Erin

Hi everybody. What a do baby

Josh

boo. We're back. Feels good to be

Erin

back. Just the two of us. No more guests.

Josh

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just today we got guests coming on

Erin

deck. I know, but this, pressure's on.

Josh

Yeah. I definitely enjoyed having guests. It was fun.

Erin

How are you doing today? I am so much better than I've been the last two weeks. Yeah, you look better. Yeah. I got some life in my eyes again. Yep. I don't know where I went, but

Josh

yikes. To the deep, dark depth of your armpits.

Erin

I'm a believer that heaven and hell are just states of mind. I used to believe it was a literal place that people would either burn or eternally sing, but now I realize, I can create my own hell right here for sure, or I can create bliss in heaven. Yeah. But the last couple weeks have been a little bit of a hell little,

Josh

A little dicey fast for damn sure.

Erin

Yeah. So we're gonna talk about that and we're gonna talk about how healing is a forever thing. It's a journey that we're gonna be on for our lives. It's not a destination, so, mm-hmm. Nope. Not a destination. Yeah. It's been a good reminder for me. And also it's just like building compassion and empathy for people who are also healing. That's literally what we're doing for the living right now, is helping people do exactly what we're doing. Yeah, totally. So,

Josh

yeah, it's helpful to build that empathy. Mm-hmm. Everyone's on their own journey. So even just as partners. Mm-hmm. I think it's helped at least me build empathy cuz no offense, but you were just like flow while I was sick. Yeah. So now it's my turn to build a little bit more empathy on that side. Yeah. You

Erin

were my caretaker the last couple weeks. It's different because you are, which is interesting. I think this is true of probably all humans. Yeah. It's like we're either gonna manifest physically or emotionally or maybe a little mix of both For sure. And I, I guess I have for sure had a mix of both, but more emotionally than physically probably.

Josh

Yes, for sure. Although, I don't know. I think it takes a level of both. Yeah. You just maybe well, yeah, yeah, yeah. You were showing physical symptoms too. Yeah. Fatigue and lethargy. And lethargy. Dissociation. Sure. All symptoms I had too.

Erin

Yeah. I think my scan, my most recent scan, which I really just sent in for quote, preventative purposes, well, it was right after Covid. Yeah. I, I, we got covid, I felt really terrible for like two weeks. Yeah. And was like, well, maybe I should just send this in and see what's going on. I've got this weird, we see a lot of long

Josh

haulers.

Erin

Yeah. I wanted to like nip whatever it was in the butt. Yeah. And also I have this little rash on my arm and I was feeling a little tired and notice. That wired, but tired feeling in the evenings, which I don't know that I've ever had. No, even through like years of working night shift and all that. Yeah. I didn't feel great working nights, but I don't know, it's very specific. Like I lay down night and I can't shut my mind off. I am like exhausted, but also can't sleep. It's bizarre. Yep. And I've heard people talk, about this of course, but I've never experienced it myself, so I just knew there was, mm-hmm. I knew there was something going on and I just wanted to be proactive. So I sent it in and when I got it back and I finally looked through it myself, I think I cried. I was like, yeah. Oh wow. Like my poor body has been mm-hmm. I think my endocrine system was resonating at like 40% or something and yeah, it was low. Welcome to the club. Yeah. My lymphatic system was really struggling, so it was just a very much a reminder that I need to take care of myself or I will fall apart.

Josh

Yeah. Did I, you sure did. Mm-hmm. It's you and Zoe. I know. We both did. So dad, so I think that these lights, if you put the mics on top, you talking

Erin

about she got it from her mama. But yeah, it was, it was a good reminder to me that, yeah, if you're not caring for yourself, if you're. Living in alignment and Yeah. Doing all the things, you're, you're gonna fall

Josh

apart. Yeah. That's fascinating to you though, because the conversations that we've been having for the past two months has really felt like we are in flowing in alignment. Yeah. In so many different ways. So just because you are, or you feel like you are in flow and alignment in your profession or in your personal life, it doesn't give you an excuse to stop working on things.

Erin

I was trying to reflect this morning like, of all, what initiated this spiral downward for me? Yeah. Because I don't want that to happen again. Totally. Like, Just to give the listeners an idea of where I was. I feel like particularly the last two weeks, but really probably the last couple months would you say? Yeah, about two and a half months probably. I've been fluctuating between definitely like that. Sympathetic fight or flight. Mm-hmm. And then I think last week really, I dipped into that sort of I don't know, dorsal vagal that shut down like I was frozen. Yeah. I was so overwhelmed by every little thing I felt honestly, like depressed. I was so low. Like my mood was so low. Yeah. And the voices in my head were so harsh and critical. Like, You idiot, you thought you could do something big in your life. And just all these like horrible messages, Ruti,

Josh

that's what equals big.

Erin

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and I don't know, I just so much shame, like shame was the biggest overwhelming feeling Yeah. That I kept having. Like, You are fucking up your marriage. You are not a good parent. Just nasty, negative talk. Yeah. so like what initiated that? And I don't know exactly. I think I've definitely been living in the sympathetic state that fight or flight. Mm-hmm. Which is necessary to get stuff done like it's not bad, it's just when we get stuck there. Yeah. And we are not allowing our, nervous systems to also experience the calm and safety and rest. Yeah. So I've just been living there for a while and honestly what I think tipped the scales for me within the last two weeks was that shooting in Nashville. Mm-hmm. I just think it completely dysregulated me, and sorry if I get tearful, but it was a community that we lived in. Yeah. Like we knew personally who were impacted by this. like, we literally know people who lost people. Yeah. every shooting of course rips my heart out, but this one just knocked me over. Yeah. I think that I went into that dorsal vagal state where my, you froze. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I just couldn't function anymore. So I, just wanna talk through today like some of that sort of stress response stuff, just from like a physiological perspective so people can kind of get an understanding. Like when we find ourselves in these seasons, first of all, there's a reason like Your body's not betraying you. It's not your enemy, like it desperately is, sending you signals and messages and trying to guide you to rest and all these other really important things. Yeah. But when we plow through all of the signs and symptoms or, just even emotions and we don't take the time to process those, we often find ourselves. In a bad spot. Yeah. So I wanna talk through some of that today. I also wanna talk through like you are going through serious therapy right now and damn straight I am. yeah, I just wanna kind of, this is like just gonna be a check-in between us. Like I wanna talk through like where you're at, where I'm at, what we're learning. I love it. Yeah. So where are you? Wow.

Josh

No, no breath in between even.

Erin

So where are you now? Yeah.

Josh

Ready? Go. I feel like I'm in a really good spot. The series therapy, I've felt. Yeah, that's for sure. so, there's technically five that I'm supposed to be doing right now. Two are series therapy, which is Brelia Baia, Baia

Erin

Baia. How could you do that? Oh my God. I I just remembered a dream that I had. Oh my God, that's so funny. I just remembered a dream baia about somebody with a dog named Baia. I'm not kidding. Oh, she was an old lady with a small dog and she named it Baja. I remember. That's terrible. I remember being

Josh

like, screw that old lady. Yeah. I'm sorry.

Erin

I dunno if that was really weird that that

Josh

came to me, but go on. That is Baia. But how about, how can you not say Baja Babik? Baia mom Baia. Don't you have to tell that story? Oh, one time Erin and I were on our babymoon in Chin Qera and we were at the furthest city of Chin Qera and we were eating. fried sardines or something? Anchovies, maybe? Anchovies. Yeah, fried anchovies. And we were sitting on a bench looking over the sand and beach idyllic. I

Erin

mean, it was literally perfect.

Josh

Yeah. every perfect color you could ever imagine. we seemed to find a corner of the area where we were the only ones that weren't locals. It looked like there was a Italian family, which aren't small, having like a, what they would consider a barbecue or something. Just like, I think it was a birthday party. Yeah, it was a birthday party, like a kid's birthday and chin qera Fasha is like the staple. Bread. And there was a kid who had a gigantis piece of focaccia we're sitting there and he drops his focaccia in the sand and he looks up in tears and he is like, Maha. And we were just like, this is the best thing I've ever experienced in my life.

Erin

So now it's a, it's saying in the

Josh

blatchford. So yeah, that's why I said, mama Mima. Yeah, Mabie. Yeah. Anyways, on that series therapy, normally I feel serious therapy. So you do, it's 20 vials altogether. You go up one to 10 and then down 10 to one, and you take one every

Erin

three days for new people. This is a homeopathic.

Josh

Shout out to Des bio.

Erin

Des bio. It's a homeopathic therapy targeting specific toxins. And so it has like, yeah, teeny tiny concentrations of Yeah, it's like

Josh

a fourth of a shot.

Erin

right. But it has like in a vial, a teeny tiny bit of the toxin that you're targeting. Yeah. And then it increases incrementally

Josh

and then decreases as you go

Erin

down. you're eliciting an immune response to that specific toxin.

Josh

And which I poo-pooed and it saved my life, so Yes. Don't poo that anymore. Mm-hmm. Anyways, on that series therapy, and normally, I mean, I've done like 10, 12 series therapies at the point, almost every one of them exclusively, I would feel seven to seven. Mm-hmm. So seven, going up all the way to seven going down this time I felt it on the first file. It's, it didn't like smack me as hard as it did the previous time. This is my second time taking this series because I didn't do the tiers. I will be now. And so, yeah, you're talking about the one S and the 10 s. Mm-hmm. One s and 10 mss. So there's, when

Erin

we did three years ago, we weren't familiar yet. Yeah.

Josh

So the other two that I'm doing are strep and mycoplasma in the second tier of the series therapy. Those I've, I felt pretty good on. you take one a week for 10 weeks and they're all the same potency, so it's a little different than the first tier of series therapy. Those feel pretty

Erin

good. Those are like little reminders to immune system Hey, remember all that work that we did a while ago? Let's not forget totally how to keep that one in check. Yeah.

Josh

what you've told me at least is if you felt the first series odds are high, you're not gonna feel this one. I think the only one that I didn't feel was herpes series. Mm-hmm. So I didn't anticipate feeling. The mycoplasma made me feel not good, but it was manageable. That's easy breezy. yeah, those are going well.

Erin

It's a little different this go around cuz you're not in like straight up sos mode freak out

Josh

mode. Yeah. Yeah. I have two others that I need to be doing the first tier of series for Candida and then Bartonella second tier series. Mm-hmm. Bartonella was pretty gnarly for me the first time around. I'd see like hallucinations and hear things and feel like somebody was over my shoulder. I'd see shadows all the time. So I'm not anticipating feeling Bartonella, hopefully, but I'm definitely anticipating it slightly. So I'm going to San Francisco in a couple weeks for a conference, a mindfulness conference. Oh, so exciting to hear out. Yeah, I was stoked about that. But after that I'll start the candida series in Bartonella series. I did feel a ton of shortness of breath on the first couple vials of Bia, of Boba. Um, But yeah, overall I'm feeling good. Right now. My mind is on lock. Yeah. Right now, I have not had this mindset or train of thought ever in my entire life. Wow. Yeah. I just feel like I'm locked in, I'm tapped into myself in a greater capacity than I think I ever have. Mm-hmm. Spiritually, I feel really, really strong with what I believe and what I'm feeling and what I'm seeing and how I'm approaching life through it. There's definitely like specific desires and cravings and longings that are curating inside of me that I think we were talking about earlier yesterday, just fulfilling those. Mm-hmm. But yeah, there's. Odd confidence that I didn't have before.

Erin

You've always been a confident person,

Josh

but this is different. Interestingly enough, though, I think right before this, if you were to talk to me at the same time last year, I was telling people this is the least amount of confidence that I've had in my entire life. really, like July was hands down rock bottom of confidence this past July. Yeah. We were, we had a really tough client who was just beating the shit out of us And not literally beating the shit outta my mind. I was gonna say, they

Erin

didn't send like a mafia guy to come beat you.

Josh

No. What did that happened with? Like a chair? Anyways, Josh isn't in that line of work. No, no, no. I build websites. I felt nothing. I didn't feel confident in myself at all. And my spirituality was subpar. I didn't really know what I believed. I woke up in that breathwork session mm-hmm. That I talk about all the time. And since then it's just been like this increase. Today is the day of manifestation because Jupiter and the sun are aligned in whatever, I forget what it's called, and so it's this day of manifestation this morning I was quantum jumping. Casual y. Well, it is fairly casual. I ju like, it's just a term quantum jumping though, is just putting yourself into your future self of your desires. Okay. As if it's happening right now. I get this feeling now in my body where it's butterflies. It's the best way to describe it. Mm. I got the same feeling when we were talking like at our wedding or when I. Was proposing to you, when big things happen. Mm-hmm. You get like that. I don't know. Excited feeling or right out So it's kind of like Right. A above your stomach, but below your heart. Yeah. Like in the center uhhuh and it like tingles and feels all nice and cozy. I get that When I'm thinking about my desires inside of my quantum jumping or in my meditations, it's crazy. It just has now made me be convinced that those things are gonna happen. Yeah. And so I'm just living in that. Sweet.

Erin

Yep. I love it. You've always been my anchor slash, I don't know. You bring so much life force to our life. Yeah. You are like a little energy ninja over there. I feel like more of the calming, stabilizing force for six. Yeah. I need each other except for the last three weeks. It's true. But

Josh

I'm back. I have a tattoo on me. It's gonna be upside down for the camera, but I have a tattoo that has a light bulb that is a balloon, and then a hand holding the balloon that is a light bulb. And I'm the light bulb and Erin is the hand that keeps me from floating away. I

Erin

keep you grounded so you can actually do the work that you dream about. Yeah,

Josh

yeah, yeah. But I feel like with Ruti, there're starting to be like this alignment with Laura, you and myself, and I'm just convinced This is gonna blow up. Yeah. In a good way. Yeah. this is just gonna be huge I genuinely believe that the technology of Ruti, the bioenergetics is the future of medicine. Yeah. And we are building something so intentionally with an entire tech team behind us, cuz I own one. we're building it in a way that it's gonna be sustainable and pulling in so much information to help people build a journey and a lifestyle of healing instead of just, here's what you need to do in remedies. Go off and do everything else. Right. And that's

Erin

really exciting. It is. The data piece to me. Data, data, we always fight over,

Josh

over what? We don't fight over it. We just joke that data and data are the same thing,

Erin

Anyway, that piece gets me real excited. Yeah. Because the scalability of it, it's awesome if we can help, honestly, even five people. Sweet. We already have. I know, but I'm saying like, if that's all we could

Josh

do mm-hmm. we said that at the very beginning, I know we were like, one, one piece. Just wonder, get out where we were.

Erin

Way past that now. Totally. But the data, data piece of it makes it so scalable. Yeah. And just give them some ideas what is that going to allow us

Josh

to do? Yeah. So we've built a backend app that essentially all information goes through this app. We custom built it from the ground up. And what that allows us to do is then present to the user really anything we want inside of the testing that we do. So what users see now is the results page, which is pretty flat, but it's gonna be more interactive and give you more information. But with all of that information, we're able to, through the app, build predictability or recommendations or trends or even show you where you're at with similar people or anything like that. We're allowed to do all of that with this app that we've built. the app is backend, so it's not something the users are gonna see, but they're gonna benefit from it. and when we're building trends and correlating, we are able to show you like, Hey, you said these symptoms on the last couple stands. You didn't mention that in this scan. that's a huge win. Let's celebrate that with you. Or, Hey, you're parasympathetic is struggling a little more. Here's some tools to help you with that, that are free and you could do in your home. it's just building a more holistic lifestyle instead of just shooting you remedies. And then with the accumulation, We're able to then see, okay, during the springtime in the Northeast, we see this toxin come up all the time. What is causing that toxin to come up? Maybe if we can figure that out, then we can start building more awareness before the spring in the northeast to then help users not have to struggle through that in the northeast, in the spring. It's just allowing us to be able to give so much more to the user Yeah. Than what currently exists. So it's huge.

Erin

It is huge. And from a practitioner's perspective. This just blows open so many. Yeah. Opportu, it's insane. Opportunities to really help people. And honestly, like, I think practitioners will always be necessary and helpful, especially for really complex cases or chronic stuff. But I mean, ideally, this of data and all the different correlations and all these things, we could just help people be their own doctors. Yeah. To some degree. Mm-hmm. You know, the patterns are there. Yeah. And we don't have to be the ones interpreting every little thing. I mean, There's gonna be a level of human interpretation regardless. But I get really excited about helping people heal themselves. without a hundred percent having to pay for a practitioner, all these other things Yeah. That are just, it just gets pricey. It's gonna

Josh

be really affordable. Yeah. To heal. Yeah. Which has never existed. Oh, it's so exciting. It's really exciting.

Erin

Yeah. But I do think that, building this all has to some degree, it's been a lot. Yes. And it's put us both in a little bit of a vulnerable spot, I think. I think that's why maybe a couple of your things,

Josh

Popped back by my series.

Erin

Right? Yeah. But thank God we've got the tools now, like we're not gonna get ever get back to where Yeah. You were. yeah, I'm just so thankful for this tool because I don't think I would've had that kind of wake up moment. Yeah. If I hadn't seen it on paper for whatever reason. Like it's Sure. So not necessary. Like I could have been in tune and in touch and aware of my body. But for whatever reason, seeing it on paper and being like, oh, hey, endocrine system. Totally.

Josh

The cool thing about that is, you weren't feeling terrible. No.

Erin

I actually, and you were functioning. I even had, sorry. I even had, I sent in an H T M A too, because I just wanted to look at my mineral status, like what is going on here. And I definitely showed some chronic stress patterns, but the person I was talking to going over it with because practitioners need practitioners too. She was like, have you been feeling like really fatigued or tired? Like the patterns that I'm seeing here, you should be feeling it. And I was like, honestly, not as much as I should be. Yeah. Yeah. Like I think I'm doing enough things, I'm doing adrenal cocktails every afternoon and I'm, meditating about what, whatever. I could have been feeling a lot worse if I hadn't been doing all those things. Yeah. Sorry,

Josh

go ahead. Oh, I was just saying, the cool thing about that too is I wouldn't have remotely considered you chronic anything. No. And so to get a skin like that and it look really the way that it did shows that you are nipping something in the ass that could have turned into chronic if you would've just let it go for another six to eight months. Totally. And you could have literally been laid up on your ass. Mm-hmm. And we would've not known why. So that's the beauty of the tool, especially. From the chronic illness perspective, I was there and I don't want to give back. Now it's this level of optimization that my body's still telling me things and I'm constantly learning about how my body tells me things. But this is a tool that can aid in catching things well before I get laid up on my

Erin

ass. Right. we're working with energetic fields and like bio fields, so it's going to be far more sensitive Yeah. To a lot of traditional like lab work or other things. Yeah.

Josh

The other cool thing about this app that we're building and all of the science that we're putting into this is Bioenergetics inside of this healing space, the chronic illness space, a lot of it leans Alternative medicine, which is really great and I'm super stoked that it's in that demographic. But our goal with Ruti is to really get this to the masses and the people that may have not necessarily been attracted to the idea of functional medicine for various reasons. And so with an app that we built, we're now able to start to curate scientific evaluation that allows us to get reviews and actual scientists on this to start to prove the validity mm-hmm. Of this actual science. Yeah. I know we talked last week with Adam about. How this isn't just woo woo, this is legit science. That's really great. To just say it's super easy to say talk is cheap. Right. But if we can start proving that with all the data mm-hmm. And the app that we've built to help decipher those questions mm-hmm. I think it's gonna be a game changer. Yeah. So y'all, I've been manifesting that we're gonna be on Huberman podcast. I'm putting that out there to the world now,

Erin

and I'm going to poop my pants

Josh

if that happens. the science and how we're able to correlate it. Yeah. We can ask all the scientific questions we want, but if we don't have a place to pull from Exactly. It doesn't matter. Yeah. This allows us to do that objectively. Mm-hmm. And curate something that hopefully resonates with the masses regardless of where you. Right. In any belief system or anything. Mm-hmm. Hopefully that gets there. So, yeah,

Erin

We know that it brings physical healing, like we've seen it again and again. So it will be so cool to be able to quantify it in some fashion. Yep. And deliver it to all, everyone, all the skeptics.

Josh

But yeah, with all of. We've put a ton of time, even a ton of money into this. We've drained a lot. Physically, mentally, financially, financially. So yeah, that's going to have an impact on us. I think we're just starting to realize now more than ever, how intentional we need to be with our mindsets, our practices our routines and everything like that. But I know you've done a lot more research on this than I have. I'm just over here feeling all the things I need to be doing, and you're like analytically putting things in. Let me

Erin

tell you why we need to

Josh

activate your video nerd, right? So why don't you talk a little dirty to me for a little while, and

Erin

dirty or nerdy? Both. This is a family friendly podcast. B, yeah, just kidding. We've probably said the F word at least a couple times. I will talk nerdy to you though. this might be tricky to explain without any visuals, but I'll do my best. We talk a lot on our social platforms about the. Sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system. So just to break those apart for you, we have these two main branches of our nervous system, the sympathetic, which is the activation, the fight or flight. And then we have the parasympathetic, which is our relaxation, slow down, rest and digest. Both are great, both are needed, both are necessary. And really, oversimplify it into thinking we're either in one or the other, but in reality it's way more nuanced than that. We're like every inhale and exhale is activating one and the other. That's where like our heart rate variability comes from, is this constant teeter totter between the two. And it's just when we get lodged in one and we're not able to move freely between the two, that's when just massive imbalance can happen within the body. let's talk through what the stress response actually is like from a physiological perspective. So in your brain there's kind of like a, fire detector amygdala, and that's what is gonna be sensing danger. Whether it's real danger or perceived danger, like that doesn't necessarily matter to your amygdala. Yeah, it's job is to keep you safe and it's gonna set off the alarm. And so when the amygdala is firing, it's going to initiate this stress response from both the nervous system and the endocrine system. So the adrenals are gonna secrete our adrenaline and cortisol, and that's gonna essentially juice us up to fight or flee. And so that's like the initial thing. So it turns on that sympathetic stress. Fight or flight. And it's gonna remain there until either the threat goes away or our amygdala senses safety again. And that's when the parasympathetic takes back over and we're able to slow things down, rest, digest, heal, rebuild, all these things that don't make sense to be doing when we're actively running away from a predator, We're not gonna be digesting our food when we're running away from a lion that just doesn't make sense. We're gonna expend all of our energy in our muscles and then our, our heart's gonna be pumping harder and faster, and our blood pressure. So all these, whatever crisis functions need to be happening. But there are stages of this stress response. And it's also important to note that the parasympathetic. That rest and digest state is activated by what's called the vagus nerve. So that's like the main nerve that IVs and allows for the parasympathetic state to take back over. So you probably have heard of things like. Vagal stimulating exercises or vagal tone. And this is important because if the vagus nerve has poor tone or it's weak, or it's not able to be activated, then our parasympathetic won't be able to take over. Yeah. Because it relies on the vagus nerve to give us those signals to switch into parasympathetic. but the vagus nerve itself actually has two different branches, and this is what's known as the polyvagal theory. So it's a theory. It's not proven, but it has some really helpful concepts so we move into that sympathetic. Fight or flight. From there, we can either continue down this stress road yeah, into what's called the dorsal. It's like this freeze, faint shutdown mode because our body can only sustain the stress response for so long. So if either the danger persists or our vagus nerve is. Toned enough to send us back into parasympathetic it's gonna give out. The whole system can't sustain that response for a long, long time. And so what can happen is we have this kind of nervous system shut down. It's like a powering down of all the things. And we can move into, instead of feeling that like anxious fight or flight that activated, we can move into this immobility, dissociation. That's totally where I was last week, where I was just so beyond stuck. Frozen. Yeah. Completely out of my body. I felt like I was on a different planet. You look like you were on a different planet. Yes. And you just have that like apathetic, depressed, low mood. So we can either move that way, or if our vagus nerve is functioning well and the danger passes, we can move back into what's called the ventral. State of the parasympathetic. So we can either go dorsal, which is shut down or freeze or ventral, which is it's where social connection happens, where engagement happens. it's where we all wanna live. Right? You can think of the ventral vagal nerve as a very nuanced way of deactivating the stress response. So instead of just shutting down, it's almost like if you're riding a horse and you're like gently pulling on the reins, you're like allowing for some activation. But then we're also slowing down. Mm-hmm. And we're allowing for some activation and then we're slowing down. so in this state, we can still be. Activated moderation. Yeah. But it's out of this playful energy. It's a very different spirit than the intensity that we feel in the fight or flight activation. Yeah. If that makes sense. as I have been learning about this and trying to practice it in my own life, I was just so reminded over the weekend I have been fueling my energy, my activation by things like shame. Yeah. Or criticism. And it's like the lie that I tell myself is that if that inner critic is barking at me, I'm not gonna get my shit done. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna go. twiddle my thumbs and whittle away all the time that I have to do these really important things I wanna do in my life. I'm gonna do that unless my inner critic is really like hammering my yeah. Spirit. And that's just such a lie. Like when we are in that parasympathetic, but in the ventral side, that social engagement, the relaxed, but still engaged, that is where we can tap into so much more energy and potential. Yeah. So I just am reminded over the last week or two that overwhelm, shame, frustration, all of those things, they're not good motivators for change or for healing. Mm-hmm. If I can be motivated by the positives, like by love, joy, compassion. And I know this is easy to talk about, but I do wanna discuss what does that look like? Because truly the last couple weeks I couldn't find it

Josh

no. At all. No. Even with me telling you. Mm-hmm. it's easy to talk about for sure. Mm-hmm. And it's easy for somebody else to tell you or for them to be able to find the good, the hope, the love, the peace, all of those things. The playfulness, the spark a hundred percent. Yeah. How do you find it yourself? Yeah. Because the conversation that we were having over the weekend was all the answers are inside you, boo. Like I can only give you examples of it. Mm-hmm. And share my experiences even curate environments that provide safety and the ability for you to do that. But you're in control of that parasympathetic nobody else is going to be able to fix that for you. The other difficult piece is we're living life. We're human beings on a rock floating in this universe. It's super stressful. And there's a bunch of shit going on, on a daily basis, living wherever you're living. We're just bombarded with evil and hate regardless of what you believe or where you stand from politics to just the food that you eat, there's constantly an opposing side. Yeah. And you're very well aware of it at all times more than

Erin

ever. Any generation, there's access

Josh

to Exactly. For There's things that are against you, but you have the power inside of you. Mm-hmm. To do this. Yeah. How did you find that?

Erin

for me, and probably this is a safe generalization for all people, but I just have to start with awareness. Mm-hmm. Like when I am not aware even if I'm not quote fixing it yet, you a hundred percent. If I'm not even aware that I am completely being driven by my inner critic or that perfectionistic voice or whatever it is, yeah. I'm just gonna go with the flow of whatever bullshit is being fed to me in my brain. Yeah. And there's no way out of that, awareness is the only way out in my

Josh

opinion. I think awareness in general is probably the most important component of any. Yeah. You have to be aware that something exists, that you don't want to exist in order to change it. Yeah. Or else you're never gonna change.

Erin

Right. Of course. It sounds so fundamental and almost dumb to say, but what happens is I feel like I am, like when Zoe's watching a movie. Mm-hmm. And she's completely immersed in the storyline and you can tell she's not here anymore like she is in the movie. Oh

Josh

yeah. You can even talk to her and she's not even gonna respond. Yeah.

Erin

That's how I've been living. It's like I am living a storyline. That's not true. Yeah. until I'm able to become aware of. My present surroundings, like when she looks up and whatever, she feels the floor under her feet and mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. I am Zoe and I am in this room. Yeah. That is what I have to do. on a, sometimes an hourly basis, like a hundred percent, I can feel the chair supporting me. I can feel the wind on my face. Yeah, you have to be aware of your presence

Josh

the tool that I have found is that constant check-in with myself. Mm-hmm. All day long. Mm-hmm. you have to react when you find something that's not good. Sure. Yeah. That was probably one of the most difficult pieces me to learn, is as I check in and if something comes up that I'm not super stoked about, I gotta react to that to fix it or else. I'm gonna be on a long journey of that. Mm-hmm. the past couple weeks, I've just had like intense body insecurity issues. Mm-hmm. I've had that my entire life. But I like quickly recognized it, and it's something I'm often working through, but I noticed that the voice in my head talking about my body was starting to get really harsh and negative. I'm literally, I'm not even, you probably haven't even seen me do this. I'm fucking giving myself high fives in the mirror. I love you. Oh, that's so great. But it, it's just something I, I like started doing research on, I have so many tools for body dysmorphia and body insecurities that. I'm like, okay, I'm doing these and it's not working. I think I am now incredibly more aware of the voices and I'm catching this earlier and earlier. Mm-hmm. I need something else to kind of like give me that shift. Mm-hmm. And so I just started researching what are things to do. A lot of it is self-talk in the mirror, giving yourself high fives in the mirror. Mm-hmm. High fives naturally have a shot of dopamine uhhuh. That make sense? Yeah. When you give a high five to yourself, it's giving you like that reflection of positivity. Mm-hmm. I literally am like telling myself things in the mirror mirrors are negative to me. Ah. So I walk past the mirror and it's constantly like evaluating my body Yeah. And finding what's wrong with it really quickly, regardless if it's in like a bathroom mirror or a full length mirror, I will constantly do that. And so,

Erin

or a store window. I

Josh

remember you saying that to me a hundred percent. Yeah. when I do now find my reflection, I'm introducing new things to the reflection instead of the negativity that existed. That's not something I ever even thought of doing. Mm-hmm. But I think now I'm aware enough that I'm catching it early on. Yeah. That that is a safe thing for me to do. Because even last year I wasn't as aware as I am right now of the voices that are inside of me, I would've let that happen more and more. And I would've just got angry and angry with myself the awareness would've happened and what my response would've been was driving myself into the ground, essentially abusing my own body working out exactly is what I would've done. Yeah. And restricting. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. my diet is so clean anyways and then the first thing I do is go to restrict my diet even more as if what eating like one thing that I do a week is causing the

Erin

problem. Which is ironic too, cuz when you think about the way that the stress response work that I talked about. Every time that you're in that head space, that mindset, you're secreting cortisol a hundred percent, which is gonna hold onto weight. And it's like we are going backwards when we're using this as our motivation is what I was trying to say. Yeah. It's like when we can be motivated by the flip side of things, Yeah. If we're aware enough and we can say, I wanna be motivated by love, I wanna fucking love my body. Mm-hmm. So, well whatever that looks like in your life, but at the end of the day, that's gonna cause your physique to change. for sure. That, I don't want that to be your motivation, but, that's what the result would be. Yeah. I mean,

Josh

You're just gonna even walk more confidently. Yeah. It's not even just physical appearance. Right. Just like how you present yourself to the world is going to naturally shift. Right. Though, one thing that I think that comes right before awareness though, is grace. Mm-hmm. Giving yourself grace, and I think once you're able to not only accept that you're worthy of receiving the grace that you're giving yourself, understanding that grace is mandatory in order for you to be aware enough mm-hmm. To get to the deepest levels of the root. Of what's causing you to have these responses, I think is mandatory. Yes.

Erin

Because with awareness can sometimes bring massive discomfort. That's what I experienced over the weekend. Yeah. I feel like I was just honest with it. it was to the point where I was sobbing on the couch with you mm-hmm. And I was like, I don't even wanna say this out loud, but I hate myself. Yeah. That's like the honest truth right now is, that's a root I hate myself. Mm-hmm. how, ugh, like I wanna barf even just thinking that that was a truth thought I felt like I really felt that uhhuh, so that's uncomfortable. Yeah. That's what I was avoiding and, dancing around mm-hmm. For the last few weeks. But facing it, honestly, saying it out loud and hearing how ridiculous it sounded. Was enough to kind of snap me out of that critic mode. Yeah. And switch into Grace uhhuh and compassion for myself,

Josh

which is what I kept on telling you to do. Mm-hmm. But you didn't wanna hear that because you thought giving yourself grace was giving you an excuse to fall into your negative characteristics or whatever

Erin

you call them. Yeah. From me, I feel like. Definitely a long standing narrative in my life that I believe about myself is that I can't do hard things. You like comfy, cozy. Right. I tell you all the time, it feels like that meme of the little baby on I'm just a baby Take time. Yeah. That's what my fucking brain feels like all the time. No, just a baby. I can't whatever. Start a business. Yeah. Like I can't. it drives me nuts then I heap shame on top of that. Yeah. I'm like, as if that's gonna be helpful, no.

Josh

soon as you said that to me, that's when the sobbing started. Mm-hmm. It was like just very evident that that was a root Yeah. That your body was letting you know. Mm-hmm. Do you think, now that you know about that starting with grace and then awareness, Is going to give you the ability to not get to the point that you were this past weekend, or do you think that it's just gonna, like what I'm saying with like my body I've had these tools that I've constantly been working on, but I feel like I'm definitely more in tune and more aware of what my thoughts are on a Daily basis. I'm also checking in significantly more and nipping things in the ass way earlier than ever. Mm-hmm. But what has had to happen is giving myself grace that those are just going to exist in this life. Yeah. I love the idea of what Jay Shetty says, or Eckhart Tole or beautifully recognize in the mindfulness space that like an egolessness mm-hmm. Is the goal. I'm not sure I believe that that's going to ever happen. Mm-hmm. This is like a constant journey. I also think that. Just life evolves around us and that's not something that we can ever control. And so, yeah, how we're absorbing things. You're almost having to relearn how to navigate through new information. AI didn't exist this time last year, the way it does. Yeah. I'm able to literally access just about anything 300 million times more than Google ever offered me. I'm receiving information in a new way. And so I constantly am having to check in with that ego to see now how do I need to give myself grace, because that's constantly gonna be there. Yeah. we've been married almost 10 years I've known you for longer. I've never heard you say those words about yourself. Do you think now that that's been acknowledged, you're gonna be able to represent yourself a little bit more with grace? Mm-hmm. When those initial thoughts start to come up?

Erin

I hope so. it's been so clear to me just within the last 48 hours that shame is just not a good motivator. Like it's just not, no, it feels like it might be, but it's such a cheap replacement. Yeah. For the alternative, which is really, I think, love. Mm-hmm. being motivated by love, but also I don't know. I struggle so much with dedication and consistency. Yeah. And like those traits for me are don't come naturally. Mm-hmm. I'm very much just swaying with the wind always. Sure.

Josh

But which has its benefits. It's there's pros and cons. Exactly.

Erin

All of those. Yeah. I'm very flowy. I'm a Pisces, I love water. Like, I go with the flow. But there is something so beautiful and, worthwhile about being dedicated about having a practice. So that's something that I really wanna shift into. and I need to be super mindful about not letting it come from a place of shame or the inner critic telling me like, you fucking baby. Yeah. You gotta meditate every day. That's just,

Josh

I'm just a fucking baby. Oh my gosh, that would've been such a better meme. Oh my gosh.

Erin

Oh. yeah, like instead being motivated into that. It's dedication. I just, I, it's not something that comes naturally to me. being motivated by love for myself and for the world as opposed to feeling like shame or guilty about the fact that I don't do these things, whatever. Totally. It's so different. you get, maybe get the same behavior, but it's so different you think about the different frequencies Yeah. Of emotions and it makes so much sense. of course you are going to be able to tap into so much more. Yeah. When you're motivated by these emotions like love and joy and compassion that have Literally higher energy. Yes. As opposed to like shame, doubt, guilt, All these negative ones that are just sucking the life force from us. Yeah. Yeah. I'm leaning into love.

Josh

Hell yeah. Let's roll. Let's roll. I'm proud of you for working through this. Thanks. Yeah. Cuz this isn't an, an easy journey and there's a lot going on. Yeah. And we are definitely more in the spotlight than we ever been before. So you're definitely putting yourself out there and being vulnerable and people are seeing kind of the ins and outs of things. So not something that's natural you.

Erin

No. Yes. So I'm proud of you for this. Showing my face on social media in general is like real un uncomfy for me. Yeah. So, yeah. I wanna share my magic, your magic, our magic. I wanna share that with the world. Yeah. Through breath work and all these other things. I've tapped into that. Yeah, I know. It's there. I just lost it the last couple weeks. I wasn't tapping into it. Mm-hmm.

Josh

But welcome back, babe. Yeah, she's babe, she's

Erin

big. Here I am.

Josh

Sweet. one thing I do wanna say about all of this as it relates to how we're approaching really all people that are coming to Ruti, we genuinely just want to celebrate. Whatever healing looks like to you. Mm-hmm. That's it. We're all on this journey and we're all navigating and figuring out we, Erin and I don't have our shit put together. No, no. I think that's also something to be celebrated though, cuz we're constantly working on becoming our better selves. Mm-hmm. And focusing on love and tapping into our truist most free self. This is a journey. Mm-hmm. And we want to be on that journey with as many people as possible and celebrate whatever that looks like for each individual. BS is a fantastic tool that helps us navigate through things that we may not fully be able to tap into and identify specifically about things that need to get taken care of. Like your endocrine being shit that wouldn't have been something that you or I necessarily would've been able to. Determine without a tool like that.

Erin

Yeah. I mean, I think I, I think I knew,

Josh

but no, it was helpful to see it on paper. What I was gonna say is, and not fully be confident in how to fix it. Yeah. Yeah. The, the two go hand in hand. Mm-hmm. So that's the beauty of the bioenergetics. But when we're talking about building a lifestyle for Ruti, that is it. It's just being mindful enough that healing is always gonna be part of your journey and celebrating in that however it looks. So I'm stoked to continue to do that. Definitely gonna help with the app to encourage more of that and connect people. Yeah. On similar paths and things like that. yeah, we got a lot of Good ahead.

Erin

We do. Mm-hmm. We're excited to share it with you guys. Yep.

Josh

One thing I was thinking, I didn't even tell you this, I'm about to just tell, tell it to you. We've been getting a decent amount of questions, whether it be like on your Instagram, my Instagram, Ruti's, Instagram, about random good things, whether it be like specific questions about health to a ton of questions about my healing experience, whether it be things that doctors told me to people that are going through healing with Ruti right now and experiencing symptoms that maybe I had experienced. So they'll reach out. We should have a podcast dedicated to answering those questions. Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. We should. So if you listen to his podcast and you also follow us, I don't care who you dm, whether it be Erin or me or just on the Ruti Instagram account@Ruti.life what

Erin

R R

Josh

U T I, in case that's, yeah, which is another thing as people have been asking me about that. Ruti, r u t i. It's just a fun play off of getting to the root cause of things. R u t I just was a random way to spell it that I think is gonna be memorable. So there we go. There we go. So yeah, reach out if you have questions and then we'll do a whole podcast on your questions. That sounds great. Who knows if will know what the fuck we're talking about, but I'll answer 'em. We'll

Erin

learn along with ya. Yep. That's my motto. There you go. If I don't know, I can learn.

Josh

Yeah. Cuz the next couple podcasts that are coming out are gonna have guests. Yeah. So y'all, we got Laura coming up on a

Erin

podcast. We'll probably talk a lot more about polyvagal theory

Josh

if I had to guess. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So that'll be really, really good. Yeah, we got a couple other fun guests coming, so, I think we should do a dedicated podcast answering questions cuz the people that have been asking questions are really good questions and so I want other people to know the answers. Great. Including myself. Great. Sweet. Love you guys.

Erin

This has been

Josh

good. It has been. Y'all have the best whatever day you're listening to this. That's a good one, babe. but have the best day.

Erin

Love you. Bye

Josh

bye.

Erin

That was good. Yeah, it was good. That was good. That was good. That was good guys. That was good guys. Yeah, was really good. Oh, did