Why Success Feels Like a Threat

I dive into why success can actually feel threatening when your nervous system isn’t regulated. We explore how self-sabotage, fear, and old emotional patterns can surface right when things start going well. I unpack the connection between success, identity, and the body, and how redefining success on your own terms changes everything. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, anxious, or stuck right when you’re “winning,” this conversation will help you understand what’s really going on beneath the surface. 

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
00:00 - Success & Dysregulation
02:20 - Why We Self-Sabotage
04:30 - Redefining Success
06:15 - Nervous System & Patterns
09:15 - Fear vs Excitement
11:00 - Fear of Disappointment
13:00 - Letting Go of Perfection
16:00 - Familiar Pain vs Growth
19:00 - Control & Self-Sabotage
21:30 - Safety vs Growth
25:00 - Head, Heart, Gut Framework
29:00 - Emotional Avoidance
32:30 - The “Should” Trap
34:30 - Finding What You Want
39:30 - Small Wants Practice
41:00 - Rewiring Behavior
43:00 - Truth in Relationships
46:00 - Connection vs Safety
50:00 - Clarity & Priorities
54:30 - Redefining Success Continually

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I hear people talk a lot about creating a safe space. And that's all well and good. We want to have safe spaces in our life. You can have a safe space or you can have connection. You actually can't have both. Because for us to have connection actually requires risk. Vulnerability means that I am showing you parts of myself that allow you to judge me. Which means that I have to take a risk. This is the My Body Mentor Podcast where we explore how to create a life where you are deeply connected to yourself and everything in it. I'm your host, Steven Jaggers, and we are joined by my co-host Adam Carberry. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Alright, welcome back to another episode. So today we are going to be diving into the topic of success. And what does success actually look like when you're still operating from a dysregulated nervous system? So, Steven, I am really, really excited to dive into this one. We talked a little bit before we jumped on to our live. And you know, this is one that I think both of us have kind of moved through various different forms of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Yeah, when you first uh suggested this episode, I was like, oh, you know, I don't know if I have a lot of examples for this. And I'm like, well, I'm actually in the middle of it right now as we're speaking. And uh, you know, I think what the what what is really fascinating to me is first off, you have to define what success is for you. And I think that's probably the most important thing first. Because what's success to me might be different to you. Um but yeah, I'm excited to dive in with you, brother.

unknown 1:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Yeah. You know, so when you asked me the question, like, what what does this exactly mean to me? It has made me think of several times in my life where like success and whether that's monetary, materialistically, business aspect, like when I started my first business and really started encountering a lot of success, I started noticing that I started to actually self-sabotage a little bit. I stopped calling some of the customers that were calling in because I was already overwhelmed with the projects that I had at the time. And like at that point, I didn't really understand what was happening. But now looking back, I can recognize that it's mainly because I didn't have enough capacity within my own system to take on more that life was trying to send my way. That then just sent me further and further into dysregulation, with which meant I had less and less capacity. So the thing that I'm really the most curious on, and where I'd I'd like for us to kind of start today's conversation is why is it that when we start to encounter success while having a dysregulated nervous system, it pushes us to these avenues of trying to almost sabotage that success?

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Well, there's there's a lot there. First off, I'll say that most of us have wired ourselves for the um like the journey and not the destination. Meaning that, you know, when we're when we're on the the pursuit of whatever the thing is, it's like there's a difference between making money and keeping money. And those require different skill sets, those require different states of being. A lot of us, we um there's a uh a drive, a lot of times it's a trauma response, uh, for us to achieve. Uh and this is why defining success is so important for all of us, because success for me right now looks a lot different than it did a couple years ago. Success for me right now is is peace, is space with my family, is being able to be super present for um, you know, uh Rachel's pregnancy, her birth, um, my son's birth, to have time in the evenings where I'm just holding her belly. Like that is success. Um, versus, you know, success for me a while ago was how much output could I have? How much money was I making? How many people were I like how many people were I helping? Was I helping? Um so the definition of it is is first probably the most important thing. And that's where, like, you know, even just journaling in the morning, what what is success actually to me? Because most of us are driving our success is being driven by, like I said, a trauma response, or there's a lot of should energy of what we should do, the obligations of what our parents told us to do or what society tells us to do, versus figuring out what it is actually you want. And a lot of the times success feels empty when you get there because it it it what was driving you was actually not you. It was the pressure to begin with. And that just gets you in a cycle of this dysregulation over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Yeah, yeah. Where and so what I'm hearing is that it's really it's the success that is the outside definition, like the things that we're striving for outside of ourselves, whether it's from other people telling us that that's what we should have or that's what we should achieve or the direction in which we should go, versus when we clearly define success off of what we are actually wanting, what we're actually desiring, then when we achieve that level of success, it's felt different in the body.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Yeah, and you know, we will repeat it until we complete it, meaning that your nervous system is wired for a familiar thing versus something new. You're wired for a familiar pain over a new, like a new safety. And this is you know, you see this in relationships a lot where it's like uh as soon as you get to a place of stasis or peace, people start trying to pick fights because we've been wired for chaos, especially if you grew up around chaos. You know, why do like a lot of the times right before a relationship has a big breakthrough or a you know a wedding or some sort of pinnacle moment, you see people go deep into arguments or whatever it is because their nervous system's wired for that familiar pain versus something new and successful.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

So what's can we break down what's actually happening in the body when someone starts stepping into that self-sabotage pattern?

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Yeah, so let's see. Well, first off, you we have to we have to recognize how hard it is to actually change. Like that's the first thing is it takes a tremendous amount of energy for you to adapt a new pattern because most of us are making decisions based off of the default state in which our nervous system is operating all the time. And so if you if dysregulation is your default state, meaning that anxiety is your default state, depression is your default state, then that's that's basically how you are making decisions because your body wants to save as much energy as possible. So you're gonna make decisions off of your autopilot. And so if you're not wired for, if you don't have the capacity to handle a big business or to handle a relationship that has um, you know, lots of peace inside of it, uh, your nervous system is just going to, you're going to be making decisions off of your subconscious mind and body. And this is where like the body keeps the score because it's not just the subconscious mind, it's actually what's stored in your body as well. You see this where people, um, you know, I talk to some women that are like, why do I keep attracting these men that um, you know, are like these bad boys that don't actually care about me, or what if they have these toxic traits, and I'm like, well, there's something inside of you that is choosing that over and over again. And it's not your mind because it takes a tremendous amount of energy from you to make a new choice. Because you're wired for the same, your body would rather continue to choose the same thing over and over again until you develop that um, whatever the new pattern is. But it's gonna take repetitive choosing over and over of the mind to actually see the physical change in your body.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

So, what the thing that's coming up for me is like I think about the like the very somatic feeling of when we're entering into a space that we've looked forward to. Like, and let me use the example of like really stepping more into a teacher and leadership role here in Somatic. Yeah, that brought up the sensations of like excitement, but also this like nervousness and fear of like, what if I can't show up the way that they need me to show up? What if I'm not able to answer the questions the way that I need to be able to answer the questions? What if I can't hold space the same way that Steven holds space? And it's like all of the stories all of a sudden start coming in when like what I've dreamed of has already happened, it's already there.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Well, let's let's break this down. You know, you asked me the question of how does this look actually in the body and and what's actually going on? And I like to break it down between the head, the heart, and the gut. And so on a gut level, on a nervous system level, like what was going on on a nervous system level, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 10:27

On a nervous system level, I would think that I was very much in just like a state of like just constant motion. Like I couldn't really settle what was there because of the stories that are driving that constant motion.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Yeah, they're deeply connected, but you're just on a body level, on a gut level, like your body doesn't know the difference between like excitement and fear a lot of the times. This is why we say like nervousness is excitement without the breath.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

So on just on a nervous system level, your body is like there's this massive amount of excitement, but it's sending you the same signals as as as there as fear would send you. So that's what's kind of happening on just the nervous system level. Now, what about on the emotional or the heart-centered level? Like you are in this new position, you know, you've you've you've you're you're starting to live your dream. What emotion do you think is coming up for you? Or how about this? How about this? What emotion are you not letting yourself feel in that? It's the joy of it. And what about joy is so scary?

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Because it can go away really easily.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Yeah. And when do you think you learned that? As a kid.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

So being able to really like rewind the clock back to like that earliest moment where we felt this certain way can almost give us that like glimpse of that's actually really where the work lies. It's not about how do we deal with what's happening right now in this present moment, but how do we actually deal with what happened back then that's keeping me from actually feeling into the joy of this present moment.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Yeah, and I would say there's probably another emotion that is probably around you not potentially feeling good enough to actually have the success. Because a lot of us self-sabotage because we don't feel good enough. But there's there's fear that's happening in the body, there's excitement fear, it's kind of sending mixed signals there. But then there's probably one emotion that you're not necessarily that you're you're avoiding during that because, and then the story in the head, right? There's all the stories that are going on in the head, but we'll get to that next. So it's joy, but we know that joy is like basically once you allow yourself to feel all the other emotions. What do you think's underneath that joy? Maybe going back to whatever moment kind of comes up for you.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Fear of disappointment. Fear of disappointment. And and not just like dis like me getting disappointed, but disappointing others. Disappointing others. And like in in actually voicing that now, it it's it really does feed back into that feeling of like I'm not enough. What if I what if I actually prove them right that I'm not enough?

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Well, Adam, well, I'll say this. You you're you're going to disappoint me. You're going to disappoint everyone. What happens next when you give yourself like the freedom of like you're going to disappoint other people?

SPEAKER_00 14:03

So if I can actually like accept that fact that there is going to be times where I disappoint people, it really takes the pressure off of needing to be perfect or needing to be anybody other than who I'm actually at.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

How many times do you think you've disappointed your partner?

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Quite a few. Quite a few, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

And she's probably disappointed you as well.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Yeah. Yeah. And yet we still love each other just as much as before the disappointments. Yeah. Because disappointing people is actually how we grow.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah. So there's a tremendous amount of pressure that we put on ourselves to be perfect to actually receive the success, right? And then there's all the stories, the voice in the head that comes with that. Um, but really on a on a body-based level, excitement, fear, your body's kind of like it's feeling both of those is the same thing. There's usually an emotion that is in the way of you being able to experience the pleasure, the joy of it, because that is it's joy and pleasure is probably one of the most vulnerable states a human can be in because it can be taken away at any moment.

unknown 15:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

So, you know, for me, this I mean, I wish I could share, I'm still in the process of digesting my current situation, and you guys will probably hear a lot about that in the in the near future. But you know, when I was first creating somatic, um, I was really scared of it growing on a on a big level. And because every time you step into a new layer, we could call that success, is there's more visibility. There's more ability for other people to attack you, there's more ability for other people to be disappointed in you. There's more, and your nervous system will only let you grow as much as you are you feel safe, but there is no complete safety in growth, right? Everyone's growing all the time, and even in in your partnership, like there's actually more safety in growth because stagnancy is the thing that kills things more than anything. But we don't realize that. Like, if I'm afraid that my my partner is going to leave me because I'm like, my partner is probably going to leave me more from me being stagnant and staying the same versus if I'm continuing to grow. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Totally. And I think the this loops back to what you were saying in the beginning of people being it's it's like you're more uncomfortable staying in the hell that you know than shifting into the heaven that you don't know. Because you actually know what to expect. You know what it already feels like if you feed into that disappointment because you've already been disappointed. That's no surprise. So this then begs the question of could this also be one of the reasons why people don't like surprises? And many times that happens in success, right? Like you get surprised by a really big sale, you get surprised by a lot of things growing much faster than you had anticipated. So in that surprise is the unknown. And the more that we feel into that unknown, the more it's gonna feel feed into those same stories that we've been bringing up, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah. We think that we crave stasis. We think that we and specifically the more stressed that you are, the more dysregulated your nervous system. You're gonna want things to stay the same. You want everybody, all the people in your life to stay the same. You you don't want more variables changing because life feels overwhelming in that moment. But we think we crave stasis when we actually crave healthy amounts of dysregulation because we actually crave to grow. And when we find ourselves dysregulated, but then we've found a way to regulate ourselves within that dysregulation, that is growth. So it's not the dysregulation that we're afraid of, but it's our ability to overcome and to regulate ourselves in that new, in that, in that new threshold. And beyond all of this, I'll say the deepest relaxation and the deepest regulation that I've ever felt inside of my own nervous system is when I've been able to relax into everything is uncertain. Uncertainty is actually the default state of the world. We have our identity, we have our clothes, all of these, you could look at those as pillars that of stasis. I have my house, I have my relationship, I have my clothes, car, um, family, whatever it is, all of these are pillars that anchor us into our identity or our stasis, but those aren't the default state of the world because those change. Underneath that, the default state of life is uncertainty and absolute chaos. And what happens is one of those things gets threatened, one of those things change. It's not that there's chaos or dysregulation happening to us, it's that the default state of the world is bubbling up and showing itself. So the deepest relaxation that you'll ever find in your nervous system is realizing that uncertainty and chaos is the default state. And how do I relax myself into that?

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Really less about truly trying to in as in just saying what I was about to say, really is about control, right? A lot a lot of these things that we implement self-sabotage as a way of controlling because the more success that comes in that's outside of our control, that's more of that unknown. But yet when we start trying to control it, okay, no, it shouldn't look this way, it shouldn't get this big, let me reel it back in.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Yeah. This is why I get I I hear people talk a lot about um creating a safe space, and that's it's all well and good and we want to have safe spaces in our life, but there's actually you can have a safe space or you can have connection, you actually can't have both. Because for us to have connection actually requires risk. Vulnerability means that I am I am showing you parts of myself that allow you to judge me. Which means that I have to take a risk. For me to climb and create a bigger platform or to, you know, whatever success is for me, for me to grow, requires me to have more risk. But there's no safety that's guaranteed along the way, right? I'm actually my appetite and my capacity for risk has to grow. For you to, for me in this, like I'll just use the example with somatic, as it can I was deeply afraid of it growing because I couldn't control it. I couldn't control the more hands that were in it, I couldn't control it. The more people, you know, spreading the message, the more opportunity it has for it to change. And I can't control it, right? But for us to grow, we have to be able to regulate into the uncertainty, into the risk. This is why a dysregulate dysregulated nervous system will always default to keeping things as small as possible. This is why we play small, is to keep ourselves safe. But safety actually isn't stagnancy. Safety is in the growth because our body and our being want to grow more than anything. And I know for me, my partner's going to feel a lot more safe with me if I'm continuing to grow versus if I'm staying stagnant. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Such a such a paradox because it's almost like society has taught us that comfort, safety, creating your own little home and nest is the like quote unquote American dream, right? Like that's the thing that we're all supposed to do. But yet when I was living in in our bus and we were traveling all over the country where like nothing was staying the same. Everything was constantly changing.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

How alive did you feel?

SPEAKER_00 23:06

I I mean, what when I wasn't having mental breakdowns of trying to deal with the things constantly changing, it felt great. But that was the growth that my system had to go through to be able to start to accept that actually life is constant change, even when I'm trying to control it. And the more I tried to control things, the more things started to go wrong.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Yeah. It's just, it's, and you know, we we talked about it being, you know, a paradox within society, but it's actually on a deep nervous system level because our nervous systems are wired to keep us safe, to keep us, they're they're wired for survival. That's why a lot of us we catch our mind and our body and our uh just our our whole soma wired for potential consequences versus the uh potential, you know, successful outcomes that could happen. You know, most of us when we are like you can notice if you're does your mind go straight to the potential bad side over and over and over again. We're thinking about the worst outcomes way more than we're thinking about the potentials over and over again. And it takes repetitive choosing of the mind over and over and over again. And we can talk about like the things to actually create more safety in our successes as we continue, but we have to understand that our our we're living in this ancient body that's been designed to keep us safe. Um the quote is we're living in an ancient body, we have medieval institutions that are currently running things, and we have godlike technology, yeah, such as this computer and AI and all of this that's going on. And that's um we're in a very interesting circumstance.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

We really are, we really are. It it's it's such a wildly crazy and fascinating time period to be living in, and my cat is just all over here. What's up, Severus? Talk about not being able to control things, right? And just having to go with the flow of it. But so in a world that's constantly changing, in times that are constantly changing, how can we start to ground in, taking back to the beginning of our conversation, right? Like creating our own definition of success. How do we start to let go of the definitions that were placed upon us and start to discover those definitions that are actually going to lead us to feeling fulfilled when we achieve that success?

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Yeah. I think we can let's look at this on a head, a heart, and a body level. On a body level, it's like right now I'm dealing with things that would have just sent me absolutely over the edge on a nervous system level, you know, a few years ago. But I have witnessed that I'm able to actually relax and stay regulated with crazy circumstances going on. And so on a body-based level, like this is where somatic breath work is so powerful. It can help us discharge a lot of the defense systems that have been stuck inside of our body. We can try to talk about it all day long, but completing the necessary actions that your body needed to do in the moment of stressors, you know, whether that's from childhood or whatever past situation, actively working on processing those through the body is gonna create more capacity just on a nervous system level, so that we're not in a triggered or reactive state as much. So there's the nervous system component, which you all, if you're listening to this, you probably already know the ways in which to work on it on a nervous system level. Breath work is a powerful way to do so. On an emotional level, um it's like there's usually one emotion that we're all avoiding. And I've one of my mentors calls it the golden algorithm, where it's that emotion that you're avoiding, and for a lot of us, it's anger. Like anger processed all the way through creates clarity and determination. And so a lot of us are seeking clarity from a mind place, but clarity actually comes from the heart, it comes from us not being muddied by emotions that are getting in the way of our ability to see clearly. So, process on an emotional level, it's it's really sitting with which emotion do I avoid the most? And for me, it's been anger. And like if I continue to avoid my anger, well, then I'm I'm never gonna be clear because I'm not gonna know where my boundaries are at. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be able to have that determination of this is what I say no to and this is what I say yes to. A great example of someone who's utilized anger in a healthy way is like, well, one I can think of as Martin Luther King. Like, that's a great example of somebody who was very angry about a certain thing, but didn't lash out from anger. He moved that anger through him and it became deep clarity on what mattered to him and determination to make it happen. You know, Gandhi would be another example of that. Those are examples of anger, anger used in a healthy way that's created clarity and determination. But on a mind level, like our body changes slowly, and most of us need um more stimulation for our body. Most of our issues are from overstimulated minds and understimulated bodies. And so on a body level, it's usually movement, it's usually um processing, discharging, like letting your body move in whatever way it hasn't let you haven't been able to move. There's a stagnancy inside of it, there's an action that your body needs to complete that sends a signal to your nervous system that you're not in the presence of a stressor anymore. So getting out of those deep animalistic states of fight, flight, and freeze on a body level first, then starting to move through the emotional spectrum. And, you know, this is why the training is so powerful because we kind of dive deep into each of the different emotions. For some of us, it might be sadness. You know, I was just working with a woman the other day who, and it's so fascinating because a lot of the time somatic-based practitioners are the ones that are the worst. Because there is this uh we often over-regulate. We over-regulate to the point of suppression. I mean, that I'll give you the example of um, you know, this woman was a therapist and she was having a hard time uh not living out her purpose and playing small and just feeling like she's ready to step into the next version of her own career. And as I'm working with her, she's um, I'm trying to help her get into a little bit of anger because I can feel that she's so perfect. Like as a therapist, and especially as a spaceholder, you want to give this feeling of I'm the regulated person and I am, you know, I'm uh, you know, I'm the therapist and I'm safe for you. And so it can kind of put us in a box and trap us. And we have all of the tools to do so, right? So I watched her, and she was utilizing somatic awareness and breathing to stop the sadness from coming up. And then when the sadness was coming up, which we were trying to go into anger, she was using sadness to block herself from going into anger. So she was using somatic awareness to block herself from sadness, and then sadness to block herself from anger. So there's a lot of different processes that and and defense systems that we use to stop ourselves from feeling the thing that we actually need to feel. And so on an emotional level, there's an emotion that we've stopped ourselves from feeling, and we're creating more of that emotion by not allowing ourselves to feel it. And so we talked about the gut level or the body level, the nervous system discharge, identifying kind of the golden algorithm of which emotion that we're that we're avoiding. And then on a head level, the head operates. I mean, we have this inner critic that just beats us up all of the time. And the mind moves so quickly and it changes all the time. It's the opposite of the body, the body takes time for it to change. And so a lot of the times what we need is repetitive choosing of the mind over and over again. When the inner critic comes in, it's like, nope, I'm not. I need discipline. If there's discipline needed anywhere, it's in the mind, right? The discipline of not allowing the inner critic to stomp on all of the things that I'm actually wanting to do. And, you know, I see that the people that have the hardest amount, the hardest time with success in the mind have the most amount of shoulds. I should do this, I should do that, this is what I should be doing. And we're operating off of obligation, off of this outside force that's telling us what we should be doing, where we're always going to burn ourselves out and become more dysregulated because that fuel source is not coming from inside of what we actually want. I see this with people that are that have a tremendous amount of or depression. Like depression, for what I've seen is the people that are depressed have the hardest time identifying what it is they want. Because there's all this pressure of what they should have done in the past or what they should be doing right now, and clearing out and moving through all of those shoulds to identify what is it that you want? What's pulling you forward into the world? And the mind, we need repetitive choosing of choosing that over and over and over again. If I want my body to change, if I want the six-pack, well, it's going to require me to choose that in my mind over and over and over again.

unknown 34:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Choosing to go to the gym instead of eating another bag of chips. Yeah, exactly. It's hearing hearing you say that, especially, you know, talking about depression and and like the visual that I immediately got when you were talking about that is like somebody being in an impression in the ground, covered up by all of the things that they think that they should be doing, or all of the things that everyone's telling them that they should be doing. It's like, you've ever seen that video of Jim Carrey giving the interview talking about depression, and that it's just the body's way of saying it's sick and tired of being this avatar, sick and tired of continuing to be this person that is what you've shaped yourself into based upon everybody else's expectations of where you should be or who you should be or what you should be doing. It's all all those shoulds, like you said. But redefining that through redefining your success, redefining what you actually want, what are the steps that somebody can take, aside from doing a breath work session? Obviously, we've already we've already talked about that. But like if somebody is in that space of feeling totally lost with what they want from life, what what's a practice that they could implement that would help to bring clarity to that?

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Yeah, most of our desires and our wants are buried beneath a pile of other people's opinions. 100%. So what I would say is the easiest practice to do is following the small wants throughout your day. Meaning that if somebody in your life says, you know, I really want to go on a walk right now, will you come with me? And you actually don't want to do that, follow that. Because trying to figure out what I want on a grand scheme of things feels is it is an for somebody who is dealing with a lot and a lot of pressure is another way to attack you. Trying to figure out, well, what do I want in my life? That can be another subtle way that we just put a tremendous amount of pressure, is I'm not there yet. So we have to start with today. Today, what do you want? What do you want to do right now? Something small. And what do you want to say to me, Adam?

SPEAKER_00 36:26

I love these conversations.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

I know, yeah. So it's just following the small impulses of want. Now you're going to be meted by a tremendous amount of obligation of what you think you should be doing. And then what you'll find out is oh, right now I want the cookie, but there's a bigger want on the other side of that, is I want the healthy body.

unknown 36:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

But you have to, honestly, sometimes you have to follow the small want first to get to get to the bigger want. Meaning, like, right now, I don't want to work this job that I hate right now. It's terrible. I'll give you an example. I don't want to work this call center job right now. And so I'm not necessarily advocating for you leaving your job, but you know, if you want to follow this experiment fully, leave the job. Do it, do it, do what you want, because then you're going to create the space for something else to come in. And then what's going to happen is you're going to be like, well, shit, I want money. I want money, but I don't want to work that job anymore. I want money, but I don't want that job. So what do I want? Well, let's try to move a little bit closer to the career that I do want. And so following the journey of wants and learning to trust the internal want of yourself. For me, on my own journey, I remember there was a turning point for me where I was getting ready to go back to school and I was thinking I was going to be a psychologist or a physical therapist. And, you know, I started because that's what society tells me to do, right? That's what our my parents told me to do as well. I started going down that route, but every cell in my body was telling me that this wasn't the path for me. And I found this body work school because I got a session by this guy who just fixed, like, I felt more relief in my body in that moment than I had experienced in so long that I was like, wow, this guy really helped me. Like, where did you go to school? How did you learn how to do this? And he was like, Oh, this little massage school, you know, 30 minutes from here. And I'm like, Cool, I'm gonna figure out how to go to school for that, because that's what it that feeling in my body is what I want to create for other people. And as soon as I went to school for that, everyone in my life was telling me, like, you can't drop out of college, like you're you're never gonna be successful, like you're gonna be a massage therapist, like this is and all of the other words around that, right? Yeah, but I trusted that want, and that led me to, well, I love this stuff, so I'm just gonna continue to take these classes over and over again, even though it's the same class, I'm gonna do it again because I I'm actually it's driving me forward and I'm and I'm feeling the actual want of what am I interested in? You know, a lot of us force ourselves through school of jumping through all the hoops, but it's not actually something that we're into. So it's gonna feel like we're swimming upstream the whole time. Versus for me, as soon as I started getting my hands on someone's body, I started reading all of the anatomy books that I absolutely hated in college because I had something to apply it to that I wanted. Right? Yeah, you know, for me right now, I'm reading different financial books because I'm at a place in my life where it's like it I have something to directly apply it to that I want. So it starts with the small wants and desires, and then you'll realize, well, okay, you know, you'll start to have to weigh it. Like for a week, run an experiment, experiment, and only do the things that you want to do. I ran that experiment and I had this just paradigm-blowing moment of I'm sitting there and my house stinks so badly because I don't want to take out the trash. And then I'm like, well, I have to weigh the once out. Do I want my house to smell good or do I not want to take out the trash? Well, I want my house to smell right, so I'm gonna take out the trash.

unknown 40:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

This makes me think of recently I um reorganized my office. And like I grew up in a household where organization was not a thing. There was piles of stuff everywhere. Like think how most of us kind of grew up in the 80s and 90s, where it, you know, organization just wasn't a conversation. But I've realized that actually having things organized, having a clear workspace, having everything have its right place actually sets my nervous system at ease. I don't like cleaning, I don't like organizing, I don't like taking the time to do those things, but I like how I feel once they're done. So for me, it's been the re-associating that like after feeling with what I actually want versus the discomfort of what I don't want to do right now.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

And the more I can lean into how I want to feel versus focusing on how I don't want to feel actually makes it easier to do the things that I don't really want to do because I know it's gonna lead me to actually feeling the way I want to feel.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Yeah. What will happen too is with a lot of us that are people pleasers, um, we will get hit with all of the things of telling other people what they want to hear versus actually what I want to say. And that's probably where this repatterning will happen the most. You know, I um a friend of mine has been in a relationship for a little while, and I can tell that he's just not been living his truth, where he's just not saying what he actually wants. And other people's nervous systems can feel that. Like their mind not maybe might not get it, but their nervous systems can feel that there's not this truth that's pouring out of you. And this goes back to what I said about defining what success actually means for you, because it's important to get your head, your heart, and your gut all on the same level. You gotta get it all on the same page. Because if your mind wants one thing, but your body and your nervous system and your emotions want something else, you'll always be in a in a in a war with yourself. But, you know, he actually speak spoke his truth, which is he doesn't want to be in this relationship anymore. And what was fascinating is that his partner is like, well, you know, the way that you've been being since you broke up with me and these past few days is is actually the you that I've been wanting this whole time. And it's because he was actually living his truth, he was speaking his truth. Now it may not been the truth, may not have been what she wanted, but it the truth of his being was what she wanted. So just to give you another example, let's see if we got any questions here.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

So can you clarify safety in relationships? As in, if a relationship, romantic or platonic, is not a safe place, wouldn't that send you into survival? Mode rather than a place of growth.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

It it there's so many things that we have to define in here. If a relationship is not safe, meaning that one thing that's gonna create the most amount of safety, and it's counterintuitive to what you think safety is, but it's telling somebody the truth, whether or not you think it's gonna hurt them or not. So what's not safe is two people actually just telling each other what they want to hear. That's actually the most unsafe thing to your nervous system. It might give you the felt sensation of safety that, you know, there's not going to be any arguments right now. Conflict avoidance is probably the thing that creates the least safe relationship. Because then you actually don't have a relationship anymore because there's actually not you or the other person in the relationship. It's the presentation that you're giving, and it's the other person's presentation that that that they're giving off. So, and what happens in that moment is your nervous system feels that tremendously. Like I've worked with a ton of people that there's constantly something wrong in the relationship, even though it looks normal from the outside, because people just aren't speaking their truth. And your nervous system is scanning every little micro movement in your face, in your body. Like, are you saying the same thing as the look on your face, right? Like I was working with a guy the other day, he's like, I'm doing, I'm I'm taking her on the dates, and I'm you know, telling her all the things that I think she wants to hear, and I'm you know going and doing the practices that she wants. And he's doing all of the things almost like a checklist, but he's not actually doing the thing that he wants. And what's gonna create the the most safety in in an in the nervous system of the relationship is that if each person is doing the actual thing that they want to do. So if that's going on, of course it's going to send your body into survival mode and your mind's gonna go crazy thinking, like, oh my god, it from the outside it all looks perfect. Like he's doing and saying all of the things that I I actually want, but there's something missing. And because it's the place that it's coming from.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

Yeah, and the nervous system can always feel when that truth isn't there, or when that truth isn't being spoken, or when that incongruence is actually happening between what's being said versus what's being felt in that person's body.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

Yeah. And as soon as you put your hand on the other person, everything is everything is everything is communicated through hands on touch as well. Everything that you are being is being communicated. Everything that you are doing is communicated secondarily.

SPEAKER_00 47:19

So there's another question that came through. Um, you blew my mind when you said your nervous system can have community or safety, but not both. Can you elaborate on that?

SPEAKER_01 47:31

Yeah. For us to be in connection requires me to be take the risk and tell you how I'm actually feeling. There's always a risk in me telling you how I actually feel. There's always a risk in me showing all of the parts of myself. It's not safe, actually. But I can blend into the community and present myself in a way that is controlled, that I think you'll like me. Or I can actually be my truth. There's a quote from Brene Brown, and she says that um fitting in is the biggest threat to your belonging. Meaning that if I'm trying to fit into a community, I'm never gonna feel like I belong. And there's always a risk to me speaking my truth. There's always a risk to me being actually myself. You know that feeling when you're with another person and your nervous system fully relaxes because you're like, wow, I can be however I am right now, and I don't need to like, I don't need to entertain, I don't need to say a certain thing, I don't need to be a certain way. There's a deep relaxation that happens in your nervous system when you're around somebody and you can just act however however you want to. Yeah. And so for us to be in community, it is a risk. It's always going to be a risk. But us expressing ourselves over and over and over again from our truth, we'll find ourselves in the community that we actually belong in.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

I can speak to the truth of that because being a part of the Somatica community, I haven't tried to manipulate showing who I am. I've just, ever since I've met all of you when I first went through the training, I just was who I am because I didn't need to show up any differently. I didn't need to hide that I like having conversations around the woo-woo. I like having conversations around interesting deep topics. Whereas with many other communities and friend dynamics and things like that, it's like people are uncomfortable going into the deeper conversations. They like to keep things surface level. And yet those were always the areas where I never really felt fully seen versus this community. I feel like all of you see me as my true self, and therefore it gives me more permission to continue to be my true self, with which then ingrains that sense of community, that sense of being a part of a greater collective. That then, how can we now just be mirrors for one another of just continuing to pull out more of that authenticity every time we interact with each other?

SPEAKER_01 50:36

The worst feeling is when you are in community but you feel alone.

unknown 50:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:42

And it will drain you tremendously.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

So another question that came through: is there a way of generating clarity around what we want as far as success when we are still lost in the thoughts of safety?

SPEAKER_01 50:59

Yeah. Well, we covered the head, the heart, and the gut level on this, but I'll just speak to something that I'm currently moving through that's really helped me. Like right now, um, my house might be being sold. We just we're renting right now, and we just moved into this house, and it might be sold, and I have a baby on the way in three months. So all my safety is threatened at this point in time. Um, I've been going through different uh stuff on a business level that's been really spiking my safety as well. And uh the thoughts are just gonna continue to come in over and over and over again. And on a first level, like I'm doubling down on all of my self-care practices, like my nervous system practices, my emotional practices. I'm doubling down on my connection so that I don't feel alone in the process. But what you have to do is you have to figure out what's the priority. And a lot of the times we think the priority is like for me right now, uh, there's um like tax stuff I gotta deal with, and um legal stuff I'm dealing with, and like all of those things are actually not the priority for me. The priority for me right now is being present for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of my son being birthed. The priority for me right now is continuing to show up fully uh in my business and authentically for students, right? For you all here. That is the actual priority. All the other stuff is stuff that I have to do, but it's minutiae. And so, but it's so easy for my mind to hijack and say, these are the priorities. I have to get clear on what it is that I want. The other things we're gonna have to deal with, but you have to protect what the priority is for you.

unknown 53:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

And that's definitely, I think, one of the biggest challenges that we'll all face when we've lived so long of putting everybody else's wants and desires ahead of ours, is really creating that time and space. So what I'm hearing is that needing to implement slightly more sword energy or spine energy, if we will, on getting clear with not only ourselves, but with those that are close to us on where our priorities actually are. And also if we're saying in a relationship and maybe it's time to have that hard conversation if our priorities no longer match.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

Yeah. Well, the the sword energy that Adam is speaking to is what I call effective disruption. And you see this in coaching. Um, you know, we're gonna dive into this inside of our mentorship, but when you're coaching somebody and somebody gets deep into their story, that's great and all, but when do you find that moment where you kind of have to bring the sword and ninja them back to like the moment here right now and in their body? That's a it's a skill set of developing that within your own mind. Like I have to bring in that effective disruption when the mind starts and it's taking me through loops and tunnels of the this could happen and that could happen, and you know, then they'll think this of me. Like, when do I bring that in? No. And a lot of that is also tied to the emotion of we might be avoiding as well, too.

unknown 55:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:06

Another great conversation, Jaggers. So, what would be one last little tippet that you would like to leave the listeners before we call this an episode?

SPEAKER_01 55:16

Yeah, the last thing I'll say is um life is dynamic and success is dynamic, and continuing to redefine your words is so important of what it is that you're actually wanting, because what you're wanting right now might not be what you want later on. And so, continuously, like for me, when we're in transitional states in our life, which we find ourselves in often. And if you're not fully focused on this is what I'm doing right now, and this is what I'm like, this is what I'm dedicating all my energy to, which feels so good when we're in those moments, because life becomes very simple. But when we're in those transitional moments, that's where transformation happens, and that's where we get to define what it is that we want. And life will fill you with all of the things that you should be doing and all of the different obligations if you don't press that space out for yourself and define it for yourself. Had a great conversation. Thank you for everyone that tuned in. We will see you in two weeks. I really enjoy doing these bi-weekly podcasts, and so grateful for all of our community. Have a beautiful weekend, everyone.