Become One Living

BecomeOne Living Live! Healing Trauma Through Yoga Practices

• Jody & Dan • Episode 16

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The BecomeOne Living crew goes live with Yoga Bohemia in Long Beach island NJ!  Join us as we unravel the complex relationship between trauma, the nervous system, and yoga. In this episode we begin to unravel the difference between stress, adrenaline, and trauma. Emphasizing the dual nature of the nervous system's response, we discuss how hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are released and the long-term effects they can have on our physical and psychological health. We'll also touch on the brain's evolution and its role in managing stress, providing a comprehensive grounding for our listeners.

Dan explains the connection through the natural responses of babies and how simple yoga poses, like cat-cow, can be immensely beneficial. We delve into the essential role of the vagus nerve, connecting the brain to all our organs, and explore how perceived threats can disrupt our physiology and digestion. Jody continues to share more of her personal story with overcoming the fear following her stroke and tumor by learning to regulate her nervous system We will be highlighting the powerful link between thought and physical well-being. This interactive episode invites audience participation and questions, making it an essential listen for anyone intrigued by the healing power of yoga and the deep connection between mind and body.

Lastly, Jody discusses the team of people that help her navigate through her traumas. She emphasizes they are not a luxury but a necessity. Remember, seeking help for your mental health is essential. Help is available. Dial 988 for the Crisis Hotline should you need it.

We would love to hear from you! Email us at becomeoneliving@gmail.com or reach out to us on Instagram at BecomeOne Living.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to Become One Living.

Speaker 2:

And thanks for everyone for being here.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so today is a live podcast and in-house we're at Yoga Bohemia in Long Beach Island, New Jersey.

Speaker 2:

And we're excited to have live people to interact with and ask questions and answer questions.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So in the room we have people our friends new friends, some that we've known for a long time, new friends, some that we've known for a long time and we're talking today about trauma and the nervous system and yoga, because we have a lot of yogis and yoginis here. My name is Jodi Dahmerstadt and this is my husband, Dan Boisitz. Why do we talk about these things and why, today, am I sharing about trauma? Trauma's everywhere. Now the word is finally out and it's trending. I'm excited about that in many ways. In other ways, I'm kind of resistant to it, I guess because I don't want us to get this fearful idea of trauma. I want to be able to talk about trauma or experiences that feel or felt traumatizing, openly and without shame or fear of what someone's going to think about us.

Speaker 2:

But what's great about how you've gotten to here, joe, is yoga is your foundation. Yoga is a big part of your life. It has been for a really long time and so, as you've gone through your journey of yoga, other things have influenced you that are not independent of yoga, but supportive of yoga and almost one with yoga in terms of information that just now corroborates or supports or informs how yoga helps people or can help people or provide tools to help people to transform.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's been your journey. Yeah, so that's why I sit here talking about trauma. I have been severely traumatized, thank you. I mean, who hasn't in this world?

Speaker 2:

Life's challenging. Yeah, life's stressful.

Speaker 1:

And two things. First I want to start off with, yoga is about non-duality. So, if you're listening in, or our friends that are here with us, live, there's this concept of purusha and prakriti, energy and material, or black and white, hot and cold, duality, good or bad this happened to me. It's bad that happened. It's good. In yoga, in the study of yoga physical, mental, emotional, yoga we seek equanimity, neutrality, meaning life happens and we don't have to move. We can stay steady and say, oh, I'm witnessing myself get mad. That's prefrontal cortex. Or I'm going to get mad and I'm going to react. That's the limbic system. So in the nervous system it is kind of black and white. Is there a gray? Absolutely, but let's look at it in this moment as dualistic. You're either in fight or flight, you're on and you're scanning, or you're resting and digesting, which means, wow, I feel safe in this moment.

Speaker 1:

What we were talking about in the room a couple minutes before we started was I invite you all listening and I invite everyone live again to ask yourself how do I experience stress? And all stress is is any event, any person, place or thing, anything that pulls you off of balance, off of your homeostasis, off of your rhythm. You're going on with your day and you get a flat tire. Boom, that's stress. That's stress. You go home to eat something and someone ate your leftovers that's stress. Stress doesn't have to be bigger than you don't like your job or your job is stressful and you go every day. That's stress. Now, what does that do to you? Physiologically and psychologically? Your body responds to that stressor, releasing hormones cortisol and adrenaline releasing hormones, cortisol and adrenaline. So I want to talk about cortisol because when Dan and I walked this morning we discussed it.

Speaker 1:

Cortisol is released over time and it has to do with metabolism. That's why there's if you've seen, they say, they say, oh, if you gain weight around the middle, that could be cortisol. So cortisol is released over time to help you deal with low-grade stress. That's happening often. Adrenaline is a quick rush. It's needed to get you out of a situation. It creates alertness and focus. You're crossing the street and a speeding car is coming. That's adrenaline. It's going to get you out of the way. Cortisol is just going to help you get through the day.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm wondering just real quickly. I'm wondering how much information do you want to share before you invite questions?

Speaker 1:

Oh, I don't know. Well, maybe now shall we Anyone Question.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you're welcome to you know. Just, you're invited to ask questions. We don't want you to feel like you're witnessing something that you're not a part of.

Speaker 1:

Well, I want to give a little more info and then we'll see if anything comes up. Yeah, I'm sure we have a lively group here to let us know. I want to go back, back and back and back to the beginning of time. That's a joke, because I don't even know when time started, because it's linear anyway. And oh, that's a whole other podcast about how time doesn't exist in the brain. It doesn't exist. It only exists because we take memories and add them in sequential order and now we've created this timeline. Okay, forget that, forget. I said that I want to go back.

Speaker 1:

So you have the prehistoric brain. Is the brain that is wired still at this time, and it's the primitive brain. It is sensing your environment, the people around you asking are these people safe, is this safe or is this unsafe? Okay, that's the prehistoric brain. When you move up into the middle of the brain is when emotions start to come, the mammalian brain, the mammalian brain where you add in the amygdala, you have fear. You have the emotions in the midbrain and we call it the limbic system, the limbic center. If you Google this or we were saying what is it? Chat, it or what this? I Chat, tbt, yeah, chat, yes, what this?

Speaker 2:

I, yeah, chat Chat.

Speaker 1:

TBT? I have no idea, but if you Google this and try to research it more, you may see multiple parts of the brain are called the limbic center, because all neuroscientists have different views. What I share with you is the hippocampus, the amygdala and the thalamus. Those are what we're going to talk about. To keep it simple, now you're scared or you're stressed, you're smelling and things smell off. You go to the midbrain and emotions rise. This ain't right. This ain't right. Something's off. You go to the hippocampus and you pull memories of what happened. That's where memories are. You go to the hippocampus and you go where has this happened before? Where do I? How can I predict this? So now, let's say I'm mad at Jackie, or Jackie did something and I'm, or my husband someone, and I'm mad at Jackie, or Jackie did something and I'm, or my husband, someone and I'm mad at them. I might not be mad at them. It might be from a memory from the past that I'm pulling into the moment, blaming him, which is what we call now projection. You're projecting on me. Yeah, I'm very well, maybe, because that's what I remember. That's what happened.

Speaker 1:

Now, how do you get through this? How do you work through this? How do you work with this in the prefrontal cortex that's here the front of the brain I'm pointing to my forehead, if you're listening. Prefrontal cortex is also known as the neocortex, the new cortex we have evolved to critical thinkers. I remember seeing, like a comic strip strip of a caveman and he's like I got an idea. Once they got that idea, the front of the brain started to grow to problem solve. Executive functioning In that area is where witnessing happens. It's where you can separate enough to see oh, that's happening and I feel mad, but I don't have to react. I don't have to react. In that way I actually can create space. I don't have to react in that way. I actually can create space.

Speaker 2:

That's great, witnessing, yeah. Consciousness, witness, awareness, all prefrontal. And what takes you there?

Speaker 1:

What takes you to the prefrontal cortex. You do Yoga does Mindfulness, yoga does Mindfulness, prefrontal cortex. Just because you do asana doesn't mean you can go prefrontal. You have to do the system of yoga for prefrontal engagement, meaning you have to move your body. Yes, you also have to be able to concentrate one-minded focus. You have to be able to sit still sometimes. You have to be able to critically think yamas and the niyamas. You need to use the eight limbs of yoga and study them to the point where you embody them, meaning you can live with them for a little while and then use them to build a capacity to work through work with your stress and or your trauma.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, asana is great in that way, in that in ways that you begin to tell yourself, oh, I'm having one of these days, oh, or this is going to be one of these days, or I'm having that memory and those patterns begin to inform you as well. So shaking out the body in the asana class is a great tool so that you can create the awareness of what's affecting you or supporting you, and things may come up repeatedly that you want to begin to unpack. So it's great to shake out your body. You have to shake out your body.

Speaker 1:

It's the quickest way to release excess energy is movement. And I don't mean alignment movement Sometimes I mean most of the time. I mean just do cat-cow, get on your hands and knees and move your spine. And why spine Rocking? Movement helps to regulate the nervous system Rocking. When babies cry, what happens? Moms or people pick them up and shake them, jostle them, move them. My mom is known for any kid crying, sweeping it up and rocking it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah Right, and a healthy. My teacher in craniosacral shared with us that the very first move an embryo or baby coming out of the birthing woman makes is literally, if it's being born healthfully and its head is face down your body as the baby, you literally do this motion to help your mom and be in unison with your mom to work your way out.

Speaker 1:

So Dan is showing flexion and extension of the neck, the head presses against the birth canal and tucks back in to help push out, to help come out in unison with the mother.

Speaker 2:

Right. So I mean, never underestimate the simple things that you discover in your asana. Those things, cat-cow is just critical, crucial. Healthy can remedy so many things. And just in that one, extension and inflection.

Speaker 1:

Yes, extension and inflection of the neck, because the 10th cranial nerve comes from your brain, down the sides of your neck. The 10th cranial nerve is the vagus nerve. That's another new big, trendy word that everyone is talking about the vagus nerve, and it means the wandering nerve. It is the only nerve in the body that touches every organ, every organ. I'm going to say that again. It's a nerve that's in the brain, that connects to every organ your heart, your lungs, your stomach, your intestines. And we were discussing before why does my belly shut off? Why does digestion stop? Because there is a threat. There's a perceived threat. Now I'm using the word perceived for a reason your brain doesn't know what's real or fake, doesn't know. That means if I tell a story to our friends live and it's not healed, I will start to physiologically release the hormones attached to that story and I'll start to experience it. That's why sometimes, when people share with me, they feel things after sharing because they've relived what just happened. So perceived threat is important to understand that what you think is really informing your whole physiology. So that's not wooey, wooey air fairy. When someone says what you think, you become. No, that's real. So if you're continually fearful and afraid of life. You will experience life as fearful. Trust me.

Speaker 1:

I was there After having a stroke and tumor. I was afraid to sleep. For years I thought if I fall asleep I'm not going to wake up, I'm going to die. That was what my nervous system told me, until I had to learn to regulate my nervous system to get it out of freeze or collapse and to come back home to say whoa, I'm here. Now I'm not there anymore. But I had to first admit it and I hope y'all hear this and this is what I shared with the group and I will always share this Tell the truth and tell it quick. Tell the truth and tell it quickly, not to the world, but to you.

Speaker 1:

I feel severely depressed. Awesome, let's start with that. My life is a complete mess, perfect. I stay up all night and buy things and hide them from my husband. Let's go there. I'm sharing that because I'm an IFS practitioner, internal family systems practitioner. It's a psychology it's awesome created by Dick Schwartz, and I work with people's parts. We work with their parts. If you don't acknowledge your parts, you will live in threat of your parts. You'll be afraid of depression, you'll be afraid of anger, You'll be afraid of your trauma response and then you can't heal it. So we need to build the Become. One Yoga Therapy method helps people build a capacity to hold whatever's here, to hold it and then to rewire your nervous system to be able to regulate according to life. We're not trying to biohack, we're not trying to regulate out of pain. No, you want to be able to regulate with it and live life, not push away things that you don't like. I tried that. It was very lonely, I was afraid of life. We didn't go to a concert for how many years?

Speaker 2:

You mean since Pink.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was five years, I think, after brain surgery, or even seven.

Speaker 2:

It was a long time.

Speaker 1:

I couldn't go to concerts after brain surgery and the story was oh, I'm too sensitive.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, forget concerts, it was just crowded places.

Speaker 1:

Okay. All right, I couldn't go to the food store. It was huge to get to a concert.

Speaker 2:

You're sharing such great information, joe, but can you say something more about the vagal? Because the vagal nerve is an incredible nerve to me. It innervates all of the organs inside of you and it's easy to forget. It's easy to look out and say something stresses me externally, but something external food that you eat, that, say, one body's allergic to, that informs too and puts you on alarm from the inside out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so we have things called top down and body up. Body up is more primitive and movement and top down is more mental, where you something happens and it tells something happens and the brain tells the body how to react. And then sometimes you eat something and it tells the brain how to act. So, polyvagal theory this is the theory and I wrote down notes so that I stay on track because I love to share whatever I can. Immobilization is the first part of the polyvagal theory and that's associated with freeze and shutdown. Immobilization I'm shutting down, freeze and as babies we were discussing babies all they know at first is to lay there, flip over and crawl, slither like lizards and snakes. That's primitive brain and they're known for freezing. That's the only response they have. The only primitive is freeze or scream and yell.

Speaker 2:

Like a lizard.

Speaker 1:

Like a lizard, yes. The next is mobilization, which is fight or flight. So you become immobilized, you freeze In the freeze response. Here's some symptoms In immobilization, in freeze, it's associated with thyroid issues, low heart rate, low blood pressure, malnourishment, inability to digest. Those are all symptoms of being frozen.

Speaker 1:

When I was in the hospital, they had a heart rate monitor on me all the time and they thought I was an elite athlete because my heart rate was 40. An elite athlete because my heart rate was 40. Like resting, heart rate was 40. And it's sleep? Well no, when I would sleep it would drop and they would panic because I was in complete shutdown. My heart rate was so low. So if you get up and you're dizzy, that could be part of a shutdown response, could be. It could be other things, but these are things I hope that open you up to look at.

Speaker 1:

Am I really that stressed? Yes, probably. Or have I been traumatized? And what is trauma? Before I go to mobilization, what is trauma? It is an event that overwhelms the nervous system, where you cannot wrap your head around this. It's like what just happened. Where did this come from? And I can't even conceive what happened. That's a threat, that's a trauma. So stress is a little disruption throughout your day, okay. And then a trauma is an event in which your nervous system is so overwhelmed it can't make sense of what's happening. So a simple car accident is traumatizing and people will come out and say, no, I'm fine. Meanwhile their car is totaled and they'll be like I'm fine.

Speaker 2:

I'm like I mean, is that adrenaline yeah?

Speaker 1:

The adrenaline kicks in. But I was going to say, I want to say to them you don't even know, you're not.

Speaker 2:

Yeah right, you don't.

Speaker 1:

You don't know, you're not. Yeah right, you don't, you don't know you're not okay because of the adrenaline. Adrenaline gives you juice to function and to survive. That's why, after an event, it could take 24 to 48 hours to just come down from the event.

Speaker 2:

Most people don't come down from a day of work, right, right. Yeah, I'm thinking too, if you're in an accident also now you have a compound, if you'll have a physical injury, now you'll be emotionally and physically and with the physical body. If you go to those physical points that have felt, the impact that will summon. Those responses Can be both. I mean, they're informative, but once you learn to get with them, just be with it, that can help you take you back to a homeostatic or a better place than from where the accident and the injury is. It can take you to a homeostatic or a better place than you know from where the accident and the injury is. It can take you to a better place, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Dan saying that reminded me of a word interoception. That is so you have. Proprioception is me in space understanding. Okay, dan's next to me. To my left there's people on my right. Proprioception is physical me where I am. Interoception are the signals inside your body. It's you getting to know them and I shared a little about this earlier.

Speaker 1:

For people that have anxiety, excitement may register as anxiety. They might not even know that they're excited. They may have anxiety for so long that they think, oh my God, I'm so anxious. And some people that live in shutdown mode when they start creating or they get excited and want to play, they won't be able to do that. That will be seen as dangerous because they've got to stay shut down, they've got to play dead, they've got to stay collapsed. So coming out of that could be a threat. To stay collapsed, so coming out of that could be a threat. So it's normal to not want to change. I hope you all hear this. If you struggle with changing habits or you struggle with changing your life, then you're human. Congratulations, because the way the brain works is. It loves predictability and familiarity. Because if you could predict what's going to happen, then your odds of staying alive are great.

Speaker 2:

You have to be courageous to transform. Everyone that comes to work with you on a one-on-one basis to get the tools that you have to offer and, because it's our household you share sometimes and and it's to me feels like it's always an initial resistance. There's an always initial, an initial oh that. Well, that's not me, they just shared what it is to you and then it feels like but they don't want to own it. So there's a resistance and so it takes courage to transform and it's nothing that you should pretend you're going to do in a day.

Speaker 1:

The brain learns small, repeatable actions over time. If you want to change anything, it has to be small enough that you can do it.

Speaker 2:

Which is right out of the Yoga Sutra.

Speaker 1:

That's the Yoga Sutra. Repetition over time with love equals change. That's in the Yoga Sutras. It's 1.14. Time. Going back to what Dan said, is courage to change.

Speaker 1:

I knew something was wrong very young I'm talking about seven when I was eating a box of cookies and my mom said where are the cookies? And I would say I don't know. When. I would lie right to her face. I knew something was wrong. And then, moving on, when I would cut myself, I knew something was wrong and then it led to other and other things addiction and depression and treatment and all these other things it led to.

Speaker 1:

I had yoga since my teens. I've been teaching yoga, studying yoga since my teens. I was doing the practices, knowing I wasn't right, knowing I wasn't right, knowing that there was another way to live. And even today or yesterday, when I was preparing for the podcast, I ask myself these questions still. So, being courageous means am I prepared today? Did I do my due diligence? Who's showing up today? Am I angry today? Today I was crying, I meditated a little and Dan goes. What was there? And it was so impactful, what rose? I started crying when I realized certain things that are still here and present. But the yoga, the system of yoga, if practiced, is innately trauma-informed, because it says start with understanding. You Study yourself. If you're afraid of yourself, you will get nowhere. If you're not willing to turn on the lights and say, wow, I see the darkness, I see the brokenness or the challenges, that's when you get to say, okay, I'm ready. And you might not be able to do it then either, but at least you're willing.

Speaker 2:

And me and Joe are definitely the dark and the light, so just the same, it's like you could be afraid of your greatness. You could be afraid of how awesome you know you can be. That can set you fearful. So again, courage, you know, coming from your heart, or going into your heart and listening deeply to your heart. And when you're doing yoga, listening deeply, not with your ears, with every cell of you, you're doing yoga listening deeply, not with your ears, with every cell of you, all of your senses, listening so deeply that you begin to understand yourself. Because yourself will tell you what you need and you may need to change a habit or geographically move to another country. You know your heart will tell you that, and then it takes the resources that you've got to summon up to make those things happen for yourself. But if you listen deeply and move your body regularly, you'll be inching toward that lifestyle.

Speaker 1:

And Dan sharing he comes from light and I come from the dark is very much our life. Welcome to our being. When I met Dan, Dan is, he always saw things so positively. It was innate in him. For me it wasn't innate. It was negativity was innate, Fear was innate. It was a practice and an unfolding and a healing and a removing of the layers to learn that life is safe. That's not what I experienced, that's not what I learned, so the practices can help both.

Speaker 2:

Right, and neither is better.

Speaker 1:

Oh no, it's yoga, it's duality. We are the example. And look, you can't see if you're listening, I have black on. He has like white. It's perfect. We are dualistic, but at the root it isn't good or bad, it's the way we can have these conversations. And it's the last piece. So that was beautiful. The last piece is social engagement. So the polyvagal theory is immobilization, mobilization and then social engagement, which is the most evolved part of the brain, which is safety and connection part of the brain which is safety and connection. So we go from frozen disconnect to running around frenetically, scared, anxious, fight or flight to I'm connected and I'm safe. That's where we want to get and that goes back to where I started sharing. I want a world that talks about this. I'm okay being talking about death and darkness and God or divine energy or all those things that people don't want to hear. I'm okay with that. That's just what I enjoy. Actually, I know it's a little weird, a little dark. I know it's a little weird, a little dark, and there's always space for everything.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Back, I don't even remember when, but when I used to go to yoga and they would say come with an open mind. You know, to me that's so powerful and the statement that I come to it's just this silly little statement is that to come with an open mind? It's like if you like vanilla ice cream cones, that doesn't mean you don't have to like chocolate. You know what I mean. And, being as the state of the world right now seemingly seems to be perceptively so divisive, it's like to return back to like. Just because someone likes one color doesn't mean they don't, at some point in their lifetime, want to experience the other colors, you know.

Speaker 1:

So allow yourself your journey and to expand yeah, and before we wrap up, a lot of the neuroscience that I've studied was through neurosculpting school that I took with Lisa Wimberger years ago, and that's when I realized I never felt safe. And we're wrapping up this podcast, but we'll share more on trauma because it's it's huge. It's, it's a big topic and if you know more it, you may be able to learn to heal yourself or work with someone that can support you in bringing your nervous system back to your balance, your homeostasis, your place where you thrive, which is different from where I thrive and Dan thrives, and meanwhile, that's what yoga is. Yoga is about exploring self through the body, against the teachings. You hold the teachings. Am I doing this? Am I doing that? Who's doing this? With inquiry and compassion? Yeah, man, I think everybody should do yoga and I'm not an absoluter, so I'm going to absolute that we all need a little yoga in our lives.

Speaker 1:

So any questions? Anyone live? Oh, we have questions. Okay, whether it's trauma or stress.

Speaker 3:

I know I want to get rid of it as quickly as possible. Are you saying I should jump on my yoga mat and that will help me?

Speaker 1:

No, I just want it over with. Yes, great question. So the question was whether it's stress or trauma. I just want to get it over with. So should I jump on the mat or journal or something? We had a little question about that earlier, and what I'm going to say, too, is we first don't want to get rid of anything, because as soon as we don't, we want to get rid of something. It's a perceived threat. So I don't want to feel this stress. I got to get it out, I got to get rid of it. Or I don't want to be depressed, but you're depressed, but I don't want to be. So that implies that that's dangerous. I don't want to feel this. I don't like it.

Speaker 1:

Now the brain then goes into fight or flight or freeze, because you're fighting something that you're experiencing. Fight or flight or freeze because you're fighting something that you're experiencing. How do you then work with this? That's what I want to share is work with it. Wow, I'm so anxious right now, or stressed. It doesn't feel good.

Speaker 1:

Tell yourself that Not, I got to get rid of it. This doesn't feel good. My heart is racing. I have diarrhea, you know, or gas, or I'm anxious. I feel like I want to throw up. I don't like this. Say that to yourself. That's the first part is I don't like this. And then you move back a little and you say I wonder if there's anything that I can do to support myself in this moment, not to get rid of it. I don't know if that seems splitting hairs, but we're not trying to get rid of anything. We're trying to get with it, to regulate our nervous system with it. So the question would then be hmm, what's here? And then sometimes it might be shaking out, getting on your mat, and then other times it may be going for a walk and other times it may be calling a friend and say I'm really sad, will you listen?

Speaker 2:

So your instinct is great, yes to move, but not exactly for that reason, you know, right, unfortunately it could be a deeper dive for you, for anyone. But the instinct to move, most assuredly, is good, is healthy, and we like yoga, but I mean you could be dance, swimming.

Speaker 1:

Shaking, wiggling, rocking.

Speaker 2:

It's a good idea, and one of Joe's modalities that she practices is you move the body and then you speak to and dive into what comes up in that moment. Yes, so you're not coming with a preconceived. I'm going to like you're going to your mental health care worker and you're like, oh, I can't wait to get there, but what am I going to talk about? And you're trying to come up with something to talk about just so you can fill the hour. So maybe you don't even have to address what you really need to. You know what I mean? It gets too heady. So moving, shaking up the body can bring you to a great place.

Speaker 1:

The to a great place. The way I do it is I take a journal, put it by the side of my yoga mat, and I do a yin pose or cat-cow. I do simple and the simplicity is familiarity, right. So keep it simple cat-cow or a yin pose, pigeon, half saddle, and be with yourself and breathe and say, yeah, what's here, what's here If that's what you're called to, so that you're somatic, there's this big word again now it's been around forever, but everyone's a somatic person now. But what somatic really means is there's a dialoguing also, okay, so it's not just movement. So if you want to work through or with something that's here, it's movement and dialoguing, and not dialoguing to get rid of it, dialoguing to be with it, and then maybe next thing, you know you're journaling. Wow, I'm really angry and I don't know where this is coming from, so that you start to build a relationship with yourself. One more question Questions, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Is it more to?

Speaker 3:

be like accepting where you are more question questions.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yes, yes. The question was if you, is it to accept where you are and if you keep doing that, will it heal or unwind on its own? Yes, carl Rogers, I think, calls it unconditional positive regard. Yes, I repeated it Unconditional positive regard, because compassion is where In the front of the brain To shift something.

Speaker 1:

We want to shift it from love, compassion and clarity, not from fear. It's I got to get rid of this? Is I got to kill this? I got to destroy this because it's attacking me or it's dangerous.

Speaker 1:

But when we separate it and say, wow, I'm really sad today and you start to feel towards that sadness compassion, or I'm angry, and you feel compassion towards yourself for that anger and you start to converse with it like an old friend, that's when it heals, because you would never say to a friend don't be angry. I hope you wouldn't say that. You would say tell me what's going on. That's how it shifts. It's like, yeah, I'm furious, I want to break stuff, I have a Hulk part, I want to smash, yeah, and to love that part because it's protecting you.

Speaker 1:

So stress and anxiety they're here for information and so it's what's the information that I can learn to transmute it, not get rid of it but alchemize it to fuse into my life, to fully be who I'm meant to be, instead of trying to push things away and keep things at bay. So, yeah, acceptance. Acceptance, that's prefrontal cortex. It's not a positive affirmation Like I love you, no, you don't I'm healthy, no, you're not. It's like, wow, I'm so not well today. What do I need to be held to be acknowledged? And that's a practice, right, that's entrainment. How can I train myself to have compassion? And going back just briefly to what Dan said me coming living negatively was very challenging for me to be kind of dialogue or conversation, just was shut down.

Speaker 2:

But when I met Jodi, I started to witness this pattern of like her mom would call her sister Deb, so the sisters and it was like one would say, like how's your day? And it's like, oh, I stubbed my toe and then it would be like the response would be oh my God, I stubbed my toe and I hit my elbow and it was like it would go on and on. It was like a competition to see who had the worst day and I'm like I'd rather have my family stuff and just get shut down, because it's like where do you go from there? But the point is to recognize the patterns within you and within your family and within your greater community. And yoga includes tools that are to be done independently, by self and then community, lots of community things chanting or yoga in classes, asana in classes, you know. So there's always a variety of tools at your disposal to move your understanding of yourself forward, but don't ever use a sledgehammer and always be kind to yourself and don't think it's supposed to happen overnight, but trust your instincts, moving your body to shake it out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's like you know, there's plenty of people that's like well, just get up and dance, you know, or dance, whatever soothes the soul. I mean, and we're at a, I feel like a stage in life where everything can be, has the potential to be therapy for you. So if you like to play the piano, playing the piano can be therapy for you. If you like to dance, dance can be therapy for you. If you like to journal, journaling can be therapy for you. If you like to have conversations and improvise, that can be something healthy for you. You just have to listen, with every piece of you, to what really makes you feel good. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

We've moved so far away from self, and that is from childhood. We could talk about that in other podcasts. We shift who we are to get our needs met. We become who we need to be in relationship to family, friends, parents, aunts, uncles to get our needs met. And then we're here. I'm 50, we're here at 50 or in our 30s or whenever we wake up and we say, well, who am I? I don't know this person and that's when the unpacking starts. The idea of becoming one isn't that you're not one, you already are one, but you forgot because you're covered up. And the yoga practice, the system of yoga practice, is to remind you who you are. That doesn't happen in just asana and that's why I promote the system and not just physical classes, because it just can't happen, because we're multidimensional, not because it's a Jodyism and because Jody doesn't like it. Who cares about Jody? We're multidimensional, we're physical, we're mental, we're emotional. We're not just physical beings. There's another question. So somebody in the chat?

Speaker 3:

asked and I think it had to do with Joan's question is how do you do the opposite, feeling the darkness and wanting to dwell?

Speaker 1:

in it. When you feel the darkness and you want to dwell in it is when you have to move. So in an Ayurvedic medicine or when we look at the nervous system. If you're dwelling in this heaviness or the shutdown, you need to go run or shake and the collapse. You need to come out of the collapse, even if it's just a little movement. So sitting here I could just go, I can rock, I'm rocking forward and back. Doesn't have to be a great big movement. But I was in collapse for a few years and didn't want to do any yoga or any movement or not work out, do nothing. And so sitting in meditation was addictive because I thought, well, I'm enlightened, I'm becoming enlightened and I don't have to move. And that lack of movement actually kept me further away from meeting what was there.

Speaker 2:

And just to add right before what Jodi just shared to that question, though, I would offer that just become more aware also of your dwelling in that and then learn how to dwell just enough.

Speaker 1:

We call that titrate. What you do is you go in and you come out, so you dwell, and I was a dweller. And then I would go watch a movie. You dwell, you sit in it, like wow, I'm really, I'm in it, I'm in it and you don't try to figure it out, and then you go for a walk. So we want to let go of this concept that yoga, yoga is about relationship and what dan said, that was beautiful. It's like I'm dwelling in this. Okay, stay with it, but if it's not helpful, get out of it. Go call a friend, go to a movie, go do something so there's something to.

Speaker 2:

There's something to all those things that have been discovered, like um, I forget the number of hugs a day can help you. You know you should have six friends that you can call and have a conversation with to help you move forward with something that's troubling you, Because contrarily is typically what a human does when they're not feeling good about themselves is shut down and get alone and get solitary.

Speaker 1:

And the time we live in is isolation, especially during the pandemic. Yeah Right, we were isolated and I've learned, I became used to being isolated. Like Dan would say, oh, we're going out to dinner, and I'd be like, yeah, and the day would come I'd be like I don't want to go Horrible, like two hours before going out on a date, you know, on a dinner date with friends.

Speaker 2:

it's like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I'm thinking I know this is going to be great for her and she's going to be talking the whole time, but I'm just, I have to like endure this resistance there's a cutest meme on instagram with batman he's a lego he's in a cave, his cave yeah, and br and Bruce is saying you really should go out and meet people.

Speaker 1:

No, no, you would like it. No, no, no, no, no, no. And he just starts like going no, no. And I sent it to Dan, who's not an Instagrammer because he goes every time we're going to do something. I contract and I think no, no, I don't want to. I contract and I think no, no, I don't want to. That is a default.

Speaker 1:

Someone used that word earlier and so if you dwell in the darkness, one two is to acknowledge, yeah, life is dark, there is darkness, and all darkness is is the covering of the clouds, and not to be afraid of the darkness. And if it does get scary, that's when you get help. By the way, I have a team. I have a team. So when people are like, what am I supposed to come to you the rest of my life? Yeah, you are. Or find someone else. I'm not getting rid of my team people. I have my IFS practitioner, I have an Akashic Records person, I have this. I have that. That is not a luxury, that's a necessity, because I go deep and I go dark and if I can't get through it on my own, I'm getting help. So that is also important to hear.

Speaker 1:

We're not meant to do this isolated. We're meant to do this in groups and with people that can support the level we're at. Okay, the reason I know some of the stuff I know personally is not many people could handle me I really I'm joking and I'm not. They couldn't handle the trauma I experienced. I hadn't found someone. Now you're going back 10 years when it really broke open for me. Now the biggest thing is all these trauma therapists. Now it's different now, but years ago even 15, 20, when I was putting myself in a treatment center because I thought I was going to go crazy. I was. I was losing it from processing something that was way bigger than me. So get help and find someone that you work with. Okay, what else do we got?

Speaker 2:

Any other questions?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, question Okay.

Speaker 3:

What if you went through some trauma and you couldn't deal with it and you go on antidepressants. Now how do you find your way off of them, or like to feel?

Speaker 1:

all of the stuff. So the question was what if you experienced a trauma and you forgot about it or you didn't feel or pushed it down?

Speaker 2:

Take prescription.

Speaker 1:

And you then go on a prescribed medication to help deal with life, to help function. How do you come off of them or how do you reintroduce yourself naturally and organically? That could take some time and I'm not anti-meds. I'd like to just say that I believe if anyone needs anything in the moment and it helps them, you better do it. Okay, when I went into the ER and they were like you need this, this and this, I was like I opened up my arms and my elbows and I said get going, stick me with anything you need to to help me survive All right.

Speaker 1:

After that piece is getting a therapist or a practitioner or someone that you feel connected with. This is something so important beyond credentials. I work with people in IFS where other people think I don't know if that's your skill set. My skill set is meeting you where you're at. If you can regulate enough and be with me and do parts work, we're good. We can move beyond anything. So the first thing would be to meet and find someone that you truly feel safe with, not that you think knows. So, as a yoga teacher, we have some yoga teachers in the room and maybe some online If you want to be an extraordinary yoga teacher. First, get yourself straight and co-regulate on your own and be able to co-regulate and then be able to help your students co-regulate, because that's the part I was sharing about social engagement and safety.

Speaker 1:

So I would say, interview as many people as you need to find someone that you feel you could work through this process with and make sure please everyone hear this make sure the person you work with has a plan, has a process for you, has steps for you to meet, because we don't want you just talking about what happened, like years ago. That's what I did. That's why I stopped talk therapy. It was like, oh my God, I got sick of hearing me talk about the problem. I know what's wrong. Look at me, I'm it. Tell me what to do or how can we find a plan.

Speaker 1:

So make sure you find someone. This goes for everyone. You have something you want to change, good, connect, feel the connection with someone and then interview them. Make sure they have a plan for you to follow to bring you back or to get you out of where you're in, right To journey through this so you can function at the level you want, because after a time perhaps the meds might not work for the person anymore?

Speaker 1:

We don't know. My neurosurgeon said to me we know about 10% of what happens in the brain, like the day before he cut me open, by the way, which was not comforting at all. Besides the fact, he knew how to remove a tumor. And we talked about meds a little, me and him and the idea that the meds we take hopefully do certain things that we need, but we really don't know. There's so much more to the brain. So when these meds perhaps aren't working anymore, you need to build tools to support you while using them, so that if you want to ever wean off of them if that's your choice you know you have the tools and the skill sets to be able to do that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it's a unique to each individual case the methods or tools or people who will be able to help you.

Speaker 2:

So it's, I'm just saying it's not an easily answered question, but one of the things that Jo again offers is she'll work with someone, she's working with somebody and they're in an environment, in a household that's not safe, and so the number one thing in order for this person to get off of prescriptions is really to change the environment. Now that may take some time because you have to save up money for rent is really to change the environment. Now that may take some time because you have to save up money for rent and et cetera, et cetera, but you can't skip the notion or skip the phase that equals you getting to a safe place. So if your, your environments not safe, that that can be a challenging thing and that, but that that will also be a critical piece to get success of coming off a prescription drug. You know there are certain things that you as a human need to be able to conquer or get with a challenge in your life. So it's a great question.

Speaker 1:

And it is different for everyone.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's unique and different for each person.

Speaker 2:

And I think like Joe like Joe, prescriptions can be helpful to get you through a certain phase, but I think, just like anything else, whether it's a lollipop or a smoking cigarette or whatever else you like to do, you don't really want to do it your entire life. You don't want to drive a Vespa moped your whole life, right?

Speaker 1:

Hey, someone may want to.

Speaker 2:

Yeah that's true?

Speaker 3:

Or they might want to smoke their whole life.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm sure there is One last piece that I want to respond to. The question is this Anytime, if you ask the question, how do I get through this? You're already starting, do you understand? As soon as you open up and say, wow, I don't want to drink every night, or I don't want to do this, or I don't want to do that, I don't know if it's helpful, you're already on the path.

Speaker 2:

Of being courageous.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, of being courageous, because you're being curious about what you're doing. That's all Not judging. I'm not judging. I'm saying wow, why do I always need coffee? Or why do I always have to have something sweet after I eat? And people will label these things as oh well, that's just normal. No, it's not. Label these things as oh well, that's just normal. No, it's not. Some of the things like wanting a drink every night isn't normal.

Speaker 1:

I'm sorry, I'm not saying it's wrong, but do you see how we normalize things? People normalize things so they feel good about themselves. What I say is tell the truth and feel nothing Like I'm okay when I overeat. It's not, oh my God, I did something wrong. It's like, no, I overeat. I had French fries and I went for it and they were good, and so the first piece is there's the courage, and the second piece is finding someone who can hold that for you and co-regulate. And if y'all want to be extraordinary humans, when you regulate yourself and you can come back and you can find neutrality, people will want to be around you, and that's how you change the world, from your being, from your embodiment. Just from allowing them to co-regulate with you changes them.

Speaker 2:

Right and witnessing being in partnership with my wife, with Joe. I think it's important also not to forget that transformation is a fairly tall order. Changing something is a fairly tall order and we have those metaphors in nature where it's like the butterfly, the caterpillar becoming the butterfly, the salmon swimming up the stream to spawn. These are very challenging things. So always be gentle and kind to yourself and you know the yoga will allow it to help you go within, to believe in yourself, listen to your heart, that those are. Those are some of the things I've witnessed, you know, because being a female, being an entrepreneur in a fitness industry her whole entire life, it's kind of like a salmon swimming up a stream. This would never happen in 1993.

Speaker 1:

When I was 19, when I started teaching yoga. No nobody would. I would come home and my dad would say are you teaching yogurt again? I'm like it's yoga.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and tried to talk her out of her first business of doing that just be a schoolteacher and don't do anything else. All those types of things and not to say one thing is better than the other. Just saying this personal journey that I've witnessed and the time that I've been with you, it's like a mindful challenging.

Speaker 3:

It's like a mindful challenging one step up two steps back.

Speaker 1:

So trust yourself, we're going to wrap up. If you feel you have trauma unmet, I want to tell you it is worth everything. It's worth it all to meet it and to integrate it and to live from a place of raw authenticity and meet life raw and allow it to happen. It's worth the pain, it's worth staying in bed, it's worth crying, it's worth losing anyone that doesn't get me, anyone that was still stuck in my old paradigm. It was worth having no one besides my husband. It's worth it to find yourself. I guarantee you you will be so satisfied when you meet you and you realize you're not what happened to you, you're not the stories, you're not what people say about you.

Speaker 1:

Some people say things about me. They don't even know who I am. They don't even know who I am and the beauty is all the trauma, all the stress you've been through your life, your families they've created and helped keep you alive. So everything you've ever done was survival. When you work through that, you get to thrive and you thrive as you and you don't care about the outer world because you're like dude, I'm cool because I'm with me and I'm being me. And if my being me aggravates you, then go deal with you, go figure yourself out. But it is worth understanding what you went through and then learning tools to be with that and then process it and integrate it and move as one, because you can't cut out your memories. I can't take out I'm from Hudson County, kearney. You know that's like it. I'm from Kearney and I talk weird sometimes, like draw or some things. You know whatever. Or that I had a tumor, or that I had a tumor, or that I was dyslexic, or that I was this. I can't take those things away, but they don't impact me now because I don't believe them.

Speaker 1:

You see, that's what we're going to talk about. What do you believe? Trauma and things. You look outward and you say who am I? According to that, it's like no, who am I in here? And that takes time to get there.

Speaker 1:

That's a process, but a process has steps. A process isn't dwelling in darkness. There's these steps to get out of it and yoga has laid out the steps before you the eight limbs. Engage in them, participate in them and just don't take a yoga class and think you're all going to change, because you're not. It's just one little aspect that will impact you. From that I just got like a ding and a hook that we're wrapping up because I could just keep going and we will expand on some more of this stuff and I invite our friends that are live to send me emails I mean, we're going to be together after this but also emails at become one living at gmailcom. Become one living at gmailcom emails with questions that we could talk about or reach out. If you want information on yoga therapy or internal family systems and different things to work through trauma, I can also refer therapists if you need or if you know someone you can ask around for that. But thank you for joining us and thank you for our friends that were on Instagram and we're out.

People on this episode

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Dan Boisits

Co-host
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Jody Domerstad-Boisits

Co-host