This week, you're in for a treat!!
Ever feel like you're constantly fighting to stay afloat in the relentless tide of work, societal pressures, and the pursuit of elusive happiness?
What if you could break free from this cycle, understand your body's responses to stress, and steer your life purposefully toward fulfilling self-care?
Amanda and I unpack dealing with societal and work pressures, navigating the frequent comparison pitfalls of the social media age, all through the lens of the nervous system.
Amanda and I demystify nervous system regulation, trauma, and their impact on our boundaries, stress levels, and well-being, outlining some action steps so you can take action today to manage burnout, reconnect with your body's needs, and nurture your nervous system.
I hope you love this episode and gain lots of insights and value!
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Amanda Louisa is a nervous system regulation coach who moonlights as an Associate Director at a large multinational whilst growing her business. Amanda helps high-performing women break their Good Girl conditioning, reconnect with their soul-self, rewire their nervous system, and create a life beyond their wildest dreams. As someone living with c-PTSD (complex trauma), she knows how transformative and powerful nervous system work can be. Download your free guide "3 Ways to Overcome Procrastination: Your 10 Minute Guide to Simple Somatic Practices to Help You Banish Procrastination and Get Sh*t Done".
Connect with Amanda:
Insta: www.instagram.com/theamandalouisa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-louisa/
Website: https://www.amandalouisa.com.au/work-with-me
Thank you for being here ❤️
Join my 6-month program, Create Fulfilling Abundance.
Learn more and apply here: https://www.saveamillioncents.com/cfa
If you are interested in working with me 1:1, send me an email!
✨If this podcast is a helpful resource for you, please share it with your friends, on social media, and leave a 5-star rating and review.
💝 To receive your FREE Money Archetype Workbook, complete this form
Connect with me on Instagram for free tips, inspo: https://www.instagram.com/nadinezumot/
~Podcast theme song by The Jilted Irony
This week, you're in for a treat!!
Ever feel like you're constantly fighting to stay afloat in the relentless tide of work, societal pressures, and the pursuit of elusive happiness?
What if you could break free from this cycle, understand your body's responses to stress, and steer your life purposefully toward fulfilling self-care?
Amanda and I unpack dealing with societal and work pressures, navigating the frequent comparison pitfalls of the social media age, all through the lens of the nervous system.
Amanda and I demystify nervous system regulation, trauma, and their impact on our boundaries, stress levels, and well-being, outlining some action steps so you can take action today to manage burnout, reconnect with your body's needs, and nurture your nervous system.
I hope you love this episode and gain lots of insights and value!
----------------------------------------------
Amanda Louisa is a nervous system regulation coach who moonlights as an Associate Director at a large multinational whilst growing her business. Amanda helps high-performing women break their Good Girl conditioning, reconnect with their soul-self, rewire their nervous system, and create a life beyond their wildest dreams. As someone living with c-PTSD (complex trauma), she knows how transformative and powerful nervous system work can be. Download your free guide "3 Ways to Overcome Procrastination: Your 10 Minute Guide to Simple Somatic Practices to Help You Banish Procrastination and Get Sh*t Done".
Connect with Amanda:
Insta: www.instagram.com/theamandalouisa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-louisa/
Website: https://www.amandalouisa.com.au/work-with-me
Thank you for being here ❤️
Join my 6-month program, Create Fulfilling Abundance.
Learn more and apply here: https://www.saveamillioncents.com/cfa
If you are interested in working with me 1:1, send me an email!
✨If this podcast is a helpful resource for you, please share it with your friends, on social media, and leave a 5-star rating and review.
💝 To receive your FREE Money Archetype Workbook, complete this form
Connect with me on Instagram for free tips, inspo: https://www.instagram.com/nadinezumot/
~Podcast theme song by The Jilted Irony
Hello everybody, welcome back to the Money Healing Podcast. So today is a special guest interview episode with Amanda Louisa, and we're going to be nerding out about the nervous system. So I am sure you are as excited as I am. Get your notebook, get your favorite little beverage and let's get cracking. Welcome to the Money Healing Podcast, amanda. How is it going today?
Speaker 2:So good, I'm so excited to be here. Can't wait to get into this conversation.
Speaker 1:Yay, so tell us about yourself. I am not one for reading bios on the mic, because that's just not natural. Why would I read somebody's bio when they're in front of me? So tell us about who you are. What the fuck are you?
Speaker 2:So I am a recovering warrior. Don't hold the law against me. I didn't last long. I was in there for about a year and a half and I realized pretty quickly that the work hard, play hard voice club was definitely not for me, Not your vibe.
Speaker 2:Not my vibe. I worked in corporate law for a while and it was a great instruction to the world, like the professional world. It was my first kind of professional job and learned pretty quickly that the stages set very much for males, especially white males. As a woman of color, it was challenging in a lot of ways that I think my other female friends might not have experienced, but it's still very much skewed towards males. I was in law school and our cohort was probably 70% female to male ratio and then you go into the law firms and at the bottom there's a lot of females and then as you get higher up in the hierarchy it's suddenly just like there's very few female partners that we would see. And if there were female partners there would be in the soft partnerships like family law and I'm using air quotes because I don't think family law is soft at all and it's the same thing in corporate. So every qualified I worked for a while in sustainability. So I did a master of science in sustainability management and again I ended up working in very male-dominated fields like mining, sustainable finance, sustainable transport, and now I and all of that was in WA WAN also in the UK, so I worked in Edinburgh for a while so again, constantly seeing the level of burnout amongst women, and I experienced my first burnout when I was
Speaker 2:28. And that set me on a trajectory of learning about meditation and mindfulness. And I had practiced some of the stuff when I was younger, in high school, because I was type A personality back then. You wouldn't believe that now, and yeah. So I needed those techniques to help me cope with the pressure of trying to get into law school. And then, once I was in the corporate, you just kind of forget about those techniques to get caught up in achieving the next thing and you're always told successes around the corner. So I don't know about you but like, yeah, keep chipping away, keep chipping away.
Speaker 1:It's just around the corner.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's at the next promotion, it's at the next oh gosh, when you meet the right guy, when you buy the house, when you get the car, when you, it's just there. Oh, it's there. Oh, no, no, no, just the next one actually, yeah. And this just yeah Was ticking off all the things that society was telling me. It was like you'll be happy when and I was so unhappy, I was so unhappy Like look at my Instagram feed and you're like she's got the life, she's traveling all over Europe, she's at these bowls at Edinburgh Castle and inside.
Speaker 2:I was just not satisfied, because happiness is an external, it's inside, and one thing that I discovered is you can keep moving to the next thing, like. You can think it's the relationship, you can think it's the job, you can keep chasing, but really, if you experience the same level of unhappiness over and over again, there's one consistency, and that's you.
Speaker 1:You? Yeah, I completely resonate with that. So I mean, I feel like everybody listening would be resonating with what you just said. We've all been in a situation where we were told that happiness is when you get blah. It's always. We've always been directed to look outside of ourselves to find that happiness and fulfillment. And then it's the biggest slap on the face when you're kind of like getting close to 30 and you're like when is why You're?
Speaker 1:And now with social media? Because I grew up in a time where there was no social media. Now, with social media, you have more basis for comparison. And I love what you shared, because a lot of times we look at social media and you're like look at her, she's got it all sorted, but we don't know what happens behind closed doors. We really, really don't, and we know this on a cognitive level, but on a visceral level, when we look at an Instagram feed and we're like, oh my God, it looks so shiny and happy, just know that things are not what they seem to be and you don't know what that person has or had gone through to get to where you're comparing what you're comparing them to. So now you're into coaching. How did you get?
Speaker 2:here Because I had to. I'm a tourist with a Virgo Rising, so stubbornness is in my jeans. I had my second burnout in 2020. So 2020 was tough year for everyone. I was in Edinburgh at the time and I had moved to Scotland with this. It was like a sole direction. I had to go there. The way it unfolded was just magical, and I moved there with the intention of never coming back to Perth. I really had set up my life. I had a great job, I had amazing friends, I was feeling quite good. There was still unhappiness, but humanity has a scale. We can't only exist on one side. And yeah, the pandemic happened. I lost my visa, I lost my right to live in the UK and at the same time, australia closed its borders, so I could get back into the country.
Speaker 1:I'm laughing about it. I was trying to get into Australia at the same time. It was actually depressing, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I couldn't get back into the country. What did you do? I was stuck in Scotland for nine months. It was the first time I was unemployed since I was 15. I'd been working since I was 15. So my first taste of unemployment I couldn't get access to social services. So I couldn't access any unemployment benefits in the UK because I wasn't a citizen or a permanent resident at the time. And I couldn't get access to any benefits here in Australia because I wasn't a resident anymore. I was living in the UK.
Speaker 2:So, even though I was a citizen sorry, too bad, too sad oh my God, that sucks. And then that is really tough. Add to it, in Edinburgh they had full-on lockdown so I wasn't able to see my friends, I wasn't able to touch people. I was in an apartment on my own for nine months. I didn't have a job to distract me and suddenly, when you don't have distractions, everything starts coming up. So a lot of things that I. I've been in therapy for seven years. You know I was very. I think therapy is like maintenance you take your car to get service, so you should take your body and your mind.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's funny, that's funny.
Speaker 2:It's such a great tool and it's so nice to have a professional that you can talk things out with, because I process through talking. But I've been in therapy for seven years but we'd only ever touch the kind of surface level, even though you know it'd been the same therapist and we'd work together really closely. And what I found during this period of lockdown was that there was so much more happening and somehow, as the universe does, there was like little breadcrumbs that I kind of followed and it brought me into this world of nervous system regulation and suddenly I was like oh yeah, I know, Once you see it, you cannot see it.
Speaker 1:Right, it's like oh, my God, everything made sense, everything made sense.
Speaker 2:It was incredible. It was such a light bulb moment where I was like I'm not broken, there's nothing wrong with me.
Speaker 1:I made sense.
Speaker 2:Like talk therapy is great, and trauma which, if you're a woman living in a misogynistic world, is everywhere, like we all have it. And there's the difference between trauma with a big T, which is you know where you experience a violent assault, or you've grown up in a traumatic environment where there's, you know, a lot of violence, yelling, all of that. Yes, there's that trauma. But there's also trauma with a small T, which is you know the things that we experience. It's when you experience too much for too long, too much too soon and or too little for too long. So, basically, that's where you can experience trauma. It doesn't have to be a car crash or an assault or anything like that. When our nervous system is in met and we don't have a co regulator, especially as a young child, we develop coping mechanisms and those coping mechanisms keep us safe until they start keeping us trapped.
Speaker 1:Yeah, until they keep us small. They limit us.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. That's exactly what had come up, and I was diagnosed with CPTSD at this point. So this was towards the end of 2020, early 2021. And I started working with a trauma therapist who specialized in nervous system regulation and I started learning about somatic experiencing and that was it Like. That was just like. I suddenly started to see how Our entire system is designed not for human beings, it's designed for machines. No, it's not designed for the cyclical nature, it's designed to keep us exactly.
Speaker 1:Keep us in flight or flight. Keep us in flight. That's like to everybody's benefit, right, and it?
Speaker 2:is because living in a patriarchal, capitalist, colonial society, like it or not, that's the kind of paradigm we exist within. It is designed to say well, if you're not feeling well, there's something wrong with you. Here, take this medication and you'll get you back into the workforce to work 12 hours in a fluorescent lit building where you don't get access to nature, where you're not moving your body, and the problem is you. So here, take this medication to fix yourself. Whereas actually, you know, human beings are designed to move. We're designed to connect with nature.
Speaker 2:There's so much like the fractal shapes in nature actually help reduce our cortisol levels. There's so much connection that we need that we don't get because we're forced to sit still, stare at a computer screen and produce, produce, produce for 14 hours a day, and the system works on it because then we can get sold. You know a holiday here and pay an exorbitant fare because that's going to make you happy, or buy this house because you know you've worked really long hours, so you just chase a little bit more you just have to live in a pretty place, but you'll never see it because you're working 12 hour days.
Speaker 1:I was with my group, with my online group, this morning and we were present. I was talking to them about people pleasing and the phone response and all of that and what came up was like when does it even begin? I mean at home, in the schoolroom, when you're expected to be seen and not heard, when you're expected to suppress how you're, the bigness of your personality, your opinions. Even from a young age, you learn that. Oh okay, so for me to be accepted and to be the good girl or the good boy at home or in class, I need to shut up, I need to suppress my opinion, I need to go with everybody else's opinion.
Speaker 1:I don't need to be contrarian or express anything that's contradicting to the whatever is happening. So that is a way of trauma. I have gone through big T trauma in my childhood and also, of course, small T trauma, and a lot of people are like we talk a lot about money and my specialty is money healing and a lot of people are like well, I didn't experience anything traumatizing, but I'm like how did these little things affect your relationship with yourself? Because then everything you do is a reflection of that.
Speaker 2:And trauma is also inherited. So there's that part too Like, if you think about it. Until the 1980s, women weren't allowed to get a credit card without a mail signing for it.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I know, I grew up in the Middle East, so I know.
Speaker 1:I know very well all of that. It's just. This is all traumatizing because it is really affecting our relationship with our worth, belonging, acceptance. You know, just not being able to be who you fully are, even as, from your perspective, from what you were saying, a woman like for me was shame on me for having breasts, shame on me for having elbows, and I had to like hide my elbows and my knees and maybe my ankles, depending on where I'm going. You know, back when I was living in the Middle East, I was like I was ashamed for having all these assets, like, oh my God, for having a body that might tempt someone, like, for fuck's sake, right? So how do you grow up feeling any self worth or pride in who you are when you're told to refresh yourself.
Speaker 2:And no wonder women are so disconnected from our bodies and trauma lives in our bodies, so we just exist. And then we wonder why, you know, we reach a certain age and we're just like I can't do this anymore. So many people reach their mid 30s, I think, and they are just burnt out and they don't understand why, because they have great kids and a lovely partner and a good house and a good job, and yet they are just so miserable and I'm like because you don't exist in your body. You live, you're living here.
Speaker 1:Like here up, exactly. Oh my God, yes. So another thing that lives in the body is our intuition. So when we are disconnected from our bodies, unfortunately we become disconnected from intuition. And what would signal burnout, what would signal to us that we're tired, that we need to rest? It's our body and intuition.
Speaker 2:Exactly, absolutely, yeah, and we're actually trained to ignore what our body is telling us, right? Because, like going back to the classroom, you need to pee, you need to ask for permission and sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't, you might get a no, yes, you might get a no, no, no, no, I actually need to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 2:Why do I need to ask permission for this? Because you control what I do with my body. It starts in the classroom and then goes out into you know. Governments telling us what we do, and then governments telling us what we can and cannot do with our body as well.
Speaker 1:I'm with you on that. You did mention something about the cyclical nature of our bodies and of life. Can you speak more about this, because I love this talk, yeah.
Speaker 2:So human beings are designed to be cyclical.
Speaker 2:And you know, one thing that I've noticed as I've been doing the nervous system regulation work is my ability to be in stillness and to wait for the next.
Speaker 2:And I think that's the next kind of prompt from my inner guiding system is easier. I'm not like frantically looking for the next thing, for the next thing, for the next thing, like we used to do, and that's because it's easier to live within the cycle of. You know, you've got your spring, where things are starting to blossom, you're more creative, you feel like ideas are flowing in and you've got this inspiration to do a project or something new is happening in your life. You're falling in love, maybe, you know you're buying a new house. You're in that new phase, right. And then there's the summer period where you start establishing things like, if it's a new relationship, you're getting more comfortable with each other, or if it's a new job, you're starting to really thrive and get to know the place. So we have these cycles in our life and then in the autumn cycle, we start letting things go, we start releasing and then, as we get into winter, we have this period of stillness, and this is the part that people hate.
Speaker 1:Yes, we are mostly uncomfortable with that part and we think there's something wrong.
Speaker 2:We think there's something broken. Oh, if nothing is happening on the surface, then that means that I'm not doing enough, so I need to work harder. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Shame for being lazy. Procrastination.
Speaker 2:All that and so once we start working with our nervous system, we feel more comfortable with those periods of time in life, because life is a mirror of nature where we will have fallow periods where nothing much is happening in the space, and we can just trust that there's still a lot of magic that happens in winter. Like we have to really trust that that winter period gives rest a chance, like it gives the earth a chance to rest, and just like earth needs to rest in order to produce, human beings need to rest in order to produce. So when we are feeling really drained and tired and uninspired, that's actually a signal to rest into that period of stillness. How far can you lean back instead of leaning in and away from doing things, and how much can you really sit with that quietness inside you and listen and receive?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, that's an option. You know, we don't always have to be givers, givers, givers, right. So now, most, I would say that the audience of this podcast is 50-50 in the entrepreneurship world and also in employment. So I would like if we were to talk about burnout and what it looks like in the workplace, in a traditional workplace, and burnout as how it looks like for people who are self-employed, people who are running their own business, especially solopreneurs, with little to no help. So let's talk about both.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm in both spaces at the moment.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm a solopreneur, you've got that advantage.
Speaker 2:And I work as an executive in a corporate, in an engineering firm actually, so what you'll notice is whether you are working on your own or working in the corporate.
Speaker 2:The actual symptoms of burnout are quite similar, and so I'll start by saying the nervous system for those of us who don't know is the central regulatory body that controls how we perceive the world, what we think, our digestion, our feelings.
Speaker 2:It's like the central command center for everything that we experience, and there's a vagus nerve that basically connects the base of our spine, at the top of our head, all the way down to for women, it connects into our cervix. So what happens is this nervous system is kind of one of the oldest protective mechanisms that we have and we it's designed to keep us safe, so it's constantly scanning the environment for safety or danger, and what happens is that, like when we're in a workplace and we're in a stressful environment, we might be triggered into fight flight by just the constant idea of okay, we've got this deadline looming, we need to get this thing done. Where's the time? I don't have any support, and we have these thought patterns that are creating more anxiety in our system and we go into a fight flight mode or we go into freeze. There's also people pleasing, which is foreign mechanism, and that's kind of a combination of fight, flight and freeze.
Speaker 2:So it's one of the harder ones to help unravel because it comes in from our conditioning, our thoughts, our beliefs, whereas fight, flight freeze is really a nervous system response that happens at a very physiological level. So if you're in flight in fight mode, so fight mode is usually where you find yourself being more aggressive. You might be short-tempered, you might find like small things will set you off and you'll have a big reaction to something that if you were in a regulated space you wouldn't have such a big reaction to. For example, you might stub your toe and start like cussing out as if the world was ending.
Speaker 1:Whereas you know normally you just feel like the world is against you.
Speaker 2:Suddenly, everything is against you and you're wearing to go. So your body. You might actually feel it in your arms, so like you want to punch something or hit something out. Yeah, it's more like the forward motion. It's the forward motion, so you might even feel your like shoulders are scrunched up towards your ears. Become really conscious, and the way we start identifying where we are on the spectrum is when we become conscious of what our body is doing, without any judgment, just noticing. Okay, am I feeling more energy in my arms? Oh, actually, yeah, I am. I'm feeling like a heat in my arms, like I want to punch something or move something forward, or I can feel my shoulders are scrunched up. Okay, so that means I might be in fight mode. I might be experiencing this, or I'm, you know, being really aggressive with the person in front of me. I'm being really short and sarcastic.
Speaker 2:You know like those are kind of reactions that we have that tells us oh okay, there's something going on in here where I'm not feeling safe Flight mode. On the other hand, you might find yourself trying to multitask, and I'll tell you what human beings cannot multitask, that is that is a myth.
Speaker 2:It is not a thing the brain can't do it. So yeah, flight mode, you might be jumping from one thing to another. You'll find yourself always like rushing to meetings, like you're constantly rushing. You're always feeling like you're late. You might find your brain doesn't stop whirling. There's like a thousand thoughts running through your mind and you cannot sit still. And so this is where I say, like that whole idea of, oh well, just meditate, no.
Speaker 2:When your body feels that unsafe, you can't meditate. So I get so many clients coming to me and going. I just can't meditate. It's not for me and I'm like sweetheart. You will be able to meditate. Let's first start by regulating your nervous system Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so my default is actually flight. So I got to say this is hilarious. When I'm in flight mode, it is the funniest thing, because I'm observing myself while in flight mode and I'm like so I'm going to eat and record this video and also I'm going to do my nails and I'm like no, you're not Like I get into these like loopy ideas of like I'm going to go do all five of them at the same time and I believe it, like a part of me is like, yeah, we can do this.
Speaker 1:I'm like, yeah, probably very badly. It's hilarious, it's pretty bad.
Speaker 2:So that's me, so that's me.
Speaker 1:Oh gosh, this is many, many ways. It depends on the situation. So I because I know that this is my go-to nervous system response I actually have an exercise bike because sometimes when I'm in flight I actually need forward motion. So I either go and go for like a quick walk to get that out of my system or I go on my exercise bike if I don't have time to go for a walk. I do that just like really clears my head. There are other things, but please you tell us what you're you know that's actually perfect.
Speaker 2:One of the somatic exercises I really encourage people to do like, especially if they're in the office and they feel like they can't go out for a quick walk or something, although I always say, yeah, you can take five minutes to go for a walk, if it comes down to it.
Speaker 1:If you're a smoker, you can't right Because there's a valid excuse, but like if you're like go get yourself a coffee why exactly?
Speaker 2:And also if you don't need an excuse to go out for fresh air. But I do encourage you to like go into the toilet or go into if you've got a wellness room. Like lock yourself into the wellness room and run on the spot Like you can run to get that energy moving out of your body. Because the reason we end up with chronic stress and chronic symptoms, which leads to inflammation, heart disease and a whole bunch of other things that we do want to have, is because we do not process the stress out of our body. So having these reactions to stimuli around us is good. Our nervous system is supposed to do that. It was designed to do that. It's not broken.
Speaker 2:So being stressed, living in a stressful environment, is normal. Where it becomes dangerous is when you don't fully process that stress and you try to ignore it. So we try to bring in coping mechanisms, don't we? We try to like grab a glass of wine at the end of the day because we deserve it, because we've worked so hard and we've had like a really shitty day, or we might be one of those like impulse spenders. So you know, we spend because we're feeling like triggered and it helps us self soothe for a moment.
Speaker 2:And then we go into a spiral of feeling really shamed about spending when we weren't supposed to. So there's all these mechanisms that we used to suppress it, because we're not trained to actually allow the stress to move through our body and to complete the cycle. So you know, as children, if we are triggered into five-five freeze, usually the response from our parents is oh no, you're fine, like, brush it off, big girls, don't cry. There's so many things that we're told to say what we're feeling is uncomfortable for somebody else. So let's just not share that, let's just suppress that and find somewhere else to put it. And you're too much.
Speaker 1:You're too much. Yeah, why are you crying? Oh, don't yell. Go to your room. Do you have emotions? Go to your room. So again, you're shunned, You're like put into the shadows for having these things. Of course you cannot process that Exactly, and that's. I don't want to ruin the spoiler.
Speaker 2:I don't want to spoil the surprise. It's such a pattern that we've gotten into and then, when we get into the workplace again, there's so much around women expressing anger and how that's perceived and the limitation oh, you're on your period Fuck that.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not on my period. I have opinions.
Speaker 2:But society doesn't like angry women.
Speaker 1:Anything if I was Scared of me. Yeah, I know I love angry women. I'm an angry woman.
Speaker 2:No, we're feisty. We're feisty and you know there's such a misconception around like what feminine is and what feminine energy is, and it's really been designed by the patriarchy to be soft and beautiful and meek. Yes, it is, because nature is again soft and beautiful and meek, but it's also rageful, like think of volcanoes and think of hurricanes and think of cyclones Beautiful, rageful, incredible natural experiences that removes shit that shouldn't be there and clears things out. Right, because after a volcano there's a lot of ash and the soil becomes really fertile. So, yes, there's destruction, but there's reaper. That's like that autumn energy and that's what, like a full feminine express is. And in our society we haven't been allowed to be on the darker side of the feminine, which is those like anger, you know expressing that being in our, you know longing for something. Those are things that we're not allowed to do, because if we desire anything, heaven forbid we should want, because we should just be grateful with what we have. Or, if we're angry about Be selfless yeah, be selfless If we're rewarded for it.
Speaker 2:So then we wonder why, when we're not trained to take care of ourselves or receive.
Speaker 1:Why we?
Speaker 2:end up burning out. Because, if you think about it, I always tell my clients you're a jar of marbles and you might have 10 marbles inside right, and you give two to work, you give three to your kids, you give two to your husband. How many do you have left? You've only got a couple right.
Speaker 2:You lost your marbles, you lost your marbles and if you don't do anything to refill that jar, you're running on empty. You don't have anything to give anymore. So you know we need to find things that help us fill up and that's where we come into, like this nervous system, regulation work, because it goes beyond. You know getting a manicure or you know going like self care doesn't necessarily mean spending more money on things I gotta say something, though.
Speaker 1:What I find with my clients is that defining self care as going to get your nails done, and like doing that throwing money at the concept of self care, is way easier than the actual self care that they need, which is looking within. This is way easier to just like I'm going to get a manicure self care hashtag, whatever, but actually the care that you need is the care for your nervous system, the care for your younger parts, the actual self reflection.
Speaker 2:Thank you. That self care, yes, yes, yes, yes, I'm so, I'm so on that. That is exactly what. Yes, yeah, 100%. And I think, again, you know, living in a capitalist society, of course we're going to capitalize on self care, because we'll just tell everybody that self care is, you know, getting your nails done, getting your hair done, and they'll still feel empty inside. So they'll keep going to get that like small fix as opposed to the big fix of actually turning in with nurturing those like inner child parts, nurturing the different parts of ourselves that we've neglected. Bring them into a case of whole, because, heaven forbid, a woman should step out as a fully embodied God. Ask, right, because don't think society can deal with that shit.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about freeze and form.
Speaker 2:Freeze is something that I think is so easy to go into. That's where you might find yourself procrastinating a lot. You might find when you're in freeze that you don't know where to start with a task. Like a task can feel really big and so you'll distract yourself, you will go on your phone, you will go shopping, you'll have a conversation, you'll do tasks that aren't actually getting you towards your goals because they're easier and you just can't deal with it. So there's actually two states of freeze. One is when you're in a parasympathetic experience of freeze. So if you're in flight mode, you might find yourself in an expression of freeze where you are trying to just like do other things and you just don't know where to start because it's too overwhelming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like more of a blended state.
Speaker 2:Yes, or you might be in the other state of freeze, where you're in a dorsal state where you actually just don't have any energy, you can't move. So you're not frozen because you're overwhelmed. You're frozen because your body has experienced too much and it's going into shutdown and it's an immobilization, exactly so this is where you go into depression. This is where it's hard to move off the sofa, it's hard to get a task done, and we really shame ourselves in that space.
Speaker 1:That's the worst one, right Like. The thing that really haunts my clients is that is when they shame themselves or the procrastination piece, and it's so liberating for them but also very difficult for them to understand that this is physiological, not psychological. It's a very big differentiation.
Speaker 2:And we try and beat ourselves up into like moving or doing something and we force ourselves and it just triggers more stress and it makes it even harder. So if you find just sleeping longer, if you are just like unable to go exercise, if you're unable to move, you just feel really just stuck in that docile phrase. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent here, just like for a couple of minutes. Sometimes, when you don't do what you think you should do, sometimes your body is protecting you. Sometimes it's a no from the body and you're trying to overwrite that. I have a few clients that are business owners that think they should be launching their group program now. They just sit down and get it together and then all of a sudden they want to nap. They ask me is this a freeze response? I'm like I don't. Because I've coached them for a while, I know that they're not in freeze response and it's actually listened to your body. What does your body say? It's actually that it's not the right time for them to launch a group program. Perhaps it's time for them to pivot their business and do something different, or it's time for them to oh, my God, rest, oh is it time for rest?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I haven't forgot rest. What is this? Absolutely you know what? I see that so often and in my business I have really shifted how I do things. So initially I was that person who would just push through because I wanted to do it and I want to get out of the corporate.
Speaker 2:I really want to get out of the corporate and I'm at that stage of business where I'm juggling a corporate job and clients and it's not quite at the space where I can fully launch into it. It wouldn't feel safe from my nervous system and so I'm not going to put that pressure on myself. Yeah, and as much as I want it to grow, you have to realize your business is its own entity and you can't force it to do anything but it's not designed at the moment to do. It's a partnership. It has a say. It has a say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it has a say. If it's not ready for something, you can't force it, just like you can't force a friend or a child or a child or anything. You're so right about this. And can we please everyone, can we normalize that it's okay to still be in corporate while you're launching your business? What a great business it is. It takes time and if you are under the impression that wow, you know, you created a website and now business is supposed to take off, that is an illusion. That's not going to happen this way and if it does good, but most of the time it doesn't. And yes, you're absolutely right, don't jump when your nervous system does not feel safe, because that hunger is going to show up in your sales call. You don't want to rely on other people for your survival, because it will show and then you will act from a place of survival in your business and that cuts you off to your critical thinking brain and your creativity. So let's normalize that.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah. There's so much out there, especially on social media, where you know, just jump Exactly and I'm like, no, no, thanks, I'm going to do it my way. No, oh my God, I miss.
Speaker 1:Australia. You know, I lived there like since 2004.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, when did you move away, yeah?
Speaker 1:Oh gosh, I'm in and out of Australia. You know it's my home base, and then I move and then I come back France, Australia, America, Australia. So we just actually moved out of Australia in March of this year.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow yeah.
Speaker 1:Probably yeah, I love Australia. Let's talk about the foreign response.
Speaker 2:Yes, so foreign isn't? Actually it's such an interesting experience. It's a mixture of being frightened. So human beings are social creatures. We are designed to live in community, and for a very long time. If we didn't have acceptance from our community, it could mean it could impact our survival. So people were ostracised or kicked out of community and that was pretty much a death sentence because we needed to rely on each other to survive.
Speaker 2:Now we're self-sufficient, but our nervous system is still designed for connection, and so what happens is, if we're feeling scared, that we're not going to be liked or that, you know, something around us is unsafe, we can go into the foreign response, which is where we start really looking to other people. We over give, we try to please them. We neglect our own boundaries because we don't want to lose that connection that helps us feel safe. That connection is a sense of safety, even to the detriment of our own sense of wellbeing. We will give and give and give to help us feel safe and to help us feel in control, because that's also an element of control in the people-pleasing mechanism. It's not giving from a spaciousness, it's giving from a neediness, and that's not to shame ourselves, it's because we are literally trying to survive and we're seeing these other people as our survival mechanisms. So, with clients, if you run your own business in your solar it's your source of survival.
Speaker 2:So you will neglect your own boundaries because you're thinking in your head if I don't give like this, this client isn't going to sign on with me or isn't going to stay with me. They'll go somewhere else. So I have to do this to survive.
Speaker 1:It manifests as loose boundaries, which actually isn't helpful because you cannot give constantly to everyone.
Speaker 2:If you've got five clients, you've got 10 clients and you're giving like that to all of them. You don't have enough for yourself. So you have no connection to your own intuition. How can you guide somebody else when you're not really connected in?
Speaker 1:Exactly, very well said, and I would imagine that's a very big source of burnout, right.
Speaker 2:Huge because again, like if you're a jar of marbles and you've got 10 marbles and you've given them, you lost your marbles you lost your marbles and you don't have anything back to give anymore and you need to keep filling that cup and, obviously, like in a workplace situation where you've got a boss, women are so trained to we're almost trained to be grateful that we're allowed to play in the corporate space when we, you know, we think if we just put our head down and work hard, they'll recognise me for the work that I do. That's not how it works, because, no, unfortunately, no, you can work the long hours which, you know, women, especially, are not designed to do. We're cyclical in terms of we've got a period cycle and people who bleed and your period is cyclical in its own.
Speaker 1:You know mechanism. Like you have four seasons within the whole, the one cycle. So yeah, you are cyclical in nature.
Speaker 2:And so if we're expected to have the same output as a masculine energy or a person who doesn't bleed, where they have a steady stream of testosterone being released consistently throughout the month, how can we compete? We have estrogen, testosterone for just throne, which, like, triggers different parts of our brain, different skill sets at different periods of a month throughout our cycle.
Speaker 1:And different nervous system states as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, so there's this again. The current system was designed the nine to five system was designed where there was somebody at home taking care of the children, cleaning the house, doing all the housekeeping, and there was one person going out earning the money, coming back in. Right Now we're expected to take care of the children, clean the house, do all the cooking, do all the household work and go and work a 14 hour day, and then we wonder why we're burning out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know it's very unfair and it's not sustainable financially for to be a single house like single earner Not anymore, whatever. What do you call it? Single, like household Correct? Yeah, yeah, it's not feasible anymore and it's really not fair and I have so many clients that are like I pretty much work to pay for daycare, yeah, like I make.
Speaker 1:You know they would make like four grand a month and childcare is like 3800 a month. Yeah, yeah, you're basically doing that right and it is broken and they're really in pain because they're actually missing out on their child's first steps, their first words, or like just that development and that bonding. It's very sad, you know, it's very it's broken. But then, like moving on to entrepreneurship, because we always, when we're in the corporate world, we always believe that it's greener on the other side.
Speaker 1:And when you and I connected we were talking about big capitalist in pink and Colin babe you know, I know, right, like there's so much out there in the in the entrepreneurship or boss babe, female entrepreneurship world, that is disguised as exactly what we escaped from, but in pink with like empowering words. Like babe, lady whatever, goddess whatever you know like it's the same shit, but it's disguised. So tell us more about your, your your take on that.
Speaker 2:I totally agree. I feel like we go from, you know, working in a corporate, we had enough, we leave the corporate. Maybe we have a partner who can support us building our business without having to work in the corporate at the same time, and then we bring exactly the same mentality, thought process, nervous system from where we were to this job and we over, give over work, burnout and then wonder why this isn't as fulfilling as we thought it was going to be. It's not giving us what we want. It's because you're still bringing the same thoughts that you had that was driving you in the corporate sector, the same mechanisms, the same kind of structure, into your business.
Speaker 2:You're listening to people that are still subscribed to that instead of breaking me out of that mold and doing things your way, because having forbid, you should carve your own path. Because what would other people say about that?
Speaker 1:I know and, to be honest, like I in the, in the very, very early days I really did subscribe to the like you know, like the discipline willpower model, because I didn't know. I overrode my own instincts because I knew coaching, I knew I knew money, I knew all of that, but I didn't know how to run a business. So I kind of gave my power away to all these coaches and the and the programs that I joined, until two years later no, a year later, year and a half later actually I woke up to like, oh wow, I just created a job for myself. Mm. Hmm, great, okay, the Sunday heebie-jeebies are still there. They didn't go away. Awesome, what did I fucking do? Yeah, yeah 100%.
Speaker 2:I mean it's such a shift when we start breaking out of the mold, like getting in touch with your values and understanding what your core driver is, doing that self work at the beginning.
Speaker 1:1 million percent. It's going to be the guiding first. Absolutely. There is not a single person that comes to me to work on their money that I don't take them through a values and purpose exercise because I want to know who the fuck you are. Do you know who you are? Are you wanting to manifest or create the abundance that you want to manifest and create from a place of like soul or from a place of wounding and wanting to prove yourself? You need to connect to who you are. You need to know what you value, and what I value is very different to what other people value. I don't value the same things as a normal 40, normal 42 year old values. I value crazy shit and that's who I am and I stand solid in it.
Speaker 2:Exactly Really getting grounded in who you are and what's important to you. So I've been through a massive shift in my business. Over the last kind of retrograde cycle, I took a break. I had all these things that I was supposed to be launching and I was like you know what? No, not right now. I love it.
Speaker 2:I could just feel that there was something coming that needed space, that needed just a little bit of stillness. So I jernalled. I didn't force myself to post on social medias if I didn't feel like it. I obviously am there for my clients because I love them and that's the job and love doing that. That lit me up. But there was another shift happening in my business and just left space for all of those revelations to come through. And then I stepped out again, like I've just started to come out, like come up with all the things, all the integration pieces. You went into winter. I went into winter because I knew there was something becoming and it needed that pause to grow. Because, just like when you put a seed in the ground to grow, you don't keep digging it up to see how it's doing, you just leave it there.
Speaker 2:No, you really don't do that, you add water, you fertilize, you do everything, but you let it grow. Don't just keep checking on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So how do we care for our nervous system on a day to day basis?
Speaker 2:Brilliant question, because I think there's a big misconception around nervous system work, where I see the term nervous system used a lot more and people are like, oh, taking care of my nervous system because I'm going for an ice bath and these are great tools? Yes, absolutely yes. Like that's not it. That is again like putting a bandage on a deeper issue. But we want to do when we do nervous system work is create a wider window of tolerance where we can cope more and be more integrated and more connected in with what's going on in our body and address that moment to moment, day to day. And then we are stressed to the max for 24, 48, an entire week and then go in and go for an ice bath or go for a float and things. That's healing our nervous system. No, that's a bandaid on a deeper problem. So things that we need to do day to day to help our nervous system or reconnect with our nervous system is a body awareness, so anything that can help you really become aware of what is happening in your body moment by moment, because those communications will help you put in the right exercises to bring you back into a sense of calm. So, for example, if you're feeling that like pressure in your shoulders. You're feeling aggressive, you're feeling really angry at the world. You know you're in fight mode. Right, you're in fight mode. You're wanting to get that out. So that's where you start putting in exercises. Okay, what's going on in my body? Where has a boundary been crossed? What is this telling me? Why am I feeling this way?
Speaker 2:Bringing non-judgmental awareness to what's happening within you is a really important part of that nervous system regulation, because you're not just trying to suppress what you're feeling, because what you're feeling is telling you something. Right, like when we have pain in our knee. It's telling us oh, maybe I shouldn't be running, maybe I'm not at the stage where you know the ligaments are strong enough to support me to do that. I need to do another exercise to create more strength so that I can do something that I love. So, similarly, like when we're having those experiences bringing awareness to it, understanding what's going on, and then we can regulate our nervous system down from that fight mode. Okay, I understand that. You know, when my boss said this, it really triggered me and I will have that conversation with them at one point, but for now, let me just bring myself back into a venture state, so that I can have that conversation from a place of calm instead of just yelling back at them and maybe getting quiet.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:You can't solve the problem from the same energy of the problem.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. Nervous system regulation and day to day self care for our nervous system is about bringing awareness to what is happening in our bodies in any given moment and then assessing what's going on, bringing it to light, having that communication with it. It's a process. It's not just a fix. There's no fix. If you're looking for a quick fix, it ain't this. No, you're in the wrong place.
Speaker 1:And also like having open ended questions, because sometimes when we're in that fight mode, we want to squeeze the answer out of us and that's just going to put you back or even further into and even turn the fight move into a phrase.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely yeah, like it might bring you, make you smaller and smaller, that anger. So, in particularly for fight mode, what I always find, especially in the personal development world, where we feel ashamed for having anger because it's all about love and light, right? No, we have to express that anger outside of us in productive, healthy ways. What is your take on that?
Speaker 2:1000%. Yeah, anger is such a beautiful tool because it tells us that there's a boundary that's been crossed, there's something where we're failing, violated, there's a value that's not being met, there's a need that's not being met, and it gives us a really good trigger point to go okay, what's going on here, what do I need to know about myself that I did not know before?
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're angry, you're not broken. Something needs your attention.
Speaker 2:And either you can meet that needs.
Speaker 2:So maybe there's an inner child part that is feeling really unseen and really unvalued and so how can you bring some nurturing care to that part of yourself that's feeling that way, because that has a justified sense of being violated in some way that you can actually nurture.
Speaker 2:You can meet your needs now as an adult that you couldn't as a child. So you can meet that part of yourself and give it the love that it needs. And the more we integrate our shadow aspects which aren't dark aspects, they're not negative aspects the more we can bring them to light and the less they start manipulating and self-sabotaging our environment, because we are connected back into them, so they don't have to play in the shadows and do things that we didn't realize were happening, that we were working out patterns, right, so yeah. So going back to the question of what can we do day to day, really that self-awareness piece, the questioning, the non-judgmental awareness of what's happening in our body. And then there's certain exercises that we can do day to day to bring our awareness back into our body, move the energy out, bring that calmness in, really start to widen our window of tolerance and, depending on where you are and what your natural coping mechanism response is. There's different exercises to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's your favorite exercise to release anger?
Speaker 2:Oh, jumping up and down on a spot can be. Really a lot of our exercises, especially for somatic for somatic experiencing to release trauma are physical, like it's about moving the energy out of our body. So I work in a job that doesn't necessarily fulfill me and it does trigger a lot of anger in me because it's an organization where I find it's very I'm a little bit like a patriarchal masculine, it's a little bit of a line. So I do get a lot of anger and I can feel it in my shoulders, I can feel it in my arms, and so one of the exercises is to push. So, using all the energy that you can feel in there, push as if you were going to push somebody away from you.
Speaker 2:So you can push against them all as well. You've got a wall that you can push. You can just like use your shoulders to move the energy out, not your whole body. So use the shoulders and jumping up and down on the spot, like just allowing the energy to move out as you kind of breathe, and then when you complete the cycle, when you feel like that energy has been processed, usually I do a forward fold and allow my arms to just kind of release and do a longer exhale. It's always good to forward.
Speaker 2:Forward fold kind of releases a lot of that anxiety and tension. It lets your body know that it's again a safe space.
Speaker 1:You're like forever forward, forward, forward that work. She's like oh, where's Amanda? She's a forward, fold Pretty much. She's pushing a wall and then she's folding. I don't know what she does really.
Speaker 2:And like, even things like dancing, can you put on like a drumming beat and really just like allow your body to express the anger in a creative way?
Speaker 1:So I love doing that, like in between session, like a dance party, just to release energy. I love shaking, I love smashing pillows on the floor, just like taking a pillow and throwing it onto the floor, and that's when I'm frustrated with something. Yeah, that really feels very satisfying to do. So, yeah, I feel like when we are more prone to fight, like just doing, like doing I have clients that do MMA, I have clients that do grab Macau so just like doing these exercises, actually exercising to expel that energy out, and no shaming yourself for feeling angry. I mean, yeah, there's no shame in that. How do you mobilize immobilization?
Speaker 2:Yeah, gently, really, really really gently. So my no jerky movements, yeah, don't force. So when you're feeling that like I can't move, I'm really just overwhelmed, it's too much, like my body just doesn't have the energy to get off the sofa, put one hand on your heart, put one on your stomach and just bring your attention inwards, close your eyes, bring it in, like, just bring your attention to what is happening in your body. Where is that energy feeling really stuck and stagnant? How much can you bring your awareness into that? Can you ask that energy? What does it want to tell you? What message does it have for you? What would help it feel more nurtured and safe in this moment?
Speaker 2:Because when I'm working with clients and they're in this kind of space where things are happening and they're feeling kind of stuck, we always bring it back to okay, where is that energy sitting? What does it look like? What color does it have? What shape does it have? Is it solid or is it more liquid, or is it like a cloud? And the more they start exploring these energies that are within their body, the more they start connecting with it and the more they're getting the message of what their body is actually trying to tell them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what it is actually? Yeah, does it have an age, does it?
Speaker 2:have a voice and it's so funny because sometimes my clients will say something in a voice that's not theirs. They sound like a teenager or a child or like they'll say it in a way that I'm like do you realize? You've said this, and then they trigger oh shit, I used to say that when I was five years old and I couldn't express it to my parents and I didn't feel really valued and this is what was happening. And so it just helps them bring that awareness in and then we can just bring really gentle movement in. Once you've connected with the energy, once you feel that the energy feels seen and heard, you can just start gently swaying back and forth.
Speaker 2:I love a good sway.
Speaker 2:I love a good sway Just moving your body really gently.
Speaker 2:There's the holes that I just love. It's like giving yourself a hug, so you put one arm, one hand under the opposite armpit, so like your left hand under your right arm, your right hand on your left shoulder, and you just like kind of give yourself a squeeze, and then you can just bring gentle touch up and down your arms, like down your chest, down your stomach, just gently, like bringing soft touch onto your body and into your body and feeling what that energy feels like in the movement Just slowly starts bringing you out of mobilization. It's that like soft gentle, touching, very gentle, and then like you can just gently move and then, if you feel the energy to move up, you can like stand and just sway on the spot. This can take like 10 minutes, but you will find in that you will have some more movement and some more ease in your body to at least like go for a walk, or it doesn't mean that as soon as you do this exercise you jump in and you force yourself to do what you wanted to do.
Speaker 2:No, you might want to go and have a cup of tea and then do a bit of journaling, write it out Like don't force yourself, bring kindness.
Speaker 1:That is the golden like rule Kindness, compassionate inquiry and have open-ended questions and never force yourself. But when does it like when I do feel like with money, especially when my clients feel stuck with something regarding their finances, there is a fair bit of mobilization that happens and then they feel like now is the time to take action. And once they take action, that mobilization, that immobilization just like explodes into like this really, you know, like proud ventral regulation kind of thing. So when I guess it's just like a feeling in your body, when you know it's time to take the leap into whatever it is that you're trying to do and usually that sounds like they might have been in that kind of parasympathetic freeze state where they're not the docile one.
Speaker 2:So when they kind of overwhelmed and they don't know where to start, sometimes taking that one action will just be like oh okay, yes, okay, I feel more empowered now I can take the next step.
Speaker 2:But if you're in the docile kind of freeze state where it's actual immobilization, that you'll know when the right time is to take that action, because your body feels more energized and you feel that inspiration of actually yeah, I want to do this, like you have a desire and a yearning to take that step. Don't force yourself before you feel that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I like that distinction. I was always wondering because for me, yeah, for me it's completely different for different things. But you know, it's also worth mentioning the hierarchy of like going from. You know, just to go from immobilization, you have to move through the steps of like you go from immobilization flight and then yeah, absolutely so let's just talk briefly about that. So just so people understand what they're up against or like what the process looks like.
Speaker 2:So what it is is there's actually three parts of our nervous system. We've got the docile, we've got the sympathetic and then we've got the ventral avail system. Right, we've got it there, that's so good.
Speaker 1:I think I'm going to use the video, so that's just for people to see it. This is from Deb Dana's flipbook. I love Deb Dana. She's amazing.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so basically, the docile system was created in our bodies about 500 million years ago, right? So it's a long time ago. And that's the first response is the immobilization response that we used to have back in the 500 million plus years ago that our nervous system went half.
Speaker 1:When we were sales.
Speaker 2:The next one that was created was around 400 million years ago, which is the sympathetic nervous system, which is our fight flight response. So tigers there shouldn't run or take a knife and kill it and you're safe. That's that response. Then we have the ventral bagel, which was only invented, I think, around like 200 million years ago. And this response is really around our social connection, our sense of safety, our sense of like, well-being. It's our connection with others, it's how we, it's our feeling of love and connection.
Speaker 2:So when we are starting to get stressed, we actually move backwards. So what ends up happening is the first thing that we might find ourselves losing is we don't have the energy for our genuine friendships or connections. We start wanting to isolate. We start needing more time to ourselves. We feel a bit overwhelmed. If we're getting messages, that's the first thing that we're like okay, now I'm pulling back from social connections. That's a really good sign that you're starting to feel overwhelmed and stressed and you should start putting some, some mechanisms in place to help you and support you through that, because that's the earliest stage. Get your marbles back. Next stage, if you ignore the first stage, is when you go into the fight flag mode. So we're, you know, more triggered. We're snappier people. We are, you know, rushing from one thing to another. We're in that like real energy of just either being snappy and creating arguments with people or just wanting to like run away and just being busy and just trying to like dive into a whole bunch of other things that we're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, five things at once.
Speaker 2:The next stage is when you've been in the sympathetic, like the parasympathetic kind of stage for too long, when you've been existing in that in that fight flight mode for too long and you haven't processed it out, you end up in immobilization. So that's when your body's been so overwhelmed it just shuts down. So you'll see that some people might be feeling really stressed. They're pushing, pushing, pushing and suddenly they need an app. They cannot stay awake, they just like they just they're so stressed they need to sleep. Your body's in immobilization at that stage.
Speaker 2:And I've seen this happen so often like you'll go through an experience that's super stressful and then they're just so tired afterwards they're just like collapse on the couch and they like they're knocked out for ages. That's usually because you've been in fight flight for too long. You haven't processed it out. At that stage You're now in immobilization. Yeah, that kind of dorsal state is where we experience things like depression and if we're in that state for too long then it can get quite dark. So just keeping that awareness of you know the dorsal state when we're in that space for too long we can go into hopelessness, depression, a sense of like things never going to change, and those thoughts can can be detrimental to our like mental health and well-being and it's really important to get help at that stage as well, yeah, where does anxiety lie in your opinion?
Speaker 2:Oh, anxiety, anxiety is everywhere. Anxiety is really created in our thought patterns. I think we think ourselves into stress because it's very rare that we are experiencing a life or death situation in today's kind of modern world, if we're living in the western world Unless you see a road that's not for death or a rat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's definitely yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's very rare that we are actually going to be in a life and death situation in today's modern world. So a lot of our anxiety are self-created thoughts. So we have thoughts that we think that create a cycle of anxiety. And it's also really important to understand that until we regulate our nervous system we can't shift those thought patterns or those beliefs. Because you cannot create change when you're in fight-flight survival mode. In survival mode our, like, prefrontal cortex is disconnected. Our amygdala grows bigger, our you know, limbic system is smaller, so the emotional regulation part of our brain is smaller. It doesn't have capacity to regulate your emotions because the main focus of your body, your physiology at that point in time is survival. So this is why I say, when you start to learn to regulate your nervous system, everything from your thoughts, your perceptions, your beliefs about the world start shifting and changing. Because you're safe to do those changes. You can say affirmations till you're blue in the face, but until you feel safe.
Speaker 2:Those are just. It's hot air coming out, right, exactly.
Speaker 1:Exactly so 80%. Don't get disappointed. Oh, I was, yeah, I was. Yeah. I was going to say that, like, don't get disappointed when your mindset work doesn't work because 80% of the communication your body is, from your nervous system to your mind. Ta-da, this is the best conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the Money Healing Podcast. It's been such a freaking pleasure having you, and I'm pretty sure everybody's curious about where to find you. So tell us, where can we?
Speaker 2:find you. The best place to connect with me is on Instagram, so my handle is at the Amanda Louisa, and, yeah, you can just jump into my DMs. I love having a chat, so feel free to slide on in and come and connect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and just take a screenshot of this episode and share your aha moments in your stories. Tag me at Nadine Zomot and tag Amanda as well. And we love to see this stuff. This stuff change our lives. That's why we share it with such passion. Anything that you would like to share.
Speaker 2:Absolutely love this conversation. It's been so good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too. It's so good. Anything else that you'd like to share before we hop off?
Speaker 2:Oh, I do have a procrastination freebie that you can grab. So if you do find yourself in procrastination, I've got a short video that you can jump on. It's like 10 minutes and it just allows you to go in and it'll give you some like guided exercise that you can do to move out of whether you're in the over one procrastination or the mobilization procrastination. Sorry, it'll just help you do that.
Speaker 1:Great, awesome. I will pop that link in the show notes as well. Thank you everyone for listening, for caring about your nervous system, for sticking around for an hour and 11 minutes so far. Thank you so much, amanda, for being here, and I will see you all next week.