SHF Podcast Episode 7- The Anatomy of Division with Shannon O'Neill, MA

Miriah Feehery and Katherine Finley host Shannon O'Neill, MA, founder of Psyche's Journey, in this 7th episode. Shannon integrates archetypal somatic psychodynamics and astrology with neuroscience and spirituality, emphasizing accessing the imaginal realm for wisdom. Miriah shares how Shannon's mentorship helped her navigate abuse.

The topic explores nervous system responses in disagreement and polarization. Shannon discusses the autonomic nervous system's role in survival and its connection to psychology, science, and spirituality. Dysregulation signs include dichotomous thinking and emotional hijacking, impacting inner harmony and exacerbating conflict.

Belonging and coercive control dangers are highlighted, along with the drama triangle's roles in perpetuating division. Listeners gain insight into societal polarization dynamics and the importance of regulating the autonomic nervous system for genuine connection and collective well-being.  Shannon lastly discusses astrology's role and offers insights into healing journeys and owning one's shadow for personal growth.

Shannon and her amazing programs can be found at https://psychesjourney.com/

Shannon's Care Package mentioned in the show:
Polyvagal System: 
https://youtu.be/Ha537mUPGcY?si=POt-5OQtIPFUlMR8

Depth Psychology view of Trauma:
Inner World of Trauma 
https://www.routledge.com/The-Inner-World-of-Trauma-Archetypal-Defences-of-the-Personal-Spirit/Kalsched/p/book/9780415123297#

Trauma and Recovery:
https://open.spotify.com/show/7wHHic4l0nCXpsnJIdwKww?si=-rKcbzZhT4ebsrHaw1mlig

Abdul Said from Vital Mind Psychology: 
Empath in Trouble
https://youtu.be/ZQg9_p_Fous?si=rd3FuJwdq0XztgMv

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the Sovereign Heart Frequency Podcast. I'm Katherine Finley with Sovereign Heart Coaching and I'm here with my co host Miriah Feehery of Whole Being Counseling. We recognize that we're living through an intense time on our planet. There seems to be more polarization and division and less connected communication than ever before. We are here to change that. We intention to hold conversations in a container of love and authenticity. We believe that when humans come together from a heart centered place, we can not only understand one another, but we can get creative together, solving problems we couldn't solve alone. It's time to reimagine and rebirth a new world in which everyone's authentic voice is included in the harmonic orchestra of human voices, to create a world that works for all of us. Thank you for being part of this conversation, we're excited to have you. Welcome back to Sovereign Heart Frequency Podcast. I'm your host, Mariah Fury with my co host, Catherine Finley. And today we are honored to have a special guest with us, Shannon O'Neill, who is the founder of Psyche's Journey. And Psyche's Journey incorporates archetypal somatic psychodynamics and astrology, wedding the cutting edge neuroscience with spirituality. Shannon has over 25 years of body centered, inter and intrapersonal psychology experience and neuroscience for trauma treatment. And she uses a Jungian archetypal psychology approach, which explores the image rich landscape of psyche. And she says, everything we need is in this imaginal realm. And with proper stewardship of the nervous system. To transmit and receive this vital wisdom. Everything we need is here. And I just love that. I love Shannon. She's been a mentor and friend of mine for about 10 years now. And I owe all of my badassery to Shannon's example. She blew my mind wide open when she taught me how to orient to. And protect myself from narcissistic and sociopathic abuse. And I felt like she gave me the Excalibur sword when I downloaded all of that from her. So I owe a lot to Shannon. She is a powerful space holder for healing and spiritual ritual. I took her Psyche's Journey workshop that she offers periodically. And in that time, I had all these prophetic dreams and powerful breakthroughs, so I highly recommend doing whatever offerings she has, um, through her Psyche's Journey programs. Um, Catherine, is there anything you want to say about what we're going to talk to Shannon about today? Yeah, Shannon, we are so excited to have you on and being an expert in many ways in the nervous system and the attachment system. We are really excited to talk to you today about what's going on in the nervous systems of people that are, are, Conversing with one another and disagreeing with one another. You know, we're in this time of real, um, polarization in our culture and we can find that it's hard to communicate and have conversations with people who have opposing views. And. I was just wondering if we could start talking about like, well, what's going on in the nervous systems of, of these people? Um, if we can have a look inside, have a peek behind the curtain and then, and I'm saying these people, but including myself, right, if I'm, um, stuck in a place of feeling like I need to be right or need to convince someone else that I'm right, and I'm not able to hear or let in someone else's perspective and often. Therefore not fully see their humanity in that moment. So, yeah, I thought we would start there. This idea of the anatomy of division, what's going on in our divided world, in the body right now. Beautiful. Well, thanks to both of you for inviting me. It's an honor to get to be on the show. And I just want to say real quick that neither one of you would owe your badassery to me. I think it's innate, right? But I am more than happy to hold. space for it and reflect it back to you and, you know, help with guiding some tools. Cause I think that that's what's so incredibly helpful. I know for myself, and I like to share this with people about numinous neuroscience, bringing this psychodynamic archetypal realm together with Interpersonal neurobiology, intrapersonal neurobiology and repairing the false dichotomy, the false. Binary, the full polarity of spirituality and science, particularly as it pertains to the high polarization that's happened over the last years. Certainly we got some doses of that beforehand, but like it really kicked on in 2020, and we wanna be curious, we wanna orient together as mammals on this planet. It's an important evolutionary tool to orient together in order to survive. So getting into what's going on in the system when people lose the ability to hear other people out, tolerate differences and live in mutual respect because we can respectfully disagree with people. But that's really important. Degraded over the last years, right? It's really fallen apart and the incredible heartbreak of us versus them. So first and foremost, let's just talk a little bit about the reality of. Being this species and belonging to the mammalian family and the hundreds of millions of years that go into the way that system works. And I'll start with basically polyvagal model of the nervous system. So you'll hear me talk about both nervous system, the vagal system, and maybe even also the brain because they're all interrelated. There's many nervous systems in our bodies, but. One thing that's happened over the last years is like a real divorce from our own nature. It's so important to name that anyone who has studied the polyvagal system and the way the autonomic nervous system works is that it's impossible to be inauthentic in the Autonom system. And yet that's kind of a dilemma, is that people have been. Highly dysregulated, divided within and amongst each other in this way where there's struggles with authenticity. Yeah, I, I'm curious if you can just break down for our listeners what the autonomic nervous system is responsible for. Absolutely, yeah. So the autonomic nervous system gets into basically these, uh, evolutionary ways of functioning for survival and the way the polyvagal model helps us bridge, it is a model of the autonomic nervous system that brings together psychology and hard science. And so it's hierarchically arranged, meaning. In a pinch, the first thing that mammals do is go into the social engagement ventral vagal system, which is leaning in towards each other. So, the autonomic nervous system plays a role in that. There's a lot about bonding, affiliating, working together, coming together that is, Autonomic. Hundreds of millions of years old. If there's a sudden noise, we all will pop up together, orient around, and then look at each other to see if everyone's okay, check out what's going on, how do we work together. It's a real important part of survival. Particularly as mammals, it's like, let's come together about, uh, well over 90 percent of what helps us live, helps us survive on this planet is, uh, Bond, affiliation, cooperation, working together, and then we'll get into later how that is different than kind of a mob mentality or what gets called mass psychosis, right? The difference between cooperation and tolerance and working together versus mob. It's a different dynamic, but the autonomic nervous system has that stack of working it together, ventral vagal. It's also gets into. mobility physiology. This is the sympathetic branch of the polyvagal system. The autonomic nervous system in regulation. This is mobility. It's too hot. Let's move here. Let's go here. This is not a good environment, that kind of thing. If it's dysregulated, you start getting into stress. And then fight or flight, but fight or flight, physiology, mobility, and then the last tier is the parasympathetic state in its highest functioning, it's rest and digest and repair when it's stressed out and even goes into dysregulation, you start getting into freeze shut down and on a more, Interpersonal level going into these states starts looking like fawn and fiend. And although you can see that kind of split between populations, it's important to name that that split also happens. Within individuals, it's basically people can get into both fun and fame. So that's the autonomic nervous system. Again, this is like nature's brilliance and it literally bridges hard science with psychology and how we work together our behaviors and stuff. Right. And even spirituality, because when you say our authentic expression is, is exalted here, you can't deny that our. Our connection to our land itself is part of our research. Spirituality, like when one might consider a spirit or soul, right? Absolutely. Because in a way you could explain that the autonomic nervous system, this polyvagal model is explaining also kind of how spirit innervates this physiology and moves through us. And if that system. gets hijacked. We're not talking just about out there conflict. You start getting into inner conflict. People are not only divided amongst each other, but within themselves. And then people start to, so to speak, lose soul, lose connection with the our spirit. Right. In a regulated autonomic nervous system, you're just in league with it. And that includes the ability to tolerate differences. Yes, I see that. Yeah, I was going to ask what might be some of those outer signs? Like if I'm checking with myself, do I have this split going on? What might I notice in my own thoughts, my own behavior? Feelings, behaviors. Excellent, right? Excellent question. So in regard to thoughts, it gets into the, that kind of like binary, polarized, good, bad, us, them, wishing ill will, or attributing evil to Other can be check engine light, right? It doesn't mean that you might, you know, we can certainly orient to something like not being okay, but it gets real dichotomized, or it gets into a totalitarian, psychic sort of thing. Inner democracy is gone. There is no, well, I don't agree with you, but I understand this is right. I don't really like how they do that, but that's what they're doing. And again, the thought forms would be related to focusing on yourself. Hyper fixation on other isn't red flag. It's inner democracy. Indicative of that dysregulation. And when we get into dysregulation, we're talking about what would get called disorganized attachment and attachment theory. And this is literally when self preservation and attachment physiology are so knotted up, you're getting divorced on the inside. Emotionally, there's really strong feelings that take you hostage. We all go there. Uh, exposure to threat, what feels scary and starts to go into terror or whatever or panic. We can go there, but it's important to notice when we go there. And then physiologically, There's going to be hyper arousal activation. If we were talking internal family systems, you're blending with parts. You're either absolutely immobilized and freaking out, or you're in that other direction of fiending and getting into, I hate them. And again, it's really unfortunate because in the way that we have to respond to Particular threats to us as individuals and us as a species, we have to be in a well enough regulated autonomic nervous system state in order to respond in a way that maximizes. Our health and ability to survive and then look further on down the line. It gets into not just emotional dysregulation, inner personal conflict, but also the HPA access, the hypothalamus, the pituitary, the adrenals go really offline. You start getting into illnesses and stuff like that. I mean, it certainly could be, but the bottom line is that you're getting into it's not good for health. Because again, once you cut people off, right, if you cut people off from attaching isolation, you're a bad guy. That whatever, or you get people into immobilization, there's nothing you can do, or if you do something, you're at risk of getting attacked or canceled or, or exiled or whatever, you're immediately dropping people into unhealthy parasympathetic states and this is not just disrupting the, uh, autonomic nervous system. It's also disrupting the HPA axis and the endocrine system. The immune system, the hormonal systems are getting highly dysregulated. It's it's so interesting because then that prevents true connection. But I feel like most most of us, most humans are looking to belong, and that's what can hurt us into these camps. Right? Like, if I'm in this one camp that I feel is right, then I belong. Um, I have a community, but it's actually putting us, from what you're saying, in this more. where it's harder to have a true connection. Beautifully put. And that's exactly the theme of what we're talking about, which is if you cut people off from autonomic nervous system regulation, which is psycho spiritually kind of a democracy, if you will, of psyche insoma, like, well, I don't see it that way, but that's what they're doing. Right. You're cutting people off from this genuine, authentic bond. And then this is the phenomenon of mob mentality and the us versus them. Because again, it's such a. Hierarchical, actual biological mandate to bond and affiliate and be together to belong with each other. It doesn't mean we're all alike. It just means that we, we work together, right? Um, then, you know, without that, you start getting into like being sold, um, uh, through all the different venues that you can be sold these. You know, Coke or Pepsi choices, it's either this or it's that you're either good or you're bad. You're either Democrat or Republican. You're either with us or against us. Exactly, right? And again, that's a real, real dangerous dynamic because then you start getting into the parasympathetic, dysregulated states of fawn and fiend and then you start to The, the fun part is you're capitulating and you're going into curation of your personality and your beliefs and your attitudes so that you can belong in this group. And then at the same time, you're also going into fiend and that means there has to be a bad guy. And I know that y'all have discussed this in previous podcast stuff of like, you get into the way. Coercive control is utilized by narcissistic and sociopathic personalities, particularly when you start getting into the much more subtle and insidious versions of covert narcissism and sociopathy, because what they will use is this. This is what's good. You get sold what's good. This is, it's brokered to you, right? And then it hijacks and takes advantage of people's desire to be good and do the right thing. And then at the same time corrupting someone into, and this is covert narcissism sociopathy, the delight that they take in getting people corrupted into do Bad things into exile people, hate people, right? Implicit in that is creating the scapegoat and watching someone suffer. Absolutely. It's, it's one of the oldest tricks in the book and it's been used many, many times throughout history. And it's a particularly something that happens if we're getting a little bit more psycho spiritual about the shift from one epoch. To another, it's high transition. And there's always a battle of the modern mythographers. Who's going to control the narrative? What's the new God image if we're talking Jungian or archetypal psychology. And again, you start getting sold a bill of goods and you have to divide people. If your agenda is coercion and control, if you want. The, the, the loop and booty, right, of what's on the planet or whatever, then you got to do that. It's coercion and control. I wonder, Shannon, if you would mind speaking a little bit about the drama triangle. I feel like when I back up and look at what's going on in the world, and we're all in this big drama triangle, and I feel like that's a better representation than what a lot of people talk about. There's the oppressor and the oppressed. But there's, there's also this rescuer dynamic, which is what you were speaking about a minute ago of preying on people's compassion to get them stuck in this, uh, loop. That's actually not. About true connection that actually keeps us divided certainly in a really good point, which is getting even more, uh, uh, dynamic and understanding, like, a deeper understanding of the phenomenon that's going on. And when I used to teach the drama triangle and alternative sentencing programs or whatever, the. Fun thing would be is like, no matter where you get on the drama triangle, you are going to land in victim eventually. That's kind of the, where the ride takes you. It is a merry go round. It's just a hamster wheel of never ending cycling. And again, with this false. Binary dichotomy of it's either this or that. That's one of the ways we are invited. Like you have to be this high to get on this ride and you're like, okay, right. You get on the ride. And then the deal is, is that people that care, uh, people that do have. Empathy and want to do right can be hoodwinked into behaving in ways that gets them out of integrity in the autonomic nervous system. They go into inauthentic behaviors and then they're essentially on a high horse going into rescuer mode and then they're dictating What other people should do. So it looks like virtue signaling and then demanding, this is what you would do if you were a good person. This is definitely according to Abdul Saeed of vital mind psychology. This is like the empath in trouble, right? They are on the high horse, right? And I am a good person and you need to do this. And if you aren't doing this, Then you're not a good person, which is, you know, if we back off, like you were talking about earlier of backing off and looking, it's obnoxious in 12 step recovery or Allen on or codependent synonymous, there's a saying of, you know, someone going into codependency empath in trouble, quote unquote, it's like we become irritable. Right. And we become irritable and illogical and not making sense without realizing it. Right. Unreasonable. That's how I, just to name, that's how I found you. I was an empath in trouble. And you helped me off that wheel. Well, I'm so happy to help because of course, right. It takes one to know one, because we can all go there, right. It's like, we are flesh and blood and That's such a beautiful thing I love about the, the work that you're doing with this podcast and just how you both are is authentic altruist, which is like empath in their lane, hydrated, moisturized in your lane. Be a good person. You know how to make a big scene about it and you don't really need to tell people what to do, but you know, that kind of thing. It's just a much more regulated state, but it's easy. We're just flesh and blood and these systems can be hijacked because. These are powerful forces. So we have evolutionary biology, hundreds of millions of years of the way we're made. This is not a mistake. This isn't junk. This is creation. It's amazing. And then, unfortunately, these annihilating energies that get. Channeled through personality disordered individuals, and I'm so sorry to say institutions or groups of people that gather together in order to hijack systems in order to make money, harvest energy, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's that whole dynamic and then ultimately we can get fooled. We can get bamboozled. This is what Stockholm syndrome is all about, is that you. Can start bonding hyperactively. pathologically to the person that doesn't actually have your best interest at heart as a means to survive. It, it does work. And then I'm old enough. I don't think y'all are, but to remember, like, Patty Hearst is like a good example of like, someone who's taken hostage, starts developing Stockholm syndrome as a way to survive the hostage shakers. It's like, you gotta. Get them to love you and you love them so they don't hurt you or kill you, but you can very well end up getting hijacked, recruited to do their bidding. And then those famous scenes of Patty Hearst going in with submachine gun, robbing banks, that kind of thing. And you can do their dirty work for them. And that's again, kind of where you get into that drama triangle where you got on at rescuer. I'm going to. Same. I'm a good person. You know, that kind of thing. And then you go into the perpetrator, you're Patty Hearst, right? You're holding up the bank for the bad guy. You're irritable and unreasonable without realizing it, you're hurting people that are good. You're cutting yourself off from people that you are in bonds with. You're canceling them. And then. Eventually, you're going to end up in victim. And I think that some of what's happening is people are starting to come full circle. Although again, it's like, you got to be this high to get on this ride. I mean, there are people that will go back for more and get back on and it can be addictive to get on at the proud helper impact and trouble codependent, right? It's very tempting. I'm good. When you're rescuing a victim, even protecting a victimized population or whatever it is, it's so easy to then justify actions that hurt other people. Exactly. Because you're in the right, right? And I think we've seen a lot of that the past few years. Well, exactly. And here's just like a old school adage about being right is like, if you're a pedestrian, you have the right of way. But if you don't look both ways and orient, you can go ahead and walk on the road, but you'd be right, but you could be dead right. And again, that's the fallacy, particularly all impasse are at risk of is this, this care that can get hijacked by these more insidious, um, personality disordered individuals and groups in this way that you are, Doing their dirty work and you're causing harm while you're absolutely convinced. And again, because coercion and control is going to send you a really clear message that you are a bad person. You are the perpetrator. You're the villain. If you don't help this victim, that's when you're like, I'm this high and I can get on this ride. And it's, it's, it's strong because again, I don't know anyone who has not been attacked or accused of being a bad person or discriminating against marginalized or exiled people and then ironically ended up exiled themselves because eventually we all end up at the victim. You're on the drama triangle ride. Exactly, exactly. And Shannon, you helped me tremendously to learn the difference between helping and saving. And the three of us are in the helping profession. So we're not, we're not here trying to preach like, Oh, don't try and stand up and protect the innocence and stand up for what you believe in. So maybe you can help our audience understand the difference between this kind of toxic drama triangle rescuer mentality. And What you call like altruistic helping absolutely. Yeah, really good thing to elucidate. Right? And really excellent question. And, um, ultimately, the way we can differentiate being an authentic altruistic mode versus going into proud helper savior is. Again, autonomic nervous system regulation versus getting way out of line, the behaviors are getting into curation and control, and then you're definitely getting into the phenomenon of. What we would call an internal family systems blending with the part, and this gets into more depth psychology of the inner world of trauma. And when we are exposed to annihilating energies, when we're terrified or whatever, there's like a self care system that kind of erupts into the psyche. And there's no way through that amount of shock, not to get split. And what I want to name is annihilating energy, fear of like, like terror, not fear, but terror. If you're terrified of death or canceled, being canceled, being annihilated, right? Being exiled from the or whatever the, the trauma that is diabolic. The word diabolos means to split in two. There's just no way for that not to happen. And when that happens in the psyche and the system of the person, even if they're just a good person, there's a part that's. Just trying to do the right thing, but there's another part that is so insistent on never again, that it ends up echoing, this gets into echoism, mimicking, and absorbing through negative merging, the annihilating energy. So a part of what happens is you end up acting like the very thing that you are fighting against. And this happens a lot. This is negative merging. We do know as far as neurobiology goes, is there's a circuit in the brain that includes the mirror neurons also Broca's region and languaging and understanding, but also the superior Templar sulcus, which is perspective taking and distinguishing between biological movement, artificial movement. This part of the brain gets hijacked and then people literally are mimicking through echoism, the bad thing that happens. So the differences is if you're hating a group of people, demonizing a group of people. And again, I'm not saying there aren't bad guys. I just think the irony is that the real bad guys are the ones that are pushing people into doing these things to each other. That's the real problem, right? But again, you can't orient to them because they're too busy dividing and conquering, but I hope that that makes sense is that the, the diabolic nature of those forms of annihilating energies terror, like, oh, God, something really bad is happening. And then subsequently cutting you off from all the systems that keep you human, keep you mammalian, then you're going to get into these diabolic energies. And again, you're echoing. I wish it was easier, but I think we have to check in with each other. This is where we are our continued bond with the others and checking in so that we get ourselves clearly reflected back in these. non shaming but helpful ways of like, oh, me think thou doth protest too much. I'm acting kind of like the thing that I'm saying is not nice. It's interesting, right? And this is a very, very, very, very, very common thing to see these days. So do you have any advice for how to maybe circumvent the sympathetic nervous system to help bring that into awareness? If you're in a conversation and you notice that hypocrisy or bait switch kind of thing, what do you recommend as? It's a way to name what's going on without trying to save someone from themselves and again repeating the drama triangle. I have a really good point, yeah. And here's the thing, when in doubt, reflect. Oh, so you believe that if I or someone else isn't doing this, then they must be on the side of this group of people that's killing people or whatever. And again, you're just reflecting. Of course, you want to feel your own feet, feel your seat. I think particularly for empaths, and when I mean empaths, I'm talking about people that have really strong capacities for perspective taking, so much that we might just. Absorb whatever. Oh, that's what's real for you. And then before you know it, we're like, oh, that's what's real. But get in the back of the bottom of our body because empath struggle with that transverse kind of a split. Right where it's coronal transfer split. It's like a, it's, it's a very sophisticated dissociation, hyper actively ventral vagal. And so dropping into the back of your body, feeling your feet, feeling your seat and when in doubt reflect, notice your own system. Cause you're going to feel some threat physiology. You probably will feel one part of your self care system. That's like. I'm going to set this straight, right? That's okay. You're judging the shit out of them, right? And that's, that exists. You notice that like, Oh, I am ready to, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then my, another part of like, Oh no, they might not be my friend anymore. If I see anything, that's kind of the general thing that happens inside our system. Notice that when that happens, that's definitely the check engine light, slow your roll and notice, Oh my goodness, I'm in the presence. Of some form of annihilating energies, I'm splitting and then fill your feet, fill your seat, reflect yourself back to yourself. And then if you'd say anything, you'd, I think you reflect. Oh, so, yeah, you think, yeah, that person must, you know, they're not using their platform. You think that person's not using their platform to fight the good fight. Right, which is a beautiful way of. Staying engaged without agreeing or disagreeing. 100%. And again, I mean, it's, it's definitely a Keto. I mean, you're doing a Keto. The bottom line is you don't want to get in the ring with it. I mean, you probably do. You have parts that probably do want to get in the ring with it. And that's very human of us. But we notice that and we're just reflecting back. But again, it's, it's intense. And again, we also have grace and compassion for ourselves. If we do. Like, you know, keeping it real gone wrong happens or forgiving ourselves if we fawn too much. We're working too hard to make sure that they're not mad at us. The irony is some of the people that are the most at risk of being attacked or exiled, ironically, are people that have genuine goodness intact. Um, I've noticed that a lot. Like, I just think it's interesting that there is more energy. Of course, via social media, that's a really easy place to play this, like, you have to be this tall to get on the drama triangle, right? Right, but like, it's fascinating of more energy people have going after nice people that are doing good in the world. The truth is, is we don't know what they do behind closed doors. There's all sorts of things that people do that's not like, let me make a public announcement about what I'm doing to help these oppressed people, or these exiled people, or that kind of thing. But they're the ones that get attacked. It's fascinating. And then again, that weird dance that goes on. And then unfortunately, Once we get in the ring with it, bless her hearts. We're like playing into this much bigger game. And again, it's all about divide and conquer. Cause if we were working together, I mean, I'm just going to say something as an example, and I am not making any statement about what people need to believe or not believe about any of this. I'm just going to give you an example, being in Athens, Greece at the height of COVID and literally it's the. The very, you know, nexus, nascence, right, of western democracy, Athens, Greece. We've studied our history or whatever, and literally hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of Athens, Greece. Masked, not masked, faxed. Not vaxxed, arm and arm, because they weren't going to stand for mandates because it's not democratic, right? It's totalitarianism. Again, I'm not making a point other than that is people whose psyches and autonomic nervous systems are operating in this democratic way. And when I mean, democratic, I'm not talking about a political party. I'm talking about. We see things very differently, and yet we all, all believe that we all have the right to be free. We all deserve to be free. It was extraordinary to see that. Hundreds of thousands of people, and again, all very different. Having debates, and yet arm in arm. I'm just like, this is Wow. Exactly. It's very powerful. On your website that I want to read right now, because I think it relates exactly to that, um, you quoted Rudyard Kipling, the strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack. And I wonder if you can speak more about how can we as Americans. Steward this sense of cohesion and landing in the autonomic nervous system. It's what you're calling physiological democracy. Yeah, is the, that quote is about how important it is for us to work together and cooperate. Like I was saying earlier, as far as the way the autonomic nervous system is organized. It's the first one is let's come together. Let's work things out. And yet at the same time, there's room. To honor the individual so the strength of the wealth is the pack. Let's work together. We're in this together. We have very different, wildly different experiences and privileges, et cetera, et cetera. And yet we are all on this planet together. Spaceship Earth, right? We're all doing this, but also there's room and capacity for the strength of the pack is the wolf, the individual, what is real and authentic to them again, the autonomic nervous system is completely authentic. It's just being who they really are. So there's also room for that. And you can see that embodied in true neurological or psychospiritual democracy. Symbolos is to bring things together. It's reparative. And the deal is we don't all have to agree and we don't all have nor should. We all do the same thing, right? To be of service. To work together to be who we really are and to help each other. Everyone's going to be doing different things. That's the strength of the pack being the wolf. Some people might use their platform to do something. Some people might go do direct service. Some people are going to be quiet and behind the scenes doing important stuff because it would compromise the people they're helping if they were to signally about it. Yeah, and I'm, I'm so aware that, um, the, the true sociopaths that really want that power and control in this world, they know the power of a group of people like you saw in Greece with regulated nervous systems working together towards, uh, Common goal. And so of course, then the strategy is to divide and dysregulate people's nervous systems. I mean, how else could they attain the power and control they desire? So we see all of the divide and conquer strategies that Mariah and I have spoken about in other podcasts, whether it's Vax, not Vax or Trump or Biden, or, you know, all of the different camps. That they're trying to push us in. So I think it's a really good indicator when we see that, like, whoa, how are we being manipulated? Any place where we're being put into two camps in a polarized way, how are we actually being manipulated? What's that? Let's step back. What would happen if these two camps were united and who's afraid of that? Well, exactly. Because if we're united. Which means we're not all the same. We have different points of view. Right? But we are orienting together and we can actually see the threat and then it dissolves and disintegrates like totalitarian schemes. Because they're like, no, no one has to lose their individuality or freedom for us to work together. Not to mention that those, those kind of true sociopaths like APAS that want to, through a coercive control, they're not just controlling, they're also going to be harvesting, and that's everything from resources to, and I bet I've talked And this happens in narcissistic or sociopathic family systems even, which is like siblings are pitted against each other, divide and conquer. Because again, if everyone's orienting together, something happens. Just like we know that not to demonize how any animal in the wild, but if a cheetah chases down an impala, the impala dissociates out of its body and just crumbles. And then the cheetah's running so fast it skips over it. And then the Impala gets away. The first thing that that Impala does is go back to the pack. And all the pack are oriented out there towards the cheetah. And supporting the Impala. And then the Impala comes out of threat. The Impala is no longer re enacting, re enliving. Oh my god, there's a cheetah. Like, do you know how evil these motherfuckers are? You know, like that kind of thing. They're just evil. Eating grass and reproducing, you know, living their lives, right? They're in the window of tolerance. They're regulated, but this is the way nature works, which is why I quoted Rudyard Kipling. Because before I became the iteration of Psyche's Journey, um, ironically in 2020, I was operating under. Somatic psychology, because, of course, all this year of training and neuroscience, but by one is nature knows the way nature knows the way and it's it's a wise system. It's knows what it's doing. And it's just heartbreaking when we get divided diabolically split off. Diabolos means to split from nature itself because it has its way. It has its way and again, animals are exposed to all sorts of really intense, scary stuff, and yet they find a way and they don't have ulcers. They don't have hormonal imbalances. Right, right. So infinitely wise and there and there's also been this, you know, over decades. In the Western world, an effort by many groups to separate us from our bodies and teach us that our bodies are not wise. And then we have to look outside ourselves to know anything about our bodies. Right. Well, absolutely. And again, the metaphor I use is like, you know, someone's coming around the back of your igloo, you know, chipping off the ice and then coming up the front and then selling you the ice. And you're like, how did you know I was missing some ice, right? Like brokering health. Brokering whole to us as if it's not innate and it's just, it's astonishing. But yeah, like you said, for decades I've been at it and it works. I mean, there's just all sorts of money and power to be advertising system making every supermodel hyper sexualized body. The only body they represent and then saying, oh, if you want to look like this, you need to buy this product like, oh, but I don't need to look like that. Like, I don't need your product, but I don't know that because you've been inundating me for this whole time. This, um, inauthentic image of what I feel like I should be and then selling me the thing that you think I need to get that way, but actually I'm like, yeah, totally. And of course, the irony is like, why would you feel vulnerable to that is because we all want to be loved and belong. Right? And so again, Cutting us off. And I taught this in the science of addiction to like grad school students about like the mad men era and advertising and the culture of narcissism and the way Bernays, Freud's nephew knew all about like these strong instinctive drives that we had. And the bottom line is all of a sudden out of nowhere. There became an industry and selling people things they don't need and the only way you can do that is mess with these instincts. Totally. Exactly. And that's where we have to become stewards of our own system, become experts the way the autonomic nervous system works. Rons, because it would be naive to think that they don't know exactly how it works because they do. Right? And they're not dumb, whatever aims goals and those aims and goals may not be in our best interest. So it sounds like it's just so key to do our own work to tend to our own nervous systems and how would you recommend people start doing that? Like, let's say this is kind of new information. How do we tend to our own nervous systems for healing and to help us show up? Um, grounded and centered with other people. Yeah, excellent question. And start with what Deb Dana, person in the field calls befriending the nervous system, educating ourselves. I'm happy to serve up a little care package for everyone if they want to, after watching this of, okay, check out this person. And there's just all sorts of people that have contributed. To studying and understanding the way the nervous system works and the signs and signals of it being dysregulated. But it starts with understanding that ground of understanding, but befriending the nervous system and then learning about how it works and then the signs and signals. Of what it looks like when you're out of the window of tolerance, getting into trauma vortexes and then methods to come back in. There's some very old systems that already exist and have for a long, long time that regulate the nervous system and that's like yoga and that kind of thing. But all that to say, it doesn't mean you're impervious to having your system hijacked, because it can be. It's an ongoing thing, but I'm happy to create a little care package of like, check this out. Again, understanding the polyvagal model, of the way the autonomic nervous system works, and tools on how to regulate. Of course, empaths have some different kind of work to do. Desert practices, learning to drop into the back and the bottom of the system, noticing when you're in a transverse coronal dissociative state, proud helper, that kind of thing. But the start is to understand it to get a better clarity of how it works. So that would be great. If you wanted to put that together, we'll put that in our show notes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And there's also really cool sources out there about, like, the inner world of trauma and understanding the phenomenon of what happens when human beings are exposed to things that feel terrifying to them. And then the phenomenon of. Diabolic splitting and the devil and the angel on each side of the shoulder. Cause here's the thing is when we are exposed to things that are terrifying, what the diabolic nature of any kind of coercion and control, narcissistic abuse. Ultimately, this is betrayal trauma. There's going to be a resistance to be vulnerable. And this is how we get most easily hijacked into being inauthentic. Is the fear of vulnerability because betrayal trauma. It's one of the signals that you're dealing with coercive control, narcissistic, sociopathic abuse. When you start feeling in yourself and watching other people do things to avoid vulnerability. The big, big red flag, pervasive all over. Oh my goodness. That feels so key. I had a healer many years ago that said we are safest in our vulnerability. And, and I feel like you're speaking to that of when we're in our authentic selves, taking care of our nervous systems, we're actually the safest in the world. But getting there is. It's some work and well, yeah, it's easier said than done, particularly because of betrayal trauma. It's 1 thing to fall off a bike. It's another thing to have someone who's in charge of your well being, or supposed to have your best interest at heart, push you off the bike. And even if you don't know, they, they push you off the bike in a neocortical way, your nervous system knows, and then you start to see the signs and symptoms of avoiding vulnerability. Exactly. Shannon, you do a lot of work with astrology and have for almost 30 years. So how do you see astrology's interaction with the nervous system? When, you know, people come to you for that kind of counsel, how does How does that interact with the nervous system? Yeah, I mean, that's excellent question. I mean, do you think that ultimately, you know, it is a not so much cause and effect, but reflection of the design of the cosmos we are definitely guided by that system and of course, it was forbidden or demonized for so long because if you know more about that, you have a lot more of an inside clue of like, what your time and space right in existence is. Is being suggested, so utilizing that tool is a great way to kind of know where we're headed. On a bigger level, I think what's most helpful about astrology is understanding the shift of epochs and always during the transition and shift from one age to another, there's going to be power grabs. And lots and lots of effort made to throw people off because again, if you're oriented to it, you're able to navigate the transition. It's like the Hopi prophecy. You know, don't hold on to the rocks. Don't hold on to the edge. The rapids are increasing. Just float, notice who's with you. You're getting taken somewhere. And there's just for millennia. There's just, you know, brokerage of like, trying to control that narrative so that you can get people you can sell people like here, you can hold on to this rock for this, that and the other because again, we're scared. It's not, it's kind of counter instinctual to let go and let the rapids take you somewhere. It's like, it's scary. Great. But that would be, I think, my biggest offering to say about that study is very ancient, and it's been positively a cult, right, for decades, because if you do know that, you have more of a sense, but I want to name. People can use that as a tool to to mislead people to I've seen people do it. It's there's no full proof way, but the system itself and understanding what the archetypal energetic forces are is a great way to orient to what is going on. So, you know, how to respond. And so do you see us shifting into another epoch or what do you see that next epoch or what have you? Yeah, I mean, that would be described as the age of Aquarius because it's an epoch. It's long periods of time to shift from one to the other. I guess like the quick low dam would be the shift from the age of Pisces to the age of Aquarius Aquarius is moving from blind faith I believe archetypes of saviors and victims. Into the age of Aquarius, it has its dark sides, it's archetypal forces. It can be positive or negative, but the highest octave would be, I know it would be authentic altruism because the highest octaves of the age of Aquarius is about humanity working together. It's ruled by both Uranus and Saturn. So there's guidelines, but there's also go your own way. There's certainly the nervous system is a big piece of the age of Aquarius. That new epoch where it's no mistake that we've been orienting more and more towards that is we. Move into that. And then, you know, the highest octave of its co regent, Saturn would be inner authority. Aquarius is about inner authority, working together, but not, uh, projecting authority and wisdom out there. Cause that's part of the age of Pisces is like, you know, you're going to broker this to me. You're going to save me versus what do I know, what do I bring to the table, but inner authority and you know, that authenticity of the autonomic nervous system would be kind of a big key to the age of Aquarius. And there'll be dark stuff that happens, but there also will be like really cool things, which is again, the highest octave of humanity, what we're actually capable of. It's quite lovely. And, and just, you know, from my own healing journey, I know that before a big healing takes place, I'm often confronted with my shadow in the most intense way. And so I like the metaphor of like, that's maybe what's happening as we are seeing so much division, so much polarization. We are as a collective having to really confront the shadow, um, as, or before we can transition into this. New age, right? Exactly. Exactly. And that's how it goes. That's always how it goes. We have to face the shadow and here it is getting paraded out in front of us. And it's here for us to notice and again, if we're in our lane and we're more authentically altruistic, we're working on our own shadow versus projecting it out there on other people and bossing them around. or hating on them. Absolutely. Owning your shadow is very rewarding work. It is, truly. So Shannon, where can people find you and your work online and your offerings? Yeah, um, you can go to psychesjourney. com. You can also find me on Instagram. I am in social media land to a degree. I always have offerings, and again, it's numinous neuroscience. So it's everything from intensive online rituals of Psyche's Journey, old Elisenian mysteries, to I'm getting ready to offer the neuroscience of secure pair bond, and then I'll Latest research on how we navigate the couple's journey kind of stuff. So all kinds of offering. You'll also see my travels of world, the world travels that I've been partaking in. Yes. You're so inspiring in your nomadic ways. 16 countries so far, so far, right? Absolutely. Thank you so much. What a delight to have you on. I learned so much. I know our listeners are going to get so much out of this. I'm so glad. Doing the work you do in the world. Oh, you're so welcome and thank you both for what you're doing as well. All right. Okay. Thanks everyone. Until next time. Make sure you subscribe, like and share the video for more content!