. You can, you can unsubscribe, and part of how you unsubscribe is to take more short pauses. So I am yes, I'm a mindfulness teacher and I think it's great to meditate 20 minutes a day and I don't think that that's reasonable to ask of all of us. For, to start, with right Like.

Erin Gray: 14:59

If you're like for me, I was like zero to 20, what are you asking me to do?

Rachel Posner: 15:03

I was like five minutes, that's good enough, you know, but you start somewhere, you start somewhere and even if you are a regular meditator, even if you do find 20 minutes a day, I still think it's incredibly, I would say, just as important to find short pauses throughout the day, because 20 minutes a day and it can be 10. I mean, research shows that 10 minutes a day of meditation can have significant impact on brain changes and specifically making that parasympathetic response stronger and the sympathetic response weaker. So just to backtrack for a second anytime you're, the brain is just like a muscle, right? You use the different networks of the brain. Those network gets stronger. So when we strengthen the parasympathetic networks, we weaken the sympathetic networks. We're never going to weaken them so much that we're not going to be safe, like that's an impossibility, right. So research shows that even 10 minutes a day of meditation will strengthen those parasympathetic networks. So it'll make us less vigilant, less overwhelmed. Okay, that aside, taking time throughout the day, like I love to say top of the hour, usually when people, people who have jobs where there's a lot of meetings, those meetings often start at the top of the hour. So if you get off, even if you're back to back, if you give yourself five minutes, that's enough time to get a drink of water, go to the bathroom and spend two minutes stretching or breathing, and even two minutes can reset your nervous system to some extent. So if you're feeling really stressed, don't take that stress into the next meeting. Give yourself a pause.

Rachel Posner: 16:43

So much of why we wind up in fight or flight is because we're not meeting our basic needs. So it seems like we are right. I'm fine right now, but I could be having this conversation and be thirsty or have to go to the bathroom or hungry, and all of those things will signal the brain that I'm not safe. Your body is saying we don't have enough glucose, we don't have enough water, like these are the things that we need, the building blocks of survival and so your body will signal your brain that you're not safe. And I could be sitting here in fight or flight having a lovely conversation and wondering why am I feeling anxious? Feeling anxious not because I'm scared about this conversation. I'm feeling anxious for something as simple as I'm thirsty. I'm holding too much tension in my low back because I've been sitting in this chair. This is my third meeting. It's not, but yeah. So just simply taking a pause and noticing those things can be a total game changer in your day.

Erin Gray: 17:47

Yeah, I actually just did that I had gotten off a call and I was like this, the call that I was previously on it was with several, like 15 people, right, and I just was like I could just feel in my body, right, that energy. I'm like this just doesn't. And I was just asking myself, like is this yours? Does this feel good? Like what do you need? And I was like I'm just going to go sit in the chair and just look out at the trees and I watched the squirrels for a little bit and just that, like you're saying, like that reset, like we think I think also, too, we've been a culture that, like it has to, like go big or go home, it has to be these big things, right, like it literally can be, like I'm going to just sit with no distractions and just, and in the beginning right, if you're, if you're learning this like that feels really weird and awkward, right, because we, we always have our phones with us, we're always doing something, right. So, like you're saying with the brain, like building up this muscle of sitting by ourselves for a little bit, like being bored, like I wrote down, like why are we booking back to back? Like you know, this is something else. It's like sometimes some of this practice is like asking yourself questions like why are you even doing that? Like where are you? You know, we pick up like belief systems from all around us. Like why don't you value yourself to give yourself a 30 minute break in between meetings, right? Um, and and this isn't a place where we start to shame ourselves, but it's just kind of a curiosity Like, yeah, I would like to go pee, I would like to refill my tea, I would like to, like you know, maybe go walk around the block, move my body a bit, come back, be rejuvenated, and that's the thing too. It's like it's not that one way is wrong and the other way is right. It's just that one feels better in your body, right, it feels good in your body to be hydrated. It feels good in your body to eat nice, nutritious things that your body loves. It feels good to take a break in between meetings and to kind of just recenter yourself. Yeah, and so I also wrote down.

Erin Gray: 20:02

Like you know, you said some people might be like well, it's, I'm paraphrasing. You said something about like we're not in stress or it's not true, or something. And if, if you are listening and you're and that resonates with you. It's like notice, where we want to argue right, like sometimes, I think sometimes we want to keep. We want to keep some of those beliefs. Do we want to keep those limitations that we're putting on ourselves? Versus like what if I lived in a place where everything wasn't survival, what if I lived with a slower pace? And so just spending some time to question and get curious about, like, do I actually want to keep this way of believing or feeling or, or acting, you know um, or living, you know um, yeah, versus being so quick to be like you know that's not true. Or, you know, cause, that's how I used to be. Like it's like, well, that's my favorite was like must be nice for you, you know. And it's like exactly.

Rachel Posner: 21:06

I mean, I think a big thing to remember remember and this helps me bring a lot of compassion to noticing those um sort of defenses in myself is that your brain loves the familiar. That's what it wants. Like we have created all of these neural pathways, all of these patterns that um allow us to just default to old ways of being, and it's because that's where we feel most safe. Anytime you do something new, there's a risk right, and the risk can be low, but it still feels like a risk. Your brain, again, is always defaulting to what's safest and what's most familiar. So oftentimes, the things that we do that are not necessarily serving us we don't. We do them because we're in default mode. That's just the way we do that are not necessarily serving us. We do them because we're in default mode. That's just the way we do it, which is what I love about mindfulness.

Rachel Posner: 21:51

Mindfulness is starting to notice those patterns. It's starting to ask myself what would it be like to have a half hour between meetings? How would that feel? What would the impact be? What would it mean if I had one less meeting a day? Like, let's be honest, does that mean that I'm going to get fired? Or if I really take some time to look at it, it actually is not that impactful. It's just that I assumed it was, because that's my habit and I do what makes me feel safe. Our primary thing is staying alive and wellness is secondary. So I think part of it is asking ourselves the question like do I want wellness to always be secondary? Because if the answer is no, there's a lot more effort involved because of these neural pathways that just say do this because you've always done it that way. So it takes yeah, it takes work, but it's not necessarily work. That's a struggle. Not necessarily work, that's a struggle, it's work.

Erin Gray: 22:47

That's really rewarding and familiar, right it's, I think, I think, in the beginning, you know, I think it.

Erin Gray: 22:53

It takes more effort.

Erin Gray: 22:54

I think of it like a plane, right, like when the plane takes off, how much fuel does it use to go down the runway and to take off and how much does it use once it's, you know, up in the air?

Erin Gray: 23:05

And not that while you have developed these practices or habits, these newer habits, that it's just so effortless, right, but it becomes, I feel like it does become easier. It's like that getting started, that shifting from where we are to, you know, or where we used to be, or where we don't want to be, to where we're going, does take a little bit more effort, right, like, and the, the value, the that you receive, the feelings and how you feel in your body. Because of that like, for me, and you know, I think it's just so worth it. So, yeah, I agree. So, in terms of when you talk about like your, you know we've before the podcast we were talking about like top down, bottom up, and I would love for you to share, because I think I know I used to live when I think about top down, that's how I live my life, like I would always say, like living in our heads and not in our bodies.

Erin Gray: 24:02

And so how, like explain that and like what does that look like for us?

Rachel Posner: 24:09

So top down practices are practices that are a little more reflective. We're thinking through something and that's valuable. Right, a little bit of what we were just talking about. It's valuable for me to think about my day. It's valuable for me to reflect and consider what might be different.

Rachel Posner: 24:28

But when we're pretty stressed, top down is difficult because, again, when you're stressed, your vision is narrow, you're not very calm and you don't have a wide perspective. So the answers to those reflections will often be more narrow than if you were reflecting from a relaxed state. So I always say top down is really important, but make sure you're doing it when you are settled, grounded and feeling like you're in your body, and the way to do that is a bottom-up practice. So I would say I almost always unless you know, surprise, surprise I'm feeling outrageously relaxed from the get-go. I'm always, always starting with my clients and with myself with a bottom-up practice, which is something like what does it feel like to take a four-second inhale and a six-second exhale? Can you feel your kind of belly low back, low sides, expand a bit below the ribs as you inhale? That tells you that you're using a diaphragmatic breath which turns on that parasympathetic rest-digest response. And can you exhale a little bit longer, because the exhale connects us to again that rest and digest response. There are a thousand bottom-up practices, but they are all body-centered practices so it could. Even if you're using your mind, it could be noticing how you're breathing, noticing sensations in your body, noticing where you might be holding tension. These are the kinds of practices that help to reset the nervous system so that then we can do some reflective top-down practices and use our prefrontal cortex, our executive thinking functions, to make good decisions for ourselves.

Rachel Posner: 26:15

But to start from the top is often really getting just like a little piece of the pie because we're not in our bodies yet. So most of us I love to use this image as a triangle. So if you visualize a triangle that's upside down, the point is at our feet. Usually we're walking around like an upside down triangle. The most attention, the most energy, the most activity is happening around our head and we're barely aware of what's happening below the shoulders.

Rachel Posner: 26:47

In an ideal world we want to be a right side up triangle. We want a wide base. We want, if you think about just in terms of proportionality, our energy, our activity, our awareness to be proportional to that triangle. So the majority of our attention or our awareness is in the body, and when we stay in that right side up triangle, that's like an image of a parasympathetic nervous system. It's one that's grounded, we don't feel super scattered, we're not brain foggy Oftentimes when we're upside down. Just because there's a lot more going on in our heads doesn't mean it's really serving us right. Because when there's too much activity in our heads, oftentimes we have brain fog, we're feeling scattered, we're doing 10 too many things, and when we're in that right side up triangle, we're often much more productive. So it's not like I'm just walking around stretching all day. I'm using my brain, but my mind is a lot more productive and effective when I'm in my body too.

Erin Gray: 27:55

You said this and I've always used it. Like you know, flipping our lid, like think about it. If you know you have a argument or a disagreement with your spouse, you know and you want to. Your, your emotions are heightened, you're feeling anger, you're feeling frustration and then you're actually trying to have a conversation, you know the lid is flipped right, our prefrontal cortex is offline because we're in such a heightened state.

Erin Gray: 28:22

And how many of us have been told or taught like let's talk about it, let's. You know it's like, first we, we just need to feel right what we're feeling and allow ourselves to come back down to that, that parasympathetic, parasympathetic state, right of like, okay, now I'm ready to actually talk about it, versus saying things from an emotional, heightened. You know, that's when we say things we are like I wish I would have just felt for a little bit longer, right, like I don't want to say we regret, but it's like, oh man, that was kind of like coming from the emotional part, right Versus, like you're saying, the calm, the clear, not the brain fog, the heightened sense.

Rachel Posner: 29:04

Right, yeah, because when we say those things that we regret, we meant them, but we meant them because we were only accessing a very small part of ourselves, and so it's not that they weren't true or that they didn't need to be said, but if we were accessing the fullness of ourselves, there would be a lot more. To say that one thing that we said that was hurtful is not the only truth. So I think oftentimes it's not necessarily that we want to take back all the things we said when we're in that fight or flight response, but we want to tell a bigger truth. And that was only a tiny piece of the truth.

Erin Gray: 29:40

And I think also from a place of compassion, right, like I can say what I'm feeling from a place of compassion versus saying it from a place of anger. And it's got that little you know sharp tongue or sharp you know, versus the. The message is still the same. It's just like the energy that it comes from. Is it coming from love and compassion? And like, hey, you know, it really did hurt my feelings, or you're an asshole and you hurt my feelings, right, like what is it? What is it layered and laced with, you know?

Rachel Posner: 30:12

But the hurt, your feelings, is the important part, because the reason that it comes with that edge is because when we're in fight or flight, we are afraid, right. So what do we do? When we're afraid, we protect. We try to make more space between ourselves and the person that we're in this conflict with. And it doesn't mean that we're afraid of a physical altercation. We're afraid that we won't be loved, we're afraid that we're not being seen. You know, it's like those deeper things that we're really afraid of. And when we're afraid, we get protective. And when we get protective, we either fight or flee or we freeze.

Rachel Posner: 30:50

So the other piece that I didn't talk about yet is that you know your nervous system is set up to help you take care of the situation. So if you feel like you're in threat, your first goal is to get out of there, to flee. If you cannot flee and you can imagine this in a physical altercation if you can't flee, then you fight, you defend yourself, and if that's not working, that is extremely terrifying. So if that's not working, we freeze, we basically shut down, collapse, and that helps us to kind of dissociate or check out of the situation. But if you're just let's just say you're just in a normal conflict with someone you love, right, if you're feeling afraid. You're feeling fearful, you get protective.

Rachel Posner: 31:35

You also go through those motions. You might start by trying to like leave, I just want to get out of here, I don't want to deal with it. But then there's more conflict. Now we start to fight. Now there's more conflict. Still nothing's working. That we're saying. Now we start to shut down. Like you can see, kind of we each have our own go-tos and while that is sort of the order that things work, we create our own patterns and habits. So if my experiences have been largely that nothing worked, so I froze, then I moved through that uh flea and then fight super fast and dive right into freeze. So I say that because if you're listening and you're wondering, huh, when you describe that order, I feel like I spend more time in freeze. I don't even notice fight or flight. It's just because freeze has been the most effective for you in past experiences. So now you have a habit of getting there really quick, more quickly than your kind of executive functioning can really track. Your nervous system works really fast.

Erin Gray: 32:34

I love that you said that, because there were things when I learned about this, there were, there were certain situations that I would fight and then there were certain situations that I would freeze more on.

Erin Gray: 32:44

You know, and this is always so, you know, when, when I learned this, it's like, you know, when you you hear about, you know, people that have, you know, experienced certain traumas and and the, the freeze part, like I don't know if we talk enough about that, because people are like, well, why didn't you say something? Why didn't you? It's like because, like you just said, right, like you had already been through the, the others, and maybe that was just like now. That was like the, the, the had already been through the, the others, and maybe that was just like now. That was like the, the complete shutdown, right, it's almost like when your brain is it true to, or correct to, say, like you're just a disassociating, just to like it's like what your body does, like you just said, like to protect itself, you know, and so yeah, yeah, freezes of is a kind of highly protective system and it's kind of a miracle right.

Rachel Posner: 33:34

If you're, if you have experienced a more severe trauma and and you don't remember it, this is a like a beautiful system. Your body's saying you do not have to endure this consciously, and. But sometimes we get kind of good at freezing when we don't really need to freeze. So in a more severe trauma, I mean and let's just take something like a car accident, right, there could be a lot of physical pain, not just emotional fear. It's a good thing that our body allows us to freeze. But when we veer towards that again, when the threat is not really the kind of threat we're perceiving, when we're in our minds sort of exaggerating that threat, when the threat is not really the kind of threat we're perceiving, when we're in our minds sort of exaggerating that threat, when we're perceiving it as worse than it is, then we can tend to get to sort of habitually check out.

Rachel Posner: 34:20

So there's a big spectrum of freeze that moves all the way from kind of numbing out maybe I'm just binging on Netflix all day long or emotional eating.

Rachel Posner: 34:29

There's lots of ways that we sort of numb out in our daily life. It can move all the way into dissociation I can't feel what's happening in my body, all the way into collapse, where my blood pressure really drops low and I'm unaware of my surroundings. So there is a big spectrum that we can experience. And you're right, based on past experiences, your brain is always assessing the situation. So if you are in a stressful situation that feels familiar and in the past or your brain recognizes it as I think this kind of seems like that, and it may kind of fast track you to freeze because that's what worked best last time, or fast track you to fight because that's what worked best last time, or fast track you to fight because that's what worked last time. So we store information and there's like a little tagline neurons that fire together, wire together, meaning familiar situations get stored in the brain in the same areas so that the brain can recall them quickly again, more quickly than we can think about using our executive functioning.

Erin Gray: 35:32

That's all happening kind of beneath the surface down to it, you know, not appreciate it, but it's like it's always trying to keep us safe. It's always there for us, doing the best that it can. You know, um, in the ways that it knows how to, and so, yeah, it's like I'm teary, I'm just like, oh, so much gratitude for our bodies, you know, like so much gratitude.

Rachel Posner: 36:08

Yeah, I mean that's the key to all of it is to bring in a tone of warmth and compassion. Because, um, what you said, I just want to like repeat it that sometimes when we freeze or if we've been in a traumatic situation and we question how we responded, I want to just keep bringing people as much understanding of one your body did what it thought was going to be best for you. And two, the more we can bring in a sense of warmth and gratitude versus shame, resentment, questioning, the more we come into that relaxation response. So compassion. Compassion turns on the parasympathetic response. Compassion networks are in our prefrontal cortex turns on the parasympathetic response. Compassion networks are in our prefrontal cortex. When we're accessing those networks, we feel a sense of calm. When we are accessing the network of resentment and shame, we bring in a sense of dysregulation, that sympathetic response.

Rachel Posner: 37:06

Again, this is not like a shame on you for feeling shame, no no, I think it's really helpful to know the more self compassion we can bring to ourselves, the calmer we will stay in, the better we'll deal with those stressors. So even the simplicity of noticing after a meeting and I'm maybe I'm reflecting on how this conversation went. Am I going to reflect later and say, Rachel, you're an idiot, I can't believe that's how you described X, Y, Z. Or am I going to say, oh, you know, I actually could have probably done a better job of articulating that. I'll remember that for next time. But no big deal. Like there's such a difference in how I'm reflecting and reviewing same thing in both situations. I am giving myself some criticism, but one is with warm and one is not, and that difference is it's sort of like a next level difference in terms of how we build our own sense of self-compassion and wellness.

Erin Gray: 38:06

It's like game changer. I mean I wrote down like curiosity, right, like when we become curious, we can. We can, we can evolve and we can improve and it and it can come from love and compassion and grace. It doesn't have to come from shame and beat up and you know negative self-talk and so many of us right, like that's how we were raised or that's how we were taught to do it Right and so it makes total sense that we would.

Erin Gray: 38:36

And here we go back to there is no right or wrong, it's just in your body it feels softer, it feels more loving, it feels like a little warm hug. You know when, when you're coming from that place of curiosity, like okay, well, if I did want to improve, or like okay, what would that look like? Versus, you know, like you're saying just the, the um, it's like an expansion, versus this, like hiding contraction. You know, um, can you share a little bit about cause? We're talking about sensing and like noticing with our bodies, like um interoception and like what that is and how that yeah, what that is.

Rachel Posner: 39:17

And so really simple, interoception is the skill of noticing sensations in your body. So proprioception is noticing where your body is in space, Interoception is noticing the sensation. So, even as you're listening, can you just drop into your feet. Maybe they're in contact with something, maybe they're not. Do you feel anything? And the answer might be no, right, it's harder to feel sensations that are neutral. When we have really pleasant sensations, those are easier to notice. Really unpleasant sensations very easy to notice, neutral not so easy. But we do have access to noticing even neutral sensations. So you could even just rub your hands together and notice. What does that feel like?

Rachel Posner: 40:00

The more we spend time actually paying attention, noticing those sensations. I mean there's a host of wonderful repercussions. One is, when you notice sensations in your body, you build a mind-body connection, you build that sort of tendency to actually notice what's happening, and when you do that you're more likely to pay attention to those basic needs. If I don't pay much attention to my body, I'm less likely to notice that I'm dehydrated. Until I'm dehydrated. I'm less likely to notice that I'm dehydrated until I'm dehydrated. I'm less likely to notice I'm hungry until I'm hypoglycemic. You know having low blood sugar, right. So there's just the very basics. It is not always easy to notice when we're hungry until we're really hungry, and so practicing even noticing what it feels like to touch my fingers together will help me also notice hunger, right, because any interoceptive skill is going to help with the overall, not just help me notice my fingers right strengthens your insula, which is the part of your brain that is also kind of in that mind-body connection space. The insula is where we build a sense of connection, it's where we build agency. So it seems disconnected, but when we are aware of our body, when we have a relationship with our body, when we're comfortable noticing our body and how the how it feels, and we build a sense of power, self-control, of agency, and so that has a huge, huge emotional repercussions and it helps us with emotional regulation. So, just again, when we notice sensations in our body, it also helps us to notice our emotions before they kind of get away from us to some extent. Like I want to notice when I'm feeling sad or afraid, before that sadness or fear turns into rage. Right, if I can notice. I'm not suggesting anger is always a secondary emotion, but usually it is. Usually it's coming out of my not acknowledging my sadness, my hurt, my grief. And so paying attention to sensations in your body helps you to do that and it also helps with empathy. So just to reconnect the compassion part, empathy is kind of noticing what we're experiencing or noticing someone else's experience. This is a great thing for understanding overall what someone else is experiencing. But we don't want to stay in empathy, we want to move from empathy to compassion. So interoception helps us build that sort of understanding of what someone else is experiencing and then we want to mindfully take that understanding and move it into compassion.

Rachel Posner: 42:55

Difference is in empathy. If you're sad, I'm feeling your sadness. That's not helping you. You are not going to feel better because I feel your sadness. You're actually going to feel worse because now our nervous systems are co-regulating and we're both sad. And you're going to feel best when you feel seen and understood. Because I empathized for a moment and then I moved to compassion, which is a deep desire to alleviate your suffering. Like I just want you to feel better and I feel deeply connected. I'm not actually experiencing your sadness.

Rachel Posner: 43:30

So a lot of people who would refer to themselves as empaths, they can get stuck in the empathy route and we feel like we're doing that from a place of love. Like we, I want you to feel understood. But when we get stuck there we usually turn on our, our sympathetic nervous system because we're becoming stressed by that stress. So that's a little bit of a tangent, but it's how they can all sort of work together. You start with paying attention to sensations in your body. One of the things that happens is that we build that sort of empathy muscle and from that empathy muscle we transition to that warmth and compassion and then everybody is supported ourselves and the person that we're working with.

Erin Gray: 44:15

I love that because I think it's valid to obviously, like we want to be seen, we want to be heard and I think sometimes, like you're saying, we can want to connect on our struggles or where we're at, and it just keeps us in this cycle versus thinking, seeing someone, validating someone, and also like so much love and compassion and grace and like once it's been seen, once it's been felt. Now, how do we want to, you know, change it or you know what? What actions do we want to take? Versus staying in this consistent circle. You know, um, and you said something about the co-regulation. I'd love for you to talk about that because I think that also right, comes into play. Like we, we this is my belief. It's like we can't really help other people unless, like our bodies, we are regulated, um, and not that we have to be regulated all the time, right, but like just how, um. You know if, if we're always in these lower vibration emotions, it's hard to help others when, when we are there on a consistent basis.

Rachel Posner: 45:23

Okay, I love the topic of co-regulation. I really wish I understood this when I had babies not that it's not still helpful, but the baby references is really easy to describe. So your nervous system is incredibly intuitive and it's picking up on your gestures, your tone of voice, and it's picking up largely on non-verbal cues. So if you are stressed, my nervous system will notice things like how you're holding your shoulders. It will pick up on your breath pattern. All these things that I'm not consciously noticing, Okay, but our nervous systems are always feeling the nervous systems of people around us.

Rachel Posner: 46:08

So it's why sometimes you can feel a little crazy when you are feeling really uncomfortable around a person and they're not saying anything wrong, but you always feel tense when you're in the room with someone else. It may be that they are just super stressed, but they cover it. You know they don't talk about it, they say they're fine, but you are always picking up on the tension that they're holding in their body the tension that they're holding in their body and our nervous systems are always sort of co-regulating. So we have to work really hard to stay calm when we're around people that are dysregulated. It's not that we can't do it, but it takes a lot of conscious effort and a lot of effort to stay relaxed in a room full of not relaxed or dysregulated people, and vice versa.

Rachel Posner: 46:59

When other people are regulated and we are not, it's easier for us to become regulated. So you just think about the image of holding a baby like that baby can't be calmed. You keep getting more stressed as a result because they're crying Even if you're saying it's okay, it's okay and like trying to keep it. That baby feels and hears the edge in your voice and so the more stressed you are, the harder it is to calm the baby. So that's like a very easy example that I'm sure we all like held a crying baby and have that experience most of us but it's happening all day with all the people around us.

Erin Gray: 47:36

That is such a beautiful example and, like you said, like man, I wish I knew that and like having I used to shame myself so much, you know, and now it's like, well, you just were doing the best that you could with what you had and what you knew, you know. Like, oh, sweet Erin. So for those of us that are like, okay, well, but how do I co-regulate, how do I like, what would you suggest? Are some, you know, some first baby steps that we can start doing?

Rachel Posner: 48:02

to to be able to do that. I mean, the absolute simplest thing is breathing, and I just want to say that I know that breathing is can be really hard, especially if you're feeling really anxious. So if you're feeling really anxious and your breath is really shallow and somebody tells you to take a diaphragmatic breath with a long exhale, you might want to strangle them, and rightfully so. So I'm going to give you a couple, a few different kind of directions. I'm starting with breath, but I just want to say that caveat first. I know some people who are listening. Everybody tells me to take a deep breath, but I'll just say a little bit more about what I mean by a deep breath. If you're feeling like you're struggling to take, let's say, a three second breath, don't push it. So think about breathing in the same way that you would think about a stretch. I'm not waking up in the morning and first thing in the morning doing the forward bend and touching the floor. That would not be good for my hamstrings or my back. I'm waking up and being more gentle right and then throughout the day, maybe eventually I'm a little warmer, maybe I go for the floor at some point. Same thing with breathing. So think about the inhale as just trying to get more relaxed. You could put a hand on your low belly, around your belly button, and see if you can press your hand away. So anything that helps you drop your diaphragm down would expand at the belly. So it's not like your belly is filling up, but the muscle of your diaphragm is pressing down and that makes your belly seem like it's getting bigger. What's actually happening is as your diaphragm presses down on an inhale, it creates more space in your chest cavity so the lungs can expand as you bring in more oxygen and it kind of smushes your belly. That's why the belly should get bigger on an inhale and then as you exhale, the diaphragm floats back up, it unsmooshes your belly and it compresses the chest cavity to help get the carbon dioxide out.

Rachel Posner: 49:58

When we take a diaphragmatic breath, a lot of things happen. We turn on that parasympathetic response. We stop overusing our shoulders, these muscles, the pecs, the scalenes. When we're taking a shallow breath, we're using those muscles. Those muscles then get super tight. So all of that neck tension and shoulder tension is sometimes just coming from shallow breathing, because we're really not meant to use those muscles to breathe unless we're in fight or flight. In fight or flight, yeah, we take a shallow breath like we're running. We're you know, we're not taking a diaphragmatic breath in fight or flight, although that can be a way to help us get out of it when we're not in danger, and so lots of benefits to that diaphragmatic breath.

Rachel Posner: 50:44

And then a longer exhale again releases more neurochemicals that turn on that parasympathetic response. So you don't have to get I mean there's a million different kinds of breathing techniques box breathing you you know, like if you haven't, if you haven't worked with breath much, just start with the simplicity of could I take a breath where I feel a little expanse around the belly? Eventually it'll get bigger and easier and a longer exhale, two minutes of breathing like that, can help to reset your nervous system. So that's a place I start. But then I just want to say for the people that go, I just don't tell me to breathe.

Rachel Posner: 51:23

Just try to hold your attention on something that is calming to you. That could be noticing the sensations in your body. It could be looking outside at the squirrels in the trees, like you did before our meeting. It could be bringing in an image of yourself in a place in nature that's calming. The idea here is can you hold your attention on something that feels reasonable, that is not about the stress, that is not about anything that's happening in your day, just a present moment experience of something that feels calming, and ideally couple that with your breath. So the relaxation response is most easily turned on by a focus of attention and breathing. So if you're doing the breathing, just focus on your breathing. It's like a trooper. And if that is hard to really pay attention, to do your best with the breath but pay attention to something else that's happening in the moment that is calming. It could be the simplicity of feeling your feet on the ground. What does it feel like to feel? The support of the ground or the support of this chair beneath me?

Erin Gray: 52:31

Yeah, I love all of that and like with our breath. It's like what I love about our breath is it's always there, wherever we go, right, like in any moment we can just stop and check in with it and like notice what, what does it feel like? Is it shallow, is it, you know? And it's just like one of those things of just here we go back to slowing down Right and like really tuning into, like what is our breath doing?

Erin Gray: 52:55

And you were saying, and if you don't want to breathe, I would challenge each of you, if you're you know your mind wants to argue with like don't tell me about my breath. I would challenge like why, why, why not? Why not look at you know? Um, our breath? And and the other thing is like noticing around, like how does your, how does your sweatshirt feel on your body? Like, just like you're saying, just what are the little things that you can draw attention to? That, away from the mind chatter and the the constant banter that's going on inside our minds of like looking around and like, okay, I'm sitting in this chair in this moment, like that's where I had to start. Like I'm sitting in this chair in this moment, in this moment, I am okay right now. Okay, that is the hallway out there, that is the window, like just naming things so that I could, you know, breathe and calm down a little bit.

Rachel Posner: 53:49

Yeah, and everything that you're naming is present moment. So you know, the definition of mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment without judgment. That's it. It's that simple. There are a million different practices we can play around with, but that's exactly right. Can I just notice what's happening right now in some small way, whether it's my breathing, whether it's what it feels like in the sweatshirt? You know, use your senses in the sweatshirt. You know, use your senses Because generally, all the things that we are worried about are happening in the future or happened in the past Yep, the vast majority of our stressors.

Rachel Posner: 54:27

I am not suggesting that we don't need to talk to think about the future and the past, but it's largely what we are doing instead of actually being in the present and the present.

Rachel Posner: 54:39

Sometimes it's scary, but most often it is less stressful than the past or the future events that you're thinking about. So if you can just give yourself a break from thinking about the past and the future by doing something very simple like you know, this is another one that I often give people if they haven't had a lot of time spent in their body, and especially if you have a history of trauma, being in the body can feel very uncomfortable and unsafe. So as you are working on that, as you are making your way back to your body, sometimes the nicest thing you can do is notice the sounds in the room. And when you really pay attention to sounds like what's the closest sound you can hear, what's the farthest sound you can hear, that's a really safe experience for many people, because you're not asking yourself to really be in your body, necessarily, but you are asking yourself to be really present and nothing bad is happening in the present in that moment. If you have the space to notice that, that's so good yeah, and and I I just want to.

Erin Gray: 55:46

I mean, we've said it multiple times, but it's just like the value of slowing down, of noticing those things and getting more practice right. It's not that that Rachel is so, you know, like born with this. You know, it's just like the practice that you or anyone else has built up over time. We have just been more practice in feeling stress, of rushing, of hurrying, of doing all of those things, versus the practice of slowing down and paying attention and being mindful and yeah.

Rachel Posner: 56:27

Having compassion. My natural tendency is definitely very cognitive. I am a natural thinker, so, yeah, I think that's important to recognize. Of course, I can talk about all this and I have been practicing all of this for 30 years, so I have a lot of experience and a lot to say about it, but it's not my natural inclination. Maybe I could say now it feels like my natural inclination, but it's not my temperament.

Erin Gray: 56:59

And also for each of you, listening of like, noticing, because we want to compare, we want to look outside of ourselves, we want to, you know, versus, how was I yesterday, how am I today? Right, like the, the noticing of like, okay, today I'm going to do X, y, z, I'm going to, you know, intentionally breathe or pay attention to my breath, or whatever, and just noticing the steps that I think sometimes, like in the self-development world, we want to like, where are we going? Constantly focus on that, but like, look at how far you've come already. Like, look at how you've, you know, changed the way that you used to be, or that you've noticed your breath more, or that you've slowed down, or that you know, just all of those little tiny nuggets along the way, um, of like giving yourself out of boys, out of girls, you know, of like, yeah, I'm, I am making changes, I am, you know, evolving, um, instead of so much of like I haven't done all of this yet.

Rachel Posner: 57:58

Yeah, I mean, that really makes me think about the whole sort of self-improvement world, which I have a like, not an affinity for. I'm very repelled by the self-improvement sort of constant. Yeah, like. What I want to say is you don't need to improve, you are totally fine the way you are, and these are just practices that help us feel better throughout our day. Yeah, that's it. Like we just want to walk around feeling better and more self compassionate and we want to feel more connected and these practices help us to feel safer, more connected and more compassionate. And these practices help us to feel safer, more connected and more compassionate, and it's much more about that than about being anybody different than you already are.

Erin Gray: 58:43

Yeah that's it's like there's no right or wrong. Right, it just feels better. Just feels better in the body. Oh, thank you, Rachel. Is there anything else that you want to share or that I might have not asked or left out?

Rachel Posner: 58:57

Well, I could tell you a little bit about the links that are going to be in the show notes.

Erin Gray: 59:00

Yeah, of course yes.

Rachel Posner: 59:03

Okay, my website basically just has everything I do. I have a page called the everything page. You can scroll around if you just want to see what I do and what I offer, and there's also a link for a free practice. It's called take five, and so we talked about taking a pause. That's a taking a pause practice. It just gives you a minute with lots of guidance. There's just a number of prompts that help you to kind of settle and notice, and it gives you some practices that help relax your nervous system. And then there's also a link for a free trial for my yoga and meditation membership. So I have a virtual community that I work with. I teach four classes a week and then there's like over 300 recordings in the library so you can practice with me on zoom or at your convenience, and, yeah, you'll have links for all of those things.

Erin Gray: 59:57

That's so fun. Um, I know someone else that does uh yoga virtually too. And it's just like such a like you get to do it in your own home or you get to do it outside or wherever you get to do it, and then you get to be with other people. So I'll put all of the, I'll put all of Rachel's information in the show notes and, like I said, thank you again for sharing your time, your wisdom and everything today.

Rachel Posner: 1:00:17

My pleasure. It was lovely to be here. Thanks for having me.

Erin Gray: 1:00:22

Thank you for tuning in today. I appreciate you spending your time with me. I created Grow the CEO cohort for the entrepreneur that wants to be in a community with other heart-based entrepreneurs. It's a place where we blend the 3D of money, like understanding your bookkeeping and taxes and investing and how it applies to your business, along with the 5D of money, like the energetics and the emotions that you feel with money. To learn more about Grow the CEO cohort, you can head over to my website at generatealifewelllivedcom. And, as always, from my soul to yours,