Healing Doesn’t Respond to Logic Part III

Opening Reflection on Unmet Needs 0:00

I'm asking myself one question. What is the need that's not being met right now? All the time. What's the need that's not being met right now? Why are you being rigid? Why are you being hard on everyone around you? What's the need that's not being met? I have been doing too much. I need to rest. Or I am worried about the snowpocalypse that we just got through. Like if the pool is going to freeze, I'm projecting that fear out on everyone else and making sure everyone's room is cleaned even though they haven't been in school for seven days.

What is that? What is the need that's not being met right now? That's the question that you can ask yourself. That's the question that you can get curious about your partner. Welcome to the TBD Fit Podcast on Dr. Talks. I'm your host, Daniel Keeley, and I will be guiding you through this wellness journey in terms of optimizing health and longevity, where we unpack the science, the do's, the don'ts. and everything in between. Come join us. Look forward to seeing you inside. Welcome back to another episode of the TBD fit podcast, where we dive into holistic wellness mindset and root causes of transformation.

I'm your host, Daniel Chilam, a functional medicine practitioner. And my goal is simple. I want to find who's doing best in their category and bring that conversation to light. We are rejoined by Amanda Curry, a trauma-informed doctor of physical therapy, certified oncology specialist and training camp for the Soul Master Facilitator. While she needs no further introduction, to kind of recap from where we left off and just what she does. She spent nearly two decades walking the path of the high achieving perfectionist, much like myself.

We all know that story. Checking all the boxes of success while silently wondering there has to be more.

Podcast Introduction and Guest Welcome 1:35

that quest and question has led her ultimately away from traditional therapy and into self-help and into profound world of somatic healing where she uncovers much of what we are discussing again today. So I am super excited to continue this conversation. The premise of today is the five personality patterns and the five stages of healing while your mindset shapes your health. So ultimately, let's revisit and start there. Amanda, welcome back to the show. Yeah, it's so good to be back for a third time.

We'll try to dive just as deep as we did the other two, but we'll also try to rein it in a little bit too. It gets to be both, right? Well, ultimately, this is why we have so much fun on the podcast because we have genuine conversations, right? And sometimes it takes a left turn or right turn and we go full circle. And then the goal is to obviously distill the principles that we can apply into our everyday lives and ultimately enhance our practice, whether that's being better partners, better mentors, better fathers, better friends, better teachers, et cetera.

So I'm, I am privileged again to continue this conversation because I know I had many questions along the previous two episodes in terms of very real life application of if this now what, right? So I think you did, yeah, you did an exceptional job of painting a picture of how you can approach situations in terms of creating a very predictable, successful outcome, which is how ultimately I try to structure Um, my practice, but certainly, um, my, my personal relationships as well. So let's start, uh, the conversation with identifying the, um, the five here.

Yeah. Yeah. We're all about five. So just as a review, the five stages of healing from the two podcasts previously are awareness, acceptance, getting to the root, reparenting, and then integration, which a lot of your questions from last time, both episodes, that is true integration. It's like the things that you're hearing, how do I integrate that into my day to day? And the five stages of healing really do hinge on integration, like taking what you feel, experience, see, now know to be true in sessions and be able to integrate it into your life.

And one step further that we're taking it to shift into the next five, which is Stephen Kessler's The Five Personality Patterns, really is a complement to the five stages of healing because the five stages of healing is not meant to be a one size fits all. I know And you'll find as we continue in this conversation that each person based on their personality pattern, or some people call them stress patterns,

The Five Personality Patterns Overview 4:20

but Stevens, Dr. Kessler's, he termed them based on work that he had done previously. And I hope that this is a really enriching conversation, but also one that kind of bridges the gap to maybe some questions that people had in the initial two podcasts that we did. So where to begin? What's your first question? Okay. So let's provide the five personality patterns ultimately. Yeah. See, you see what I did there? I reigned myself in instead of keep going. I was like, where do we want to start? So yes, I think that a great first step would be to name all five of them.

So they are. And they don't necessarily have an order to them, although if you do decide to pick up the book, you'll notice that he does do them in a particular order, which we may or may not dive into here, but essentially merging, leaving, enduring, rigid, and aggressive. And just hearing those words, you probably would imagine what you could glean from those things, maybe even you're already pulled to one of those things, but you may be surprised at what is actually beneath and within each of these patterns.

The way that Stephen Kessler teaches and brings this work out into the world is that predominantly we have a primary and then a secondary pattern. And these are very different than what you would think of as like a static typology. It's not the Enneagram. It's not Myers-Briggs. It is something that gets to have like a span or a spectrum. And it is something that, and this is the one part of it that I really, really love and I think is very permission giving for people is that the book and we will today highlight the gifts of each pattern as well as like the shadow or the things that you may bump up against within yourself and with others.

And so, yeah, typically we have these strategies that we use and they have energies of each of these five and we utilize one, see if it works. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, or maybe it works for a time. And then we will revert to a secondary strategy. And again, I want to name that the strategies that you work or that you use at work. may be a little bit more pronounced as opposed to the strategies that you use in your day-to-day or with your partner. My primary pattern is rigid and my secondary is aggressive.

You can imagine that at work, I'm not going to necessarily use my aggressive pattern or I'm probably not going to be employed for very long, yet my very loving, enduring husband and partner is one that I may be able to utilize strategies or try to utilize aggressive pattern strategies with. And so that is where that ebb and flow can kind of happen. So I'll pause there and yeah, really see where we want to go next. So you had mentioned, let's reiterate the five that you mentioned. So there is the merging, the enduring, the aggressive, the rigid, and the last one is?

Leaving. Leaving. Okay. How does someone, so you already identified two within your own environment. Yeah. Perhaps maybe internal and external, and I don't know how much one seesaws versus the other, but ultimately how do you identify that, that trader pattern? Beautiful. So there are particular behaviors, if you will, of each pattern that stem from a need for safety. So the leaving pattern is in the book chronologically what is described first because a lot of times that wounding or the event that created that pattern happened either in utero or just after birth.

And this is an individual that potentially more than likely had some sort of birth trauma or the environment in which they were being birthed into or the entity at which woman that was carrying this child had a lot of like internal turmoil. And so there is an energetic blueprint that is placed in this space that says, this doesn't feel safe. This space right here, this doesn't feel good. And so someone that runs the leaving pattern, they don't feel safe in their body. They don't feel safe in certain spaces in life, maybe any space at all.

And so to create safety or the feeling of safety in the system, they will disconnect. So these are the people that often will dissociate. They are kind of up in the clouds all the time. Again, I'm talking about the shadow pattern here, but I'll get to the GIFs. They also will be somewhat like flaky. They're not very grounded. I will say that each of these personality patterns, Steven goes even into the body type of each, which in my experience has been pretty darn spot on. So again, these individuals are seeking safety, but they don't know where to seek that and it's not in their body and it's not in the worldly sense.

And so they will kind of be up in the clouds. Now these individuals are highly creative, highly attuned to things outside of this realm. They may be more of a spiritual person and they may be one that connects with things that other people don't connect with or that it feels like that that's not needed to connect with. And again, these people, anybody, all of us are seeking safety. And so this pattern is stemmed out of, this place doesn't feel safe, so I'm going to leave. And then going into the merging pattern.

Merging is typically just after the time period of like six months to a year and a half. And those are individual children that they can't get enough from usually mom. So like maybe it's a hard time with breastfeeding or maybe their mom is emotionally unavailable. Or maybe again, there's just not a attachment and attunement to these individuals. And so what are they constantly looking for? connection. These people will merge into the energy of others. They're often codependent. You can feel the energy of these individuals pulling at you.

Specific to, let's just go back and somewhat use one of your situations with your partner. If one of the partners is running, merging, and is overwhelmed and needs connection, and yet another partner is like, you are too much right now. That is where a stressful situation can bring out a personality pattern. because there's a need for safety there. And so they are utilizing or tapping into behaviors that are creating what they think is safety. And the gifts of these people though are they're like highly connected to other people.

They're often like have the biggest hearts. They like to gather people a lot. They can be quite empathetic, almost to a fault. And so again, you're starting to see like where, wow, I didn't get enough. There's this gaping hole within me. What am I going to do with that? I'm going to try to fill it with people, other things, all of that. And then going into enduring would be next. And this is, again, if you're anybody that's into child development, like this timeframe is when children are developing there.

will, they're no. So two to three years old, this is when individuals, children that are trying to navigate the world and establish their will amongst the people that are taking care of them, that they are very much like, blunted, they are overpowered, and so they don't feel as though they have a choice. And what do they do? They just hunker down. All of their energy goes down. It's a very, you can't make me energy. So because they have been forced or their space has been invaded, they had no autonomy or agency, they just then just kind of hunker down and become this rock.

of objection, resistance. And you may have some of these people in your life, like passive aggressive, you can't make me energy, like I'll do what I want. And definitely has space between others and it's very hard to penetrate their energy. They just are this, again, like a rock. But the gift of this is that a lot of times they can take on a lot of people's energy because that's what they had to do as children. you know, whether it was forcing a child to finish their plate or it was you have to dress this certain way or just like really,

Leaving and Merging Patterns 12:40

you know, invading on a small child's wishes to do X, Y, and Z. repeatedly over a long period of time will create this pattern or can create this pattern. Then there is rigid and aggressive. Rigid really tends to be one that there is a right and a wrong way to do things. There's very much a because I said so, which can go into that enduring flavor, but it's more about seeking permission from authority figures. Like you need to look outside of yourself for the answers or for direction. These individuals, because they like structure, order, authority, like all of the things that are very predictable, they They're usually the overachievers.

They're usually like giving the formula, I'll do it, let's go. But there's not a lot of heart to them because they are all up in their head about analyzing and making sure it's right, making sure that if they're doing it right, that they're going to stay connected to their parent. So again, like it's all about connection. These children got a manuscript from the parents of how they could connect, whether it was through sports or achievement or just putting on a happy face and being easy. those are those children.

They do a lot of great things in the world, but they also feel very disconnected and tend to be controlling when they are in stress or when there is unpredictable situations. Aggressive is really an energy of me against the world. They were not protected. They very much potentially had traumatic events that happened to them. Not that that can't happen to any of the other patterns, but there is very much a sense of I will eviscerate all of you. This is for me to do. I can only do it. I will do it the best." And so there is this force that is a part of their beingness, that it will be their way or the highway.

And the gift of that is obviously we can be very charming. We can want to manipulate in times that we feel really stressed, but if we feel like we're backed against a corner, it will be us against everyone. And again, we don't necessarily use these strategies all the time, but in times of high stress, that fire may come out. And again, there is this need to know that I am safe even in the chaos. So yeah, so those are the personality patterns as quickly and overviewed as I could give them. Again, I encourage everybody to get the book to do a deeper dive into all the things that I just shared and more, but I'm curious what's coming up for you in relation to...

I imagine that you have an integration question brewing around each of those patterns, or maybe you know what yours are. Well, it's interesting because I wanted to start with leaving and sure enough, that's what you started with. Yeah, there you go. And when you said, you know, kind of the visionary, the head is in the clouds and feeling kind of somehow lost and disconnected. My curiosity is, cause that speaks to a lot of how I interpret myself in some capacity. My curiosity is how much of this is derived from.

immediately because of my bias and my patient population. So your microbes, your microbiome, the gut bugs, that whole internal ecosystem and how that kind of envelops your personality. But one step deeper, which creates this internal environment is how you're born and your parents. Certainly you mentioned about how we're socially conditioned in terms of rigidity, which I see that in terms of my spouse and then culturally how she was raised and how you become kind of a product of your society and ultimately the nurturing component.

But in terms of say if I was a C-section baby. And maybe I didn't feel safe when I was born and maybe I had some pathogenic flora because that's what we see as signatures in our C-section babies where they become higher risk for asthma and allergies and cognitive or behavioral. issues and certainly anxiety and depression and mental health instability as now we see in our teenagers. How much of that stage is set early on that was either identified in his book or that is now maybe understood, which has that connection?

Yeah. So I imagine that what Stephen Kessler is speaking towards more of is like the energetic emotional components and how they manifest. Now, as you said, like our microbiome can make up and influence and shift the way that we grow and what pops up for us in our physical body as well. But I think that you are also pointing towards it's all connected, right? Like is Stephen Kessler saying you're going to have arthritis because you had a traumatic birth and that there's an actual medical diagnosis tied to this.

Not necessarily, but I think that the point that you're bringing in actually does cascade into the energetic and the emotional. And we won't even get into an unpack. what some people believe around the energetic and emotional tie to asthma. But it very much plays into that, yeah, C-sections can be quite traumatic in a variety of ways. And so I can only imagine the amount of people that had C-sections could potentially run more of a leaving pattern. But again, there's also that element of whether they had a C-section and they had to be in the NICU and they didn't have some of that close skin-to-skin touch, which medical systems have been doing so much better lately about that.

I can also see where there are other patterns that could come in as well. And yeah, I think that there gets to be a multitude of data points that come together to really be able to point to a possible direction of a primary and a secondary pattern for sure. Yeah, cause I guess again, the deep reflection ultimately is whether how much of our character is ultimately defined by internal biology, which is often overlooked, which then manifests, I guess, as these five identifiable states, right? Or that you fall into this now bucket.

Then the curiosity thereafter is, well. Should we be conscious of what bucket we're in open to switching buckets? Is this kind of hardwired ingrained? Where does that evolution take place? So I'm always asking questions. You pointed a brilliant example in terms of feeding. So culturally, again, with immigrant families and food scarcity, which is largely what we had to suffer from our fate eternally for millennia, whatever food is on your plate, you have to eat it, right? And I constantly asking the question, okay, is that actually the right attitude?

Are we setting up our children for long-term success or perhaps even long-term failure? Like I know that that was my mindset early on and I have a tendency to overeat. Now my metabolic rate is through the roof. My body fat is extremely lean. I'm very conscious of and intentional how I live my life. But needless to say, I know that I consciously overeat in many circumstances. Yeah, 110%. The nutrigenomic component is interesting because I have a down regulation of my leptin or satiety signal. So I'm already prone to overeat and then now culturally, I will say, okay, you have to just eat whatever is on your plate.

And so in my domicile, what I'm trying to encourage now is instead of putting food on my kids plate, I encourage them to serve themselves and take how much they want and then hold themselves accountable to say, okay, were your eyes hungrier than your belly? And ultimately there is a gratitude of how much food we can actually eat rather than this force feeding mentality. So it was interesting that you made a mention of that example, because then how does some of that rigidity in parenting shape our kin, which we don't recognize how that plays out later in life or went further still when you said, I think it was the second one that you alluded to.

in terms, yeah, and like feeding off of other people, but being perhaps also very empathetic. And again, a product maybe more of nurturing and how, again, My curiosity is, are we setting up someone to, to be a people pleaser? So like further still is, if I look at some other traits, like being a perfectionist, which I identify as, or a giver, which I also identify as, or certainly a protector, a performer, an empath, within those five personality types, some of the patterns that you allude to, how much of these then adjectives are adopted or a product of those buckets?

Yeah. So I want to go back to what you said about the nature and nurture. I think that we're learning that it's both. It's not nature and then nurture. It's not nurturing and then nature. It literally is both. And I think that along with that, it gets to be both in the realm of you may feel resonance with a lot of these different patterns. And a lot of people do. Stephen Kessler doesn't say like, you're only going to feel this and you're only going to feel that.

Enduring, Rigid, and Aggressive Patterns 22:00

And there are some teachings that say that you are equal parts of all of them. I think that what is helpful is that we usually have a predominance to one and then a second. And that really informs us of what is the actual need in a time of stress. And so what you're asking or speaking to is also coming up with you may have learned certain behaviors, but they are not actually your pattern. So like if you are a perfectionist or if you feel like that you are very, like you have to have things clean and neat and tidy, that may be something that you learned from mom and dad or a behavior that you took on, but it's not necessarily when I'm stressed, I'm gonna rage clean and everybody better get out of the way because I'm about to make order to this entire house to avoid the thing that I'm feeling.

So there's a difference there, right? And I think that there's, first of all, having your children pick what they want or the amount that they want is giving so much autonomy to them. And then also having the discussion about responsibility to the things that you choose or reflection to the things you choose is bar none such a good habit to have. And I think, again, we can do so many good things as parents like that activity. And maybe it affects how much someone is in the merging pattern or how much that they're in the rigid pattern or whatever it may be.

But ultimately, we get to, because some of these things, they're energetically picking up from us. It's not anything that we ever necessarily said to them or that they knew about, but they still take on as feeling, that they still take on as truth because zero to seven, they are just these subconscious sponges that are taking in all the energy around them. So you can have the best intention of like, my God, they really need it. Oh my God, that's too many mashed potatoes. Holy moly. Oh my God. Are they going to eat all that?" They are picking up on that, right?

So there is an energetic and both internally and externally that they will have a disruption in the fact that those things are at odds with each other. That's why some of my clients are like, I always want to pick up food, but I never do. Sometimes I actually am hungry, but I don't reach out because there's just this thing about I'm not actually hungry. It just becomes this disconnect or this dissonance in their own system where they're not trusting because they're getting conflicting signals because what did they get as kids?

probably conflicting signals, whether they actually knew or not that they were getting those. So this, I mean, we can go like seven layers down on this. And I think that the biggest thing about this podcast and the two is that for parents, especially if you're listening to this, is like you doing your own healing work is the best thing that you can do for your children, not only to combat maybe some of the patterns that they may take on from you, but also when they're older and they're expressing to you like, hey, I feel this way that you can be like, yep, mm-hmm, of course you do.

Like that's totally, I'm so glad that you're telling me that and not take it on as your own shame and your own guilt and your own mess-ups. So again, that was a brief little tangent to just highlight that like, I don't think you or I are trying to give this perfect playbook of what to do to not mess up your kids, but very much every moment we're influencing them in some form or fashion. And it's also a lot of noise, right? The prevalence and now ubiquity of social media and how that's now shaping beliefs and certainly action.

I'm in a constant state of my own cognitive dissonance in regards to, again, my conditioning versus how I want to evolve as a human in this society. especially with the prevalence of AI now, ultimately in the fear that it creates in terms of what that's going to shape in my personality, my career, and my children, the next generation, and what struggles they may have to overcome in terms of learning, in terms of peers, in terms of, again, career. But needless to say is my goal is to ultimately always question every decision.

And the lens I have appropriated is how does this fit in terms of our evolutionary biology? And too often is we don't live with that same level of intent, which I'm not suggesting you have to question every second of your existence, but rather as The diction that we use both for ourselves and then ultimately that which we pass on to others is critical as you knew too, and how that often shapes someone else's trajectory, right? It's almost kind of like we're manipulating each other without necessarily acknowledging that, without knowing how our words- A hundred percent we are.

Because we all need safety. We all want connection, like a hundred percent. It goes back to that. You can have the best of intention, like you said, but the impact may feel different. I'm not looking at someone that runs merging pattern and their energy is like trying to pull at me and being like, good God, like stop. I'm seeing them now as one that really, there's a need that's not being met and it's not necessarily my job to meet it, but I also get to meet them in I'll switch you a word, not questioning but curiosity.

Questioning feels like a stiff arm, curiosity feels like more open, like how much can we be curious about what's coming up for us and others instead of questioning it because God, we're gonna go on so many transplants. Okay, in the world that we're living in right now, I feel like there is a healthy amount of pushback, but I think it's from the energy of questioning instead of curiosity. And I think that part of the divide that we have in certain parts of life is because of questioning and an overt cynicism instead of a open curiosity that invites in, maybe I'm wrong, or invites in someone's perspective and to be like, oh, wow, That's why you think of that.

Totally disagree, but that's why you think that way. Do you know what I mean? So just a small plug for the switch up of language of questioning versus curiosity. Language matters and I appreciate your interjection and I try to be mindful of the words I use because again, word choice then frames thought choice, which then frames your emotions and then how you begin to take action. And ultimately two words that very much resonate for me are passion, curiosity, both are which kind of positive connotation.

And then this notion of safety, it goes back to the end of the day. I haven't found a healthy patient who has a, or a unhealthy patient who has a high heart rate variability because their nervous system is calm and collected and they're pursuing this state of parasympathetic where the body is constantly repairing. So it's the, this notion of safety, which cripples us. And if I took anything away from the Blue Zone work is the two biggest principles for me was movement. And the second was community.

And to even amplify what you just said, I always ask patients like how much vitamin C are you getting per day? And they're like, oh yeah, you know, I'll eat a lemon or whatever the case, or I'll take a supplement. I go, no, vitamin C in terms of connection. And to amplify again, what you said is, is the notion of curiosity to be curious to connect because especially with social media, we are so much more connected yet so much more alone. Yes, it's different. It's like this, it's this false sense of connection where we have so many friends, but none of those are real friends.

None of those are people that we can actually count on. And so ultimately I feel that we are living almost in this very unsafe world where we weren't designed, like you and I having this interaction in the screen where I can see myself. And I think the brain registers that as a feeling of being unsafe ultimately. Like we weren't designed to... It's confronting. Yes, to speak to ourselves and so the psychology even behind that which we don't acknowledge, right? So going back to this notion of how much are we doing that's actually not incongruent with our evolutionary biology and while our genes haven't changed in the last millennia, our environment certainly has.

So we were only becoming more unhealthy. And I appreciate the work that you're doing. And then, you know, the book and teachings of Steven Kessler, which we're bringing to light on this conversation, trying to identify where we are, because ultimately, I think as step one is awareness, you have to be able to acknowledge where you're at to get unstuck. But most people look at you flowing in from the other episodes. Yes. I love connecting the dots. Life is a big puzzle, but ultimately is constantly trying to learn and grow and be open to questioning your beliefs.

Be open to questioning the language that you talk to yourself and then approach others with. So I'm always thinking in terms of my child, like, how can I say this differently? So it's met with curiosity. It's received with openness. rather than one of rigidity or tyranny or like, you know, the adult is always the dictator. And I see that in terms of parenting. And then sure enough, we wonder why, you know, these, these kids who become parents act the same way. It's effectively kind of, again, yes, the component of both nature and nurture, but ultimately how else can we, how else can we intervene?

Nature, Nurture, and Early Conditioning 31:20

Cause I'm curious when you said, you know, you find yourself in between two different buckets. Are you constantly trying to modify certain things as well to change that? Are you like, okay, I'm pretty dialed in, I'm pretty refined, I understand where I'm at. And like, how are you constantly trying to adapt and work on yourself, I guess? I'm asking myself one question. What is the need that's not being met right now? All the time. What's the need that's not being met right now? Why are you being rigid?

Why are you being hard on everyone around you? What's the need that's not being met? Oh, I've been doing too much. I need to rest. Or I am worried about the snowpocalypse that we just got through. Like if the pool is going to freeze, oh, I'm projecting that fear out on everyone else and making sure everyone's room is cleaned even though they haven't been in school for seven days. What is that? What is the need that's not being met right now? That's the question that you can ask yourself. That's the question that you can get curious about your partner.

My partner and I had a very lively discussion in the last couple of days where I got to ask myself the question, what's the need that's not being met right now that's creating this behavior in him? And you also get to do this with your children. So I, again, third time plug by the book. It's also on an audio book on Spotify, I think for free on Spotify premium or probably a bunch of other platforms. But I think that it's been really helpful for me in relating to my children. in giving them what they need, not just because they need that, but also so that I can get done what I need to get done.

So I run rigid and aggressive. My youngest, because we know pretty much both of her patterns, is merging and leaving. So again, you don't see me sitting here being like, oh, I didn't connect, or give my daughter enough emotional love, and that's why she's merging, and I'm a terrible person. I'm not doing that. So what I am doing now, though, is when I see that she's in overwhelm, I cannot give her any more instructions until she feels connected to me. No more instructions. I cannot say the same thing five more times.

I cannot give a one-step command instead of a two-step command. I literally have to be like, Kennedy, come here. Do you need a hug? And even if she says like, no, I'm like, just come sit next to me. Just come sit next to me. And you give it 90 seconds, five minutes, usually less than 10. And she's like, what are we doing? What do I need to do now? And I'm like, Okay, I need you to go and I give her a one step command, right? So we get to start to learn how our kids tick and what their need is right there.

Like she was upset the other day because we were going to a new restaurant and I was like, why is she so emotional right now? And then I was like, what's the need not being met? Okay. Oh, we've never gone to this restaurant. Okay. She needs to. And so I brought her over and I was like, Hey, are you overwhelmed because we've never been to this restaurant before? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what I'm going to order or where we're going to sit. And I'm like, okay, great. So I met the need of the unknown in the leaving pattern, gave her the plan.

And she was like, I'm really excited now. Okay. So like whether they are rigid, like my oldest, and I'm like, this is what you need to do to play your Xbox. three things, get them done, next 15 minutes go. And he's like on it, right? Like he doesn't need my heartfelt connection. He doesn't need like to know what's going to happen, you know, seven hours from now. He needs to know right now what to do to get the thing that he wants. So I think that that's another part. I'm not a parenting coach at all, like not even close, but these are the strategies that I've used for my own kids.

And it will almost boggle your mind how simple that it can be when you just know the need that is not being met. I'm curious if you're open to sharing, because to me, I would attribute the response of your daughter as quite a heightened response to a very benign activity. I'm curious, do you have a rationale for why that she was reacting that way? So I base all of this kind of on what Simon Sinek has said is like, if anybody comes to you with over a five to something that shouldn't be over a five response, get curious.

And so he uses it in the work setting, of course. But when I saw her reaction, I was like, this is over a five for sure. And so I got to get curious and be like, what would it be about the situation that is creating a lack of safety for her? And my brain after five years, this is literally what I say to myself. So I'm not expecting anybody to have this type of dialogue, but with practice and repetition, you too can psychoanalyze your kids more. But really I asked myself the question, what is the thing that feels unsafe about this?

And really for me, the only thing that came up is the newness to it. And I will say, too, that I think the parents have, and this is going to loop back to your social media, parents have the inner knowing of their own children a lot more than they give themselves credit to. But because of the noise of our system and what to do and how to do it and should and have to and all of the rights and wrongs of social media and society, we have dampened the whisper of our own inner knowing. So my ability to hear that in myself was for me quieting the noise of the world in that I know my kids.

I may do different things than other people do, and that's great. That's fine. But I think ultimately as parents, we get to come back to our own truth in our own healing journey. And that allows us to hear more readily what it is that our kids need so that we can meet that need. But yeah, I mean, I think just piecing it through was just, this is an elevated response to something that shouldn't really be elevated, asking about what about this would be unsafe for her, identifying that it was really just the newness, and then bring her over and asking her, being curious about, is this possibly what feels overwhelming to you?

And then just seeing their response. Maybe it's not that. Maybe it's that they're sad because they were supposed to see their friend today and instead their friend canceled and now you're going to the restaurant with the family. And then you just get to hold space for that. So, you know, it can be a multitude of things, but I think for anybody, when you are seeing an elevated response in your kid, the reaction to that is usually never what's needed. There's a pause, a breath, and some curiosity that's usually more helpful.

How much of that is reflected in someone's, the state of someone's nervous system in terms of, yeah, like if someone is more prone to be on edge or to be over reactionary, right? When you just set that threshold, okay, and above a five, I'm curious, you know, why, why is it met with this heightened response? How, so in terms of looking at the nervous system and then. Perhaps shifting the nervous system. Yes, you're trying to then create the sense of safety, obviously in that moment. How can we do that with ourselves?

And like, how can we kind of consciously intervene? Because I think that's what, again, Subconsciously, there's so much going on, right? We're fed so, so much input that the brain has to overcome and filter. Yes, this is relevant. No, this is noise. And too often now, because we're doing so much under artificial light with high EMF signals, with indoor poor air quality, with toxic food exposure and water, et cetera. We're just constantly under this, again, subconscious threat that I don't think we acknowledge.

And so we're all in this already red alert state, but ultimately then when something comes out, what measures can we take to create that shift? Yeah. And I would love to. That's a great question that we could really quickly go through each of the patterns. And again, this will make more sense as you grab the book or even just Google online. He has a great website that's very like bare bones, like not super flowery, but gets you exactly what you need. The grounding is based on where the energy is originally going.

So like for instance, leaving the energy just goes out. So, the nervous system is usually displayed outwardly or the energy of the nervous system is displayed outwardly. So, the grounding is anything that's bringing the energy in. So, maybe it is like deep pressure squeeze, maybe it's a weighted blanket, maybe it's literally just you laying on the floor. laying with your back or back against the wall or your feet up on the wall, like anything that is grounding and being able to connect back to your body, your system through movement, breath and sound.

Same thing for the merging is that instead of the energy going out just this way towards another, it's bringing able to ground and bring back into connection to yourself. Again, could be self-touch like that, could be like connecting to your heart space. My heart is not on that side, my heart is on this side. Yes, I am a physical therapist. But being able to connect with yourself in that way, again, same thing, movement, breath and sound. And sometimes maybe a swaying with merging or a rocking, because that is obviously recreating that sense of holding and tending to when you were younger.

rigid or enduring are both more about movement or decompression. Energy that is in the enduring is stuffed down. These people are generally grounded, but say For instance, a child is needing support and you're not really connected to them at all because your energy is so low. It may be about dispersing that energy, which could be you just standing up and moving like that for enduring individuals or those that running during can just be, that's all they need. Rigid is about decompressing the midline.

We're very connected, but we are so connected that we're compressed to the point of really, really sharp edges. Again, for me, it is about movement, breath, and sound that opens me up. nonlinear movement that opens me up. And again, you don't have to stop and do a 20 minute practice to like ground yourself. Like for me, it's a lot of just like hanging or just like opening or just like a, just a, it literally is just like a moving of your body, shoulders, usually core in nonlinear planes. And then aggressive, again, most of the population does not run like a primary aggressive, but again, it would be about tending to and bringing in that

Curiosity, Safety, and Nervous System Regulation 41:40

inner fire and allowing that, whether it's advocacy or just true anger to live within your own system and be more contained. So each of those patterns, there's a way to ground and all parents should make sure that they are in a grounded resource space or at least have a little pocket of that that they can offer up to their kid in front of them before asking them to be regulated or to try to support them in their own regulation. Because you can't co-regulate with something that's ungrounded. I mean, you can, but you're going to make the situation.

Yes. Which is why the grocery line debacles of like, let me have that. I want that. And now is usually you're just meeting each other's energy. Fire with fire. Let's further explore the lens of physical therapy for a moment, because we have patients that come into us for rehabilitation and often will do facial stretch work on a massage table with them. And it's this notion of we're stuck in this, again, nervous system, dysregulation, sympathetic tone, fight, flight, or freeze if it's chronic. And so so many of my patients coming in that come in for rehabilitation, which have a high degree of pain are ultimately because they're stuck in this frozen state and tightness eventually leads to pain.

Ultimately it's internal inflammation, but reflected on the exterior, we feel pain. It physically manifests as pain. And so when we're opening up someone doing body work, I am inviting them to constantly to take in deep diaphragmatic breathing. In fact, six to be exact, which makes that shift into this parasympathetic tone. They just wash their body open and melt. I mean, it is remarkable. Literally I had, and we're doing it now with, it's sad to say, but I'm treating so many more younger kids these days.

And I had a body work done on the table yesterday with, with a young athlete. I mean, he was completely locked, like very, very stiff, very, very tight in pain. And ultimately after, um, we were doing just body work, I mean, breath work. His body shifted dramatically. His dad was right there and he was just shocked how quickly we made a change just from shifting that into that parasympathetic tone, which again, we're just constantly stuck. So when you said the grounding, the breath work, just acknowledging kind of where you are, even going, going into the floor.

It's interesting. Cause I think I had, uh, was reading, I forgot whose work this was from, but ultimately he was suggesting to defuse the situation is. Go onto the floor, lay down and invite your partner to have a conversation on the floor. Oh yeah, you can't fight on the floor. Like it's just not, it's, it's, you can call it silly, but like try, try yelling at each other from the floor. It's not, it's not going to happen. In fact, I'm going to tell my partner that we're going to do that next time too.

That would be great. Although that, you know, with him running and during that, that may be to my detriment anyway. But I will say too that the fascia is going to become the new nervous system talk. I mean, it already is, but in the next two, five, 10 years, it is the long forgotten child that is coming back into the picture because people really have not realized and have not experienced what it's like to manipulate and be able to open fascial planes because we've been so focused on the nervous system, which is great.

But this is that next step of being able to support people in a biomechanical way, but also like energetic emotional as well. We do fascial stretch therapy in almost every single rehabilitation patient. And now, yes, it's context dependent, but ultimately I find it such a powerful tool. We have so many, it's primarily an older population that have this very profound release where they just start bawling crime. Yep. That's exactly right. Yep. Yeah. And if you've ever seen those videos, they kind of make the rounds every once in a while where somebody like a chiropractor will manipulate somebody and they'll have an emotional expression.

Like, yes, there are endorphins and things that can be released within those manipulations, but I can't not think that there are fascial planes that are opening as well. And again, not having to do it in that type of thrust aggressive maneuver, but it's the same kind of notion. And I would really encourage that if anybody, whether you're getting body work like just a straight massage or facial work or any sort of body work that like you really get curious about what's coming up for you emotionally and energetically and not that you have to figure it out but just open yourself up to like there's a little bit of like sadness there or like grief or like oh wow I feel like this wave of like frustration or confusion or whatever it is like it is all connected.

How do I or anyone for that matter within any of those. So we touched on kind of like how to be more conscious, to be more aware, invite curiosity in terms of navigating the self-talk, the external environment, being mindful of these things. Say, and I'll interview for specific positions and I'll invite people to define themselves in specific adjectives, like how do they attribute to themselves and strengths versus weaknesses. And what I can critique myself very openly is perfectionist, right? And that's a dual edged corn.

There's two sides to that. Ultimately one, it has enabled me to really push the envelope, drive for success. I'm going to achieve a great height because. To me, it's almost like this game of I need to win at any cost. And that was instilled with me when I was younger in terms of sport is I was taught, you know, when you're sleeping, someone else is training and my goal was to be the best. And so being a former athlete, ultimately at one of the highest levels and I was. driven to always succeed. Failure was not an option.

So perfectionism is core to my philosophy. However, as I have aged, I have amended that. I don't lead with a blunt sword so much anymore. It's more dull, but I still have that kind of innate design. How can I overcome something like that? Is it compartmentalizing? What's interesting is that perfectionism can come from a lot of different veins, and I really want not as an immigrant at all, but having clients that have had either immigrant parents or they themselves have been first-generation Americans.

If you have a practitioner that is not suited or aware of the limiting beliefs that can come from having that kind of upbringing run. Because a lot of this, it stems from that. You cannot deny that your parents were doing the absolute everything to a perfect T. to be able to be successful in this country for you to also be successful. I think that that's where you get to say, okay, that was a gift that your parents gifted you, but where is that now hindering you? I think we touched on this a little bit on the last episode.

I cannot imagine what it's like as a cis white female to be able to have to take on the limiting beliefs of my parents who had certain things that were expected of them because of who they were and where they were coming from. And so I think that for me, yeah, maybe it stems from more superficial things like, you know, mom just needed everything to be perfect so that she could you know, feel safe in her own environment because that's what was expected of her just as from her mom. Or it can be these very visceral needs that were basically created or limiting beliefs that were created from actual real life mandatory situational events.

So I think that beyond answering that question in a specific way, it would be me getting curious with you around what was modeled for mom and dad. And you've already kind of alluded to what was modeled, but going one step further of like, what do you imagine mom or dad believed about their effort and about what they had to bring? Because this work going back to the five stages of healing is Is this mom or dad's energy? And is it something you heard, saw, felt from them or that they just felt about themselves, which we've talked about previously of like, your parents can say one phrase never to you in any realm or fashion in your upbringing, but you've taken that on as your own.

And that's just an undeniable part of our upbringing and our subconscious and how it's formed. And so we get to unpack and address like what our parents maybe never said to us, but they still impressed upon us. Yeah, be careful of the behavior we model or sometimes the choices that we don't make can speak volumes as well. And ultimately, I go through these phases and I think it's important for people to again be self-aware and ultimately be open to criticism because I think our peers are some of those who know us best and sometimes again we're blinded to certain traits that we've adopted.

And so having the openness to recognize maybe some of our infallibility for lack of a better term, but ultimately is Having the wherewithal to be curious and ask those questions, I think especially for myself is acknowledging the conditioning of my history, especially my familial environment. And ultimately I go through these phases of where I have these cathartic experiences where I recognize it's almost like an epiphany. I recognize that, oh, wow, I'm acting like this. because of what happened 20 years ago with this specific event.

And I didn't realize, so again, going with the component of fascia, the memories like ingrained in there and, but recognizing this specific patterns that I've adopted because of what was passed down to me. And ultimately this notion of what has really resonated with me, my parents have been selfless to be able to pass on to my brother and I. an existence that they never had. And so because they're selfless, they lost their sense of self. And I saw that early on with me. I see that with practitioners.

I see that with many, especially moms. You're giving everything to your own detriment often enough where you don't have your own schedule and you don't recognize that you're not showing up the best you can for your child. And that's what they're going to see becomes their paradigm ultimately. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And we're not going to negate that there's a time and place where children are small enough to where they really do need everything done for them and that you are their sole caregiver and that their livelihood depends on you.

And I think that they tend to start to shift out of that a little bit sooner than we want to give them credit for or that we give ourselves credit for. Because again, we are just operating from patterns and programming that feels normal and familiar and safe. And so we're just reverting to that because that's what our body or our nervous system has deemed as like, yep, this is okay, cool. We're going to over give. We're going to do everything else for everybody else, even though they have the total like competency and capability to do it themselves.

Yeah. It's interesting when you said we're, we're trying to act from a place of safety and some recent studies that I've been looking at, but ultimately also anecdotally is, which really blew my mind. young teenagers or young adults, females who have been abused or dealt with trauma or who had a father figure that wasn't present. Ultimately, they are attracted to that same environment as the age in terms of their partners.

Fascia, Breathwork, and Body-Based Healing 53:20

And I would have thought it was a hundred percent opposite. That's not safe. You want to run away from that. sense of, well, where it's not safe ultimately, and you want to create an environment that is the antithesis to that which you were previously exposed. Why are they constantly being pulled into the same unsafe profile? Yeah, so it's two-part. It deals with mother and father learning. Say, let's just go with dad. I'm not hating on dads. But dad was abusive or dad had an addiction problem. The limiting beliefs that someone could glean from that in that experience is that others won't be there for me, others aren't safe, I have to fend for myself, love is hard, connection is empty, whatever it may be.

And then the flip side to that, what's really, really important in this is that it's not just about the father learning or what they learned or was modeled to them about others, the world. It's about, well, how did mom respond in this moment? Was mom okay? You know, she was scared of him. She was so quiet. She never said a word. So if mom represents self, then what I believe about myself is I have to be quiet about love being this way. I can't stand up for myself. My needs don't matter. So you will find that the, I don't want to say the majority, but there is a large amount of women that if they don't find themselves in this pattern, they are either hyper independent because they have rebelled against what mom modeled and they won't ever let that happen to them ever again, right?

Or they had a mother that did try to fight back. So they do have some semblance of self and they don't want to find themselves in the same situation that mom did. And some of them, even well-meaning, they still do, right? And so this is how deeply these patterns, both mother and father learning, can infuse upon who we are and who we choose. And again, hearkening back basically to we choose what's familiar. I mean, I will say, and I've said this to my partner, so this is not news to him, but a part of why I was so confused about why I was attracted to him or connected to him energetically and emotionally in college was because I was like, you are nothing like what I would ever imagine myself to be with.

I remember standing outside at his dorm room and outside a bar one time talking, and I literally in my mind was having the conversation with him and also being like, what are you doing, Amanda? Why are you talking to him? What is here? And the only thing that I now come back to is that he felt safe. And that type of safety in that form was very foreign for me, right? And so that's where if you do, this is like where we could just go into a whole podcast on online dating, is that a lot of times what you always be curious, not question, who you're first attracted to.

as you're swiping, as you're meeting people, because what you're attracted to or what you think that you're attracted to may just be you being connected to what has been familiar. And if you're sitting there being like, why am I always around emotionally unavailable men? Or why does my needs never matter? I never get to choose or I don't ever have a say. Well, look at the data points that are coming in that are the environments that you're putting yourself in. And not to say that it's anyone's fault, but it literally gets to go back to, What did dad model about others?

And then where was mom in that equation as well? So, it's wild. Two things. One is a comment. Second is a question. One is, so on the flip side, I find myself to be the ultimate people pleaser. And again, the sense of immigrant is I had to live for my parents, had to be the golden boy. Don't be difficult. Yeah, you just conform, right? And so what field am I in is I'm people pleasing, I'm a practitioner trying to help everybody else and then going back to that losing that sense of self, right? It holds true.

And now I've recognized, okay, I understand why I'm doing what I'm doing. I find immense purpose. I find immense privilege to be able to care and transform lives as successfully as I have been able to. But ultimately again, that comes with two sides of the coin. The question ultimately though is in terms of that safety, which you were attracted to. This is interesting not to necessarily go down that whole dating rabbit hole, but ultimately is how does one. portray that sense of safety like you were attracted to that energetically where for whatever reason you said you saw that you're like I feel safe here how did he what what are some things that as men or even on the flip side as women like how do we carry ourselves that again delineate this sense of safety are there like external cues are there ways that we can make ourselves be more attractive to our partners when we uphold certain quality traits.

Yeah. So I think that there's a variety of things. So the gift of the enduring is being very grounded and rooted in themselves. So his energy was not all over the place. It was very centered, very grounded, very rooted. So for me, that's what my nervous system needed because I was all over the freaking place just trying to find some sort of peace or semblance outside of myself. And so I think that depending on other people's patterns, it really kind of decipher what feels safe to you or what doesn't.

I definitely feel like anyone that is embodied or authentically owning who they are in a very grounded way can feel safe to anyone. So my authenticity and a little bit of you get me in these settings and feels very magnetic, feels safe to people because it draws out something in them that they don't feel like that they can currently hold. And same thing for like, I've said that he runs the enduring pattern. I think that's his secondary. I think his first is more of like a emerging, but one that like wants to come back into love.

So like he would pursue me, but not in a needy way, in a, I would like to be connected to you. And so really just like flipping through that book and just seeing what are the gifts of each of those patterns, that's how you get to feel more safe within yourself, but also for others. So again, it always starts with self. Like you can't give something that you're not actually able to hold within yourself. And I think that for him, because of his upbringing, he was just authentically himself. Like he was like, I don't give a shit what anyone thinks of me.

And there was a part of me that was very drawn to him because that felt very sturdy and very predictable and just, yeah, safe. How does one arrive at authenticity and self in an age where distraction is so ubiquitous? So how do you find that safety? Because ultimately, as you said, you're connecting that okay with authenticity and grounding and understanding who you are, I guess, ultimately. Too often when I go to these conferences or when I'm invited to speak, I will, by show of hands, ask people to see, you know, have you identified your purpose in this life?

And an older population generally raises their hand. A younger population is kind of lost. But when I say younger, I'm still suggesting, you know, these. And so usually by that time people already have identified what route, it's not necessarily to a detriment or fault their own if they don't. I think that, as you said, be curious, doors will open as you try new things, share new experiences, meet new people. Ultimately, I think that's why life is so exciting is because each day provides kind of a novel experience in some capacity, while some other people prefer that very, very specific routine, don't like to deviate outside of the box because they feel safe in this specific habit.

They eat the same things every day, right? It's very, very dialed in, which again, I'm not trying to undermine, but ultimately is, so how do you, how is one arrived at finding their safety or their authenticity? Yeah, and it really comes to connecting with yourself. So there may have been people earlier that were like, you keep talking about safety, but I don't even know what that feels like in my body. And the next question I would ask them is, what do you feel in your body? And most people are like, I don't know, nothing or anything that they do feel.

they utilize a pattern to navigate that instead of being with it. The precursors to safety is connection to self. That starts really honestly with the building blocks of sensation and then going to emotion and being able to allow those things to morph and shift and change. Maybe they bring up limiting beliefs like, oh, this emotion within me is bringing up I can't be sad.

Perfectionism, Parenting, and Modeling Behavior 1:02:00

right? You and your ability to inhabit safety or to connect to safety in your system really requires you to be connected to yourself first. And again, it starts very basic, just like what I do with my kids. What are you feeling in your body right now? Take a breath, give yourself some space, and just notice what's there. Oh, my head really actually hurts or my stomach hurts. My daughter usually says, I feel weird. And I'm like, say more. So it's a lot about being curious and being inquisitive about this whole meat sack that you have been inhabiting for the last 20, 30, 40 years.

And I think that that is as you get connected to your body and the sensations and emotions safety comes online. And then as safety comes online, this what I call center column, you get to connect to that further energetically and emotionally. And I think that's where your autonomy agency purpose comes from. So I had a purpose I wanted to be and I was a physical therapist and a successful one at that. But I wasn't ever connected to my center column or my core or my body. So my mind had decided that's what we need to do.

And then in inhabiting my body, being connected to my body, we shifted about 45 degrees. And now we're doing more of this emotional, energetic work that still deals with the body, but is more in alignment with what my actual purpose is. And sometimes it's time, like you said, like the people that are at those conferences and are a little bit older, they've had time to be able to say, okay, these things aren't working. Let me check out something else. And for me and a lot of clients that I support, well, not some, all clients is connecting back to their own somatic body and allowing that to lead instead of their mind.

I think too often we're closed off to being open. And I love that you use the word can't because to me, that's a swear word in my home. Like I'll use swear words, sometimes profanity and sometimes excessively vulgar when you're... over passionate let's say but ultimately it's it's less so in anger i firmly believe the sense of of gratitude when you walk into a practice right on the wall it says attitude of gratitude you can't be grateful and angry at the same time but to me can't is such a belief and that to me that's why it's a swear word and it doesn't exist in my vernacular and i'm not trying to say okay it's to dispel boundaries or anything like that like oh i can't do anything because that you know i want to be true to myself and have respect for my own body ultimately it's the sense of where we physically emotionally spiritually disconnect because we fear the unknown or we're unwilling to try or again much like myself what's upon a time is we're conditioned in a way where we're resistant to, to try.

And so we disengage. And so can't to me closes off opportunity. And I think life is full of opportunity. The difference between maybe how one identifies success and not is ultimately, as you said, is you were a successful physical therapist and then you didn't necessarily take a left turn. I think you just progress into an extension of what you were doing, kind of in a different route, more or less. And so. Yeah. You found more passion, more purpose, more calling, more safety, perhaps. And so that's, it's interesting how, again, we adopt certain lexicon to, to our detriment.

I mean, so that's why I always invite people to change their, their self-talk. So going, starting with awareness in a way that is open to receive, open to being open, ultimately. Yeah. And I think the verbiage that I may have said earlier of like, you can't find safety without connecting to your body. The interesting part about that is in opening up that phrase, is that statement wholly true? Maybe not, but not the safety that I'm speaking of. Can you create safety in your mental space? You could to an extent, but what I also find too, for people that are kind of pushing back on like, I do mindset work, whatever.

And because 15, 20 years in like the personal development, self-help, multi-level marketing, brouhaha of mindset work, it only got me so far. So there was like a disconnect. What I found is there was a certain amount of safety that I had here that I could conceptualize and I could keep being in the pattern of action. Like it didn't stop me from being successful, but there was a deep weariness and fatigue about how much grind it took in my mind to create the things that I was creating and to walk out the things that I was supposed to, needed to, whatever.

And so, you know, permission for people to grapple with the fact that like, even if I use the word can't in that realm, because for me, I'm similar to like I cannot do something that's not like allowed in this space. It's more of a invitation of inquiry into the type of safety that you may be desiring or looking for. And some people may be at that place where mindset is where they're at. And so you get to inhabit that element of safety within your mind and then notice what's the glass ceiling that maybe I hit my head up against.

And then being able to open yourself up again, like you said, and to something else that may create a different type of safety or a deeper element of safety. In terms of the two personality traits that you identify with being both rigid and aggressive, have you, I don't know if this is the right question, but ultimately I'm thinking of, have you ever wanted to change that? Have you ever wanted to change your personality to kind of change certain things or adopt kind of the new mantra or identify with a different trait, let's say?

Yeah, I have a lot of empathy for why my patterns show up the way that they did or how they were created. Like so much empathy, a lot of acceptance. I have seen where the gifts have gotten me to where they've gotten me and where the shadow have like slapped me in the face. And I think that more than anything, the more that I've addressed and accepted my primary and secondary pattern and the more that I've done healing work around that, it's actually opened me up to gifts of some of the other patterns.

So like I had a very pivotal experience in the last week and a half of being at a retreat and I noticed more of the gifts of like the merging coming on where I could connect with someone's heart in a new way or being able to share insights that were really along the lines of the gifts of the leaving. So it's not necessarily for me a, I wish I could switch. It's like, how can I own more of who I actually am and the needs for safety that I have so that I can meet those needs and be able to like dance in the space of the gifts of the other patterns?

Because they all have gifts, right? Like I wish that I was more of a community builder, but I also know that I don't have to do it alone and I can partner people that that's their gift. So it's the both end of it. That absolutely makes sense. I know we're approaching on time here and this has been a tremendous gift. You mentioned a retreat. We are aiming to ideally launch our first retreat in some time, Q3, Q4 this year. Yes. Congrats. Well, there's still a lot of work to be had, but we've been building a community and people are very receptive.

And I almost want an extended invitation. I would love to have you participate. I would love to entertain that. Yes. Send all the details my way. And I know that your community want to know too. They've gotten this little crumb and they're like, what? I need to know more now.

Authenticity, Self-Connection, and Closing Takeaways 1:09:40

So stay tuned. Exactly. That's why I said at the beginning of the show, this is probably a part four and part five to come and even better still in person. So ultimately if we can make that happen, I think that'd be wonderful. In terms of kind of tying the knot in today's conversation, taking things full circle, any other insights, any other takeaways that you would like to provide or leave with the audience? Yeah, I think the biggest thing is if you feel really overwhelmed by a lot of this information, just go to the website and take a look at some of the things, the resources that he have that kind of still brings this like 50,000 foot view so that you're not too overwhelmed.

And then if you do grab the book, I always tell all of my clients, trust. This is your first element of trusting your intuition of what you may think your primary and secondary pattern may be. And the book is written to where it has an intro to it and some educational stuff around that. And then jump straight to what you think your primary and your secondary pattern are. It's not a sequential book in that way. And just dive right in. I think that one of the biggest permission slips that it gave me was having language to something that I never had been able to say or write down or even conceptualize.

And so I would take like whole paragraphs, especially in the aggressive. And I would take whole paragraphs and I would just give the book to my husband. I was like, please read this because this is exactly how I feel. So you don't even it takes the guesswork out of like, how do I share what's happening for me in my partnership? It's like, this is it. Like, this is the playbook. And when you are confused, especially male partners that are like, I don't know what she needs right now. let her read the book, give it to her for Valentine's Day or her birthday or whatever, start to have a dialogue around it.

I think it gets to be an incredible resource, but just know if you write things in the edges of it, make sure that you don't lend that to a friend because I've done that and their name was in it. Learn. Learn from my mistakes. But yeah, grab the book. Connect with me on social media if you have any questions. The Somatic DPT. D is in David, P is in Paul, T is in Tom, which is my physical therapy credentials. But this has been great, and I'm so excited to hear more about this retreat. This has been absolutely better than I had ever imagined.

So I'm, you are a gift, your, your wisdom. I appreciate everything that you have provided many different clinical takeaways for me. So I ultimately what needs are not being met. I keep replaying that in my head, both from my environment, externally, internally, it provides, I think a frame. to approach life because we often walk through our lives with very specific lenses, right? And so I think one of the biggest takeaways for me is just, is always being open to being open. We have two eyes and two ears for a reason.

So even when we identify, so whatever reason, I was pulled right away, like, what do you want to start? And I thought right away, oh, leaving. And sure enough, when you said leaving, I was like, that is me. Ultimately. So that intuition being open to being open, but then also being open to, to learning and making a shift. And you know, when you said the, the pro book, but also the shadow. Right. Which ultimately is kind of when we learn our biggest lessons, I think it's through failure that we can really change the narrative.

And going through that process, as you said, I think it enables us a different outlook and the power to appreciate and be more grateful and then to continue to be open to learning. But I think we have to be open to criticism is the biggest thing. Yeah. And even just activation. Because criticism, when you drill that down, that's usually activating. So anything that is activating your system, being open to that, is going to lead you to a really great teaching, 100%. Activating meaning like actually an activation, a trigger.

I don't like to use the word trigger, but like anything like a criticism will usually bring something in your system. And so yeah, criticisms can be great teaching teachings, but anything that that pops up in your system is a great teaching, especially as it relates to something that's activating like a criticism. Yes, that enables self-reflection. Where were our needs not being met? Where were we not being heard? Where were we not feeling safe? And ultimately then how can we break free from the shackle?

Because I say this all the time, we create our own prisons. We don't recognize that. But we wear our own shackles. And even myself included. sign up for certain things, right? That I know that I have to do, sometimes not always that I want to do, but ultimately it's like we wear our own shackles and yet we wonder somehow sometimes why we approach a situation negatively or the outcome is negative when we're coming in within, you know, maybe not the best mindset. And there was, that was one takeaway, just really quick anecdote is, um, I forget who I was listening to, but ultimately like for him to show up in his best self, he had to go through his, like he had to pray and meditate and have a nice breakfast and train in the morning and do breath work and groundwork.

And that enabled him to be the best dad or the best partner or the best caretaker, the best partner, et cetera. And so to be able to show up the best for ourselves, but then ultimately for others, making sure that we figure out what that narrative is for us and being open to being open. Yeah. Hashtag rigid for that example. I love it! Just to round out that conversation, that is rigid. Gifts of the rigid. Yeah. Two sides of the coin, certainly. This has been absolutely incredible. Thank you. Thank you again for your time.

Again, I know you just mentioned it, but where can people reach out to you? Yeah. The Somatic DPT on Instagram. I will message every new follower. If you ask questions, I will get back to you. It is me. I do not have a VA. Because I really love these conversations. I love these questions. I love the curiosity and the openness. So I hope to see you on Instagram soon. To all our listeners, if this conversation resonated, take a moment to reflect where might you be denying parts of yourself that are asking to be seen and loved?

Ultimately, that's what we crave, I think, and it's the whole safety that we spoke about. Please share this with someone else who needs to hear this message, who can benefit from this. In the meantime, also please like, review, and subscribe. That certainly allows us to do what we do at the highest level. And if you want a part four and five, let us know so we can continue the conversation and stay tuned for the upcoming retreat. And until next time, stay healthy, stay wealthy, my friends. Thank you for tuning into the TBD Fit podcast on Dr.

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