Irene Lyon The Hard Truth About Healing Trauma

(0:00 - 0:16) Coming up in this episode. I believe in reincarnation, I believe in a soul. Just think when this person passes and that soul goes to another human, that next human is going to be so much more evolved, more regulated, because they did all this healing work in this lifetime. (0:17 - 0:38) Doing this work at any age is important, but even if you don't get to that full regulation, getting a little bit more each day, each year is still contributing to the greater ether. You are now listening to the Here for the Truth podcast, hosted by Joel Rafiti and Yerasimos. All right, everybody. (0:39 - 0:47) Welcome to the Here for the Truth podcast. I feel so honored to have the introduction duties today. My name is Yerasimos. (0:47 - 0:56) I have my co-host, Joel Rafiti with me. I love the way you say my name. We have a really important episode for you today. (0:56 - 1:12) We are bringing Irene Lyon back on for the fourth time. She is someone who I can confidently say is a nervous system expert. I don't usually love throwing that term around because I feel like everyone throws it around, but we wanted to have Irene back on to have a really important conversation. (1:14 - 1:53) You know, as somatic work, as nervous system work, as trauma work becomes more popular, what usually happens is you have everyone, not everyone, you have a lot of people that present themselves in a way that doesn't really align with their actual understanding or training on a subject. And so, we wanted Irene to come on so we can have a deeper discussion on what trauma healing is, on the misconceptions around it, and, you know, what she sees going on, you know, in the online space and in the industry of personal development and healing. And so, we're really excited to have this conversation. (1:53 - 2:20) We feel it's really important. And I think what happens very often when something starts getting more popular, people jump on the bandwagon and everyone starts throwing out all the buzzwords in their social media profiles and in the offers. And the reality is, you know, does everyone do what they say they do? Do they have the knowledge to back up what they present themselves as? So, anyways, we really hope you enjoy this conversation. (2:20 - 2:32) We explore a bunch of different areas. And if you really enjoy this episode, please share it because I think it's one of those episodes that needs listening to as often as possible. All right, everybody. (2:33 - 3:04) Our guest today is Irene Lyon, a dear friend, nervous system expert, somatic practitioner, and educator who's helped thousands of people around the world understand and heal the root causes of chronic stress trauma. With advanced training in Feldenkrais, somatic experiencing, and neuroplasticity, Irene's work bridges science and soul to restore the body's natural capacity for regulation, resilience, and vitality. She's a fierce advocate for self-healing, nervous system education that goes beyond trends and buzzwords. (3:04 - 3:21) And she dives into the real work of creating lasting change within one's body. This is her fourth time joining us here on Here for the Truth. Previous episodes were 68, 104 with her partner, Seth Lyon, the amazing Seth Lyon. (3:21 - 3:33) And of course, 182 with Max Lowen, which was an awesome episode as well. And I met Irene in person before you asked me to ask Sophie, which means I'm the best. You're the better one. (3:33 - 3:38) Welcome back, Irene. Good to see you. That's right. (3:38 - 3:43) Yeah. How are you doing? I'm good. It's been a full year. (3:44 - 4:01) It's been a full 10 years, but this year has been really full. I'm working, working, working, sleeping, saunaing, trying to keep... I'm still building my body back up after all my stuff. You know, I've talked about that. (4:01 - 4:16) We don't need to get into that today. So working on things with my system. Seth, my husband, and I were just loving our new space in the sticks of Vancouver, um, hanging out with llamas that I just saw. (4:17 - 4:21) One was on the highway down our road. We don't have llamas. We don't have llamas, by the way. (4:21 - 4:30) But, you know, one of those Facebook community groups where they post like, this got out, that got out, someone go get that animal. And so it's fun. Amazing. (4:32 - 4:54) To kick this off, um, when you look around, I guess, at the nervous system landscape, the nervous system terrain today, obviously the nervous system in general is something that's becoming more popularized. We're seeing more people use this terminology, more people thought to be able to work with these tools, et cetera. And with anything as it becomes more popular, it gets more watered down as well. (4:55 - 5:04) So I guess give us the 101 from your perspective of what you're seeing in the nervous system world and terrain today. Yeah. And also just how much it's shifted from when you started this. (5:04 - 5:27) Yeah. So, I mean, if I go back to when I first was introduced to the nervous system, it would have been my Feldenkrais training in 2001, actually in Sydney, Australia. And it just, it blew my mind as someone who was trained deeply in physiology, anatomy, exercise science. (5:27 - 5:45) I grew up in an animal hospital with two parents who were veterinarians. So I've got, I've had a medical background for a long time. And so when I found it in 01, and then I started studying Feldenkrais in 04, there hadn't even been any like popular press books written on neuroplasticity. (5:45 - 5:59) The first one that really got that term to the stage was the, oh my goodness, I'm going to forget it. His second book was The Brain's Way of Healing, Norman Doidge. The Brain That Changes Itself or something. (5:59 - 6:21) Thank you, Urasimus. So the brain, yeah, The Brain That Changes Itself. And that was like pivotal, but we knew, like people knew, people know people who had strokes or troubles neurologically and they recover, but you have to work at it, right? You can't just accept that this is my fate and then yeah, the system isn't going to improve, but we can recover. (6:21 - 6:44) We can rewire so much as humans because we have our higher brain. So I got into that work in 04, and then when I was in private practice, sort of 05 through to 08, I noticed in my practice, there were some people that just weren't getting better with really good Feldenkrais work. And I had my exercise background and it had to do with trauma. (6:44 - 7:05) It had to do with what we call, what I call, I like to really be specific, stored survival stress. So the fight, flight, freeze, the collapse in the physiology. I'm like, why are all these people not getting better with this really good neuroplastic work that can change so much? That introduced me to Peter Levine's work. (7:05 - 7:28) So this was 08, at that time, Peter's work was just starting to like poke its head out of the ground, even though he had been teaching it since the early nineties, eighties and his discoveries were in the mid sixties. So this shows you how long it takes something to get up. And then I started studying with him. (7:28 - 7:47) I went far in that world, was assisting with, at his classes at the master level. And what happened, I was in my private practice and I'm like, God, this isn't enough to work with someone one hour a week. Some of my clients were with me for three, four, five years, no joke. (7:47 - 8:04) And they still, like I was doing good work, but there needed to be more that was done when they weren't with me in person. So that got me into realizing I need to teach the education. So I started doing workshops and there's a point to this. (8:04 - 8:19) I'm getting to the question. I started teaching workshops in my office, jam packed with like 50 people, probably a fire hazard, shouldn't have happened. PowerPoint presentations, talking about what I call the biology of stress, how it works. (8:19 - 8:40) Everything I had been taught in my SGE training, I was packing in into like kind of a two hour lecture. That then shifted to online. So when I put stuff online in about 2012, I had a business coach, and this is so funny to me, who said to me, you can't put the word nervous system on your site. (8:41 - 8:56) Why? So nobody knew what it was then, Yerasimos. Honest to God, like it was an unknown thing in the online world. People knew meditation, because even back then, breathwork and cold plunging and sauna wasn't a thing. (8:57 - 9:08) Circadian biology wasn't a thing. So I said, well, and I remember where I was sitting. I was actually sitting in Victoria, British Columbia, at one of Seth's trainings, SE trainings. (9:08 - 9:16) And I said to her, we got to put, I have to, I cannot not put this on the site, because this is what my work is about. It's about the nervous system. She was very gracious. (9:16 - 9:29) She said, you got to go with your gut. I'm like, I'm going to go with my gut. So fast forward to now, 2025, everyone has the word nervous system on their site. (9:29 - 9:40) Money coaches, breathwork coaches. I mean, I see it everywhere. And then I kind of go, wow, this word has been taken and just sort of bastardized. (9:41 - 10:17) Because if you were to ask many of the people who use that word, they could not tell anyone. I'm pretty certain what the nervous system is, how it works, what the real branches are, what the Polyvagal Theory really is, what trauma really is in the system, and what it takes to move it out, because it isn't just one thing. And so oddly, at that time, 2012 through 2015, I was just pumping stuff out online, because that's when the online course world was just going ballistic. (10:17 - 10:36) And then it really went crazy in 2020, kind of BC, before COVID. And then poof, it's everywhere. So I take partial responsibility, I think, because my first training, online training, was the Healing Trauma Series. (10:37 - 10:47) I remember the first time that went out, you guys, I think we had 20,000 signups. And you guys are in the online world. You know how hard it is to get 20,000 signups now. (10:49 - 11:01) And I look back and I'm like, wow, people were hungry for it. People didn't know what it was. So I think it's out there for a good reason, because it has to be out there. (11:01 - 11:14) Anybody I talk to now is like, you're right, the nervous system work is key. All these other things are really important, but we have to get into that physiology in a really deep way. The trouble is that it's been hijacked. (11:14 - 11:28) As I've said, it's kind of been capitalized on. And a lot of people don't really know what it is or what trauma work is. So that's my long way of introducing, that's kind of the trajectory. (11:30 - 11:34) And here we are now. Yeah, thank you for that. So two things. (11:35 - 12:26) One, and you could explore this after I say the next thing, but what is misunderstood around what trauma healing is? The other thing I want to say is, because let's say nervous system work and trauma healing has been a bit bastardized and like Joel said, watered down, I feel like there's this growing, I mean, subtle and maybe certain circles, movement of trauma doesn't cause disease, trauma doesn't impact you. And a lot of people who think trauma is just in the event, as opposed to a very complex physiological, psychological process that's happening, whatever, in your body. And so it's interesting to hear people talk about that because a lot of people now are talking about how the role of the psyche plays in disease, the role trauma plays in disease. (12:26 - 12:40) And it feels like I'm seeing a little bit of this pushback. But again, this pushback is coming from a place where people do not understand the physiology of the nervous system and what trauma really is. So if you can speak on that, that would be great. (12:41 - 12:49) Yeah, I didn't realize there was pushback. There's a little, I mean, it's in our little world, you know, a few people commenting on it. And so I wanted to bring that up. (12:50 - 13:00) I wonder if it's the same thing. I'm seeing pushback. I don't know if you would call it pushback, but some people are starting to say, everyone's doing too many things to try to heal, just stop everything and just be. (13:02 - 13:11) And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. That's also not good. And it's not enough to just be in nature, as we know, Seth and I have talked about that. (13:12 - 13:20) Or the spiritualizing of it as well, where it's like, no, you just need to know that you're source energy and you're good, cool. Just now build up your life. Oh, I wish that were true. (13:21 - 13:56) That'd be so easy. We wouldn't have to be here, right? So why is it misunderstood? So I mean, the basic, that's a loaded question, which I accept. But what's so difficult is, we've got this body, this physiology that has so many systems, right? Digestion, immune, endocrine, muscular, respiratory, cardiovascular, lymphatics, fluid, neural, neural chemistries, biomechanics, inner ear. (13:56 - 14:20) I mean, and then relationship, how we relate to people, how we relate to the world. So what I just said is like a quick snapshot of all the things the autonomic nervous system governs. When we've had a really significant event that's traumatic, and I'm not gonna go into all the branches today at all, that's like on my site. (14:20 - 14:44) People can watch the branches of the nervous system and what they are. When we have an event that's scary and we don't process it, it gets stuck in the physiology. But it's not just in the nervous system, it's in the skin, the fascia, the bones, the muscles, our breathing patterns, our memories, our sense of safety in the world. (14:44 - 16:10) The other thing that complicates it for us humans is that our early traumas, we short it EDT, early developmental traumas, this is anything that occurs in utero to about age three, some people say age five, but we know the human brain is developing now, I think they say till age 28, right? But really that first five years of life is so critical. And so if there is anything that occurs in that time that renders that child, that infant, either in utero or out of utero, unsafe, put into threat, questioning their own physiology, we then have a situation where that human, I don't know the best word, it's like they've been tainted, they haven't been given that pure connection, love, nutrition, safety, safe haven, secure attachment, all those words that people throw out that they need so that when they do have an event that say harmful or a shocking event like a car accident or an injury, they can bounce back quicker. And so right now what's happening in the West is people don't realize how dysregulated they are in a functional way, I'm gonna slow that down, they don't realize how dysregulated they are in a functional way, we would call this functional freeze. (16:11 - 16:51) And so they're trying to work on their traumas that they know they have, they know they have the car accident, they know their mother wasn't there, the father left, there was abuse, there was alcohol, all the things. So they're trying to get this shaking out, this catharsis, this emotion, or they're trying to work with their connection as Joel said to spirit source, but what hasn't been addressed is this early imprint of unsafety. And there's no shame in it by the way, like I've met very few people that haven't had some form of early developmental trauma, it's very rare. (16:51 - 17:47) So what I'm seeing, you know what your question you asked most was, what is misunderstood? I would say if I really put one layer down, what is misunderstood is how complex we actually are and how we shape shift and change based on different circumstances and we were born into that. You're at home with your either functional or dysfunctional family, you then go to your kindergarten, you go to first grade, to second grade, you get indoctrinated into that, I know you guys know a lot about that and then you have to fit in and all the teachers are different and then you have bullies. Anyway, so there's this like trajectory from when we come out as humans where very rarely are we given true opportunity to be authentic, but also biological and also learn boundaries and right from wrong. (17:48 - 18:09) So what is misunderstood? I think what's misunderstood if I make it really simple is the complexity of it and how you cannot rewrite and rewire that stuff in a year. You can't even do that in three years. I mean, I'm living with a man, Seth, who you both know, we've been together 14 years now. (18:09 - 18:34) He did spiritual work, every type of spiritual work before I met him. He lived in the woods, he was living the ideal life in nature and then he got together with me and the poor guy still had complex PTSD. Even though he had that ability to meditate, there was so much stored survival stress, not just in his nervous system, but his entire physiology in the posture, all these things. (18:34 - 19:11) But then when he started to work on this and I'm a similar case, but different, it took years and years and years to do true functional rewiring of the system, but all the systems. So remember how I mentioned all those systems, digestion, immune, endocrine, skeletal, muscle. We want to, I'm using my hands with this, but if you consider all those little circles lined up, what I find is happening is people are trying to improve one system because they're like, this is the problem system, it's my digestion, so I got to fix that. (19:12 - 19:25) Or let's say, oh, it's my emotions, I've got to fix that. Or I have to release my anger, I got to work on that. But then all these other systems aren't tended and then they don't move forward together. (19:25 - 19:53) So what I find is that there's a desire to rush, to be quick, to work on the one system that's off. But what we have to do is get into that root layer of the nervous system physiology, growing capacity, so that all these physiological systems and relational systems and environmental systems go together at the same time. But to bring all those pieces along takes time. (19:54 - 20:10) Does that make sense? Yeah, it definitely does. It seems like there's still much managing going on as opposed to actual healing that does take time, like you said. If I use a fancy word, often people throw out the term window of tolerance. (20:10 - 20:27) And you may know that word. Most people, again, if I go back to those living with say functional freeze or dysregulation, but it's functional, don't realize that their actual window of tolerance is quite small. It's like a little cubby hole window. (20:28 - 20:56) And so building a real window of tolerance is actually pretty boring work. Actually, your wife, I can mention Sophie, we were just together in training and we were talking about just how her term was sneaky powerful. How little tiny bits of connection to the environment, little tiny bits of connection to self, tracking just one sensation and then reconnecting to the environment. (20:56 - 21:22) It seems so inconsequential and like that's nothing. But Joel, you would know with your babies and little ones, like all it takes is one little connection and you just, you see them shift or they see one thing and they're just, and so that like, you know what that is. It's so small, little things make such a big difference. (21:23 - 21:58) So if we think of us as adults, that's the level of small detail we actually wanna work with. And as you said, Gerasimos, we're trying to manage all these things that are overwhelming or hard for us as opposed to going back to what would we do with a baby? What would we want to provide an infant? Connection, food, safety. And that stuff is, you know, again, back to Joel and your family, it's kind of boring. (21:58 - 22:10) You do the same thing every day. There's a variety in there, but when they're infants, they need very basic stuff. And so I see people wanting to do more extravagant stuff. (22:11 - 22:30) And while there's a time and a place for that, the beginning of the work, to go back to what your question, what is most misunderstood, is how long we need to spend building solid foundations. And those foundations that we build are pretty, they're almost invisible. We don't see them happening. (22:30 - 22:56) Just like when you're raising a child, you speak to them, you sing to them, you show them words on books, they don't talk, they don't talk, they start to make sound. And then all of a sudden, one day they say a word and it's like, right? But it's taken years to get to that. That is the nervous system at work, laying down new foundations. (22:56 - 23:22) So when we think of our physiology as adults with wounds and dysregulations and dysfunctions, that's the level of care and consistency and repetition and smallness we wanna work with. And what occurs, and my students and clients will say this, I stuck with it, it seemed really boring. And then one day I actually was able to do this. (23:23 - 23:47) I actually was able to feel what is say a survival stress attack, a panic attack and feel it, be with it, not manage it, not try to get rid of it, not try to ignore it. But I ride that wave of intensity and I came down. Yeah, because this is the thing I wanna get to because it's like people think that nervous system regulation is like being calm. (23:47 - 23:50) Yeah. Like I'm calm, I need to be calm and now I'm good. Yeah. (23:51 - 24:22) As opposed to what you talk about often and we've talked about before is like having that, well, increasing the window of tolerance but building greater capacity in that regards. So if you wanna talk more, because that's another buzzword, nervous system regulation, this is gonna help you regulate your nervous system. You hear that all the time, all across social media and in copy and different programs people are running and yet what is the foundation of that? What does it really mean? It's not just about being calm, like there are appropriate responses to situations where you're not calm. (24:22 - 24:35) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, thanks for sharing that, Irene. The other thing I'd like to add is like someone or I think many people would probably hear what you just said and feel like, wow, this is just overwhelming. (24:35 - 24:52) This was a lifetime of work. Healing is not instantaneous, not what I thought it was. How am I ever going to get on with my life? Am I just going to spend years trying to deal with this and then navigate this and maybe can even foster some kind of victim mentality within an individual as well. (24:53 - 25:24) So like, what would you say to someone where it's like, how do I do this work and get on with my life like as well? Now, a short break from the episode. What's up, guys? Hope you're enjoying this incredible episode with Irene Lyon. Just quickly, if you love what we're about, if you love these conversations that we're having, then you can take these conversations to the next level with people who have been in our community for a long time, who understand our world, who are excited about living meaningful, purposeful, authentic, whole lives. (25:25 - 25:40) And so you can dive in at Friends of the Truth, which is our online membership community. It's hereforthetruth.com forward slash F-O-T-T. And when you become a member, you get five live calls per month, sometimes more. (25:40 - 25:54) And you get an incredible, exclusive Telegram membership community where we're always interacting. We're always engaged. People are dropping knowledge, sharing insights, and really just inspiring one another to be better. (25:54 - 26:27) And this month, I want to highlight that we have Tiziano Skweresor from a previous episode, who is a family constellations expert, coming in to join our members for a live interactive session with those who decide to dive in. We also have two new calls on the slate, one with astrologer Mellie Newbeck, and one featuring my wife, Elissa Rafiti, who will be hosting a women's circle for the women and mothers in the group. $17 per month. (26:27 - 26:33) That's all it is. hereforthetruth.com forward slash F-O-T-T. Back to the episode. (26:34 - 26:45) I'm going to use an example that parallels this. So I was in the fitness industry for quite a while, teaching people how to get fit, lose weight, all those things, trained for marathons. I worked with athletes. (26:45 - 27:15) If you take someone and anybody who's gotten fit, knows this and taking care of their health and all that, you don't have those shifts happen in a week, right? So let's say you have to lose 50 pounds, you're diabetic and you have osteoporosis and your diet is terrible. And your doctor just said, if you don't clean up your system, you're going to die soon. Like being very blatant, but we know this is a common thing, especially in the West. (27:16 - 27:46) That person who's given that, almost like if you don't do this, you're going to, it's not going to be good. They have to have a lot of diligence to go, okay, I'm going to do this the way in which it will stick, as opposed to the diet fads, right? As opposed to going and trying to kill my body with CrossFit or something like that. Slow, consistent building. (27:46 - 27:53) You can't just go out and do a two hour run. You have to start with five minutes of walking. It's true. (27:54 - 28:01) A couple times a day. And that's going to feel like nothing. And then the next month, you might add a little bit more and a little bit more. (28:01 - 28:13) You might clean up one thing in your diet. Because again, we've seen when people try to clean up their diet, like all the junk food out, right? Only healthy whole foods. And then there's like a relapse. (28:13 - 28:24) It's the same with addictions. To say alcohol in that is like the cold turkey thing works for some people. But you can't typically do that when someone's on a heavy narcotic. (28:24 - 28:36) You have to taper them off because the system's gotten used to it. So if we use the example of exercise and getting our body physically fit again, it doesn't happen overnight. And it certainly doesn't happen in a year. (28:37 - 28:54) Anybody who's really taken time to rebuild their body, even after seeing an injury, it can take years. And so the nervous system is the same way, Joel. And I think you two know that is what's happened is we've medicalized trauma as a condition that needs to be treated. (28:55 - 29:08) Like you have an infection and maybe you do need to take some antibiotics. You might need to get that abscess lanced and stitched up and then it's better. And it's been treated. (29:09 - 29:23) What's happened is we've seen things like neurological conditions, autoimmune conditions, mental illness. I say that with air quotes because we know it's a physiological illness. It's not typically a psyche-based. (29:23 - 29:48) The psyche gets impacted due to the dysregulation of the nervous system. So we have all of these conditions that have been connected through some pretty good research, the ACE study, to this dysregulation of the system from a very young age. But because we've labeled them as condition syndromes, I think, I think, I'm just theorizing here, the general populace thinks, this is a medical condition. (29:48 - 29:58) I can treat it with some breathwork, meditation. My doctor told me to go do some breathwork. My doctor told me to go and get some therapy or do some EMDR. (29:59 - 30:29) And so people go thinking, okay, I'm just gonna do 10 sessions of this thing, just like someone might come to see me for 10 sessions of somatic experiencing. We're not gonna solve a lifetime of dysregulation in 10 sessions, just like when I was in my fitness training days, someone who comes to me with severe chronic health condition and say, significantly overweight, we're not gonna get them perfect in 10 personal training sessions. I mean, we know that. (30:30 - 30:44) So that's what I would say. I would say we have to see this as not conditions that we're trying to treat. We're trying to treat an ecosystem, the human body that has been given the wrong information. (30:45 - 31:06) And we have to retrain it to be in that body, which can take time, especially when the body has been not a good place to be in. We also have to retrain it to connect to the environment because we live in the environment. And typically it was the environment that caused us harm, right? Usually it's people, parents, perpetrators. (31:07 - 31:28) And then we have to connect the two and often what occurs in a lot of, you know, legit somatic classes as they leave out the environment and they leave out listening to the body and what it can and cannot handle. And so we push, we override. And we see that with fitness. (31:28 - 31:38) If I go back, like a person will be like, oh yeah, I'm just gonna go and do five exercise classes a week. I've never done anything in my life. And what happens? They get hurt. (31:38 - 31:42) They're in pain. No pain, no gain, Irene. No pain, no gain. (31:42 - 31:53) I know. And then they don't go back because maybe they, you know, pulled a tendon or maybe, you know, I've done that. I was in fitness where, you know, you do squats so long. (31:53 - 32:07) You go for a hike that you can't even sit on the bloody toilet because your legs are so sore. Like if so what's happening, I think, I don't think I know, cause I've seen it. We have to change the mentality of what it means to heal trauma. (32:07 - 32:17) It's not a thing to be fixed, to be treated. It really is a lifestyle thing. Just like if someone say, reaches their goal weight, they get their muscles back. (32:17 - 32:23) Their blood chemistry is better. They don't have pre-diabetes. And then they go, I've reached it. (32:24 - 32:29) I'm gonna stop. And I'm gonna now not move. I'm gonna stop going to the gym. (32:29 - 32:35) I'm gonna stop eating healthy food. It will revert. Now the difference though, this is the good news. (32:35 - 32:55) The difference with gaining regulation of the nervous system because of the neuroplastic channels and the way the system works. When you do build that foundation and it's strong, it's there. And then what happens after that are tweaks and nuances. (32:56 - 33:28) Then you might have time to work on that arm break that happened when you were seven years old on the monkey bars. Then you might have time to work on that emotional thing that you're carrying from when your professor at grad school screamed at you in front of your peers and you feel shame because you screwed up. But those sort of shock traumas get healed a lot faster when we have a solid foundation and we actually have real window of tolerance. (33:28 - 33:41) But again, I always go back to the exercise example because that just really paints the picture. And anybody who's gotten fit, they know, yeah, it takes a lot of work. But then what occurs is you actually start to feel good when you exercise. (33:41 - 34:02) You actually start to feel good when you eat better. And so when people get better lifestyle behaviors on board that help their nervous system, they go, you know what? I'm not gonna go to that thing, that social gathering that when I come back from, I just feel gross and drained. That doesn't serve me, right? Boundaries start to shift. (34:02 - 34:14) And I've seen this in my students, like they literally start to crave movement, crave healthy food because the system wants that. I'll stop talking for a moment. Tell me if that makes sense. (34:15 - 34:22) No, it does make sense. I mean, I think people gain more discernment as they build more capacity within their nervous system. There's more choices available to them. (34:25 - 34:51) Well, the world doesn't look like something you have to control anymore. So when we're stuck in a loop of severe dysregulation and maybe functional, and we have a very small window of tolerance, we have to control things. And this is why OCD is a classic by-product of dysregulation, right? I have to control, same with narcissism. (34:51 - 35:16) I've got to control everything in my life, even down to my routine and when I buy groceries and what I buy because it gives a sense of ease. The trouble with that is that if something throws our routine off and we can't do our normal everyday things that keep us feeling safe, we lose it. We either shut down more or we get highly activated. (35:17 - 35:27) We saw this during COVID, right? People's routines got thrown off and everybody went crazy. Not everyone, but many people did. It's legit what occurred. (35:27 - 35:43) There was fear. I can't do exactly what I do every day. So a big part of gaining real regulation is being able to let go of that control and live in a state of flow. (35:44 - 36:02) Don't love that word anymore because it's been kind of hijacked too. But a state of just ease with what comes and it does not mean to go back to your thing about calm, right? It might mean that we can calm ourselves down, but here's the thing. We wanna be able to bring ourselves out of activation. (36:02 - 36:18) So fight flight without needing to do something. That's what your kids are learning right now, Joel. They're learning how to find self-regulation without needing their blankie or a hug, right? That is growing real regulation. (36:19 - 36:44) And what people have, I think, mistaken regulation with is a state shift in the nervous system. So they might do the breathwork, the cold plunge, the meditation, the qigong, but all these things are good, right? I actually do all those things myself, but as a practice for a therapeutic effect. But to try to use an outside thing and a behavior to grow regulation doesn't happen. (36:44 - 37:02) So when someone says, oh, I feel so much more regulated now after doing that breathwork session, chances are they feel a shift in activation to more deactivation. But if they need that session to come down, they're not regulated. It isn't growing regulation. (37:04 - 37:13) Yeah, it makes sense. You know, it's like if you're driving and someone cuts you off, I always love bringing up these examples of being cut off. Like you can have an initial reaction. (37:14 - 37:30) And you will, because you almost die. Yeah, but then if you're staying in that state for the next 24 hours, there's probably an issue there because the threat left once you didn't get into the accident and you're driving along on the highway and everything is quote unquote fine again. Yeah, you take it personally too. (37:31 - 38:08) But there is a sense of value in terms of knowing myself, feeling oneself dysregulated, knowing that there's certain tools available to me that can help me regulate and having the self-awareness to be like, hang on, let me now prioritize something else, even though it is, you know, maybe a breathwork session or a massage or whatever it might be. What's the value in that, in this? Huge value. Real quickly though, but is the use of the language like helping me regulate, is that not even like accurate? Should it be another word? Like it's helped me shift like my state as opposed to, you know, I'm now regulated. (38:09 - 38:24) But what about the awareness of what my body needs? Like my system is, you know, like... So there's two pieces to that. I would replace regulate with resource. So I need to take a hot bath because I need to resource myself. (38:24 - 38:50) I need to do a bit of breathing to center and... It's a resource. So you're using a tool, a movement, a practice, a song, you know, Netflix, you know... A person, a person. A person, a dog, nature, right? That is resourcing me and bringing me back into my center and then my system can come down. (38:50 - 39:02) Yeah. So what about like even like classic nervous system resources, like self-hug, tapping, orienting. Like that's resourcing as opposed to regulating, is that? Yep. (39:02 - 39:17) So this is where again, back to your first question, you asked the most, the misunderstanding. So this is where it's again... I'm going to use the baby as an example because it's the perfect one. Little one cries, pick up. (39:18 - 39:39) You figure out what they need. Are they hungry? Are they tired? Are they hot? Are they cold? Do they not like a person who just walked in the room? You attune, you attend to and then they come out of their activation. Now, one connection with an infant does not build full self-regulation, obviously. (39:40 - 40:01) But what does build self-regulation is that constant co-regulation with you or mom or older sister. And then over time, I'm using my hand, it's like layering. Like it's like baklava, right? It's like thin layers, thin layers. (40:01 - 40:25) And that builds. And then eventually just like the speaking, all that resourcing, all that attunement, all that co-regulation with a human nature, it then creates regulation. And what happens is we know when we finally have, well, we can say better, more robust regulation when we feel that cry. (40:26 - 40:49) And this will happen with your girls, for example. And they know how to be with that discomfort and process it on their own. It doesn't mean that we won't get frustrated, right? We won't get anger on the road, but we can digest the survival physiology, feel it, know what it is, connect to the body, not disconnect. (40:49 - 41:19) And then it recycles as opposed to, oh, I'm so stressed, I need to go to that thing. So to your point, Joel, for someone who doesn't yet have true window of tolerance that is wide, a wide window, and doesn't have better, more robust regulation, yeah, we want them to go to a resource. I always say to people, I would rather you do deep breathing than hit your kid, right? Like it's a no brainer. (41:19 - 41:44) But if there's that impulse to want to act out, then that's a sign, okay, if it goes past that, what we would call healthy aggression, right? And it goes into kind of rage, it's like, okay, there still isn't regulation there, we still need to work on that. But in the meantime, yeah, I'm gonna go into the sauna, I'm gonna do some breath work, I'm gonna do some Qigong. So this is where there's a lot of contextual nuance. (41:44 - 42:09) It can't be black and white, because yeah, in my teachings, I teach resourcing, I teach orienting, I teach containment, I teach movement, I teach sound, all in service of that person getting better connected to self and the environment. And that's what builds the capacity, which then builds the regulation, which then builds the real window of tolerance. Yeah. (42:10 - 42:27) Can you talk more about healthy aggression? Maybe we've covered it in a previous podcast, but it's something that I talk about often. We bring it up in our group coaching program, Rise of the Herd, Sophie and I discuss it. And it's something that's helped me because I'm like a Jersey Greek, like sometimes, you know, and I have my own history of shit that's happened to me. (42:28 - 42:54) But if I feel disrespected or there's some injustice, there's a deep rage that can sometimes come inside of me. And I've found these exercises, like squeezing your forearms or wringing a towel, or even when I'm driving, squeezing the freaking steering wheel and letting out some sound. I go from a 10, ready to explode, and I just downregulate, or if that's the right term to use, I downgrade. (42:54 - 43:17) Because it's like I'm allowing myself to experience the anger in a healthy way, like trying to follow someone home and like punch them in the face because they cut me off, or punch someone out in public. It's just, I want to experience that, the experience of being angry, but in a way that's like not causing damage. I mean, you just said it, you just described it. (43:17 - 43:26) I'm glad you mentioned Baklava, another great Middle Eastern idea that Greg stole. Yeah, he was holding onto that, another holding onto that joke until he had a moment. It's like four minutes later. (43:26 - 43:35) I could sense something there. So what's the real history of Baklava? Right away, and I was gonna say something. I was like, what is? So he froze. (43:37 - 43:41) You cut it out for like five seconds then. Oh, I froze. If you want to repeat it, you can. (43:42 - 43:51) No, it's okay. I was just saying, I wonder when one of us was gonna make a joke about like whether or not Baklava was Greek or Middle Eastern. Anyways, back to healthy aggression. (43:52 - 44:07) No, you nailed it. There's not much more to say. The thing is that we don't suppress it and we don't swallow it, but we want to contain it and move it out. (44:08 - 44:27) So in other words, you're right. If you get that person that cuts you off in traffic and you feel like you'll feel a heat through the body and you'll feel like, it's like you want to fight and you want to, and of course you're in this vehicle. So what a perfect way to like feel speed and slam on the, or put the gas on. (44:27 - 44:38) But of course that's not very social in a healthy way. So you squeeze the steering wheel, you let that roar out. Because trust me, I've done that. (44:38 - 44:45) I'll like shake it. But the key is that you want it to go through the whole system. You don't wanna suppress it. (44:46 - 44:54) Now, yeah, you're right. If you were to be like, I gotta keep that in, then you're right. Something else might happen later. (44:54 - 45:10) You might snap at your wife later for no reason, right? You might snap at your kids later for no reason. So it's these unresolved, sensorial, emotional, behavioral responses. Because anger is an emotion, but it's really a survival strategy. (45:12 - 45:20) It's fighting, right? It's the fight of the fight, flight, freeze. Someone just does something to me that's not good. I need to fight them. (45:20 - 45:44) I need to kill them. And so if we think of the amount of times a human as a child, as a toddler, as an infant, as a teenager wanted to express healthy aggression, because it starts in infancy when they start pulling hair and hounding. And that's not because they're angry. (45:44 - 46:04) It's because they're feeling their life force energy. They're feeling, I'm strong, right? And how they're met by their primary caregiver with that strength will determine how that sets in their system. So when your little baby starts pulling, we wanna like play with them and encourage that strength in a healthy way. (46:04 - 46:23) But often what occurs, I never saw this, but Peter Levine would say, oh yeah, mothers that don't have comfort with their own aggression and strength, when their baby starts to do that, they actually will punish the baby. They'll put the baby down. They'll disconnect from the baby because they think this baby is trying to hurt them. (46:24 - 46:43) And that again shows how little, not little, but how disconnected we are with our own physiology. So yeah, we wanna move it out. And then it's not as easy as just saying to someone, okay, you've got anger issues, you've got stored anger, take a towel and squeeze it. (46:44 - 47:00) We can do that, but we have to connect. And I teach this intensively in my courses we have to teach the internal connection. The fire has to get brought up organically and then we move the squeeze, the punch, the stomp. (47:01 - 47:24) But what often occurs is in a lot of, we can say retreats where they're trying to be cathartic and screaming and hitting things is they're missing the foundation of sensing the internal physiology. Otherwise it's just a good movement, right? There's nothing wrong with boxing and getting physical. That's good. (47:24 - 47:39) And often people mistake a healing because they feel better because they got their endorphins going and they got the blood flowing. But then they find out in a month later, oh, I'm still snapping at my wife. I'm still snapping at my husband. (47:39 - 48:17) Why am I still irritated by everything that occurs that doesn't go my way? It's like, ah, you didn't really work on that deep anger. You just got the movement of anger out, but not the connection to the emotion and the initial harm of feeling threatened and feeling helpless. Yeah, and a lot of the big movements, cathartic stuff just feels a lot faster than doing something more subtle like squeezing a towel, but then for a little bit and then coming back to your inner life, like what's happening in your body, then going back to it and then coming back. (48:17 - 48:38) I think that back and forth process is what's important. And I'm very blessed that I have a wife that knows this work because we can support one another. I mean, there are times where we're driving together and she's the one like, would you like to grab the steering wheel? Or like, I'm with her and I kind of give her my wrist and I'm like, would you like to squeeze my wrist? Forearm, yeah. (48:38 - 49:14) On my forearm, yeah, over here. And it's just really cool to have that experience and then to notice it, to like come back and like what feels differently than, you know, three, 10 seconds ago, you know, and to kind of have that intrapersonal relationship with sensation and the nuance of my being has been a gift. What is the relationship? And I know your response has a lot to say on this as well, between like say psychological shadow work from a Jungian perspective and the nervous system. (49:15 - 49:27) Yeah, I mean, they intertwine. I'm not studied in Jung, but I've definitely come across more of his teachings, really the last two years. And the shadow work is there. (49:27 - 49:52) It's the part of us that hasn't been able to express those fight, light, flee, freeze, shut down urges. And so, you know, we can say it's the dark side of us that wants to kill, that wants to scream, that wants to rage. And we have to bring the body into it. (49:53 - 50:13) And so I think that's where, again, you know, Peter, for example, Levine has deep respect for Jung and Freud. But then the other people that came onto the scene, like William Reich, that talked about the body and the armoring of the body and the tissues. And then Ida Rolfe coming in, like you've got to break the fascia up. (50:13 - 50:28) And then Feldenkrais, you've got to teach the movement. You know, this is the part that I think, if we go back to the macro, why people are so confused is they're trying to pick one method. And I'm gonna just work on this method. (50:28 - 50:46) I'm just gonna do psychoanalysis dream work, for example. Nothing wrong with that. But if it's not getting integrated into the physiology and these core unconscious survival mechanisms, the technical word is the implicit memory that's stored in the body, the stored procedural memory. (50:46 - 51:28) If that isn't getting tapped into, that desire to punch or run or to feel the collapse, we're so smart. We can therapize the shit out of ourselves, like just over and over and over again and analyze, but it's got to connect to the survival strategies that never got to be executed. And so I think a great psychoanalyst in conjunction with a somatic practitioner who's good in connection with a good movement practice of say Tai Chi, Qigong, Feldenkrais, understanding breath, understanding healthy food, like toxin removal, it all has to come together. (51:29 - 51:50) And I think what has occurred is, I just got this question the other day because I did a series of stories on why it isn't enough to just feel our emotions. It's not just enough to be cathartic. Someone said, well, are you saying then that SE, somatic experiencing isn't enough to heal trauma? And I kind of said, well, it depends. (51:50 - 52:03) Depends if that person has early trauma because that model doesn't work with early trauma. It depends if that person has a neurological issue due to something from birth. They might need a Feldenkrais practitioner in conjunction with that. (52:04 - 52:29) And so I think this sort of umbrella of these methodologies are being treated too individually and they have to blend together. This is why Peter, he didn't just develop SE because it just came. It's like he had been studying Freud and Jung and Wright and he was a rolfer. (52:29 - 52:33) He was a body worker. He wasn't a psychologist. People think he's a psychiatrist. (52:33 - 52:50) It's so funny. It's like, no, no, no. That man was a biophysicist and a body worker doing breath work in Berkeley, right? And a lot of the high level somatic teachers have a lineage of body work. (52:50 - 53:09) Kathy Kane wrote the book on orthobiotomy. My instructor, Steve Hoskinson didn't come from body work, but he was into Aikido, right? Martial arts. And so anyway, that's a long way of saying, Joel, it's all valid. (53:09 - 53:39) It comes down to can the person the person's working with, do they have enough skill and repertoire to do more than one thing? And what I'm seeing, because there's so many people being pumped out through the SE trainings, and I went through the training. It was a great training, but I came in with so much information in my body and in my brain before that training so I could integrate what was occurring. A lot of people are going to that training with no body work experience, no movement experience. (53:39 - 54:00) They don't know the muscles. And then they watch Peter do a demo with the trapezius muscles and the scalenes and the skeleton and everybody's confused because they haven't been taught about that physiology and that anatomy. And then they leave thinking they know what to do with the client, but they actually don't know what to do. (54:01 - 54:16) That's a very quick example of, I think the issue we're seeing right now is people think that our profession is a profession. It is not a profession yet. It's the beginning of a profession. (54:17 - 54:25) Just like medicine, or I always use the example of surgery. Surgery is a miracle. It saves lives. (54:26 - 54:41) I wouldn't be walking if it wasn't for orthopedic surgery with my injuries, but that didn't get created in 100 years. It didn't. If you go back to the history of medicine, it was pretty archaic and pretty bad at the beginning. (54:42 - 55:02) And it got developed. It got developed with people talking, people researching, people experimenting, people dying, right? Oops, shouldn't have done that. So we're in that right now with the somatic stuff and the nervous system stuff and the neuroplasticity stuff. (55:02 - 55:24) We're kind of swimming in this sea of newness and everybody is thinking, oh, I'm that expert because I've done one course. You might know a little bit, but the other thing I've learned, this is where the surgery example doesn't actually translate. You can have a surgeon who is so good at their work, but they're completely dysregulated. (55:25 - 56:03) If you've ever had a surgeon with a bad bedside manner and no connection, it's like, it doesn't matter. As long as they know how to fix the internal, you're golden, right? With doing somatic nervous system, I call it scientuitive work, the person offering the work or guiding the person who's coming to see them has to be fully in their body and regulated at least more than the person coming to them. Because it's your somatic physiology, your body that tells you what to do with the person you're working with. (56:03 - 56:22) You cannot have a list of, okay, I'm gonna orient them and then I'm gonna get them to do a voo sound and then I'm gonna get them to squeeze when it looks like they're getting a little activated. You can't think through somatic work. You have to know what to do internally, but you also have to have the theory. (56:22 - 56:33) It's a very complex system doing this higher level of work with people. And it's hard to describe it. And what I think is happening, I don't think I know. (56:33 - 56:49) And I know you were in some trainings where you saw the dysregulation and what was going on. I don't think most people understand that they're not regulated because they have the tools to calm themselves down. They have the resources. (56:51 - 57:00) But yeah, I'll stop. I wanna make sure I'm making sense. And if you have any pieces, cause it's, we're in a really interesting time. (57:00 - 57:04) I kind of call it the Wild West. It is the Wild West. It is new, like you said. (57:05 - 57:15) It's so new. Like it's wild. And I'm really grateful that I have a history of body work before I did the three-year program with SEP. (57:15 - 57:33) I didn't get my SEP labeled because I didn't follow through with hours and things like that. But it definitely was a benefit to have that understanding of the body and the felt sense of receiving tons of body work and giving lots of body work. And as opposed to, you know, just coming in without that. (57:34 - 57:42) Yeah. Yeah. I wanna ask you this because a lot of the cathartic stuff, like for me, I like really deep body work. (57:43 - 58:00) I like going into the pain. I have a bruise on my arm right now from cupping the other day. Yeah. And it comes from a school of like looking at the body as a shadow. You know, I love psychology. I love, you brought up names of people that have been a big influence to me, whether it's Ryke, Lowen, Young. (58:00 - 58:17) And so, you know, I think for a lot of this stuff, you have to have a certain level of capacity built within you to do this more, quote unquote, intense work. You do. I feel like I've been someone, again, it's been a process for sure, getting to it. (58:18 - 58:30) But like when I'm working with a practitioner, they're crushing me to a degree, but I'm like sitting, I'm like with it. I'm, I feel like I'm there with the pain. And so it is transformational. (58:31 - 58:40) It has been transformational for me. It has caused such a deep impact in how I relate to self and others by doing that kind of deeper cathartic work. But I think I had to build to get to that place. (58:40 - 59:12) What do you say about that? Absolutely. Again, there's nothing wrong with really deep cathartic work, rolfing work, fascia work, even emotional work. Like getting to this place of like crying and grieving so bad that your stomach is retching and you've just got snot like all over your face and you're red and you're just in it, but you're in it and you're fully involved in it. (59:12 - 59:48) And it's not scary. Getting to that level of being able to reach, because when you get to that, if I use that example of like retching and crying, like you have to be in your guts, like to use chakras and diaphragms, like you've gotta be in the pelvic, in the root, but in the sacral, in the solar plexus, in the heart, in the throat, all those energy channels, all those osteopathic diaphragm levels, which is more my form of work, have to be open. Because if one is closed, it's not gonna go through. (59:48 - 1:00:42) And if you've ever had body work and then you get a headache afterwards, like this is a common thing, that's usually a sign that there's something that was blocked and the energy and the fluids have gotten stuck. And usually it's top of the head, right? You get all this great work on your shoulders and neck or pelvis, and then you're like sore in your head and it's because that hasn't been opened. So to go back to what you said about capacity and the person doing the work, again, I have a high standard for my students, they need to be not just in their emotions and sensations, but be ready for when a client screams at them or has a rage of fight energy come out because they finally unlocked the desire to kill the person who was raping them. (1:00:43 - 1:01:17) And if the person sitting on the other side, the practitioner is afraid of their own life force energy, they're gonna crumble. And then the person who's, ah, I need to kill that person, right? The person who's all of a sudden feeling this organic energy of fight energy is gonna see the therapist be afraid, you've destroyed the session. Are you right? And then that person goes into shame, shit, I shouldn't have been angry, I'm so sorry. (1:01:17 - 1:01:37) And what occurs is you start to take care of your therapist and the moment that happens, and I don't like to call it therapist, practitioner. And so that's where the level of deep body knowledge that a true, again, I'm calling it scientuitive practitioner, that's what I'm training people to be. We can call them somatic practitioners. (1:01:38 - 1:02:10) The level of nuance and integration and openness and sensitivity is so important. Like you need to be able to pick up a baby and soothe it and know exactly what it needs, but also be able to roar like a lion and then come down and be articulate with your talk and connect and make a ham sandwich and just chill out at the end of the day, right? There needs to be this ability to have, this is window of tolerance. And a really good practitioner can have all those things. (1:02:10 - 1:02:37) They can just sit and talk, as Joel said, about the shadow side of things, hatred towards the world, towards government, pollution, all the things, but then come back to the body and not get stuck in the awfulizing, but then also be able to give touch that's calm and connected. So that's sort of my speech on- I wanna add, I wanna say something. Yeah, I wanna thank you. (1:02:37 - 1:02:46) I wanna say something real quickly because I love that you said that about the practitioner having the capacity. Yeah. Because in my first foray, I guess, into deeper personal development work. (1:02:47 - 1:02:54) I don't know, in my 20s, I was trained in a system called voice dialogue, the psychology of selves and the aware ego. Okay. It's by psychologist, Dr. Helen Sidra Stone. (1:02:55 - 1:03:29) Anyways, it's a form of parts work and it's where you're dialoguing with different people and they move into different parts of the room and embody different parts of them. And they always used to say that if you haven't, as the facilitator, if you haven't embodied a certain part that they're going into, it's gonna be much more challenging because you almost want to induct it in yourself to allow it to come further out in the person you're with. And so, yeah, because I can only imagine like if someone steps into like the killer part of them and then the person facilitating is like, couldn't even go there. (1:03:29 - 1:03:37) I mean, the person's gonna know that. Yeah. And the session isn't gonna go as deep and then they're not gonna be able to embody it fully. (1:03:38 - 1:04:14) And so it's like- I mean, all this is about safety, right? It's all about safety. Like the person going there needs to feel safe in the space that they're allowed to go there, that they can go there, whether it's, you know, your example with the nervous system practitioner or with the password practitioner. I wanna ask, what role do the people that you primarily hang around with play in the state of your nervous system? Because I think about my journey personally and I wouldn't say I've done tons of intentional specific guided nervous system work. (1:04:14 - 1:04:32) I've done some. But I feel like, for example, say when Eurasmos and I first met and probably even to some degree, Eurasmos had done a fair bit of this work. I'd say it's definitely back in 2021, a lot more regulated than I would have been for sure. (1:04:32 - 1:05:05) And I feel like just through relationship with Eurasmos, my nervous system in a sense has evolved or more than has, you know, become more expanded in some capacity. And then I think also like rearing children, you know, like what kind of nervous system you model to those kids obviously has a large impact as well. So I was wondering if you can speak on that in some capacity and like what you witness, what you observe through other people, through the people you're primarily around, like what impact that has in, I guess how your nervous system is. (1:05:06 - 1:05:21) It's a huge impact. So I'll answer this question kind of going backwards. The people that I've witnessed who don't get better stay with dysfunctional and toxic partners, full stop. (1:05:22 - 1:05:50) I saw that also when I was assisting in SE, practitioners who had, usually it was the women because it's more women, girls in the SE world, it's changing. But you can sense this kind of sadness in some of the practitioners who were assisting because their husbands weren't into the work. They would say, oh, they support me. (1:05:50 - 1:06:00) They don't mind me coming here. But it was more of a support from a financial point of view, a time management point of view. Yeah, you can go away and have fun with your friends and your colleagues. (1:06:00 - 1:06:07) I'll take care of the kids. I'll do all the things. But they're not supporting it at a physiological energetic level. (1:06:08 - 1:06:33) And I actually think that a lot of the folks who I have seen in the circuit, and maybe I'll go to hell for saying this, but like they stay in that circuit and volunteer their time for free over and over again because they're in a field that is supportive of their physiology when they're in that SE training. And it's the only place they can get it because they're not getting it at home. Mm-hmm. (1:06:34 - 1:07:16) So I just wanted to put that out there for the record because I have, again, seen the practitioners who don't have a really solid environment at home and have their partner doing this work with them like you guys can do, it doesn't create full regulation in that practitioner. There's always gonna be a little bit of them that is not quite able to let it loose when they're at home. And that isn't gonna breed full regulation if you're having to constantly monitor your emotions, just sounds you make, gas that you pass, being grumpy and not having the person take it personally. (1:07:17 - 1:07:36) So to go back to what you said, Joel, I mean, yeah, you are more regulated than when I met you a while ago, and that's great. And I thank you for saying that. And it's because you two have such a solid relationship, there's safety in being able to talk and connect and have fun and be in family life together. (1:07:37 - 1:07:52) So that is gonna build, just like your little girls are gonna build their regulation because you and Alyssa are there like solid rocks, showing them consistency. And so for you two, there's consistency. You've been doing this consistently for many years. (1:07:52 - 1:08:14) So that builds what we call co-regulation and it is at the nervous system level. It's harnessing that part of our vagus nerve that sees another person and sees that they're safe and sees that they're kind and they're not gonna freak out when we don't agree with them. Because I'm sure you two have had disagreements, I would hope, right, about things. (1:08:15 - 1:08:18) That's life. Mainly over backgammon. Totally. (1:08:18 - 1:08:27) Well, I understand that. Why do you keep killing me? Well, I have the crown right now. I have the trophy. (1:08:27 - 1:08:31) I just wanna let everyone know. We'll see what happens next time. We'll have to play one day. (1:08:31 - 1:08:45) It's my favorite game too. Oh, amazing. But that's what I'm saying is like, Seth and I can play backgammon and like take the piss out of each other, but it's in connection, right? And so you're completely right. (1:08:45 - 1:09:10) Having good connection is essential and feeling that safety, because you mentioned safety, Joel, in another person is huge. What I would say is that safety is often the last thing to come on board at the nervous system level. And a lot of people will say, oh, I need to create a safe space or this workshop is a safe space. (1:09:10 - 1:09:51) You can have the space as safe as possible, boarded up with steel, whatever, guards outside and a moat and dragons and someone who has got dysregulation won't even know that that's there because it's cellular. And so building that cellular safety has to come happen internally. The practitioner or the facilitator say of, let's talk about a group workshop, can make sure that as many things are good so that there is that containment and that's running workshops is a whole other topic in itself. (1:09:51 - 1:10:05) Because just because you say it's a safe space, typically, I'll be really honest when I hear people say, oh yeah, I'm creating a safe space for this workshop. It's like a red flag. It just is. (1:10:05 - 1:10:21) I would never say I create a safe space at my workshops. I would say I show up with my team and people who I know are regulated and we have a plan, we have a system, we have boundaries. And that implies that we're thinking of safety. (1:10:23 - 1:10:30) But Sophie can confirm. I've never said when we go into group, we're creating a safe space. We're just creating a regulated space. (1:10:31 - 1:10:45) And how that student interprets that, they'll feel when we start on time, we come back on time. We give them food when we say we were gonna give them food. We say we're gonna have a break when we say we're gonna have a break. (1:10:46 - 1:10:56) It's the action that creates the safety just like the kids need that routine. Right? It keeps them in check. And then you might deviate a little bit. (1:10:56 - 1:11:33) And then it kind of puts a little bit of a jiggle in the system, but you don't want it to jiggle so far off that then they're like, what's just happened? And then you come back, right? So when you really compare bringing up children and the need for their consistency, routine, safety, nurture to adult trauma work, it just aligns so beautifully, I think. Because that's what we're trying to create. We're trying to create that regulation that never got created typically. (1:11:34 - 1:11:47) Yeah, that was super valuable. Thank you so much. You mentioned like people start doing this work and then all of a sudden the way they view their relationships changes, more dissonance is created within the household, et cetera. (1:11:48 - 1:12:05) And to me, that's kind of synonymous with any genuine self-work. And it's kind of what real reality creation is. Like you do this work, you change on a cellular level, on a psychic level, then the reality has no choice. (1:12:06 - 1:12:17) That's a kind of a morph in order to match what you're kind of resonating outwards into the world. Unless it doesn't. And then that's when you have to change your environment. (1:12:17 - 1:12:50) So I guess that would be, yeah, if you're, and this is what it comes down to, being with someone who challenges you is different than someone who's toxic or abusive. So granted, the people you're around are good, decent people that want the best for you, then yes. What I've seen is that, I mean, we have such amazing stories, Joel, to piggyback on what you just said where adults, people that have adult children, so do the work. (1:12:50 - 1:13:10) So these are people in their 60s, 70s are doing this work. And they don't tell their children that they're doing this work because they keep it for themselves. And then they'll notice that their children or their son or daughter spontaneously calls them and has a different tone. (1:13:11 - 1:13:27) Or they start saying, oh, I just came across this nervous system stuff. I thought I'd maybe work on some of my stuff. And the parent is just dumbfounded because it just shows that that field, that quantum field is there rippling. (1:13:29 - 1:13:43) And the other day we were talking about an older client that Seth has. And this person is just so dedicated to healing. And a lot of people would think, what's the point? You're like old. (1:13:43 - 1:13:55) You've got all these chronic issues. It's like, just be comfortable and live your life. But someone said, someone who we know who has a more Buddhist mentality said, no, it's so good this person is so dedicated. (1:13:55 - 1:13:59) And this is all they're doing with all their savings. They don't have kids. They don't have a partner. (1:14:00 - 1:14:18) I believe in reincarnation. I believe in a soul. And this friend of ours, who's got a more Buddhist mentality said, just think when this person passes and that soul goes to another human, that next human is gonna be so much better off, if we wanna call it that. (1:14:18 - 1:14:45) They're gonna be more evolved, more regulated because they did all this healing work in this lifetime. So for those that believe in the continuation of soul, doing this work even at any age is important, but also even if it's just a little bit, even if you don't get to that full regulation, getting a little bit more each day, each year is still contributing to the greater ether. Yeah. (1:14:45 - 1:15:18) It's interesting because when we consider nervous system work, we think mainly in terms of physiology and biology. And then when you think of our primary audience would definitely agree with you that the soul goes on. But it's like, how does that change one's consciousness as well? When you do this work and is there really a distinction in terms of doing this work to build greater capacity within one's biology and physiology, but your consciousness itself shifts as well. (1:15:19 - 1:15:46) For sure. Your consciousness, I don't know how we would define it these days, but if I go more biological, of course, the brain, the thinking, the cognition, the creation, the creativity changes, it becomes more sustainable because a lot of people will say, well, there's tons of creatives who are fully screwed up and dysregulated. Just look at rock stars and who don't survive very long, but they also don't survive very long. (1:15:47 - 1:16:07) Their creativity has a shelf life. So what I've seen in my students is their natural, authentic creativity just pops up and then they start to realize the personality that they have has been a mask. And they're like, that's actually not me. (1:16:07 - 1:16:36) I'm not that person. I'm this person. And then from there, I think then that human who is then living more authentically, again, another word that's kind of misused, but let's just say for the sake of nervous system regulation, full cognition, clear in mind of what has to do, that's gonna ping out into the ether, our consciousness, and we're gonna find others, or it's gonna contribute to the global consciousness. (1:16:37 - 1:17:01) And this idea that we can shift, I'm a full belief that the individual has to shape the collective. That's just how I see it. I think that the collective wants that individual shift, but you can take a room of 100 people and teach them, say, my courses and only a certain percentage will really figure it out at the beginning. (1:17:01 - 1:17:26) And then there's another level of, okay, let's try again, let's try again. But there is something about this deep level of work where you can't force a person because they have to integrate it. If you don't integrate, you can do all the practices of orienting and healthy aggression that Erasmus was saying, but you have to bring it into life, which comes back to relationship and who's around us. (1:17:26 - 1:17:41) And can the people around us help foster that? And are they interested? It sucks when your partner doesn't want to be interested in this stuff. I was married before Seth and really lovely guy. We had a lot of fun. (1:17:41 - 1:17:55) We're in the outdoor world. But as I started to become more interested in neuroplasticity and the body and sensations and emotions and healing trauma, it didn't match and that's okay. It didn't match. (1:17:55 - 1:18:18) He went off and is doing stuff with another person and they're living a great life and I'm living my great life. It just didn't match. What are things people that are listening to this? What should they look for when they're wanting to work with a practitioner? Because they're gonna be exposed to this all the time. (1:18:18 - 1:18:28) They're gonna see on Facebook and Instagram is gonna have someone there with a picture of themselves with like a thunderbolt shining, like shining outside their third eye talking. Don't do that. Don't go there. (1:18:29 - 1:18:38) They just need to look for the Irene Lyons certified badge, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eventually. Well, of course, I guess people can go to your work. (1:18:38 - 1:18:44) You have your nervous system tuning up. I think that's what it's called. And then you have your SPSN. (1:18:44 - 1:18:47) Our Body Smart. Yeah. Our Body Smart Mind. (1:18:47 - 1:19:02) Practitioner training. But just generally speaking, what are red flags potentially to look for? I did a video on this a while ago called, I think, How to Find a Good Somatic Practitioner. And you wanna ask for credentials. (1:19:03 - 1:19:27) Now, that does not mean, just because someone has credentials, because I've seen this, does not mean they are a good practitioner. So that, but that's the first thing, is some form of training that is not just, in my opinion, again, just the SE training is not enough. There needs to be something either before or after that. (1:19:27 - 1:19:52) I know a lot of people who are psychotherapists who do amazing SE work. I know a lot of people who are yoga practitioners who do amazing SE work. So you gotta just ask, what is your, what have you done? The thing that I'm also seeing happening, you guys, is people will, so sad, they'll have done an online summit where Peter or say Bessel Van Der Kolk or Stephen Porges is presenting. (1:19:53 - 1:20:09) And then they'll say on their site that they've studied with these people. First of all, you can't study with Stephen Porges because he's a researcher. He's not a practitioner, right? So again, that's something to be very careful of. (1:20:09 - 1:20:27) Like, what did you do? If they just say influenced by SE, influenced by Feldenkrais, that does not necessarily mean they have training. So that's the first thing. The second thing, or maybe this is the rest of it, you wanna like the person. (1:20:28 - 1:20:45) So when you talk to them on the phone or you meet them on Zoom or you meet them in person, you have to have an affinity. Like, I could hang out with this person for more than an hour. If you feel it unbearable to be in the same energy field, then that's not gonna work. (1:20:46 - 1:21:00) And it goes with the practitioner. If a practitioner is working with someone and they just don't, I mean, it's terrible, but it's true. Like, you have to know, you have to have a little interest in their development, right? And some people clash and that's okay. (1:21:00 - 1:21:19) And that's where you say, you know, I think someone else might be a better fit. So you gotta like the person to a certain degree and feel like you could hang out with them. Because if you're going to work with someone because you know you're unsafe inside, you know you have dysregulation, you're not gonna feel safe with the person immediately. (1:21:20 - 1:21:42) So you gotta like them enough to hang out with them. What I tend to tell people to ask, ask them if they're still doing their work. Are you doing anything? And this is maybe private and maybe a practitioner won't want to divulge this information, but it's kind of like a prenup. (1:21:42 - 1:22:07) Like if someone doesn't wanna sign a prenup, then there's like some suspicion, like with marriage, it's like, why, what are you gonna take from me if we break up kind of thing, right? So the ability to say like, what are you just out of curiosity? What are you doing? Like to continue your own education, your development, the health of a person is important. Like you wanna sense that the person takes care of themselves. That's my judgment. (1:22:07 - 1:22:20) Like I wanna work with someone who's healthier than me or has more skill than me in the thing that they're doing. Those are the big ones. Those are the big ones. (1:22:22 - 1:22:29) Yeah, I have another, like I said, I've got a video. People just look up how to find a good somatic practitioner. I think there's a few other points. (1:22:30 - 1:22:50) Yeah, you have so much knowledge that you give out for free on your YouTube and Instagram. So again, anyone who's watching this that hasn't been exposed to Irene through our podcast, and this may be the first time you're listening to this. One, you can go back to previous episodes we've had with her, but also find her on social media, Instagram, YouTube, et cetera. (1:22:51 - 1:23:03) And get the knowledge and start contemplating and start thinking about how this relates to you. And I get it, there's financial considerations. I can't just like jump right into a program. (1:23:03 - 1:23:27) But we have information at our fingertips and then we can take that information and start applying it to our own lives. And so in this world today, it's like if we have issues we're dealing with, there is support. And so like the excuses are like, come on, like we're living in such an amazing time now that we can take in stuff. (1:23:27 - 1:23:40) But again, it's not just informational. Yeah. Or just hire a chat GPT as your nervous non-practitioner, right? Do you want to know a story? Let's get into this and then, yeah. (1:23:41 - 1:23:50) So two things. First of all, I think you're right, Yerasimos, there's so much information out there. I know from surveying my people like who followed, they're confused. (1:23:51 - 1:24:08) They're really confused about what to choose because there's so many things to choose from. So that's valid. The second thing would be, before we get into chat GPT, is people will know if they should do this work or not. (1:24:09 - 1:24:34) And here's the thing, I know this is gonna sound odd coming from me. Not everybody is meant to do deep nervous system work in their lifetime. And the reason I say that is if the support around them cannot provide support for their releases and their activations and the rage that might come out and the need to like go on disability for a while while they heal a chronic illness. (1:24:35 - 1:24:55) For some I've seen, it might've been better that they stayed in functional freeze and just was really good with their food, nutrition and exercise. I know that sounds odd, but you need to have space and you need to have time to unpack some of these things. You know, it's hard when you've got three kids. (1:24:55 - 1:25:10) You know, I look at the amount of time I and Seth have spent healing our stuff. It's like, I'm like, I don't know how I could have done this if I had children and it would be really difficult. It can still happen, but it just might take a little longer. (1:25:11 - 1:25:23) So that's the other thing is not everyone is gonna be primed in this lifetime to go to this level of regulation and that's okay. That's okay. But if there's like a hell no, Irene, I wanna do this, then listen to that. (1:25:24 - 1:25:40) The other red flags, I gotta say it cause I'm seeing a lot of this in addition to like the unicorn thing, light coming out of their heads. Be very careful of women who use their sexuality to promote themselves. I'm pretty modest in how I dress. (1:25:40 - 1:25:49) Yeah, of course I've got some makeup on. I brush my hair. You know, I've got a little jewelry, but I'm not- How dare you brush your hair? I know, I know, I know. (1:25:50 - 1:26:11) I love you for that telepathic, bro. But you'll tell when you see someone if they're just like laying on a white bed, kind of half naked, like, eh, maybe not. And it's very common these days to see a lot of dudes with their shirts off, promoting their stuff. (1:26:11 - 1:26:18) And it's like, eh, yeah, take your shirt off. Next time, look for the truth. Again, again, again. (1:26:18 - 1:26:26) And some people are like, oh, Irene, they're just expressing themselves. I'm like, I get it. But part of doing this work really well is being sacred neutral. (1:26:28 - 1:26:43) You don't need the fancy flash to do this good work. You just need to show up with your own regulation. So the chat GPT thing, a student of ours who's in SBSM, and I do not recommend this for people that don't have capacity. (1:26:44 - 1:26:58) I don't know how chat GPT works, but she asked it to give her a somatic session or something like that. And I was pretty impressed at what it spat out. Some of the language I use was in there. (1:26:59 - 1:27:10) Like, I swear to God, my blog posts were in there. Some of Peter's stuff was in there. Pauly Vagel's stuff was in there because a lot of his books are digital, tracking and touching and pendulating. (1:27:10 - 1:27:17) All those words were in there. And it helped her, but she also had three years of SBSM experience. Yeah. (1:27:18 - 1:27:32) And so you take someone who doesn't even know how to sense their breathing or the environment, and that can go sideways really quickly. There's gotta be like a baseline. That's my opinion. (1:27:32 - 1:27:40) A baseline and then being able to utilize some of these tools. Maybe. Like I talked about before, even just like, you know, doing deep forms of body work. (1:27:40 - 1:28:05) Like there's like a little baseline there. So, but yeah, I remember there was like a year ago, I just looked up some stuff in chat and I shared it with Sophie and she's like, whoa, this is kind of like, you know, it's not bad in terms of information and the knowledge it's presenting. But again, like you said, you know, how do you interact with that? What is your inner state and what tools do you already have at your disposal? I mean, it's just a more specific internet. (1:28:05 - 1:28:13) It's just like you're Googling It's not really AI. It's a sophisticated search engine. I mean, that's the thing that's funny. (1:28:13 - 1:28:22) It is not intelligence in a sentient way. It's still code. It's just more sophisticated. (1:28:23 - 1:28:26) I think. Yeah. Irene. (1:28:26 - 1:28:30) Thanks, boys. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on. (1:28:31 - 1:28:36) Obviously, I have such respect for you. I love the conversations that we have. I love the work that you're doing in the world. (1:28:37 - 1:28:43) I'm so grateful that my wife does this work. I love that she works with you and trains with you. Like, it's amazing. (1:28:44 - 1:28:51) And I love, you know, we're here for the truth. And so having these kinds of conversations is important. We're not a cookie cutter podcast. (1:28:52 - 1:29:01) We're not into cookie cutter healing work. We're not into things for the masses. That's always a red flag for me, where like these things get super, super popular. (1:29:01 - 1:29:14) They're so simple because the complexity isn't honored. And people want the simple. They don't want to go to dance with the nuance and the complexity, because that brings up a lot of stuff internally that they probably don't have the capacity for. (1:29:14 - 1:29:23) Of course, they have a capacity for simple. Yeah. And I'll say there's nothing wrong with that, right? If that's where a person is at, that's fine. (1:29:23 - 1:29:32) But like you said, you know, you two, and thank you for having me on again. I'm about the complex. I'm not about making it complex to teach. (1:29:32 - 1:29:45) Like I teach in a very basic way, but I don't dumb down anything. I expect a lot from my students, especially the students in training. And they'll say that, but I'm seeing the results. (1:29:45 - 1:30:06) Like I'm seeing what is being created by having very strong constraints, very strong, you know, prerequisites. Just because we don't need another thousand SE practitioners who can't be in their bodies. It's just, I hate to say it, but I don't think Peter would have wanted that either. (1:30:06 - 1:30:14) And it's kind of occurring. So thank you for letting me speak my truth on this. It's just not so much my truth as my experience. (1:30:15 - 1:30:19) Right. It's my experience. So thank you guys so much. (1:30:19 - 1:30:22) Yeah. No, thank you. That's a conversation to get into also on the my truth. (1:30:23 - 1:30:27) People are so triggered by that. I know, I know. Which is there's so much nuance to that. (1:30:27 - 1:30:30) And we can get into whatever another time. Another time. Yeah. (1:30:31 - 1:30:41) Irene, just quickly. Yeah. Obviously, you know, we have our group coaching program, Rise Above the Herd, and we've integrated the nervous system into self-development, which I feel like many people haven't really done. (1:30:41 - 1:30:51) But, you know, the somatic piece has always been really important to us. We're in the process of like relaunching this, like kind of a new format. And Sophie is obviously a central part of this, as always. (1:30:51 - 1:31:04) Would you recommend Sophie as someone that people can send awards for nervous system work? Fuck yeah. Yeah, no. I mean, she's trained. (1:31:04 - 1:31:07) She's learning. She's skilled. She's attuned. (1:31:07 - 1:31:12) Of course. I mean. No, she's been amazing. (1:31:12 - 1:31:21) And like everyone that's interacted with her throughout programs has been like absolutely changed as a result of those interactions. Yeah, you don't need me. She's exactly what you need. (1:31:23 - 1:31:30) Thanks, Irene. Appreciate you sharing your knowledge and appreciate how generous you are in all matters. And that's the best. (1:31:30 - 1:31:43) That's the thing about it as well. Like the more that you do this work, it's also like a greater recognition of the abundance all around us. Like I feel like scarcity is very much so caught in the nervous system as well when we're constricted, when we're dysregulated. (1:31:43 - 1:31:49) And you've realized how much really is available to you the more expanded that you become. Definitely. Yeah. (1:31:50 - 1:32:07) That said, for those that do want to work with you, point them in the direction, which is, I know your website is irenelyon.com. It's just my name, nos.com. But yeah, if people want to begin, there's two courses. One is a 21-Day Nervous System Tune-Up. That's like a starter course. (1:32:07 - 1:32:29) But what I truly recommend is SBSM, Smart Body, Smart Mind, because that gets into working with early trauma, working with the body, working with all these osteopathic, diaphragmatic, healthy aggression, toxic shame, Feldenkrais is in there. It is, I mean, I'll put it out there. It is the gold standard in terms of online courses. (1:32:29 - 1:32:41) It was the first ever online course out there. And we're going into our 18th round in September 2025. So it stood the test of time. (1:32:41 - 1:33:05) And we have done one scientific study, like at a real neuroscience lab out of the University of Victoria. So we took our students through a segment of SBSM and there was statistically positive results. So we're probably the only online course that's actually been put through that test, that scientific test and rigor. (1:33:05 - 1:33:12) So that's cool. I don't talk about it that much. I probably should, but I left academia, right? I left it because I couldn't stand it. (1:33:13 - 1:33:24) So it was a big deal for me to go back into academia to let my product, my curriculum be tested. But that was cool. It was like sometimes a little validation is nice. (1:33:25 - 1:33:35) Oh, totally. And I cannot recommend highly enough for people to go and explore Irene's work, especially if you resonate with this conversation that just took place. Thank you so much for listening. (1:33:35 - 1:33:40) We'll see you next time. Bye. And that wraps up today's journey. (1:33:41 - 1:33:55) But hey, the truth train doesn't stop here. Every Friday, we drop little nuggets of wisdom straight to your inbox. We're talking mind-expanding ideas, heart-opening perspectives, and the kind of content that hopefully makes you go, I never thought of it that way. (1:33:55 - 1:34:12) Our Friday drops like having coffee with that friend who always blows your mind, except this friend shows up right on schedule and never asks to borrow money. So if you want to join our truth-seeking tribe, it's super easy. Just hop over to hereforthetruth.com forward slash Friday and hit that subscribe button. (1:34:12 - 1:34:26) No spam, no fluff, just pure unfiltered goodness delivered weekly. So if you're ready to make your Fridays a little more truthful, a little more inspiring, and a whole lot more awesome, your future self will thank you for this one. See you next time. (1:34:26 - 1:34:30) And remember, we're always here for the truth and we're always here for you.