Hold Space to Heal

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0:44 Denzel Washington, welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. Dominie, thank you for being on the show. Hi, doctor Doug, thank you so much for having me today. I'm happy to be here. I'm excited. This is going to be an interesting topic, and I know you focus on some very specific things, but what I love for you to do is share with the audience your journey that brought you to this point in time, where you've written a book and where you're doing what you're doing. So my journey really starts with my childhood. I was born to a teen mom and I've never met my biological father, and so I was born into a very traumatic situation. I had a very traumatic conception story, and for so long I had a lot of shame and a lot of guilt around, you know, being a team mom, never knowing my dad so much so that I hit it for a long time. People very close to me, friends and some family knew, but you know, close friends, things of that nature. They didn't really fully know my story up until just a few years ago. It was something that I never really talked about just because of the amount of shame and guilt that I held and growing up. Honestly, my mom and I didn't talk about it much either. It was the big elephant in the room that I think, you know, we both just had a really hard time having conversation about. I didn't learn until my thirtieth the year that I turned thirty, when I really like sat her down and demanded some answers,

2:16 that she had still had a lot of her own unresolved trauma from the situation, and that was partly mostly why she never talked about it. And so it was just in the last like five or six years that I started doing the work to really uncover and understand how I got here, why I had held so much guilt and shame and unworthiness about not having my dad and being born to a team mom and being able to heal and work through that thing. I just got to a point in my life where for so long I had been numb. I had existed that way. I had swallowed a lot of emotions in the midst of trying to block out some things, and so you know, I numb the good and the bad in the midst of trying to just forget certain things. And so for a long time I was just on autopilot and existing and just really existing, not feeling happy, not feeling joyful, not really feeling like I was fulfilled or had purpose.

3:06 And I got tired of living that way. I got tired of the autopilot. I got tired of working, waking up every day and going to work and feeling unfulfilled and just kind of feeling like I was just blowing in the wind. And so I started doing the work that a lot of times we don't want to do because it's hard. You got to go back and you know, find answers and deal with things that you closed the box on for decades. And so it's just in the last seven years that I've been really committed to my own healing journey, and I found that the more that I did my own work, the more that I wanted to help other people, and that I was being guided to help other people. I never saw myself being in the wellness industry. Sometimes I laugh when people ask me, well, what did you major in college? I was a fashion merchandising major. And so I've completely veered off from where I originally started and what I thought my life would be.

3:55 And so I'm here today. You know, I started an organization called Move and Still, and I'm sure we'll talk about that. Moving Still provides, you know, stress management and wellness services, and everything that I do is really all about connection, community and change and helping people to do their guiding people to do their own healing work. And I've just found my way here today because of my own story and just having I would say, having the courage to begin to go back in to release the things that were holding me back. So that's a bit about me and who I am and how I got here. Great, Hey, thank you, that's a great, great story. You know what comes to my mind, and it's really a question, And I don't know if you've really looked at this, but I suspect you have. What is it about us as children that we create a perception for ourselves that brings about that guilt, that shame when we had nothing to do with what's going on. Have you looked at that to see why on earth you developed that guilt and shame?

4:55 You know, I haven't done a ton of research about why, but I will say that I'm a parent and I'm raising a four in seven year old, so I can shed some light just based on what I'm observing as a parent. I think it's children. I've had to do a lot of forgiving of my own mom because I think I held such a i don't know, like an unrealistic expectation of what my mom, who my mom should have been to me. And then I realized once I became a mother that, wow, like I was holding her to a standard that was really hard and she's not perfect, she is human. She had me at sixteen, she was doing her best. But to answer your question, I have two girls, four and seven, and I see now the way that I can say something or I can do something and it can be completely misinterpreted. And so I think it's children, Like our brains aren't fully developed into twenty five and so we're trying to do our best to process and understand the world. Someone can say something to a child and it can be completely misinterpreted. So I think for me as a child, I just kind of was trying to make sense of what my life was and as a result of that and not having conversations and not having a lot of answers, I just bottle that down. It came a lot of guilt and shame, but I think that was just the way that I was able to interpret the situation. I think had my mom been more open to having conversation, it might have helped.

6:09 With some of the feelings that I was feeling. And so for me as a parent now, I really try to in the midst of recently like separating and divorcing from my partner and like that being a major life change, I try to have conversations with my children because otherwise what happens is that kids try to make sense of the world on their own and oftentimes it's not reality, but it's the way that their little brains interpret and try to make sense of things. Well, And as you have conversations, do you find that oftentimes you pick up on the fact that they have created a different perception of what you actually intended to be or to say yes, and you're able, how do you overcome that? How do you help them to change that perception when you recognize that they've developed that.

6:51 So I have found that really just explaining it, which can be hard, right, you're trying to explain life and adult concepts to children. I have a foreign seven year old, and sometimes when they say things, it's like, wow, that's that's really not how things are, but that's how you perceive it. Just to give you an example, when my husband when my ex husband and I separated and we were going through the divorce process, it was of course like a major life transition for all of us, our family co parenting and splitting that way, my youngest daughter, who I think at the time we were having this conversation, she was about three, so she was a little bit younger. She's almost five now, but I remember her saying. That you don't love me anymore because you don't love Daddy anymore. And so I had to explain, well, I'm always going to love you, and it's not that I don't love Daddy anymore. Mommy and Daddy have just decided that we aren't going to be together, but I will always loved you.

7:38 Know, he's your dad. We were together for a long time. So I had to explain to her that just. Because two people aren't together, that doesn't mean that I don't love that person anymore, and it also doesn't change the love I have for you. The last thing I'll add here is that I've noticed that my children oftentimes there's this like limited understanding of what love is, and they think, well, if you love my sister, then you can't love me, and it's just like that's not the way life works. And so for me, it's been a lot of just trying to explain things to them in a way that is easy for them to understand with their you know, very limited minds right now. But children are also very resilient and are able to figure things out, and so I think conversation just in general is really helpful for not internalizing some of the emotions that you often see that as adults were trying to, you know, unlearn and release in parents.

8:28 I hope you're listening to this because that's some of the best sage advice that I think any parent can have, is that communication and that conversation that they can have with their kids. So you mentioned move and Still. Can you explain what that is? Yeah, So the name is literally, I would say, the premise of the business right movement and stillness, and so move and Still. I started in twenty twenty two. It was shortly after stepping away from online coaching, so I started coaching in the middle. Like in the height of COVID, I had gone through a ninety day process of focusing every day on my mind, my body, and my spirit. I started that in March of twenty twenty two, and after that ninety day period, the idea for the idea for that ninety day challenge came to me during a meditation. And it was at a point where I was unemployed, not as a result directly of COVID, but I had walked away from my job thinking that I was just going to take a slightly longer maternity leave after having my daughter in September, and then COVID happened in March, and so it wasn't a great time to be entering the workforce, and so I found myself unemployed, not really having a plan. I was having difficulties in my marriage, and to say like my life was feeling like it was in shambles is a bit of an understatement.

9:50 So I just did the only thing that I knew how to do at that time, and oftentimes today it's the only thing I know how to do. I got still. I couldn't figure it out. You know, I'm overthinker, and I I tried to figure it out on my own and nothing was working. There weren't any answers coming to me. So I got still, and in the midst of that stillness, I heard this whisper say, focus every day for the next ninety days on your mind, your body, and your spirit. And I did that, and at the end of that ninety days, Doctor Doug, I was. A completely different person. Physically, I'd lost maybe about fifteen pounds or so, but the biggest transformation was how I felt spiritually and emotionally. I felt like I was alive and awake for the first time. And for me, it was like Wow, I had no idea that I was existing in this kind of state of numbness. And even at that point I had already been doing personal development work and growth work, but this was like a new heightened level of awareness and awakening. And so I started coaching shortly after that time because I wanted everyone to feel what I had been feeling. I quickly burned out in the coaching industry.

10:50 I quickly also was realizing that clients were coming to me for health and wellness and nutrition. Women, very educated women, very you know, successful women, but they were all very stressed out. Again, this was the middle of COVID. They were balancing full time roles with school and families and all of these things. And it no longer was about a meal plan or you know, what you needed to eat or how you needed to work out. It was looking at their stress levels and really trying to understand their bodies better and understanding that when we are stressed right, we hold on to weight, and our bodies do all these things that are counterproductive oftentimes to some of our health and wellness goals. And so the more that I learned, it was kind of like a rabbit hole. The more that I learned about stress and trauma burnout, the more that I realized that I wanted to pivot in my work and really begin to teach and educate people about stress management and emotional regulation.

11:45 And nervous system regulation. And so that's really where the inspiration for movement still came from. And so I pivoted away from just working with women and coaching and now I work more so with organizations offering group wellness sessions and offering wellness education around stres management and the nervous system because a lot of the things that we're seeing in our communities, whether you look at health or violence and crime and. Just you know, the challenges that we're facing. At the root of so many of those things is really unresolved stress and trauma that's just manifesting in all of these different ways. Well, and that is so true, And what we're seeing now today, as you say, is just amazing, and I'm not sure any of us really understand what's going on other than to say, as you say, there's such a link between that stress, between that subconscious stuff that creates this.

12:37 So you talk about a sole care trilogy to really find harmony in your life. And obviously we're now talking to companies today, we're talking to individuals. What is that Sole Care trilogy and could you explain what that is? Absolutely so I alluded to this when I talked about that ninety day challenge that I did back in twenty twenty. Again, that whisper came to me during meditation told me to focus on all three of these aspects. I didn't mention to you that in addition. To just you know, living most of my life and just kind of existing that for about twenty five years, I struggle with my weight, and so I started. If you look at pictures of me as a child, from one to seven, I was a healthy weight, and then eight years old, there was a drastic change in my weight and I gained a lot of weight in what was seeming like an overnight weight gain process. And I struggled with being overweight as a child well into my teenage and young adult years, and also into adulthood for most of my life. I think I went on my first diet in middle school. For most of my life my weight plateaued up and down. So I would, you know, do some sort of binge diet or some you know, some sort of whatever the most recent diet trend was at that time. I try that thing, you know, I might lose a few pounds, but I would always gain the weight back. And for anyone listening who has ever struggled with weight loss or just any other you know, sort of way to cope, when you feel like you can't get a hold of something, it leaves you feeling really helpless.

14:02 And that's how I felt. It was just like if I could figure this thing out, like I can do anything, because for so long it was a thing that I couldn't figure out. And that what I realized in that ninety day process was that every time in the past when I had approached my weight loss journey, I was just focusing. On the body. So when you think about the mind, the body, and the soul or the spirit, right, I was just focusing on the body. I was neglecting my mind, I was neglecting my spirit, and I would lose weight, but it would always come back. It wasn't until I really started focusing on my whole self, so all the parts of us were not just you know, this this meat set. There's other aspects of us.

14:42 It wasn't until I started focusing on all of those aspects of myself that I was able to heal, to begin to release the things energetically that I was hanging on to that were impacting me physically. And I realized that so many of us we are approaching life a bit narrow minded. So maybe we're just focused on the or maybe we're just focused on the mind, but not the body, and we neglect our bodies. Magic happens when you really focus on nurturing or nourishing all three of those parts of yourself. And so, just to give you an example of what that looks like, right, like, what does. That mean in practicality? Focusing on the body is whatever moving your body, taking care of your body, being mindful of the things that you eat. It's doing things that make your body feel good because your body is the vessel to your soul, your spiritual being, and so the goal is to optimize that body so that it does the best that it can while you have this human experience. Most of us, right, we get the body piece. You can touch the body, that's the easy piece.

15:39 But we also have a. Mind, and there's mental health, there's our emotional health. What are we doing for our minds. I'm curious as to folks listening to this, like, when was the last time you did something to nourish your mind? And so when I think about nourishing the mind, it's listening to things that make you feel good, being mindful about what you're taking in, right social media, what type of content you're taking in, who's around you and what they're saying, and how that's influencing you. So listening to podcasts, listening to motivational videos on YouTube, like whatever feels good for you, maybe reading a book that's nourishment for the mind. And then the last part of that is the soul or the spirit. They're different, but you can interchange them, and that becomes a question of what are you doing to nourish the soul? And so that's meditation, that's prayer, that's maybe getting out in nature and really connecting with the essence of who you are. And again, we do really good with categorizing those things, but there aren't a ton of folks who really focus on all three. And so I'm trying to spread awareness and knowledge about the life changing effects of really focusing on all the parts of ourselves.

16:45 And that's what I call the Soul Care Trilogy excuse me trilogy. Well, that's right, and you really focus on the somatic aspects of helping people to really heal. Can you explain to the audience what sematic means? Yes, So, somatic is a Greek word for body. So somatic practices are literally just body centered practices or body centered approaches to healing. And when I talked about being a coach and starting to understand stress and burnout, I started learning that our bodies actually hold our stress and trauma. We oftentimes approach our problems or our issues or our past with the mind. So we'll go to talk therapy or cognitive therapy and we'll talk to our therapists verbally and we'll express all of the things that happen. And that's helpful for processing and making sense of those things, but that doesn't do anything for releasing those feelings, emotions, those energetic holds. I would say that our bodies hold.

17:48 So there's this really wonderful book. You've probably heard of it, The Body keeps the score. I like to say, the body holds the truth. So we can move on from something and you know, forget about it. It could have happened twenty years ago. We're not really thinking about it, but we're still holding the memories of those experiences in our bodies. And so a part of my work as the founder of move and Still is really talking to people about how much our bodies hold and how when we go and we don't address those things, there's unresolved stress and unresolved trauma that starts to manifest in other ways. And so you might have an illness that you can't figure out. You know, I've gone to a ton of doctors and no one can figure out what's going on. That could be unresolved stress and trauma, or maybe you're acting out in another way or coping in a way that isn't healthy, and you can't understand what's going on there, and it's your body responding to this experience or these experiences.

18:40 That happen to you that you haven't worked through. And so while I think that talk therapy is extremely beneficial, I've gone through therapy for many years in the past, I also think it's important for me people to know that it's a both and it's doing the therapeutic work, the cognitive work, but also moving the body, releasing the body and just holding space. For the body to do what it needs to do. Our bodies are really smart and naturally they're able to heal themselves from many many things. But it's about giving yourself the space, like slowing down long enough for that process to happen. And the reality is that many of us are moving too fast and we don't often hold space just for pauses or stillness right for that process to happen. And so that's really what we talk about when we talk about somatic practices.

19:24 And what are some of those practices that you have found are effective. You know, it's one thing to go through life and not be aware. You're talking about the fact that at some point in time, hopefully we all realize, you know what, this is not what I want. Whether it has to do with white health experiences, whatever that is. But what are the somatic approaches that you take that you have seen effective in helping people to start once they're aware and willing to do the work to start to release those It's not that they ever go away, but it's one thing to hold on to it is another thing to release it. And what approaches do you use and suggest?

20:08 Yeah, so one of my favorite that is something that I use very frequently in my life is breathwork as a practice or deep breathing as a practice. Breath Work is an ancient practice that has gained more popularity here in the US over the last maybe five or ten years, but it's an ancient practice that dates back thousands of years to Eastern cultures, and breathwork heals you on a cellular level. When we breathe, when we allow ourselves to breathe in that way, we're able to get so many benefits. We're able to regulate our nervous system. So oftentimes again we're operating in a heightened stress response state, and that's how we're existing, and that causes so many issues for us. When you take deep breaths, you trigger the parasympathetic nervous system, the part of the nervous system that is our rest and restore or rest and digest the part of the body.

20:59 And so so breathwork does that. When you exhale out and you focus on a very long, slow exhale, the exhale is actually what triggers the parasympathetic nervous system. So breathwork is one of my personal favorites. It's something that I use oftentimes in my work these days. I like to combine it with sound healing. You can see I have a bowl behind me here. There's a really beautiful I would say, like process that happens with breath and sound together that I've found. Physical movement of any kind is also somatic or would fall under somatic practices, and so I usually like to tell people to find what works for you. I love working out at the gym, but that's not everyone's preference, or you know, that's not everyone's jam, as I say.

21:41 And so if you're someone who likes. To dance, maybe take a zomba class, or go for a walk, or go for a jog, or go swimming. Any sort of physical movement that gets the body moving is actually helpful and beneficial because when we move, we release those endorphins that those feel good hormones, but our bodies are also able to relate acts and begin to release a lot of the stress and trauma that. We're holding onto. Again, like under the umbrella a physical movement, there's a ton of movement practices that will fall under that, and then of course meditation kind of falls under both. It almost falls under like the category of nourishment for the mind, but it can also be really beneficial to calming the body as well, because the mind and body are connected, and so when we meditate, there is oftentimes a shift in our bodies because we're calming the mind down, which calms the body down. So that one, you know, it falls for me under the umbrella of a somatic practice, although it, like I said, has benefit for the mind as well.

22:37 Well. And as you talk about breath work, and I hear so many people talking about breath work, okay, and particularly those that are Buddhists. I happen to go back and forth from Thailand, and so you know, you see the monks during the breathwork. What is a breath work that you have found to be effective? And is that part of meditation or is that separate from meditation? Yeah, so I view the two as separate, though I think they go well together. Breathwork is literally deep breathing. Now, I know that there are folks out there who and I'm a breathwork practitioner, but I don't like follow all the popular folks in the breathwork industry, so I couldn't name most of them. But I know there's like holotropic, like there's all of these special types of breathwork or these ways that you can breathe. Whenever I teach breathwork, I start with just the most simple practice, and so one of my favorites is just what I call the what you can call the straw breath, and that's taking a big breath into the belly, filling the belly, filling the diaphragm, filling the lungs, filling the chest, and then slowly breathing out as if you're releasing from.

23:42 A straw, like a very thin straw. And again, the focus is on the exhale being very long and exaggerated, because that is what's triggering the para sympathetic nervous system and helping you to relax and restore. So I don't think that there's a particular type that you have to do. There's a ton of breathwork patterns that I could, you know, talk to you about. I kind of dive around depending on the client and what their needs are. Some patterns are going to be more activating for the nervous system, so they'll heat things up, where some are going to be more grounding and relaxing. I think for people. The biggest thing though, is that because so many folks are living in a stress stress response space or a sympathetic state of or sympathetic dominant state, focus less on, like.

24:27 Is there a particular type of breath work. Practice that I need to be doing, and just focus on taking very deep, intentional breaths, because when we're stressed, we're breathing very shallow, we're breathing from the chest, and that just has so many harmful benefits to our body, like not taking in the proper amount of oxygen. And so I say, start with something very basic, like a straw breath or a box breath, you know that's breathing in for four, holding the breath for four, exhaling for four, and then holding the breath again. Start with something simple and then kind of build and work from there. Well, And it's interesting. I have an old a friend that is suffering from loss of memory and that type of thing, and he just told me the other day, and I had no idea this what's true. He told me the other day that breath work for him, when he does breath work every day multiple times, that literally subsides that loss of memory for him, which I find just fascinating. Yeah, so it kind of goes along with what you're saying. So you use you use a word called clear c L e A R. And I know it stands for something right explaining what that is.

25:36 Yes, So a couple of months ago, I was I don't know if you've ever had this experience where you're getting a download, but you're getting that download over like it's not coming all at once. It was coming to me in small bits and pieces, and I was taking notes and as I get something else, I know. Add to it. And by the end of it, I had come up with a clear goals framework. So of course, like I. Am someone who's a very like type A I would say, like logistical person. I lean very much so on like things that can help me be organized and structured. And so I love goal setting. I love, you know, the twelve week year process, like anything where I can check in. I'm someone who avidly time blocks on a weekly basis, and so my brain functions that way.

26:21 So I had been familiar with smart goals. I've dabbled and used them in the past, something that I would come back to. It's not something I've been using religiously, but this clear goals framework is a similar I would say, like process to smart goals, but it goes a little bit deeper. So clear as an acronym. See, the C stands for cause and so that's you know, when you think about goal setting, oftentimes we set goals, but they're very shallow goals, and oftentimes it can be hard to achieve and accomplish those goals because we haven't done enough putting the concrete, like I would say, structure in place for that goal to be successful. And so when you have a shallow goal or fuzzy target, you're often I'm going to miss. So the C is starting with your cause, and what that means is start with your why, like.

27:05 Why is this goal important to you? Why are you doing this? How is it going to impact you once you complete this goal. Getting clear on the why increases your your chances of you know, achieving this goal. The L is uh level up and what that means is is this a goal that challenges you? Is this a goal that really stretches you? When you think about goal setting, sometimes we can set goals and they're easy to obtain. You want to set a goal that's obtainable, but you do want it to stretch you a little bit and be something that does cause you to level up. As we say, uh C L E. The E is your end game and so the end game is like, you know, looking at what are you trying to accomplish? Being more specific, so instead of saying I want to lose weight, how much weight do you want to lose?

27:50 Like setting very uh you know. Uh, towards the end of the goal you get into measuring, but you want to be very clear on what your end goal is. And then the A is all about accountability. This one, for me, I have found makes a huge difference in goal setting. There's tons of tests that are that have been done in research studies that have been done that just show by having someone that you know, check in with frequently on your goal, it increases your odds of attaining your goal by somewhere between like forty and sixty percent. So that's a that's a pretty substantial. You know, uh measurement when you look at goal setting, by just having someone that you're checking in frequently, that accountability makes such a difference. So that might be an actual person, that might be some sort of you know, weekly system that you do with yourself or you check in at the end of the week and say, hey, this is what I did, and you have to have a stronger level of self accountability. But thinking about that accountability is it makes such a difference. And then the last piece is of course the results.

28:47 And so that's. Really going back to that end game. How am I measuring my results? So I've been specific about Okay, I want to lose weight, not just I want to lose weight, but I want to lose let's just say twenty pounds by the end of you know, August. Now, how am I measuring those results? So you know, am I looking at the scale? Am I looking at how I feel? Am I looking at the way that my clothes are fitting? So really thinking about measuring the results is the last part of the process. And when you go through this five step process that that's like part one. I walk you through that five step process. The next piece of this is then looking at seven different domains and how is this goal going to impact these domains? And so it's like financial, it's you know, it's family, it's relationships, it's communications. Once you go through this very thorough goal setting process, you have a pretty solid goal. You're clear on.

29:43 You know why you want to attain or achieve this goal, you know what you're working on. You have a process for checking in on this goal. So it's not something that you set and forget, but because of accountability, you're checking in with someone or your system often. And so I've been doing this for myself and it's made it such a difference. Incorporating it into my business, working with my business partners, and it's made such difference. And so it's something that I've created that I started sharing. Out with the world. And I think that, like again i've used smart goals before, I think that they're great. I just think that for me, like this goals a little bit deeper into the goal setting process and helping you to really identify why is this goal important? Why is this meaningful? So that you actually are motivated to stick to achieving or attaining that goal.

30:26 Well, and how does that work? You know, years ago you have the secret coming out and you have people doing their vision boards and affirmations and so forth. And it's interesting, as I've talked to some people that were part of that movement, they ultimately have said to me, you know what, it doesn't work quite that easy. And how do you relate that for all the people that are doing affirmations, that have those vision boards, all of those things, how does clear relate to actually achieving and experiencing those dreams and goals that you're looking for? Yeah, So I think the biggest thing that I've found is that it's the so going back to that accountability piece, it's that constantly checking in and being able to measure how am.

31:13 I doing with this goal. So for me, what that looks like on a frequent basis is I'm someone who operates, oftentimes off of or not oftentimes I operate using the twelve week year structure. And so at the end of every week, well, thinking about the twelve week year structure, I've already identified the three goals that I want to focus on for this next quarter. Right, That's that's the premise of the twelve week year. So once I have my three goals, I take each goal and I walk it through that clear Goals framework. And so now I've gone through the process of well, why is this goal important to me? You know, what is the endgame here that I'm trying to achieve? How am I checking in with myself and holding myself accountable or if there's some external person, who is that person and what does that look like? And then the next part of that is on a weekly basis, like actually coming back and checking in on that goal. So for me, I've found that clear goals works really well with the twelve week year framework because every week you're checking in.

32:06 And you're assessing how you've done. But manifestation is really all about setting goals and then taking action. Right, Like we come up with very like wool ways of thinking about it, and it's it's what does the Bible say? Faith without works is dead? And so it's like, yes, you can put something out into the universe that you desire, but you also there has to be movement, there has to be action. And for me, I have found that clear goals just make that action, makes that action part really really clear, right, It makes setting the goal really clear, It makes me understanding what I need to do on a weekly basis really clear. And because I'm checking in with that goal so frequently, it's not something that I'm forgetting about. It's always you know, every week I'm coming back to this. I'm measuring how I've done, or I'm measuring how I'm moving the needle, And so it makes the process of what some might say, you know, manifestation easier because I've set a goal, but now I'm taking action for this thing to happen and for the universe to meet me halfway, you will, Okay.

33:01 So I've been setting some goals all right over the next number of months, and I'll tell you the stress that I feel about worrying about am I going to achieve that? Is this going to happen? Is that going to happen? So? How do I deal with the stress? Yeah? I know. How do I deal with the stress that occurs while I'm trying to achieve all of these goals? I think that's such a beautiful question, doctor Doug, And I think that will go back to what we were talking about earlier with really the somatic practices and having practices that you can incorporate. Maybe I would say so for me, I believe in daily, daily practices. Now for some people maybe they're thinking that's too much. Start with where you can and then build up. But if you think about it, we incur or we go through stressful situations, We incurage stressors on a daily basis. Now the extent of those stressors might look different from.

33:55 Day to day. So maybe today I'm just stuck in traffic. Maybe tomorrow it's my children and you know, doing something that causes me to be stressed out. Maybe the next day it's business and finances. You know, we're in a political situation for some folks that can be stressful. So we're dealing with lots of stress on a daily basis, and so the idea in the ideal world, we are doing something for ourselves every single day to help. To work through and release some of that stress. Now, that might look different from day to day based on your schedule. So maybe today all I have is ten minutes and I'll take some deep breaths or do some meditation and mindfulness, and that's my practice. That's the practice that nourishes.

34:35 Me for the day. I heard you say that you like walking meditation, Like, maybe you can, you know, you squeeze that in. I always educate or always encourage clients to get creative about what that looks like. But see if you can find a few minutes in your day a pocket of pause, if you will in your day every day. For working through the stress. What oftentimes happens to answer your question is that when we don't practice focusing on somatic practices or things to release stress consistently, that stress builds up. So then it becomes. Really hard to focus to be productive to achieve our goals because we're dealing with an elevated stress level. And so my biggest thing is thinking about it as a proactive versus reactive process. Right, so instead of Okay, now I'm feeling really stressed, what do I need to do?

35:25 How can I do five minutes every day of something that helps to just bring down the stress levels and that again makes it easier to be productive and to be focused. Cool, And you know, you talk a lot about the brain, the body, the soul. How do people because I believe that, you know, as we're making decisions and you talk about making decisions from the heart, it's really the intuition that type of thing. How do we get to the point and you mentioned mindfulness, how do we get to the point where we literally are experienced saying that inner piece, that inner divinity of the soul so often we just had no clue about it.

36:10 I love this question so much, And what's coming to me as I was listening to you was that's where the stillness becomes so important. And so again, movement is about moving the body, doing. Things for the body to help to release the stress. Right, stillness is about pausing, finding time in your day to pause so that you can connect with yourself. We're such simple beings, and I think a lot of times we overcomplicate things. So it's like, well, what do I need to do? You can just sit, or you can just you. Know, go like you said, go go for a walk in nature without your phone distracting you and without scrolling social media. When we make time for stillness, whether we're trying to heal our bodies and release stress and trauma, or whether we're trying to you know, deepen our connection with our intuition or our you know, our higher self, our soul. When we just make the time, the process happens organically. The problem is that we're busy, we'removing. We don't often pause long enough for spirit or for you know, our ancestors, our guides to be able to get through and.

37:14 Communicate to us. So it's not a ton of like what do I need to do as far as some sort of thing, you know, it's really just about how can I maybe find five or ten minutes to sit still, to take some deep breaths to clear my mind, because breath work is really helpful for clearing the mind. So that now that all the noise isn't there, things are quiet enough where I can hear from and connect with my soul. The last thing I'll say here is that we are all very used to operating from a very ego state. And the ego is that very loud voice in our heads that you know, it's all those mix of emotions, but oftentimes it's the fear, and it's the young worthiness, and it's all of these the. Self doubt, and that voice is very loud.

37:57 I have found that for so many of us we miss the guidance of our soul, or what you might call the intuition, because it's almost like a quiet whisper. And if your day to day is your schedule's packed, there's no time to be still. You're constantly moving, there's always thoughts in your head, You're always thinking about tomorrow or yesterday. There's no time for that intuitive voice to come through because there's so much happening. And so again, mind and body are connected. When we slow the mind, when we slow the body down. When we take those deep breaths to calm the nervous system, the mind calms down, the body calms down, and now you could have a deeper connection with your intuition or your soul. And oftentimes it's a battle, isn't it, between the soul and the ego? And you know, it's fascinating. I know that cart totally wrote the book that I read at least, The New Earth, and he talks about ego and Buddha talks about suffering, and he talks about how the whole point of life is to get to the point where we are not experiencing that suffering. But it goes to the ego, doesn't it, Because it's the ego that wants this, that wants that, It wants us to be important in life among our neighbors, among our family, among our friends.

39:07 How do you help people to minimize the ego and emphasize the soul. Yeah, so I'm human, right, and so it's a. Journey that we're all working through together. Because there are days where I'm like, man, I got this, and then there are days where I feel like my ego comes in and there's so much self doubt just because the vision is so big right that I'm trying to manifest and. Create that I get overwhelmed and I'm like, I have no idea if I can do this. But I would say that again going back to and I continue to say this because it's been so true in my life, going back to the basics. So going back to you know, holding space for meditation, holding space for breath work, really being consistent about those sorts of mindfulness practices are what really helped the ego. So meditation is really about becoming familiar with yourself. Doctor Joe Despenza describes it that way, and I remember hearing that for the first time and it really resonated me with me and so I've taken that and held on to that.

40:09 So meditation again is about the coming familiar with self and what that means is when we are when we are asleep or on autopilot, the ego is driving the car, so it's making all the decisions. Again, we're kind of, you know, functioning out of habit and we're just going through life using and doing the habits that we've been doing for years for decades. Whether that's you know, how we respond and are the way that we're reactive to things or the choices that we make. And you know, going back to struggling with my weight, for so long, I was just in a habit of overeating because that's how I knew to cope with my emotions. There was no level of awareness about my actions. It was just like I get stressed and then now I'm triggered, and this is the way that I respond.

40:51 What I have found is that through meditation and mindfulness, it almost like puts I would say, like a buffer between the thought and the action. So for me and for a lot of other people, that's like I no longer just have the thought and think I have to respond. I have the thought, and then I take a second to just observe the thought, and then I get to make a decision about responding from a higher mind or a higher self versus just the habit or the reactive. Place that I'm used to responding from. Now again, it's a process where some days we get it right and we do a really good job, and some days we don't, and then you try again. Just to real life example for me, like when you think about like what's a goal or something that you're working on, I have two young children and right now it's just me, and so you know, I'm not a single mother in the sense that they don't have their father, but when they're with me, I'm a single mom and it's just me and my girls. And so there are days where I don't get a break, and I might be trying to, you know, balance life and business and all the things, and then I also have to be a mom and sometimes that can be a lot. And so I will say, Okay, I want to show up today and be peaceful and calm, and then something happens right and things go left, and that goal, that plan gets thrown complt the out of the window. But on the really good days, mindfulness has helped me to get to a space where something happens, stressor or trigger happens and I have just a split second to be like I can yell or like, you know, I'm gonna yell and respond to this, or I'm going to just take a deep breath. And it's in taking that deep breath that I can just catch myself before I respond to react in a way that doesn't feel good and go through all the emotions that come with that.

42:23 So I hope that answers your question. I've found that. Meditation just gives you a bit of a buffer to become aware of the thoughts and not just automatically respond to the thoughts and the you know, the habits that we oftentimes respond frous So. True, so true. So you've written a book, Hold Space to Heal. Can you share very quickly with the audience what's that about? Or does it include everything we've been talking about. Yeah, I think our conversation has done a really great job of summing up a lot of the book. So the book is called Hold Space to Heal, and it offers seven somatic practices that again, so talking about what we talked about today that you can use to release, reconnect, and remember. And what I mean by release, reconnect and remember.

43:05 I have found that healing is a process, right like evolving into your highest self is a process. So the first step is the releasing process. So we talked about at the top of the episode. That's the process of being willing to go back to look at all the things that happen to you, to explore those things, and then to make a decision that this no longer has to be, This no longer has to be my story. I don't have to be stuck in this and I can release this. The next part of. The process is the reconnection process, and we've also talked about that. That is reconnection with source or however you define your higher power. There's something higher out here that is, you know, generating the energy you know, for the planet and us having this human experience, so however you want to title that.

43:48 But there's also reconnection with our bodies. Oftentimes, when we've experienced trauma, we disconnect from our bodies and you have to reconnect with the body. You have to you know, get to know the body as who you are today. And then that last part of reconnection I think we've also talked about is really reconnecting with the intuition, right, so you start to reconnect with all these aspects of yourself. And then the third part of the process is the remembering. And what I mean by that is that's really an ongoing process, the remembering. So you're doing that, I'm doing that. It's remembering our power. I think that you know, as spiritual beings having this human existence, we. Are born and we forget really at the core who we are.

44:29 And then life is about helping us to remember so we can go through these obstacles and choose to see them as a part of our soul's journey to remembering our mission or a journey and what we said yes to before we came here. And that's ongoing, right like that. That's not like an end day. It's not you reach a certain level and now I'm done. I remember. That's a constant process. But when you allow yourself to remember your power, to remember your purpose, to remember your soul's unique blueprint, I think that's when we are the most aligned to who we desire to be before we came here. And that's when we can show up in the way in a world, in the world that makes impact and helps others to go through that same process. True, all right, So as we come do a close, what would be a short message that you'd like to share with the audience.

45:17 I believe that we all have the ability to really take charge of our healing journey. I think we give so much of our power away to external sources. So whether that's a therapist or a doctor, I think that professionals are helpful for us, but I think that so many of us are missing the mark on really doing the work for ourselves by holding space to heal, as we talked about today, and so I just want to encourage people to take their power back. You can work with a professional, whether it's a doctor or a therapist in your healing journey, but be empowered to know that you have so much of an ability to heal yourself by moving the body, by getting still and holding space for those you know, unres emotions to come up and to be released. So I just want to remind people of the power that we have and to help people to hopefully have people feel empowered to really start taking their power back by doing some of that work themselves.

46:12 Oh wonderful, Thank you well, Dominie's. This has been incredible. I wish we had more time. Thank you for having me, doctor Doug. I've enjoyed this conversation. I really appreciate it, and folks, thanks for listening. I hope you really enjoyed this and look forward to having you join us again soon. There's doctor Duck saying no mistay