Embodied Integrative Healing Podcast Episode 5 -Being Held, Being Seen (pt 2)

This episode is part 2 of a conversation with Marta Burton, where we dive deep into topics such as:

• Parts work and bringing all parts home to ourselves
• Expanding our capacity for safety and excitement
• Divine embodiment: Using our bodies as a sensing instrument for God
• The deeper meaning of awareness by bringing awareness into experience without separation and moving from watching to being

Marta Burton does the work of Somatic Intelligence & Integration through supporting people with:

• Integrative Bodywork
• Somatic Coaching
• Psychedelic Preparation & Integration

You can learn more about her and her work at https://martaburton.com/

Marta is also a beautiful vocalist and writer of spiritually inspired spoken word on her substack: @resurrectshakinakai and in her music as part of the band Bhaktisphere (Jordan is also a member)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

So, welcome everyone back to this uh next episode of Embodied Integrative Healing. So, this episode is actually part two. We're continuing a conversation that we had with uh Marta Burton. And in this episode, with this beautiful conversation, we're gonna explore parts work, bringing all those parts back home to ourselves, expanding our capacity for safety and excitement. Um, we explore divine embodiment using our bodies as a sensing instrument for God. And we also explore the deeper meaning of awareness by bringing awareness into experience without separation. So moving from watching into being. So let's continue this conversation. This um this practice and I an idea of like expanding your capacity for safety and expanding like space, really, I was really hit by like expanding your capacity for excitement because I have this very similar, if not the same, kind of challenge that I've been working through of uh like getting really excited about things and then getting really uh scared and fearful about so much excitement and kind of feeling overwhelmed and then just avoiding it. And so I'm really I'm really interested in if we might share more about like expanding the capacity for like excitement and and safety and all that.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

Yeah, I'd love to. I think it's it's been huge in my life, and there's just been a giant shift in the last six months for me. In first, it was me discerning like, wait, I feel excitement like terror in my body. And as I became, as my nervous system was healing, so it wasn't always terrified. Um, I started wanting to numb and stay only, only stay regulated, right? Like I'm calm. I'm so I would, I didn't want to like move my body really aggressively and get my heart rate up even. Or if I got excited about something, I would immediately be like, I need to meditate. Yeah, you know, how can I shut it down? And and so I became really conscious as I was studying polyvagal theory and the nervous system. I realized that um that's very common. It's very because it's sort of the same sensations in the body. Only if you have some trauma in your body where here's an example. I've seen it with children happening where a child's getting really, really excited and they're having so much fun and they're playing and they're laughing, and all of a sudden it goes too far, maybe for the parent, or maybe they actually have run too close to the cliff or almost run in the street, and their parents like, you know, screams at them out of fear, right? Or the parents just frustrated, like, you're too much. So they're in this joy, and all of a sudden they're terrified. So then these things, these two things, the child was in um, let me find the right language. The child was in a parasympathetic state, which is rest and digest. It's also like play and be social and create. Um, but you're in a safe place. They were in a safe state having joy and energy. And all of a sudden, bam, unsafe.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Right.

SPEAKER_03 4:02

And they go into the fight, flight, freeze, shame, all those things, and that gets stuck in some of our bodies because of however that undigested experience happened.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 4:20

Yeah. And so I think the pathway to healing that is we've got to we've got to recover and melt those frozen parts. If it's frozen or if you're in flight, or or if you're if sorry, I can't find words. Um if you're doing one of those trauma responses, right? Um, play dead, freeze, run, uh, pretend, you know, fawn, make everybody happy around you to be safe. We've got work to do with just healing those wounds and bringing those parts of ourselves into safety and healing the nervous system from constant hypervigilance. And then I think for me, at least the path was building that safety in my body and then slowly building capacity for joy. But it wasn't even joy, it was just building capacity for, oh, I have an idea. What's the first small step that the most apprehensive part of me would be willing to take?

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

Does that make sense? Yeah. And then you build, you slowly build. I started building capacity with yoga when I realized, like, wow, my body's really strong. I'd been using yoga primarily to help me survive deep anxiety and freeze. And so about six or eight months ago, I really realized like it's time to activate myself in yoga more and more and more. So not necessarily changed my whole practice, but my perspective was now I'm building capacity for vitality moving through my body. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna engage my muscles more and more. And that really, really helped. And I was walking faster and I was starting to like jump around and get my heart rate up, but constant reminding myself, like, you're safe. It's okay to have your heartbeat more faster. So I came at it physically, plus through you know, therapeutic practices and and ongoing, like healing those parts of myself. But I think it helps to understand that it's our system when it's doing that, it just doesn't know the difference. And so, of course, we're we're gonna maybe have this great idea and then not do it because we just suddenly tipped ourselves over into an unsafe state in the body, which is why I think a lot of like traditional coaching and like changing your behavior and those things that if it's overriding what the system is actually experiencing, we're just creating more unsafety. We're bullying, right? We're now bullying the body.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

I think that go ahead. Yeah, go, go.

SPEAKER_03 7:35

Or using using um self-talk, saying, I'm safe, I'm safe. You're when our body doesn't believe it, it's some people call it like you're gaslighting your body. You're you're not listening, you're denying what's happening in it. And so, yeah, maybe you can force yourself to do brave things, but I I'm not gonna enjoy it if I'm forcing it. But if I'm just taking the next safe, if there's I like this line, if there's enough safety, just enough safety to take the next step. That's how we can build capacity. Because then, yes, taking the next step or making the brave phone call or you know, buying the ticket to Columbia, um, once you've done it, you just built capacity and you do feel that, like, yeah, I could do that. I could do that. Like yesterday, I took, I took a two and a half hour trip to go get a massage in Medellin. And I walked down a mountain, I took a bus, I walked some more, I got a little bit lost, I took another bus, I got to my massage. Now I know I can do that.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

And I'm gonna go get another, you know, amazing treatment from this person next week. And now I'm not scared. I'm like, I was scared yesterday. I was like, shit, this could like so many things could go wrong. And I, you know, my Spanish is terrible and I'm, you know, navigating a really crazy city. But I built by do I was safe enough to do that.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

I love that. Safe enough. I love that safe enough because it because it oftentimes it can feel like, well, this is kind of scary and dangerous, so it's just not an option. It's gotta be totally safe for me able for me to be able to be all right. I gotta be totally safe. And um, and and yeah, in life, that's just not realistic a lot of the time. Although I think it's really helpful to try and, you know, make safe circumstances for yourself whenever you can. But yeah, sometimes sometimes it's just like, yeah, you just need safe enough. Like, yeah, it's so helpful to kind of bring in the awareness and notice, like, okay, this is not completely dangerous. This is maybe kind of scary, but there's some safety here. There's like enough where I can kind of, like you said, take one little step and oh, and then I now I'm all right. And okay, maybe I can take the next step and now I'm all right here. And yeah, I really I love that.

unknown 10:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:12

There's something else. What you said just reminded me of one of my other teachers that I love her work so much and she offers so much for free. Her name is Linda Ty. She talks about um trauma and grief, and and she talks about the dignity of risk. When people have been traumatized and it's frozen or stuck it stuck in their systems, and has not only has shaped their systems, this healing process can allow them to have the dignity of risk, of taking risk. And I just love that because when we're terrified all the time, we don't have the dignity of getting to take chances. We're and and I think there's a lot of compassion to be offered to ourselves and others when we're not taking risks to be like, there's a reason. I'm not. It's actually not my fault.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:25

It's actually really not a fault in me. I have adapted because at some point back then, back there, maybe multiple times, I was not safe. And my body now is operating under an assumption that I'm not safe. And so, of course, I may be failing to thrive. I may be failing to take action on my greatness because my system it doesn't have the capacity. And I've yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

It's it's like when you're in that, when your nervous system is challenged and traumatized like that, small things actually feel like risks. That's that's been my experience. Like that, like just driving to the grocery store feels like a risk. Like that feels like a like, oh, that that's like somebody like, I'm gonna, you know, go gamble or something, or I'm gonna, you know, like jump out of a plane and take a like they take a risk. It can feel just like that. Like this is like, so it's like giving yourself compassion for where your nervous system's at. Like maybe for you, that was a huge thing that you drove to the grocery store and you were so brave and built so much safety by doing that, just as an example, you know.

SPEAKER_03 12:47

The the groceries, I can't tell you how many people I now know who find going grocery shopping absolutely paralyzing, exhausting, drained all day after grocery shopping. And okay, here's another thing we could talk about.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Are we actually supposed to be this sensitive, Jordan? We are so this body was built to be the most subtle thing, entity to experience every bit of life. It was built to sense. If we didn't sense, we couldn't live. Would it be a body? We couldn't see, we couldn't smell, we couldn't stay oriented to space, we'd be running into things. Where, you know, our entire body is like, I'm I keep still looking for the metaphor. It's more than a vessel, it's more than a temple. It's more than to me, I'm like, my body is the the experiencer of everything. It is not only the experiencer, it is the creator of my experience, and it digests my experience. It's everything. I just it's my only way. Yeah, okay. I know you you got something there.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

I so there's a spiritual teacher who I um uh follow a lot and really admire a lot. Um, his name's Aja Shanti. And he basically he said um that our bodies are a sensing instrument for the divine. Basically, like a sensing instrument of God. It's like it's how God experiences life is through human and other bodies. So it's like it is just like a sensation instrument for divinity. So I'm just feeling as you're saying that, like, wow.

SPEAKER_03 14:52

It's it's not, and and it's not just the sensing, it's the digesting. It makes then it makes sense out of what it has sensed. And then it creates.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 15:14

And it can also witness itself. Like, we're not just you know, we talk a lot about witness consciousness. Like, that's awesome. Witness consciousness is great, but you know what's even better? Being it's being the the experiencer. And we gotta go between the two. We gotta like witness, and then we gotta go inside and actually just experience. And that's that's why I love bodywork so much and this somatic um inquiry and experiencing and yoga and meditation. We're allowing ourselves to both witness and then step into pure sensing.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Wow. I just I just got this uh it's I see what you're saying. It's like what can happen with kind of the witnessing conscious practice, witnessing consciousness practice, it can almost create a separation where it's kind of like you're apart from everything, looking, you know. And what I'm what I'm getting from what you're saying is like that separation disappearing, where it's literally like the experience just happening, and you're still very like present and like way present and aware, but like not as like something that's kind of like apart.

SPEAKER_03 16:35

You're not watching. And this was really important to me recently um because I was sharing the bad stuff that happened in the basement. And I realized in one of my sessions with my amazing therapist, Ashley Mall, I'll call her out. Um, in one of my sessions with her, I was sharing, and I hadn't realized it, but this is another thing about being with another human. I realized while I was talking to her that when this thing happened to me, I left my body and I was watching what was happening to me and what I was being made to do. And I realized that ever since I was seven, I've been watching myself. Not being myself.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

I've been trying to be myself, and I think I've still been myself, but I've always been watching myself like I was on a stage, and you know, in fact, I spent 30 years on stages, and which strangely enough was a place I could be very authentic. So it's very tricky. Um so when I had a later a psychedelic experience where I realized I could I could witness myself, but I could also the itness of me, the actual beingness of me, was saying to the witness, no, come here and be it with me, be the pure potentiality, be the like throbbing, longing, yearning plasma. And I was like able to like go from watching and being like I was watching this magnificent essence of me, but then the essence was like be it, and then I would relax and I would be in the itness of consciousness or whatever that plasma thing was that I was. And I was like, that's when I realized like I'm I'm the experiencer. And that's the word that came to me. I'm like, I'm the experiencer. And then I would like create something, I would create a whole existence through the being the experiencer. And the experiencer is just full of this longing to experience and to be held, and that's my cosmology, baby.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Wow, that is really hitting me. That is so deep. Wow. I feel like we need to make that into a quote. Like, don't just witness witness yourself, be yourself.

SPEAKER_03 19:28

That that's and maybe yes, maybe what the witness can we need the witness, right? That's how we become a conscious. Um, and really what we're talking about is non-duality, right? Where the witness becomes the itness. I just had never experienced it before and realized it. The witness becomes the itness.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

The witness becomes the itness. That's the quote. The witness becomes the itness.

SPEAKER_03 19:54

Witness becomes the itness. Um, and now that I said that, I lost the thread of what I was saying, but it was really, oh, yeah, I got it back. Witnessing is essential. It's an essential practice so that for many, many reasons, because it gets us to the itness, but it also can show us, like when we're out in the world being kind of a nor an ordinary reality person, we've develop that witness, and then we can start to notice, like we did at the beginning of our talk, when I was able to notice, oh, I'm doing that thing where my body starts bracing because I'm so excited and I'm rushing and I feel like there's not enough time. So through the witness, we're able to develop the capacity to go, oh yeah, I see I'm watching myself and I can see that this is happening. And now I can take, I can choose to take a moment to return to the itness through this inquiry into what's happening and putting my hands on myself or going within for a moment. And then we can return to sort of being activated, but with more of our whole itness.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Wow, that is just really hitting me.

SPEAKER_03 21:22

Me too.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

That's that's a uh because I can s I just wonder for for people listening, there's probably so many of us that have had trauma that being ourself is there, this like fear around that. Kind of like the witness is like kind of quote unquote more safe because it's kind of like not in it. And then I'm just I'm really kind of verbalizing my experience. And then, but like really just being myself and really being in the experience without kind of holding back somehow or being apart somehow. There's some fear around. that of like yeah I just I'm just yeah I'm just noticing like I can see that's what that's a place to work with.

SPEAKER_03 22:11

Yeah and I think it's I think the witness I think the true witness doesn't have judgment I think most of us have a watcher somebody a part of us that's more like a critic that's watching yeah and and when I say I've been watching myself since I was young it was much more of a critic that was watching right and I think we all have because of because we grow up in a society and a culture and we're taught norms and what's expected to be a civilized person, you know, we do have a watcher of ourselves. You know, think about it people go watch yourself. Oh I need to watch myself like not to cross the line and we do all mask in order to survive this world. We are animals in bodies that can get you know run over or kicked out of the tribe. So it's very normal that we would be watching ourselves to make sure we behaved appropriately enough to not be kicked out or run over by a truck.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

Right.

SPEAKER_03 23:20

But and I think as we learn to witness ourselves through like meditation or yoga nidra or these kinds of witnessing without judgment that's that's a whole process in and of itself that's a that's a whole nother conversation I think too about witnessing without judgment witnessing with allowing these are all such important processes or at least have been in my life and my journey oh my gosh yes I feel the same like I just I'm just noticing like these like yeah like the witness like the true witness kind of the non-judgmental just awareness and then and it's like almost like another type of awareness maybe of like then being yourself like the experiencer like you're talking about it's almost like the awareness in a deeper place maybe or more embodied awareness is maybe a way of saying it.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

I'm just kind of noticing these two because I'm like a huge fan anyone who listens to my this podcast is realizes I'm a huge fan of awareness just in general. I just like love it so much. It's just like so like kind of part of my approach is like awareness is what heals. It's like it's the healing is awareness that formless presence that's where like life energy is at the chi or prana that's where the transformation and the wisdom it's like it's in awareness and awareness is everything. It's all it's just like an ocean of healing that just heals and I'm and I kind of feel like my job as a healer practitioner is just trying to find ways to help people get to that and if somehow they can get to that just heals it it whatever it is it gets healed.

SPEAKER_03 25:17

And then the quote unquote hard part is like getting there getting to that ocean of healing awareness and I'm just kind of sensing what you're talking about Marta is kind of like that awareness in these different places quote unquote places you know yeah yeah yeah I think awareness that's a really good word awareness feels it can it feels connected to the itness that I'm talking about and it might even be the same thing yeah yeah because what I noticed about it I think something for me about what I when I'm talking about the itness the itness has substance to it where awareness doesn't have substance it just has it's bigger even then I think awareness holds this plasmic creative yearning piece. I think awareness holds that yeah even though the the itness is also vast and the itness could like keep expanding and still be held in the awareness.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

I feel that too it's almost yeah I'm just making that up right now I'm like I don't know no that's that feels right to me that that really kind of feels like almost like awareness is just the ground of everything what's always kind of behind everything. And then like the itness is sometimes we might hear like the I am like the yes like it's it's way more subtle than just like our thoughts and feelings but it's still kind of like something that's appeared quote unquote in awareness in a sense and like you said it wants to like yeah experience and be and all that I think the itness it's more like it has the pulsation of life within the awareness.

SPEAKER_03 27:44

Ooh it has the energy of creation where the awareness just maybe holds it all.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Ooh yeah uh I feel that 100% that's like the the way I've been describing it is kind of like there's awareness and then there's the life energy or the chirpana and I feel like they go they're like two kind of two sides of a coin or or like you're saying like the awareness holds that it's like if there's awareness there then that life energy the itness is it's there. It's what makes life life and not just vast emptiness. It's what makes it like a I want to say thing of a better word but it's like a thing that happens something that actually happens and you experienced you know and like the vitality and yes yeah life life is happening it's a happening and it is that it's like my experience of of this throbbing plasma of potentiality really that's that's what's got me hooked.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

That's I'm like it's a pulsation it feels like what do we what do we call it in yoga the pulsation of life I can't think of the oh the right word but it's fire spanda it's yes fanda sponda spanda it's that pulsation it's fiery it's like plasmic fire energy electrical like for me in this psychedelic journey it was like no it was like there was so much energy in it that could just create oh yeah like I was sort of it would sort of sort of turn and I was in a plan on a planet in a world in a life complete and whole and then I could like go back into the plasmic unformed and then sort of just a split second less than a second just into another like world and I'm like I'm doing that I was like I'm the create I'm the creator I'm doing that it just requires the impulse that's the word the impulse wow yeah okay I think we have it all figured out pretty much so we've yeah and we go okay answers of life mysteries of life solved come listen to this episode get the Mysteries of Life solved you're just you are just vast awareness and you're you are just creating all realities and experiences through this plasmic spanda.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

And there we go. So there you have it Mysteries of life solved but we actually do have a little bit more to discuss with Marta. We have one more part to this discussion part three will be the next episode where we're we will dive into um parts work but specifically with these parts that often don't want to be seen that are not fun to look at not fun to talk about maybe and these parts related to addiction we're gonna get right and open and talking about addiction. And um yeah we're gonna look at some somatic work how somatic work heals so directly so please join us for that episode and we will see you soon. I also do want to let you all know um that um this podcast is supported um by listener support so you'll see on the podcast episode an option to um make a monthly contribution um and there's many different amounts you can choose from even as low as say about three dollars and all of that really helps just to make the podcast continue and to support us as we're doing this work here. So everyone who contributes we appreciate you very much