WEBVTT 00:02.521 --> 00:05.182 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the expanding inward podcast. 00:05.823 --> 00:07.543 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Lily McFarlane. 00:08.184 --> 00:17.428 [SPEAKER_00]: Here on this show, we aim to look inward with curiosity, so that you can better understand and therefore accept and trust your own inner landscape. 00:17.889 --> 00:26.273 [SPEAKER_00]: We'll explore how to widen our capacity to meet life and how turning inward deepens our connection to ourselves, to others and to the world. 00:27.233 --> 00:34.695 [SPEAKER_00]: So as you listen, I encourage you to stay open, stay curious, keep what lands with you, and just leave the rest. 00:35.355 --> 00:37.616 [SPEAKER_00]: I hope you enjoy today's conversation. 00:40.217 --> 00:42.478 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to expanding inward. 00:43.538 --> 00:47.099 [SPEAKER_00]: Today we're talking about moving toward discomfort. 00:48.407 --> 00:51.410 [SPEAKER_00]: getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. 00:52.452 --> 00:54.174 [SPEAKER_00]: It's so not a sexy topic. 00:54.474 --> 00:57.097 [SPEAKER_00]: I'd be surprised if this title brought you in. 00:57.858 --> 01:02.563 [SPEAKER_00]: But I have found the most personal growth. 01:03.764 --> 01:18.446 [SPEAKER_00]: and the biggest like healing jumps for me have been when I really like learn to accept and listen to and move through that which is genuinely painful. 01:19.087 --> 01:28.435 [SPEAKER_00]: And all those cliches come to mind, like you got to feel to heal, the only way out is through what we resist, persist. 01:28.615 --> 01:35.000 [SPEAKER_00]: We've heard them time in time again, and they're really all pointing to the same thing. 01:35.681 --> 01:41.465 [SPEAKER_00]: A big part of our healing journey, or when we're working to change something, 01:47.610 --> 01:53.554 [SPEAKER_00]: feeling into the damn thing that we so badly want to push away from, right? 01:53.614 --> 01:58.616 [SPEAKER_00]: It's so human of us to not want to feel into our own pain. 01:59.277 --> 02:14.486 [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of us do a lot of things to avoid feeling that pain even our own wellness routines and rituals can keep us in this cycle of not feeling 02:17.227 --> 02:17.547 [SPEAKER_00]: felt. 02:18.468 --> 02:20.429 [SPEAKER_00]: And I say that because I've done that. 02:21.189 --> 02:31.355 [SPEAKER_00]: Moving in the direction of our discomfort is one of the most direct ways that I know to access your own personal power. 02:32.015 --> 02:38.959 [SPEAKER_00]: And I am totally an ex people pleaser, my people pleaser, tendencies still come out. 02:40.099 --> 02:41.660 [SPEAKER_00]: Somebody who avoids conflict 02:46.383 --> 03:02.730 [SPEAKER_00]: that has been a pattern since I was really young, but as I untangle those beliefs, as I get better at sitting with discomfort, at not falling into those patterns of people pleasing, of not disappointing people. 03:03.370 --> 03:09.593 [SPEAKER_00]: I get more and more connected to my own truth, my own authenticity, my own personal power. 03:10.373 --> 03:16.336 [SPEAKER_00]: Because every time we say yes, when we really mean no, or we do this, when we really want to do that. 03:16.816 --> 03:18.857 [SPEAKER_00]: Because we fear we're going to disappoint somebody. 03:19.677 --> 03:22.138 [SPEAKER_00]: We're handing a little piece of our power away. 03:22.958 --> 03:31.902 [SPEAKER_00]: So really, this is a reclamation of our own personal power by embracing, conflict, by embracing, discomfort. 03:33.188 --> 03:36.571 [SPEAKER_00]: by getting good at disappointing people. 03:37.471 --> 03:43.076 [SPEAKER_00]: And before we really dive in, I want to share a little announcement, more like an invitation. 03:43.996 --> 03:48.720 [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be running my next cohort of reclaiming you in October. 03:49.421 --> 03:54.204 [SPEAKER_00]: And reclaiming you is my virtual 28-day meditation container. 03:55.365 --> 04:02.994 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's really special because it's based on your own personal intentions, goals, desires, background experience. 04:04.075 --> 04:11.143 [SPEAKER_00]: I build you a personalized meditation practice that you're to do every morning for an entire lunar cycle, 28 days. 04:12.764 --> 04:18.749 [SPEAKER_00]: And you'll be part of a very small intimate group where we get to meet each week along the way. 04:19.290 --> 04:32.901 [SPEAKER_00]: I've seen some big shifts happen in my own life and with my clients, when somebody commits to Assadna, Assadna meaning a daily practice for a set amount of time, in this case 28 days. 04:34.442 --> 04:42.626 [SPEAKER_00]: And I know how hard that commitment can be when you're doing it all on your own or when the practice isn't actually built for you. 04:43.586 --> 04:55.551 [SPEAKER_00]: But reclaiming you is a portal for reclaiming your own energy, your own focus, your own desires, your clarity, and your personal power. 04:56.131 --> 05:00.514 [SPEAKER_00]: the virtual door, so to speak, close on October 1st. 05:01.355 --> 05:08.260 [SPEAKER_00]: And as a listener of this show, you get 15% off the entire program with code expanding. 05:08.740 --> 05:11.502 [SPEAKER_00]: That's all caps expanding. 05:12.363 --> 05:17.747 [SPEAKER_00]: You'll find the link to the program in the show notes below along with that special code. 05:18.547 --> 05:21.650 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, back to today's juicy topics. 05:21.810 --> 05:25.113 [SPEAKER_00]: So you get a feel to heal. 05:25.573 --> 05:34.380 [SPEAKER_00]: How can we get better at leaning into our feels, leaning into our discomfort without losing our ship? 05:34.881 --> 05:39.264 [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to break this down through the somatic and contemplative lenses. 05:39.325 --> 05:44.249 [SPEAKER_00]: So working from a bottom up approach and a top down approach. 05:44.829 --> 05:56.921 [SPEAKER_00]: So the top down approach uses the mind, thoughts, logic, or in the prefrontal cortex with thinking our way through to regulate and heal the body and heal the emotions. 05:57.782 --> 06:08.812 [SPEAKER_00]: This is like you're reframing, you're journaling, you're sitting with it and thinking through it, shifting your perspective, seeing the bigger picture, using the mind to shift. 06:09.953 --> 06:11.975 [SPEAKER_00]: And then the bottom up approach goes the other way. 06:11.995 --> 06:21.703 [SPEAKER_00]: It uses the body, physical sensation, breath, working with the nervous system, working with movement to calm and heal the mind. 06:22.704 --> 06:32.733 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's where my own expertise lies, getting into the body, feeling and sensing somatically, without going to analytical, 06:33.633 --> 06:42.896 [SPEAKER_00]: Even in my more contemplative background with yoga philosophy and meditation, we look at the whole system where body and mind are interconnected. 06:43.696 --> 06:46.557 [SPEAKER_00]: Then I adore psychotherapy. 06:46.637 --> 06:48.058 [SPEAKER_00]: I have a therapist myself. 06:48.178 --> 06:50.559 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a big fan of talk therapy. 06:51.279 --> 06:54.260 [SPEAKER_00]: But oftentimes it is from the neck up. 06:55.460 --> 06:56.721 [SPEAKER_00]: and we're just in the head. 06:57.301 --> 07:05.466 [SPEAKER_00]: But we know how interconnected body and mind body and brain are, so including sensation, working with the nervous system. 07:06.146 --> 07:16.372 [SPEAKER_00]: Understanding our own window of tolerance and the cues from our body can give us more information than just staying in our thoughts. 07:17.592 --> 07:30.837 [SPEAKER_00]: And just a little disclaimer, this work of feeling into our emotions, feeling into our pain, feeling into our discomfort is best done with support and safety. 07:31.697 --> 07:40.220 [SPEAKER_00]: And you may have the resources, the tools, the inner awareness to establish that safety for yourself and that inner support. 07:41.300 --> 07:47.624 [SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes life hits and something feels just too big for us to hold on our own. 07:48.585 --> 07:57.350 [SPEAKER_00]: And so as I talk, maybe things will come to mind like, oh yeah, that's something I've kind of been meaning to feel into, but I keep pushing it to the side. 07:58.170 --> 08:01.913 [SPEAKER_00]: If that thing feels too big for you to hold on your own. 08:03.074 --> 08:04.375 [SPEAKER_00]: By the way, you have choice. 08:04.395 --> 08:05.296 [SPEAKER_00]: You have agency. 08:05.896 --> 08:06.717 [SPEAKER_00]: You can say no. 08:07.578 --> 08:10.220 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to feel into that right now, place it to the side. 08:10.660 --> 08:15.505 [SPEAKER_00]: But then when you pick it back up, maybe you pick it up with some support. 08:15.845 --> 08:18.808 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you can work with a professional, a therapist of sorts. 08:19.428 --> 08:22.351 [SPEAKER_00]: Going through that journey of finding your support system. 08:23.592 --> 08:25.253 [SPEAKER_00]: is such a big part of this healing journey. 08:25.653 --> 08:33.875 [SPEAKER_00]: But having that recognition, that discernment of okay, this is too big for me to hold on my own, please go work with a professional. 08:34.915 --> 08:43.038 [SPEAKER_00]: And on that note, I didn't have this sort of in my outline, but it's coming up for me right now, so it might get a little messy as I talk about it. 08:43.118 --> 08:43.258 [SPEAKER_00]: But 08:44.358 --> 08:56.213 [SPEAKER_00]: so much of our core wounds, our deeper suppressed subconscious pain that we, you know, our shadow stuff. 08:57.495 --> 09:00.579 [SPEAKER_00]: So much of that was created a long time ago. 09:01.860 --> 09:19.182 [SPEAKER_00]: Relationally, so with our parents and with friends, with other people, we learned early on to maybe, people please, maybe, numb our own emotions, maybe not speak our needs or value our own needs. 09:20.263 --> 09:27.666 [SPEAKER_00]: And these patterns were made relationally, so oftentimes they have to heal relationally and through co-regulation. 09:28.207 --> 09:47.035 [SPEAKER_00]: So even if you don't have this mega-big trauma or mega-big pain, still doing the work of being in a space with another regulated human as you go and dig up and dig in is also a really important part of the puzzle. 09:47.495 --> 09:53.300 [SPEAKER_00]: So with this podcast, yes, I'm hoping to give some more information to you. 09:53.580 --> 10:04.448 [SPEAKER_00]: Shedsum sort of light on things that you may have felt, but maybe didn't have the words, or maybe this inspires a direction you want to go in in your own healing journey. 10:04.969 --> 10:09.712 [SPEAKER_00]: But nothing I say here is a replacement for a working with another person. 10:10.333 --> 10:13.515 [SPEAKER_00]: And our lives have become quite independent. 10:13.555 --> 10:15.217 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's a lot of, 10:16.257 --> 10:26.460 [SPEAKER_00]: resources out there online where we feel like, oh yeah, you can go and just pop an app on and be by yourself and your apartment, not be with another person and go heal. 10:26.880 --> 10:34.762 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, no, a lot of our healing is done in community, done with other people, and in co-regulation. 10:35.182 --> 10:40.383 [SPEAKER_00]: The healing is done relationally because the wound was created relationally. 10:41.223 --> 10:42.924 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that was a little bit of a segment. 10:42.944 --> 10:46.184 [SPEAKER_00]: I did not plan for, but I think it really wanted to come out. 10:48.185 --> 10:48.945 [SPEAKER_00]: So where was I? 10:49.465 --> 10:58.267 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think with the like two Approaches that bottom up top down It's easy to want to like pick a lane and stay there. 10:58.408 --> 10:59.808 [SPEAKER_00]: So if you're more of a thinker 11:00.608 --> 11:07.150 [SPEAKER_00]: If you're analytical, if you're practical, you probably just want to reason your way out of an emotion. 11:07.570 --> 11:12.172 [SPEAKER_00]: You may feel more comfortable just talking about it and staying from the neck up. 11:13.012 --> 11:17.713 [SPEAKER_00]: If you're more of a feeler, you might avoid that kind of thinking part altogether. 11:17.773 --> 11:23.555 [SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to walk through both today because I think they're both really important. 11:24.115 --> 11:28.517 [SPEAKER_00]: So when I first started on my own personal, 11:29.337 --> 11:40.903 [SPEAKER_00]: healing journey like early 20s getting into meditation, curious about therapy, starting to read more of those self-help books, which I just, I still get jazzed up about. 11:42.103 --> 11:47.686 [SPEAKER_00]: Anyways, at the start of that journey, I was looking for tools to just help me feel better. 11:48.546 --> 11:55.472 [SPEAKER_00]: And what I was actually doing, unknowingly, was I was trying not to feel my pain. 11:55.512 --> 11:57.494 [SPEAKER_00]: I was trying not to feel my discomfort. 11:57.534 --> 12:00.336 [SPEAKER_00]: I was looking for resources that would ground me. 12:00.396 --> 12:08.462 [SPEAKER_00]: I would use movement, breath, visualization, meditation to find a sense of inner stability inside. 12:09.343 --> 12:12.325 [SPEAKER_00]: which is so important, and I need it. 12:12.785 --> 12:23.491 [SPEAKER_00]: But what I didn't realize then, and I can see clearly now, is that I was resourcing myself, which is genuinely important, and it's a big chunk of the work I do. 12:23.671 --> 12:34.657 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me give you all the tools to find that inner stability, that inner groundedness, that inner connectedness, bring you back into your window of tolerance, which is so important. 12:35.717 --> 12:46.805 [SPEAKER_00]: but it's easy to stay stuck there and you start to use those tools to avoid feeling the thing that needs to be felt. 12:47.686 --> 12:53.790 [SPEAKER_00]: And so being able to build that felt sense of inner safety is foundational. 12:54.370 --> 12:57.793 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think there's much point in digging in and digging up and 13:06.010 --> 13:17.619 [SPEAKER_00]: And so what I didn't understand back then is I was building my tools, my inner support, my inner safety so that when I was ready, I could do the deeper work of actually feeling the pain that I would suppress. 13:18.720 --> 13:28.788 [SPEAKER_00]: And so now even in my meditation practice, it sounds kind of strange to say it all out, but I actually have fun leaning into the discomfort. 13:29.548 --> 13:52.233 [SPEAKER_00]: I have the tools to sit inside those little aches and panes, instead of redirecting from them, and sitting inside of it and really staying curious and open to that feeling, it's so cool to watch it alchemy's in my system to watch, sometimes it even dissolves, or sometimes it gives me a big lesson. 13:53.073 --> 14:18.256 [SPEAKER_00]: And I turn it into something I can really move through rather than run from, and it's, yes, not, I say I have fun doing it, I have fun in the meditation practice, and then, you know, sometimes I want it to just get away and I push in, I want to numb it, and I want to run, and like how human we're all going to do that, but really just having that recognition, looking back and seeing how much of my own avoidance, 14:18.917 --> 14:27.048 [SPEAKER_00]: was really handing my power over to whatever was uncomfortable, or to whoever I was afraid of disappointing. 14:27.248 --> 14:33.937 [SPEAKER_00]: This really landed for me and really like, I got this full body like, oh, this makes so much sense. 14:34.798 --> 14:53.063 [SPEAKER_00]: when I was in a tongue-lend meditation practice which I'm going to go into in a moment but I just want to clarify like with this discomfort and with this pain I'm talking about in today's episode is more so the like every day human discomfort. 14:53.843 --> 14:54.603 [SPEAKER_00]: everyday pains. 14:55.104 --> 15:03.587 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean that could be grief, that could be disappointment, that could be worry, that could be anxiety, fear, shame. 15:04.508 --> 15:09.270 [SPEAKER_00]: So what I'm not talking about here is like if you're in danger and you're feeling pain. 15:09.510 --> 15:11.471 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not talking about like physical pain. 15:11.731 --> 15:13.472 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about emotional pain. 15:14.172 --> 15:23.622 [SPEAKER_00]: and not them like really deep unprocessed trauma pain that needs to be met with a trained professional in the room with you. 15:23.642 --> 15:28.867 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the everyday like emotional discomforts of being human. 15:30.008 --> 15:44.891 [SPEAKER_00]: the feelings that many of us have spent years getting very good at avoiding okay not the kind of emotional pain that needs a professional and that is up to you to feel into if if you've got that. 15:46.453 --> 15:57.545 [SPEAKER_00]: And I also want to say we've all experienced trauma that some of us may have not processed it well, very human. 15:58.045 --> 16:00.768 [SPEAKER_00]: But no trauma is too big to be healed. 16:01.669 --> 16:04.412 [SPEAKER_00]: I really want you to hear that. 16:05.233 --> 16:08.156 [SPEAKER_00]: No trauma is too big to be healed. 16:09.477 --> 16:09.797 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. 16:10.558 --> 16:14.441 [SPEAKER_00]: Back to the Tonglean little story time. 16:14.941 --> 16:26.329 [SPEAKER_00]: So Tonglean is a meditation practice where you intentionally move toward whatever is painful or uncomfortable rather than running away from it. 16:27.230 --> 16:38.580 [SPEAKER_00]: And it sounds counterintuitive, but you're actually breathing in the discomfort, whether it's yours or somebody else's, you're breathing it in. 16:39.621 --> 16:46.787 [SPEAKER_00]: And then you're breathing out the wish, the ease, the relief, the spaciousness. 16:48.730 --> 17:02.700 [SPEAKER_00]: And so many times when I like teach yoga, I usually like, okay, breathe in your intention, breathe in what you want and breathe out, like go of, sort of, whatever you don't want to hold on to anymore, whatever's not serving you like that makes sense. 17:03.541 --> 17:04.382 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the opposite. 17:04.402 --> 17:09.906 [SPEAKER_00]: You're breathing in to what is painful and you're breathing out the desire. 17:10.920 --> 17:12.461 [SPEAKER_00]: So I was in this tongue-land practice. 17:12.501 --> 17:14.362 [SPEAKER_00]: I was actually having so much fun. 17:14.382 --> 17:17.463 [SPEAKER_00]: It was a 30-minute silent set. 17:18.163 --> 17:27.528 [SPEAKER_00]: And I was feeling myself getting so excited at this visualization that came to my mind and I started to imagine that this discomfort was like a weight. 17:27.968 --> 17:29.088 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not talking a huge weight. 17:29.108 --> 17:30.669 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking like a five pound. 17:30.709 --> 17:31.529 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's kind of heavy. 17:32.290 --> 17:33.170 [SPEAKER_00]: We'll say two pound. 17:33.610 --> 17:35.932 [SPEAKER_00]: Two pound weight that you hold in your hand. 17:36.712 --> 17:38.733 [SPEAKER_00]: And imagine holding that weight 17:39.373 --> 17:59.767 [SPEAKER_00]: in your right hand and then reaching your right hand all the way out like arms length distance away from you so it's like you're pushing the pain away from the body holding the weight out away from your center and after some time this is going to get really exhausting pushing that pain away is going to get really tiring maybe even your shoulder and 18:00.407 --> 18:07.613 [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of compensating and creates a little injury and so in the tongue length practice I was imagined taking this way right into my center. 18:08.694 --> 18:21.404 [SPEAKER_00]: Taking my other hand to hold the weight, giving myself more support, letting my core join the party and kind of light up to hold this and as I was doing this the pain started to get lighter. 18:22.565 --> 18:31.587 [SPEAKER_00]: And I was imagining this weight, just kind of turning into a this might sound weird, but turning into my like abdominal muscles. 18:32.507 --> 18:35.568 [SPEAKER_00]: And then the weight would disappear, and I would feel stronger for holding it. 18:36.548 --> 18:51.532 [SPEAKER_00]: And then I'd grab another weight that I'd pushed, arms length distant, so I'd bring it to my center and breathe, showing this emotion, showing this pain, that I am bigger than it, and showing that I can breathe with it. 18:52.512 --> 19:16.230 [SPEAKER_00]: Connecting to my wholeness, connecting to the part of me that the whole of me that's bigger than this part and then it alcoholizes and It does all And so what we resist persists you know that's saying, but what we bring clothes put our nose right up to Learn to accept It starts to dissolve 19:17.310 --> 19:23.413 [SPEAKER_00]: actually creates more strengths and personal power in that process. 19:24.874 --> 19:31.037 [SPEAKER_00]: So I have this book on to their soul right next to me and I'm just gonna read a little bit from page 135. 19:32.398 --> 19:37.541 [SPEAKER_00]: Michael Singer wrote, you must learn to be comfortable with disturbance. 19:38.701 --> 19:41.323 [SPEAKER_00]: If your mind becomes hyperactive, just watch it. 19:42.123 --> 19:44.184 [SPEAKER_00]: If your heart starts to heat up, let it 19:46.365 --> 19:52.750 [SPEAKER_00]: Try to find the part of you that is capable of noticing that your mind is hyperactive and that your heart is heating up. 19:53.811 --> 19:56.053 [SPEAKER_00]: That part is your way out. 19:56.934 --> 19:59.876 [SPEAKER_00]: There is no way out through building this model of yours. 20:00.616 --> 20:06.141 [SPEAKER_00]: The only way to inner freedom is through the one who watches the capital S 20:15.568 --> 20:18.631 [SPEAKER_00]: And that nothing is struggling to hold them together. 20:19.612 --> 20:21.153 [SPEAKER_00]: Of course this will be painful. 20:21.773 --> 20:25.316 [SPEAKER_00]: The reason you built the whole mental structure was to avoid pain. 20:26.517 --> 20:30.640 [SPEAKER_00]: If you let it fall apart, you're going to feel the pain that you're avoiding when you built it. 20:31.261 --> 20:33.423 [SPEAKER_00]: You must be willing to face this pain. 20:34.123 --> 20:37.466 [SPEAKER_00]: If you were to lock yourself in a fortress because you were afraid to come out, 20:37.966 --> 20:42.087 [SPEAKER_00]: You would have to face that fear if you ever wanted to experience a fuller existence. 20:42.868 --> 20:44.848 [SPEAKER_00]: That fortress would not be protecting you. 20:45.349 --> 20:46.509 [SPEAKER_00]: It would be imprisoning you. 20:46.969 --> 20:51.311 [SPEAKER_00]: To be free to truly experience life you must come out. 20:52.191 --> 20:57.293 [SPEAKER_00]: You have to let go and pass through the cleansing process that frees you from your own psyche. 20:58.053 --> 21:01.215 [SPEAKER_00]: you do this by simply watching the psyche be the psyche. 21:01.455 --> 21:03.056 [SPEAKER_00]: The way out is through awareness. 21:03.536 --> 21:08.158 [SPEAKER_00]: Stop defining the disturbed mind as a negative experience. 21:09.059 --> 21:10.960 [SPEAKER_00]: Just see if you can relax behind it. 21:12.060 --> 21:15.322 [SPEAKER_00]: When your mind is disturbed, don't ask, what do I do about this? 21:15.983 --> 21:18.084 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead ask, who am I? 21:18.584 --> 21:19.544 [SPEAKER_00]: That notices this. 21:20.885 --> 21:27.332 [SPEAKER_00]: In time, you'll come to realize that the center from which you watch disturbance cannot get disturbed. 21:28.433 --> 21:30.756 [SPEAKER_00]: Awareness transcends what it is aware of. 21:31.697 --> 21:34.300 [SPEAKER_00]: It is as separate as light is from what it shines upon. 21:34.400 --> 21:41.768 [SPEAKER_00]: You are consciousness, and you can free yourself from all of this by relaxing behind it. 21:43.373 --> 21:52.896 [SPEAKER_00]: And so we can talk about it in so many ways, we can read from these amazing books and get conceptual about it. 21:52.956 --> 21:55.717 [SPEAKER_00]: But a lot of this is to be experienced. 21:56.998 --> 22:01.359 [SPEAKER_00]: And I say that because we get the lesson by just doing it. 22:02.180 --> 22:08.402 [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of what I enjoy teaching and sharing doesn't always come from what I've studied. 22:09.682 --> 22:12.563 [SPEAKER_00]: A lot comes from just my own lived experience. 22:13.683 --> 22:23.965 [SPEAKER_00]: And as I mentioned before, as an ex-people pleaser, I really used to hold pain at an arm's length of distance away. 22:24.785 --> 22:34.967 [SPEAKER_00]: And as an empath, somebody else's pain or discomfort would make me uncomfortable too, because I'd feel it with them and for them, and I'd want to go into like fix it mode. 22:35.687 --> 22:39.328 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's sort this out together, so you and I could feel better. 22:39.888 --> 22:51.011 [SPEAKER_00]: If you recognize yourself, in any of that, first having compassion and noting that not wanting to disappoint someone is not a character flaw. 22:51.651 --> 22:56.992 [SPEAKER_00]: It's so human and it's just a habit that many of us picked up early on. 22:58.052 --> 23:01.893 [SPEAKER_00]: But what would it be like to let somebody feel disappointed? 23:02.393 --> 23:10.235 [SPEAKER_00]: to let somebody down and stay within your own discomfort about that, without doing anything. 23:10.935 --> 23:20.098 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead of rushing to fix or manage or change anything, that practice of presence of being and breathing and leaning into it. 23:20.878 --> 23:24.359 [SPEAKER_00]: Moving towards discomfort is also like embracing conflict. 23:25.079 --> 23:27.420 [SPEAKER_00]: leaning towards what is actually true. 23:27.480 --> 23:36.622 [SPEAKER_00]: And when we do this, we're leaning closer to life, we're leaning closer to reality and to our own aliveness, which includes our joy. 23:37.062 --> 23:40.363 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's not all doom and gloom, leaning into our pain. 23:41.183 --> 23:44.564 [SPEAKER_00]: Why does our capacity to feel our joy? 23:45.464 --> 23:56.170 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's genuinely the thing that's brought me the most, ease, the most liberation, the most joy internally has been getting good at moving towards my own discomfort. 23:56.890 --> 24:08.797 [SPEAKER_00]: If we're talking about more of the Zen tradition, which Tong Len is from, there's also a beautiful way of describing the difference between pain and suffering. 24:15.140 --> 24:27.527 [SPEAKER_00]: It's that like wave sadness or that sensation of a tight chest when we have anxiety or grief that shows up in the body as like a physical ache. 24:27.887 --> 24:33.991 [SPEAKER_00]: So pain is the first and unavoidable thing that hits us. 24:35.604 --> 24:38.325 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, suffering is different. 24:39.405 --> 24:42.166 [SPEAKER_00]: Suffering is what we build on top of our pain. 24:42.606 --> 24:43.326 [SPEAKER_00]: It's the story. 24:43.706 --> 24:47.587 [SPEAKER_00]: It's the added stuff, like this shouldn't be happening. 24:48.467 --> 24:55.509 [SPEAKER_00]: There must be something wrong with me for feeling like this, that story of like, oh my gosh, this will never end. 24:55.669 --> 24:57.209 [SPEAKER_00]: It's that resistance. 24:57.289 --> 24:58.489 [SPEAKER_00]: It's the pushing away. 24:58.509 --> 25:01.970 [SPEAKER_00]: We actually get a lot of suffering from the holding the pain. 25:01.990 --> 25:03.991 [SPEAKER_00]: That an arms length distance away. 25:06.092 --> 25:07.114 [SPEAKER_00]: We often can't avoid. 25:07.875 --> 25:10.840 [SPEAKER_00]: Life is painful, but suffering 25:12.265 --> 25:14.166 [SPEAKER_00]: is often times optional. 25:14.887 --> 25:24.372 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we have to do a bit of work to untangle the habits of suffering that we have, the storytelling that we've kind of been caught in. 25:25.173 --> 25:27.494 [SPEAKER_00]: But at the end of the day, we do have a choice. 25:28.054 --> 25:36.620 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to give you a little technique towards the end of this episode to actually put that into practice in real time. 25:37.440 --> 25:39.502 [SPEAKER_00]: But I want to move to the somatic piece. 25:39.622 --> 25:42.544 [SPEAKER_00]: So let's ground all this in the body. 25:42.564 --> 25:50.010 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to give you some practical tactical tools to navigate sensation in the body. 25:50.751 --> 25:52.493 [SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to start with resourcing. 25:53.113 --> 26:04.783 [SPEAKER_00]: So anytime that you're working with a motion, you're working with a more difficult sensation in the body, like I said before, it's very important to establish safety. 26:05.503 --> 26:06.043 [SPEAKER_00]: inside. 26:06.583 --> 26:09.664 [SPEAKER_00]: We establish safety with resources. 26:09.684 --> 26:19.667 [SPEAKER_00]: A resource is anything that reliably you can count on will bring you back into your body to a felt sense of safety. 26:20.787 --> 26:24.448 [SPEAKER_00]: Resources bring us back into our window of tolerance. 26:24.828 --> 26:46.875 [SPEAKER_00]: So for those who are newer to that term window of tolerance, when we're in our window of tolerance, we're relaxed, we're able to think clearly, we're able to be curious, we're able to see things from multiple perspectives, our nervous system is regulated, but we can get above our window of tolerance, which is hyper arousal, we're anxious, we're angry, we're frustrated, we're not thinking clearly, 26:47.475 --> 26:50.336 [SPEAKER_00]: Hi, bow, arousal, below our window. 26:50.376 --> 26:52.497 [SPEAKER_00]: We're feeling foggy. 26:52.617 --> 26:55.597 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the, like, I can't zone. 26:55.617 --> 26:58.718 [SPEAKER_00]: You can't really see, you can't really see a perspective. 26:58.738 --> 27:00.079 [SPEAKER_00]: You can't really see a way out. 27:00.679 --> 27:04.040 [SPEAKER_00]: So we always want to, and working with the difficult stuff. 27:04.220 --> 27:07.521 [SPEAKER_00]: We always want to get you back into your window of tolerance. 27:08.701 --> 27:13.923 [SPEAKER_00]: And resources are a way to help us get back in there. 27:14.423 --> 27:18.825 [SPEAKER_00]: You might already have an idea of what resources work best for you. 27:19.846 --> 27:27.409 [SPEAKER_00]: This could be a felt sense of your hips, heavy in the chair that you're sitting on, the souls of the feet on the earth. 27:28.170 --> 27:30.151 [SPEAKER_00]: This could be the feeling of a few deep breaths. 27:30.931 --> 27:37.738 [SPEAKER_00]: Some of us like to go in the mind and picture are a happy place, real or imagined. 27:38.658 --> 27:44.864 [SPEAKER_00]: Another resource would be looking around the room that you're in and finding something to orient your eyes on. 27:45.745 --> 27:52.852 [SPEAKER_00]: That gives you that sense of, okay, I'm here, I'm present, I'm in my body, I'm at ease. 27:54.073 --> 27:55.856 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's another part of this work. 27:55.916 --> 28:01.243 [SPEAKER_00]: It's build your tools of resources so that when these emotions arise, you can ground. 28:02.204 --> 28:10.035 [SPEAKER_00]: You can stay present so that you're like equipped to deal and handle and meet the discomfort. 28:11.385 --> 28:16.646 [SPEAKER_00]: And this really matters because your body doesn't process emotion from a dis-regulated system. 28:17.506 --> 28:23.128 [SPEAKER_00]: So when your nervous system is revved up and fight or flight, when you're stressed, you're just trying to survive. 28:23.768 --> 28:26.068 [SPEAKER_00]: You're just trying to get through that moment. 28:26.088 --> 28:29.409 [SPEAKER_00]: You're not trying to thrive or process or heal. 28:29.849 --> 28:34.510 [SPEAKER_00]: You're not in a state where you can process very well. 28:41.472 --> 28:58.474 [SPEAKER_00]: So, once you've got your resource, the technique to work on this to feel your own discomfort is to move toward the physical sense, the tightness and the chest, the tightness and the jaw, the holding in your belly, and then go back to your resource. 28:59.835 --> 29:06.259 [SPEAKER_00]: Deep in your breath, go back to sensation, go back to your resource, you go back and forth. 29:06.339 --> 29:09.922 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is the work that you would do with a somatic facilitator. 29:10.703 --> 29:17.988 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the work you would do with a therapist that has the experience of working with the body. 29:19.662 --> 29:33.193 [SPEAKER_00]: And this can be played with absolutely on your own with smaller sort of emotions, but once again, if something feels too big, that's when you're working with a professional and you've got the co-regulation piece. 29:34.114 --> 29:43.941 [SPEAKER_00]: So a very practical technique where you're using all of this in real time comes from the psychology and mindfulness side. 29:44.662 --> 29:45.302 [SPEAKER_00]: And then you might 29:48.685 --> 29:52.508 [SPEAKER_00]: So, S-T-O-P-S is for stop. 29:53.269 --> 30:00.935 [SPEAKER_00]: As soon as something uncomfortable arises, can you practice pausing, stopping rather than reacting? 30:01.756 --> 30:06.780 [SPEAKER_00]: T is take a breath, slow down the breath. 30:06.800 --> 30:09.622 [SPEAKER_00]: O is the media's part of this process, observe. 30:10.483 --> 30:12.664 [SPEAKER_00]: This is where you grow into your resource. 30:13.445 --> 30:15.106 [SPEAKER_00]: Feel your feet, feel your breath. 30:16.267 --> 30:22.636 [SPEAKER_00]: Open your perspectives to see this from a few angles and if you count, that means you take a longer pause. 30:22.656 --> 30:24.339 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay? 30:24.799 --> 30:28.825 [SPEAKER_00]: You can work with labeling your emotions without judging them. 30:29.366 --> 30:30.728 [SPEAKER_00]: Remember that you're larger. 30:31.429 --> 30:32.951 [SPEAKER_00]: than the emotion that's in front of you. 30:33.712 --> 30:45.287 [SPEAKER_00]: If you haven't added the stories on top, the like layers of suffering on top, left unclung to, emotions can actually move through your system pretty quickly. 30:46.549 --> 30:47.630 [SPEAKER_00]: within 90 seconds. 30:48.751 --> 30:52.355 [SPEAKER_00]: So you can watch the emotion pass without clinging. 30:53.356 --> 30:59.021 [SPEAKER_00]: And then the P in stop is proceed to your next action mindfully. 30:59.702 --> 31:03.725 [SPEAKER_00]: I like to imagine with my higher self in mind, like asking my higher self, okay? 31:03.745 --> 31:05.207 [SPEAKER_00]: Like what what would you do? 31:06.007 --> 31:10.772 [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not stuck in my like small, sort of potentially dysregulated thinking. 31:12.173 --> 31:18.939 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's worth practicing this stop model with little things that you're not going to get thrown out of your window of tolerance. 31:19.039 --> 31:28.066 [SPEAKER_00]: But when something arises like that desire to maybe want to say yes, when you really mean no, or people please. 31:29.267 --> 31:34.811 [SPEAKER_00]: Or whatever your thing is, I'm just using those cos I've experienced those practice that stop method. 31:36.301 --> 31:42.724 [SPEAKER_00]: And another technique which might sound a little woo-woo, but it's something that I really enjoy doing. 31:42.784 --> 31:45.945 [SPEAKER_00]: I found a lot of help doing this. 31:46.906 --> 31:50.968 [SPEAKER_00]: Is actually speaking to an emotion when it arises. 31:51.068 --> 31:54.910 [SPEAKER_00]: So say I have a feeling of anxiety in my chest. 31:55.030 --> 31:57.111 [SPEAKER_00]: My chest is feeling constricted and tight. 31:58.251 --> 32:00.172 [SPEAKER_00]: I've resourced, but it's still there. 32:01.213 --> 32:07.956 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead of like thinking my way through it or just simply feeling it, I really try to listen to the emotion. 32:08.196 --> 32:09.477 [SPEAKER_00]: What do you want me to know right now? 32:10.637 --> 32:12.318 [SPEAKER_00]: What do you protect me from right now? 32:12.959 --> 32:18.241 [SPEAKER_00]: Our emotions just want to be heard, like little children, and oftentimes it's our own inner child. 32:19.082 --> 32:23.404 [SPEAKER_00]: If you think that way, I love tending to my inner child. 32:24.885 --> 32:26.647 [SPEAKER_00]: But play with that, play with listening. 32:27.467 --> 32:37.997 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and if you're like, I kind of get what you're saying, but I don't, like find a professional who does inner-tiled work and can guide you through that, it's really, really so helpful. 32:38.637 --> 32:48.967 [SPEAKER_00]: And so that process of just holding space for your own emotion, listening to them, breathing alongside them, can help give you so much information. 32:50.000 --> 33:02.104 [SPEAKER_00]: And one more practical way of moving through discomfort if it's fear, that's a lot of where I like worry and fear come in, is playing out the fear. 33:03.044 --> 33:13.048 [SPEAKER_00]: As the saying goes, fear is false evidence appearing real, and your fear is valid, absolutely, that feeling is real when it's present. 33:14.428 --> 33:20.374 [SPEAKER_00]: But questioning it, playing it all the way out, like, okay, what am I actually afraid of? 33:20.514 --> 33:22.156 [SPEAKER_00]: What's the worst thing that could happen here? 33:22.236 --> 33:27.861 [SPEAKER_00]: Play it out and usually it's not as bad as what your body is bracing for. 33:29.178 --> 33:39.954 [SPEAKER_00]: and the other thing that gets in the way of like feeling into our emotions or putting pain arms length distance away is just accepting reality. 33:40.274 --> 33:42.638 [SPEAKER_00]: Like sometimes reality sucks. 33:43.439 --> 33:43.739 [SPEAKER_00]: I know. 33:44.620 --> 33:54.427 [SPEAKER_00]: And it sounds kind of counterintuitive again, but if we want something to shift to move to change to alkalimize, we have to accept that it's here. 33:55.087 --> 34:03.192 [SPEAKER_00]: So practicing acceptance, putting down the fight, which is usually where we get really exhausted and burnt out. 34:03.633 --> 34:11.018 [SPEAKER_00]: Just accepting what's here, accepting what you can't control, is a big piece of this puzzle. 34:11.978 --> 34:12.439 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. 34:13.079 --> 34:14.881 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you for sticking to me. 34:14.921 --> 34:16.663 [SPEAKER_00]: I hope that this is landing for you. 34:16.723 --> 34:19.946 [SPEAKER_00]: If you have any questions, never hesitate to reach out. 34:20.627 --> 34:23.389 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to bring this back around to where we started. 34:23.409 --> 34:24.590 [SPEAKER_00]: Remember those cliches. 34:24.630 --> 34:26.272 [SPEAKER_00]: You got to feel to heal. 34:27.193 --> 34:30.296 [SPEAKER_00]: The only way out is through what we resist process. 34:31.557 --> 34:35.339 [SPEAKER_00]: Or as we can put it now, what we accept dissolves. 34:36.180 --> 34:43.745 [SPEAKER_00]: Feeling something isn't the same as drowning in it, isn't the same as forcing your way through it unsupported. 34:44.525 --> 34:49.348 [SPEAKER_00]: Resisting a feeling, we know it does not make it disappear, it just makes it heavier to carry. 34:49.908 --> 34:56.533 [SPEAKER_00]: All of these emotions, these sensations, these thoughts, they just want to be listened to, they just want to be accepted. 34:57.433 --> 35:01.658 [SPEAKER_00]: And the more stories we stack on top, the more suffering we stack on top. 35:02.498 --> 35:08.765 [SPEAKER_00]: So the less we add, the more room there is for acceptance, so catch that storytelling mind. 35:10.026 --> 35:14.070 [SPEAKER_00]: And if there's one thing I would love for you to walk away with, it's this. 35:14.951 --> 35:18.295 [SPEAKER_00]: When we allow ourselves to sit in our own discomfort, 35:19.075 --> 35:24.139 [SPEAKER_00]: We reclaim our choice, we reclaim our personal power. 35:24.940 --> 35:33.086 [SPEAKER_00]: You have power and agency to decide what you want coming in instead of your old habits deciding for you. 35:33.866 --> 35:44.068 [SPEAKER_00]: For the people' pleases, the ones that hate disappointing people, this is where it begins, get good at sitting in your discomfort, okay? 35:44.468 --> 35:46.128 [SPEAKER_00]: Even with like addiction. 35:46.909 --> 35:53.410 [SPEAKER_00]: Oftentimes getting over an addiction is related to your ability or capacity to sit with discomfort. 35:54.530 --> 35:58.951 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's so uncomfortable giving something up that brings you relief. 36:05.201 --> 36:20.536 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for listening to the Expanding Inward podcast, and I would love to invite you one more time to join reclaiming you that 28-day portal where you have your daily meditation practice with group support. 36:20.576 --> 36:24.660 [SPEAKER_00]: There's also one-on-one sessions where you and I can go deeper into this work. 36:25.281 --> 36:28.184 [SPEAKER_00]: So use code Expanding for 15% off. 36:29.365 --> 36:32.568 [SPEAKER_00]: And you can find all the info in the show notes below. 36:33.189 --> 36:35.792 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening and have a wonderful day.