Nervous Systems, Nature & the Power of Coregulation: My Conversation on the Dirtbag Therapy Podcast

Talking Nature + The Power of Coregulation

I recently joined Danyelle Fisher on the Dirtbag Therapy podcast for a deep, funny, and real conversation about nature, nervous system resilience, and how we can find grounding in the wild and in our everyday lives. It was an absolute joy to talk about big ideas – and share some laugh-out-loud trail stories along the way.

We dug into a life-or-death moment I had in the Alaskan backcountry when I experienced anaphylaxis miles from help. I shared how nervous system regulation tools, co-regulation with the land, and the support of good friends helped me move through the scariest experience of my life – and why it left me feeling not traumatized, but empowered.

Danyelle and I talked about how the wilderness can be a profound teacher and coregulator, and why the nervous system doesn’t always know the difference between reading bad news on your phone and running from a bear. We discussed why it's okay to growl (literally), how orientation and imagination can bring us back to safety, and how strength training is more than physical – it’s about helping your body feel capable in the face of challenge.

Also, I may have shared my secret trail snack: muff balls. You’ll have to listen to get the full story on those 😉🧁

Whether you’re hiking this weekend, reading the news on your phone, or just navigating daily life in a wild world, we hope this conversation gives you some tools and inspiration to help move through these emergent times. 

Here’s what we covered (time-stamped highlights below!):

Topics Covered Include:

• (2:56) Growing up in rural Alaska and how it shaped my relationship with nature
  
• (6:03) My backcountry anaphylaxis emergency and how coregulation saved me
  
• (14:54) What it feels like to coregulation with the land and with people
  
• (18:52) How that moment changed my professional path and focus
  
• (23:44) A deeper dive into coregulation and why it’s vital in modern life
  
• (30:00) The clarity that comes when your nervous system is grounded in nature
  
• (36:07) Seasons, cycles, and nervous system waves – lessons from Alaskan winters
  
• (42:20) Using nervous system activation to take action - how calling your representatives can help with regulation
  
• (47:17) How strength training supports somatic and emotional resilience
  
• (51:54) A simple practice you can try on your next hike – resourcing
  
• (56:20) Everyday tools for grounding in these overwhelming times
  
• (1:00:00) What Mind & Mountain means to me now

I loved this conversation and the way Danyelle wove together curiosity, humor, and insight. If you’ve ever wondered how your nervous system and nature might be working together (or how to work with them more intentionally), I hope you’ll give this episode a listen. And if anything lands for you, I’d love to hear your reflections!

🎧 Listen on:

• Apple Podcasts
  
• Spotify
  
  

📖 Prefer to read? You can find the full transcript below.

Danyelle  0:00  

Hey, dirtbags. Real quick, before we get into today's episode, I just launched something I'm really excited about, the dirtbag therapy club newsletter. It's on substack. It's for women, queer folks, and anyone who's ever felt like the outdoors wasn't made for them, but showed up anyway, or needs more encouragement and visibility to see what folks are out there doing. Twice a month, I'll send you an adventure you should know and follow. So I'll highlight an underrepresented voice in the outdoors, bipoc, women, LGBTQ, plus sober, a person with a disability or otherwise non mainstream adventures. Two, find your people. I offer ways for readers to find each other, either digitally or IRL. Current blurb on queer birder groups around the United States. It's really super dope. Three I put in a conservation challenge, action, purpose, stewardship. We all got to get out there and help take care of our public parks, our public lands, the BLM land. You know, you know, you know, we are on day two of the current 14 day trash challenge. Head over to my Instagram or substack to learn more about that. If you want to join in, would be thrilled to have you four a mental health tip of the week. So there's one thoughtful, practical tip that supports mental health with an outdoor twist or lens and number five story time. So I'm offering one short reader submitted or personal outdoor story. I'll throw some of my personal ones in there too. So I'm really excited about that newsletter. It's gonna be super, super fun, little bit educational, little spicy. Go check it out. You can sign up totally free for now, hit the link in the show notes. I'd love to have you there. Okay, let's get into the episode. Today's guest is someone who lives at the intersection of wild landscapes, deep body wisdom and raw resilience. Sarah histan is the founder of mind and mountain, and she spent her life in the rugged wilderness of Alaska, where fitness meets somatics and nature isn't just scenery, it's a partner in healing. A couple of years ago, Sarah was deep in the back country when she was stung by bees she's allergic, and the situation turned into a life threatening emergency. But what happened next wasn't just a survival story, it was a living lesson in nervous system regulation and the quiet power of CO regulating with the land around you. In this episode, we unpack that moment, the tools she used to stay grounded and how we can all begin to co regulate with nature in times of stress, anxiety or just plain, modern life chaos. If you've ever wondered how to bring your nervous system along on the trail, or why the woods feel like therapy, don't miss a minute of this episode. There are tons of tools to take away. Let's dive in. Where are you from, and how did the outdoors sort of come into play? Or when did you figure out and start spending more time outside. I'm Sarah

Sarah  3:02  

his stand. I use she, they pronouns. And I grew up in Alaska, in a little town called Soldotna. I live in the bigger city now here in Alaska, yeah, I grew up in small town Alaska, pretty close to the land. There's, like, a lot of space up here, and that was some of what brought my parents up. They are from the Midwest, and ended up in Alaska on their honeymoon and just kind of ran out of money and stayed so our family has been in Alaska since then, and and really loved it. I love the way that you can't ignore nature here. It's so obvious the seasons are really extreme and the weather is extreme, so you just have to be interacting with the land and with nature all the time. And there's hard things about that, but there's really beautiful things about that too.

Danyelle  3:54  

Yeah, I imagine it keeps you in the moment, more so than I don't know the city can get. So I live in New York City. I was like, I was drug here by my partner. I love New York City, but I'd rather be in like Montana or Colorado or Washington or, you know, somewhere out west. I'm way more of a West person, but she made some sacrifices for me, and we moved abroad, and then it's her turn now, but I just feel like the minutia of city life can get so monotonous, but I guess especially a place like Alaska, my goodness, you got to pay attention to what's what's happening around you a lot of the time. So I feel like that's like a walking meditation, where you're like you have to be present in a way that sometimes you don't have to be in other places.

Sarah  4:43  

Yeah, you know, I've never lived in New York. It's hard to imagine. I imagine you'd have to be really aware of like humans and vehicles and things like that,

Danyelle  4:51  

right? Yep. And it kind of becomes second nature, too, in a way. But people, they have their headphones on, and yet they are paying attention. Of course, like you said, but I don't know. Yeah, I think there's probably similarities and obviously big differences too.

Sarah  5:06  

Yeah. I mean, like, because humans are in nature, we are nature too. So there's nature everywhere, if we expand our way of thinking about it, but, but for sure here, if you go on a walk these days, like you'll probably run into a moose along the trail. So you do kind of have to be paying attention in a different kind of way,

Danyelle  5:25  

right, right? Yeah, is it? Is a moose more dangerous, or is a New York City driver? It's a really good question. Just play. Would you rather there's the first Would You Rather question on dirt bag therapy? Would you rather come along a moose or get into an argument with a random, aggressive New York City driver.

Speaker 1  5:45  

I'd love to hear from people. It's like, yeah, he's the bear the or the man, like, I don't, yeah,

Danyelle  5:50  

yeah. I should start some just like some polls, and see what people say. I'll throw that on my on my Instagram, and see what happens. Thank you for that. I'm really excited to hear more and dive in here. So you've had a life or death moment in the back country involving bee stings and an emergency evacuation. Can you take us into that day? What happened? And how did you keep your nervous system calm in such a high stress situation?

Sarah  6:18  

Yeah, this happened two summers ago, and I was on a remote trip in Alaska. Here, we had flown in on a helicopter, and we're working our way back to the road system, so it was going to take like five days to get back, and we were on day two or three, somewhere in the middle, we were Wait, we were still way out there, and we're going through a section of brush. There was no trail that we were on, so we were just like, navigating through through a section that was really brushy. And I must have, like, gone right over a ground nest, bees or Hornets or something like that, because they came out in a big rush. And I got stung a handful of times, and then we were able to, like, keep going a little bit further and get to an open section and take our packs off and take a minute. I knew I had had, like, a, like, a previously little bit itchy reaction to a bee sting, but never, never a really bad one. But I had heard that if you've had them once, like, it could get really bad potentially, if you had happened again. And this one did escalate pretty fast and turned into a full anaphylaxis reaction. And I had just, like, honestly, this is, like, so fortunate, because I had just redone my woofer that spring, and the instructor really emphasized the anaphylaxis section. And it went, she reminded me to bring, like, both of the epi pens instead of just one, and like to bring steroids and to, like, have a whole full kit, bend drill and all the things. And so I had all of that really, really handy too, like, right in my on my hip belt I had, and really easy access. And thank goodness, because I really went from being like, fairly nonchalant about it and being like, it's fine. I've this has happened, and no big deal to like, base, like losing consciousness, just like by the rush, the rush of the anaphylaxis came on super fast.

Danyelle  8:29  

How long do you How long would you say, if, like, give or take?

Sarah  8:33  

You know, we were, like, walking a few more minutes till we got to this open place? I think there was maybe five minutes, but, but, like, four and a half of those were me being like, I'm fine. This is no big deal. Like we were we can keep going. And my friends being like, let's just stop and see. And then that, that, like, last 30 seconds it was like, Oh, wow, I need to sit down. Wow. Like, this is something's happening. And then, and then, all of a sudden, I couldn't even, like, form a sentence. So I was really lucky to have handed the EpiPen off to a friend before that. And yeah, and so they were able to get me a EpiPen. And I, like, came back around and and for sure, in that, like, once I returned back to consciousness, was like, wow, this is really intense. We're way out here, and this is never happened before, and my body was, like, flooded with epinephrine too. So it's like, there's a lot going on in the nervous system really, like a lot of activation. I'm a nervous system practitioner, somatic practitioner. So I had been practicing these skills, of, like, how to help my body feel tethered to safety, even inside of an intense experience. So I found myself I was leaning up against this, like, really amazing rock. This rock that, just like. Like, fit my dirty, yeah, yeah. And that was one of the, one of the anchors that helped me feel like I was had some support. There was, I was, like, really, really connected with this amazing rock, and felt like it was almost like the Earth was like, there, yeah, while I was like, in and out of consciousness because then, then another wave of anaphylaxis came back on, and I lost consciousness again, and so needed a second round of epi and that was second one. Was a little was even it felt a little scarier, because I kind of knew what was happening, and it was happening again, and it felt like we're way out here, is this just going to keep happening so so I was really, I was resourcing my body off of that rock, and I was, like, really intentionally orienting some of one of the practices inside of somatics is to orient your attention toward the resources that You have around you, rather than to the potentially traumatizing experience where the attention it like will go on its own if you're not, like, actively paying attention, working with it. So I was hanging out with this rock. My friend was holding my hand. I was really connecting with her and, like, co regulating with her and with the support of the rock and the ground and all of that, all of that really helped, felt like it helped navigate the intensity of that experience without it becoming something like, I was always kind of tethered to, like, oh, I have really good support here. This is really intense, but my body, like, knew it was had support even though it was intense. So that was like, yeah, the the what made that like a really cool, empowering story, was that like we we did like it came down after that second EpiPen, it didn't the waves didn't come back again. So it got, like, more more and more controllable. Eventually the steroids started to work, and we were able to we had to stay out there another couple nights, and so we had to keep managing the symptoms, because they weren't gone the whole time, but the whole time I felt really like I'm in really good care. I've got good people around me, and so that feels like the difference between it being like a traumatizing thing and like a really impactful thing. But I we navigated it super well. Instead, it feels like empowering and something I'm really proud of. How well, wow,

Danyelle  12:35  

absolutely. I love all of that. I've like, I'm gonna have to sit back and listen to this again and be like, wow, like, I'm such a processor and have to sit with things. And that is just like, whoa. What a What a thing to go through, but an amazing sort of, what's the word? Not mind shift, maybe your ability to take ownership over it and say, this is an impactful thing that happened to me, it doesn't have to be this traumatizing thing, and in a moment that's so impressive and like a great message for everyday life when things are happening and maybe not just in crises, but the way we can I love what you said about focusing on the support rather than the thing that we could be panicking about, or that could be traumatizing that's happening to us in a moment that's so powerful. So thanks for sharing that. Yeah, you're

Sarah  13:30  

welcome. It sure has been. And, yeah, I completely agree. Like it's stuff that we can use all like it applies to stress, stressful experiences of all kinds. Doesn't have to be middle of the wilderness to life, right? That's extreme version, but we actually like build the muscles for having that show up in an intense moment in little ways throughout our life all the time. So for sure, I'm like always working on that practice of looking for the resources that I can help my nervous system remember are around I'm reading the news or when I'm scrolling, like, all the time.

Danyelle  14:07  

Yeah, I'm gonna do that now. Like, I think naturally thinking of it that way, and I'm always sort of like, taking care of other people and reminding them and teaching them and all the but then sometimes you not that I neglect myself, but sometimes you know, you forget to be like, Oh, well, I can also do this for myself, but I love that. I'm gonna steal that from you in that moment you said you were co regulating with nature. What does that actually look or feel like when you're on the brink of panic?

Sarah  14:36  

Yeah, so co regulating. I think of CO regulating as the like, borrowing another beings nervous system state so that, like your body, can remember that it's not alone and and have a little bit of like a tether or remembering to the these other states that it has available. We get our nervous. Systems can get kind of like, sucked into an intense moment and and sort of lose track of it just in pulse or full survival mode, and it's hard to come out of that alone. We're social creatures, and we're kind of designed to, like, survive in tribes and to evolve through being with other groups of humans or and other beings. So co regulation, and we have a lot of like independence in our side of like Western culture, where it's like you should be able to manage everything on your own, but that's not really how we evolved. So some of what we're doing when we're trying to learn, relearn co regulation is to bring back this like skill that we've like, indigenous cultures are often very based in and a lot of us had at some point and then maybe learned not to through Western culture conditioning. And so I'm, I'm talking thinking about, like, all the different ways we can access either human or non human support when we're in really intense times. And I like to think of it through, like, an animistic kind of view, almost, where it's like, hanging out with that rock, like feeling the way that I don't know, like, it really was like the perfect rock that my back could just like, fit right into. And it's kind of magical to me that that's I ended up there right right at that spot. Yeah, certainly weren't seeking it out. It just was like, really great that it happened. And I I felt like I could co regulate my own nervous systems activation by feeling the like the energy of the earth or the way that that rock was there. And sort of, you know, it would have been amazing to have like another human there with a hand on my back too, but so, but like a rock can be a stand in for that, too. And in some ways, if we have had tricky relationships with humans, and, you know, care from them that was like not quite right, or misattuned or even traumatizing, maybe it's even easier for us to co regulate with things that aren't humans, like the like a rock or a tree or our pets. A lot of people co regulate with pets. They're so good at that.

Danyelle  17:11  

Yeah, I keep getting this image of this rock and sort of this analogy in my mind, of the Earth was holding you in its hand and supporting you, you know, and you keep putting your hand up. So it's kind of Yeah, it's Yeah, and it right. It was sort of coming and, like, from a friend there, holding her hand. And then the earth was like, got you. We got you, babe. Don't worry. It all sort of came together. And Whoo, thank goodness, because I'm getting such lovely energy and calm like peacefulness from you, and we always need more people like that on Earth, and especially right now. So thank goodness that all came together for you.

Sarah  17:55  

Yeah, yeah. It felt really peaceful. And it's wild to me, because it was like, the scariest thing that's ever happened to me also, but it also felt really like I felt really cared for. It's like, again, feels a little bit in this mystical realm of things that have planned for but, but yeah, in the in the practice of how my body recognizing that it can get support through lots of different channels, whether it's through my friend holding my hand, or through my relationship with nature. The felt like there was some availability there in my system to not just focus on, like this, like, really scary thing that's happening, but also notice the rest of it.

Danyelle  18:42  

Oh, so that experience became a turning point for you. How did it change your relationship with the somatic practices, both personally and professionally?

Sarah  18:52  

Yeah, I did come back from that experience being like everybody needs to learn these skills. I cannot believe that we we don't like all learn this stuff in elementary school, I had, I was maybe four years or so into my somatic nervous system journey. Then I'd finished the three year Somatic Experiencing training, and was figuring out still how to weave that into my work. But I came out of that experience being like, I need to, like, figure out how to share this in a broader way, because it's so critical for those big, intense experiences, and for outdoor rec folks, for sure, since we're navigating challenges inside of our nervous systems all the time in the mountains. But then, like we just said earlier, you know, it's like, that's also happens in everyday life all the time too. So the world would be a much better place if we all had skills for helping our nervous systems connect to safety instead of be in threat responses often. So, yeah. Yeah, I did kind of pivot my business, and I'm still in the process of that. I beforehand, it had been mostly like centered on fitness with a mental health informed lens, and at that point I kept that. We still have the fitness wing of the business going, and it's that's still functioning, but I'm re centering my focus on how to how to share these nervous system skills in different ways.

Danyelle  20:29  

Yeah, that's absolutely I'm sitting here spinning my wheels with the younger generations coming up, especially just seeing all the things in the world happening and their exposure to social media and anxiety and all the things that are uptick,

Sarah  20:44  

yeah, yeah, for sure. The way I think about that is that it like the, I feel like we are in this evolution right now, inside of, I mean, technology's brought so much change into the world these days that it's, it's evolved faster than our nervous system, our nervous systems, is just lagging behind. You know, we're still kind of in that phase where we're our nervous systems are know how to, like, track 50 or so people that we would have been together with in a group before the internet lets us, like, know what is happening all around the globe at one time, it's just like our nervous system just hasn't caught up. That's some of the way I see this. This, like nervous system work too, is like helping us. It's trying to, like, catch our nervous systems up to the actual reality that we're living in, because we're still having those big stress responses. Of like, when you read the news and the nervous system reads it as a threat and feels like we're, like, Should running from a bear, but we're actually just reading something on our phone, so it doesn't know what to do with the it, like, floods the body with all the chemicals that you would need. Where you're running from a bear, but you're just reading about a threat on your phone. So it's really different, like, physiological need, but the body doesn't know that. So we're like, Yeah, I'm gonna figure out how to close the gap with strategies.

Danyelle  22:03  

Yeah, that's interesting. I wanna look more into some of that. There's this book too called the anxious generation. I need to read that too, but it was one of the first big, like, deep dives and pulling on lots of data about this generation that's growing up with social media, like, fully in their face. I clipped like the first part of it when I was in high school. I think Facebook came out when I was 17, but back then, it was like you wrote on somebody's wall. That's all it was. And that's really all the social media that existed at that time. That was 2006 and so I can't imagine. I mean, you have all these brains that are learning and growing and that are already on fire with hormones and all sorts of things with, like, awkward social situations. And then, like you said, that's, that's a good visual of like you're exposed to, you know, potentially millions, billions of people and their opinions and their judgment and their image of what they think is correct and what you should be. I just can't imagine. It's, but you're right. It's just like, how do you what do you do with that? And then we expect kids to be able to manage and deal with that. It's, it's crazy,

Sarah  23:14  

yeah, it's really something. I'm Yeah. I mean, middle school was hard enough, you know, right?

Danyelle  23:19  

Like, let's make it harder. No one needs middle school to be any harder than it already is. No, let's zoom out here. What exactly is CO regulation, and how can we tap into it with nature or even with other people, especially during stress or

Sarah  23:38  

overwhelm? Great. Yeah, co regulation is the the experience of having your nervous system connected with another, either another humans or another beings, non human or nature, their their nervous system or their their way of being. And I think of it as a way of, like helping, kind of borrow, I think is what I said earlier, like borrow the nervous system state, or the what, what another being remembers about a possibility, about how we can feel, because sometimes we get lost in just like our brain stem when we're in a stress response, it's like our brain shuts off access to the prefrontal cortex, where we think and and plan and strategize, and it only operates from the brain stem area, so if we can remember enough to co regulate, to reach out to somebody else, or even just to a pet or a plant or a tree, then we can get that like little bit of perspective outside of just the brain stem survival response, and that can really help your system recognize that it's not alone and it has a little bit of safety present, and that can. Help it come down, out of, out of its activation. We can get kind of stuck in an activated place if we don't have, if we're there alone, and even if you're not actually in it with another human. Through this like animistic view, we can, we can have some of that same access through co regulating. I mean, the Earth is always there, right? Even if you're not, even if you can't find any trees in New York or anywhere there, the Earth is still there. Even if it's under the cement, it's still, we are still connected to the earth, no matter where we are on this planet. So there, there are there ways to help your nervous system, remember that that's true, and find some of that support that I had with the rock at my back, like we could still, like, I love feeling the earth under my feet through, and I'm kind of doing it through. I'm like, using my imagination a little bit. We call it the image channel, because the nervous system operates through images and sensations so the we can just imagine and remember that there's like actually earth under there, and feel the way that Earth does connect to your feet, even if it's through a few layers of things and and through that, feel a little bit more supported, and even if that Just takes the intensity of your experience down just like half a notch, that's and you can feel that like a little bit of reduction. That's like a feedback loop in the in in the body that like, oh, that thing helped. And I'm and when the body recognizes it's it's got a little bit of support, and it helped even just a tiny bit, then that helps it remember that something else is possible. And that's some of, yeah, what can help ease the intensity of the stuck in activation places that we can get to and and create a little bit more of this, like flow between intensity and deactivation?

Danyelle  26:57  

Hmm, I love that. I'm smirking, especially because I had my Ugg slippers on. And then a lot of the time when I start interviewing, if I still have them on, I'll take them off. And I think that's like, what I'm doing. I'm just, I'm not, like, stressed out or, you know, having any sort of whatever, but, and then I, like, dig my feet into it's carpet, but I like to think it's dirt or grass, yeah. So good. Yeah, it is. I love it. Like, I'm like, oh yes, take my shoes off for my interview.

Sarah  27:30  

I love that. That's one of the things I love about CO regulation, too, because I think we're already doing it, and it's so cool when you recognize like, Oh, I do that. Like, yeah, these are the processes that are natural for our bodies. And so we're often find that we're that we're already accessing it in certain ways. It's not like a whole new skill set that you have to learn and or like this epic journey to figure out how to do it right. Maybe it's probably more like these little ways that maybe you're already doing. And then when you can add the extra layer of recognizing the way they impact the body and why you're doing it, and and feel the feel the sensations of relief that you get, or of like stability, or whatever that extra like, sometimes the chest opens a little bit more, or the breath gets a little deeper on its own, you know, when you feel The impact of it on the body that adds this extra, like juice to the CO regulation experience. So it's maybe just adding a little bit more awareness to the to the process of what you're already doing,

Danyelle  28:31  

I think a lot of the times, and I love that added layer of when you become aware that you're doing something like that, and then I think that's even another layer of, like, calm, bring it down. I think we, as humans, we naturally have coping mechanisms and all the things that we do that sometimes we don't even know that that's what we're doing for, or the reason that we're doing what we're doing. But when we sort of are aware of what we're doing, and then our the impact that it's making on us, it's sort of just bring in this image of it's sparking it, and then you're getting more caught in the helpful feedback loop, rather than the one that where you could be in panic and disastrous thinking. And you just get caught in this other negative hamster wheel. And you just go around and around and around, stick a stick in it to, like, trip it up a little bit. And then let's think about something, even just the tiniest thing, like you've said, I love that you've you framed it like that, even just the tiniest thing can catch. Yeah, that's really good, nice.

Sarah  29:32  

Yeah, I love what you said, too, about the on the we call that the counter vortex of because there's the trauma vortex. That's the stressor that has its own gravity. But you're right, if you can, like, find the beginning of a counter vortex, it has its own gravity too, once you get in there. Yeah,

Danyelle  29:50  

I love this. It's great. When you're deep in nature and your nervous system is regulated, what kind of clarity or decision. Making comes through that you think we miss in our normal, overstimulated lives.

Sarah  30:05  

There's so much here. I really feel like when I am in nature, like when I'm able to do a backcountry trip that's long enough to have a it almost takes, like, a couple days, almost, to get out of the out of the spin of all the things and and then settle into what feels like mountain time, or there's just this different this different pace. It starts to feel almost like an altered state to me, like my brain is working so differently. And after doing these deep dives into the nervous system, I have a sense that some of what that is is I'm back to moving my body on human like this slow pace. It's like, kind of doing what we evolved to do inside of like hunter gatherer culture, just like move slowly through nature. You know, at the pace that we can move and spend my time looking around, and one of the big practices in that we do is in nervous system work is orienting, which is just the practice of letting your eyes go where they want to go and take in move slowly enough around the space that they really see, really see what you're seeing, and you really hear what you're hearing. You can do it through all of the senses, but, I mean, you're welcome to do it now and practice it all the time. If you you know throughout the day, it will really make a big difference. It's super simple, but when we actually slow down and notice that we're in an environment that's fairly safe, then that can land in the body, and it creates some of that good feeling, usually, like some of that open space in the in the system, and maybe your thoughts slow down a little bit. And like some of that comes from the like evolutionarily, like doing that all the time to figure out when you're on a long hike or something you you're doing that all day long, because you're looking at like, where do I put my foot? And is that brush over there? Does it have an animal in it or not? And does that wind? Is that wind cold enough that I need to put another layer on and you know, you're orienting all day long, and it just starts to feel really good. Think that's a big part of why those of us who like to be outside like we're really drawn to these practices that we're like doing automatically just because we're out in nature. So I start to feel like I can really like, I can read the subtleties of what I'm seeing on a more and more subtle layer, like layer. And I had this, yeah, there's starts to be this way that I can like, feel like I can hear myself think clearer, and I can like, feel what my body's going to need and what I want to do with the way I move in a in a much more clear way. And I get a lot of ideas about what I want to do in my with my work through that that time, and, yeah, just a lot of clarity about where I want to go. But then I like, I had this time when, right after a back country trip where I was out with my nephew, and we got back from a walk with him, and he had lost his hat somehow along the way, and and somehow I, like, I was like, I know where that happened, and I didn't see it happen. But somehow, like my my nervous system was, must have been like tracking the family unit, you know, while we were on this walk, and I went back to right the spot where I thought it was going to be in it like it wasn't there. And I looked like in the bushes, like back behind the trail, and there it was. And it was like, kind of another really surprising like, you could call it intuition, and that's one way of explaining that, but it feels like also the way that the nervous system actually knows how to track these, like really subtle things that are happening all the time, but in normal life, we're so there's so much else going on that it's full of it's like tracking plenty some time away from that has, like, creates this open awareness that feels really good.

Danyelle  34:33  

Yeah, it's almost like a bookmark where you maybe you didn't feel like in the moment you were paying attention because it didn't seem like something you maybe needed to pay attention to. But your brain, for whatever reason, sort of bookmarked it because of the way that you're noticing things. But that's so interesting because you'd think if you saw that at the time, or anybody else, was there, anybody else with. Was just the, just the two of you.

Sarah  35:01  

Yeah, yeah. I was with. I was with my, like, his dad and my dad, I think we were all out there on this Yeah, walk, and none of us, like, conscious,

Danyelle  35:09  

and nobody consciously noticed it. But yeah, you were aware. And that's so interesting. You went back to the exact spot. So, yeah,

Sarah  35:16  

yeah, yeah. I know it's pretty bizarre. Yeah, for me, the wild part was also too, like, there was part of me that was like, I think I know where that happened. I don't right. It was like, somehow, yeah, I can, like, sense where it's going to be. So

Danyelle  35:32  

you were born and raised in Alaska, one of the most rugged places on earth. How has that landscape shaped your understanding of nerve, nervous system, health, embodiment and survival. What a, what a beautiful playground to practice all of these things, right?

Sarah  35:46  

It really has been, yeah, yeah. We just live so close to nature. Here it it's really amazing, and it's, it's not there's quite some challenges because of that, and the winters get really long, but that, I think there is really something for me, at least inside of the way that, like my body feels when it's relating with nature, that helps me remember some of this, some of this stuff. You know that the potential for that open awareness, I might not reach it on a daily basis. You know, I there's like, a next level of it that's possible when I'm on a backcountry trip, but I can, I'm, like, trying to reach versions of that every day in connection with, like, noticing what's happening with the weather and noticing, like, right now it's spring here, and it's just like, incredible to watch the leaves come out of nowhere after like, nine months of it, like having no green around. And I can, like, feel that feels like myself included, but it feels like everybody is just, like, bursting with life, and you can't help but, like, feel that in yourself too. I think that's like, some of the CO regulating that's happening is, we're, we're kind of also impacted by the these, these weather changes, so

Speaker 2  37:17  

opening up with the leaves, right? They're so amazing. Like, trees make leaves out of nothing. It's just it

Danyelle  37:25  

really is. And then they go from like itty bitty buds, and then there's like a tiny leaf, and then within a few days, it's like they're fully back, oh my goodness, fully green. So awesome. Yeah, it's magic.

Speaker 2  37:37  

Yeah,

Sarah  37:40  

yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, the the winter, and the winter has its own lessons, the and that's been a big part of the I mean, so, I mean, I think nervous system, we're thinking about everything inside of like a wave pattern where the activation rises and then it falls. And activation isn't a bad thing. It's in, in fact, it's like something that we love and need. Like, just like the energy of spring is like life force and helps us get things done, helps us get out of bed in the morning and go climb mountains and things like that, and and we want our nervous systems to be able to come into activation and then also move out of it when the stressor is over, when the workout is over, when the hike is over, we want to be able to also settle and feel like help our body recognize that it's in a safe place. So inside of like the Alaska seasonal cycle, we have such a long winter too, which is this place of deactivation and settling and arrest and also play winter sports are also part of part of that fun, but there's lots of time for interoception and taking care of ourselves and being in that slower paced time of year to up here.

Danyelle  38:58  

Yeah, absolutely. I You have me be it which most podcast guests don't, as far as, like, badass level of winter and what you're able to sort of handle I grew up in Minnesota. I was born and raised in Minnesota, not north. There's a big difference between northern Minnesota and, like, the bottom half of the state, northern Minnesota is a whole another ball game. But Alaska, you got me beat? Oh, totally Yeah. It gets wildly cold, cold, yeah. But there's such a beauty in it. It's so quiet. It really, if you don't like to spend time outside, or hate the cold, or whatever like, which is

Speaker 2  39:43  

quite a few people, fair, yeah, it's kind of unpleasant sometimes.

Danyelle  39:48  

Yeah, absolutely. But when it's nice, or even when it's a bit too cold for even people that like to spend out time outside in winter, it just eliminates a lot of people. And then. Sort of like you have a VIP experience. That's what I call it, sometimes. And I would take the dog out to a park and let her off leash and run around the woods. And lots of the time we were the only ones there. It's just like a whole playground of calm and the snow is just subtly falling, and less wind because you're in the sticks.

Speaker 2  40:25  

Yeah, it's just,

Danyelle  40:28  

it's like a beautiful walking meditation. And so I don't think I'll ever hate winter, but, but yes, even the best of us that like time outside in winter sometimes there, there are days and times that, yeah, I just want to snuggle up inside and read a book or watch some Netflix.

Speaker 2  40:47  

So yeah,

Sarah  40:49  

yeah, and I feel completely validated in that just as much as the outsides like there's plenty of time in winter for both of those, the cozy and the and the outdoor beauty,

Danyelle  41:02  

yeah, and the gnarly. Sometimes, boat, I mean, a lot of the time, both in a day. And I sometimes, like, love the gnarly, and then, and then you get in, the cozy is even more amplified, because you just came out of all this discomfort. And then it seems even more cozier than if you didn't spend some time out outside and got a little uncomfortable.

Speaker 2  41:27  

Yeah, yeah. So good,

Danyelle  41:32  

even with all your tools. Have you had a recent moment where you found yourself totally dysregulated, and what helped you come back from that,

Sarah  41:40  

yeah, you know, there are, certainly, I have multiple examples I could, I could share because, well, I don't think activation is a problem anymore. I used to really feel like it was before, before really understanding this, this work. But these days I I think of activation as as really important and as something that I'm looking to cultivate, in a way, because it it's like what powers my life so but the dysregulation also happens, and I don't feel like that's something that I need to fix necessarily, either. I'm just looking to help my body be have some tethered, have some sense of safety, even inside of activation, and trust that it will move through, likely in that wave pattern, which my body has gotten better at. It's like a somatic skill to move in and out of activation without getting as stuck there as it used to before. And the time I'm thinking about news honestly, I'm thinking about like news cycles, and I get stuck scrolling on social media as well. And you know, with that, having running an online business, I spend time on there for as a content creator, and so I'm putting stuff on there, and then also wanting to see what my friends are doing, and scrolling around. And also caring about the world a lot too, and like wanting to see what's going on and what, what are action items that we might need to take. And that can get pretty upsetting these days for good reason, and that doesn't feel like misplaced, that feels like accurate, that because of the really tough stuff happening in the world, and I have actually turned that into because I've been starting to recognize, like, I can feel my body start to get stressed by that, and like, feel the tension build. And like, the somatics of that have gotten more familiar over time, where I can, like, start to feel my belly kind of clench up and my jaw get tight, and like these, these kind of familiar tension patterns come in, and at some point I start to consciously recognize, like, Oh, I'm getting all tensed up around what I'm seeing here. And I've been recognizing that as a as, like, that's like a fight response, usually, or like a fight or a flight response, but for me, it's usually a fight response, because I'm like, This is crazy. This is such, so frustrating. Like, that same, yeah. And because there's like, not an animal there to fight. Our physiology doesn't really know what to do with that fight response and but I've been playing around with using it as charge, like a life force, charge, and helping it get out of my body through actually just switching over onto the five calls. App, which is my favorite app for calling representatives and then, and then calling my reps, and using that frustration that was in my body to, like, tell them what I'm upset about and vocalize the like things that are, like, frustrating to me and feel, and I can, like, feel that frustration that was in my body, leave, leave through my throat, basically because the voice is one of the ways evolutionarily that we keep ourselves safe through like yelling help, or like growling, or, you know, like animals would growl to signify like, stay away from me so we can we can vocalize our fight response through our words. And it's gotten easier and easier to, like, call their reps. And I can, like, follow the script if I need to, but I can also go off script and be like, this is

Danyelle  45:52  

like, growl at them. Growl at them.

Speaker 2  45:58  

I should try that. Ah, yeah. Do it, yeah,

Sarah  46:03  

yeah. And then feel I can, like, feel that tension leave and feel the aftermath, because, like, the feeling of the backside of the wave is really important too. So that's part of my practice these days.

Danyelle  46:14  

Yeah, growl at your rep. Action Item. Action Item. You heard it here first, there is dad approved, yeah, yes, yes, how you totally after doing that? Yep, that's, that's an action item on my list. Now let's go 2025, growl

Sarah  46:36  

at your rep. And really, I mean, I really do growl in often, not at, not at my rep yet, but maybe I'll try that now, but I, but I do do that as a personal practice to when I on my own or in the car or something like there, there, there does seem to be a way of, like, freeing up some of that fight response through, through growling that can feel quite, quite like impactful on the nervous system. I

Danyelle  47:04  

want to look more into that you also integrate physical trading into your work. How do strength, mobility and movement connect to emotional and mental resilience in wild settings?

Sarah  47:14  

Yeah, the right. So this was the foundation of my business is in the fitness realm. And you know, the so, so much of even what we're talking about here with growling or like, how do we protect ourselves? This, this existential question that the nervous system is always asking of like, how am I safe? Can I be safe right now? Is requires some kind of movement from our from our body, and when the body has the feeling that it can protect itself, that it has a way to stay safe in these situations, which it's it's like first choice responses are um, before you know things happen to us, but it's always going to try to fight or or run away from a situation. And then, if those don't work, it might freeze. But those, those mobility, those first two, are all about mobilization and and moving ourselves to get safety so the ability to move and to feel capable. Moving is one of the things that can land in our body as as like, Okay, I have some I have some safety here, because I have the capacity to move and to strength, to fight if I need to just, I just want to mention really quick too, because I want to make these spaces as accessible as they can. So for people that don't have, like, actual movement capacity, for whatever reason, the you can, you can access a lot of these same exact tools just through using the image channel the imagination, and imagine that you're either your body is working in a way that allows it to move, or you can imagine, I love imagining that I'm an animal, like, I imagine that I'm a wolf pretty often, and I'm like, what would a wolf do in this situation? And that, like, helps me remember, like, what my animal body wants to do. So that's a little bit of an aside, but, but, yeah, the when we have ability to like enough strength to help ourselves move through through time and space, and especially if you're someone and we're talking about moving in the mountains, it's it can be fairly unpleasant to do those kind of things, if the body's having to work really hard to do it. So the kind of training that I do is helping build the like cross training strength, so that when we go out and do hard things in the mountains, we have a base of strength and the. And also, like self awareness, to know what's going on physically and mentally while you're out there. And I, you know, we end up doing hard stuff, and it still is hard, and it still pushes challenges the physical body, and pushes it, you know, when, when the body is physically challenged, it can kind of ring as a as a life threat. It's like, am I, am I, like, going to be able to keep sustaining this body, like, sends up these red flags, and is like, are we going to be okay here? But if I've done some training beforehand, I one of the ways I I, I use a mantra that I just say I've been training for this. I've been training for this just to and that helps my nervous system and body remember that, yes, we're going through something hard right now, but we we've put in the work ahead of time, and we're capable This is, like, within our capacity, even if it's hard.

Danyelle  50:58  

Yeah, it's like training for a marathon, and then you're out there and you start to cramp, or you like, but something goes wrong, and then it's like the At what point does the mental game become harder than what you're doing physically? But it's beautiful that we put ourselves in spaces where these become questions and that we're challenging ourselves. If someone's out hiking this weekend and wants to experiment with somatic regulation in nature, what's one simple, doable practice they could try?

Sarah  51:31  

Well, the one we've talked about a couple times that you could bring in is this practice called resourcing, and you're probably already doing it, like we said. So this is just adding a little bit more of intention and awareness to it, but the practice is to find something pleasant, and you might need to slow down a little bit to do this. This is for me, especially when I'm learning something new, or when I work with people, it often is easier to learn when we're moving at a little bit slower pace. So maybe you like take your pace down a few notches, but then the idea is to find either something visually or a sound, or maybe it's even the texture of your fleece. You know, anything pleasant can work, and let your attention land on that, on that pleasant thing. So maybe you found a flower that's really beautiful, and you just let your let your attention land on that, and notice what happens in your body. Often there will be some kind of relationship or some kind of CO regulation happening between this pleasant experience and your nervous system, and we'll be noting, you know, the nervous system speaks in images and sensations, and so we're looking especially for the sensations of deactivation, which might mean, like a deeper breath, or like you maybe you want to smile, or just noticing, on the sensational level, the way your body is feeling when it's hanging out with this thing that it likes and and notice like that sometimes it's deactivation. So you notice, like, the intensity of the moment coming down and settling a little bit, which is a beautiful thing. Sometimes what we notice is like the expanding, the feeling of like, my capacity is expanding a little bit more, which is also really nice nervous system regulation isn't always like calm, blissful state. We're more looking for, like, the capacity to be with whatever is there. And so if you, if you get the sense that, like, oh, I can, like, breathe a little easier. I've got a little bit more space in my body, then that's, that's the feeling of capacity growing a little bit more. And then that might make whatever hard thing you might have to do next a little just feel a little bit easier because your containers a little bit bigger.

Danyelle  54:06  

Yeah, that reminds me every time I go on a trip or spend some nights over overnight in any sort of wilderness space or trip or whatever I'm doing, even when it was with kids. But even then, I remember driving the four hours north to go to work, quote, unquote work, because it didn't always feel like work. But I remember settling in the first the first few nights, and just like things were just melting away, like stress anxiety would just I would get this sensation of like melting and like calm and then the capacity building over time. I get a lot of growing pains working with teenagers when I was almost still a teenager myself, but the capacity growing over time. Of, like, my nervous system calming and being in nature and naturally those things happening, and then the expanding, of like, being able to not take on more, but you explained it much better than I your container becomes wider, so that the stuff that's coming at you doesn't seem so clustering. And then it's like, all building up around you. It's like, it's all good. There's space, exactly. There's space for it, all right, it's all good. Isn't

Sarah  55:27  

that so nice? That's that's exactly what we're going for with this work. Is that feeling of like, not yet, not to take on more necessarily, or to be able to, like, grit through more, but have enough space in your container, in your nervous system, to let hardship like be felt, and find your resources, figure out what you're going to do about it, and then recognize when it's over. Yeah, yeah, it

Danyelle  55:54  

can just land there and hang out until I'm ready to D to deal, or to you know, to go into that not all of us are facing wilderness emergencies, thank goodness, and not all of us are woofers, but these are stressful times. What are some accessible ways people can use somatic tools and CO regulation to stay grounded in everyday life? Yeah,

Sarah  56:20  

yeah. They sure are stressful times, aren't they? Yeah, I am practicing these tools every day, all the time, these days, and I don't know what I did before, before I had them, so I would highly recommend these practices that we've talked about so far, working them into daily life. The practice of orienting is a really good one to just let your senses go where they want to go and really notice what's what's around you. It's amazing how well that works when you take just a minute to let your attention, especially if you're working on screens, a lot to like, let your attention move outside of the screen. The resourcing practice absolutely works when you're in a stressful meeting and you can feel the support of your chair at your back. It's like, it's not a rock in the wilderness, but it is back support, and I use it all the time. So we can access these practices in, in, like, indoor, regular life, for sure, all the time. And then in, yeah, the practices with social media, like we talked about, recognizing when your body is tensing up and what you like either using that tension to mobilize you into some kind of action. That's a that's like a way of using activation for good, rather than letting it just like, sit in your body and build and then we end up feeling really gross and stuck and like, yeah. So those are all. Those are all ways I use it, and then interpersonally, I think I use CO regulation pretty frequently to just, you know, recognizing your maybe your call your friends when you're feeling stressed. And we, that's what we're doing for that is like, looking for CO regulation, though sometimes, if we're not skillful about it, we can co dysregulate and go be like, This is bad, and like, This is worse, and this is really bad, and we can, like, double spiral up into chaos. But if we can instead help each other, like, feel the intensity and then feel the resources, we can co regulate and kind of come down and come into a bigger container, instead of, instead of into that trauma vortex spiral. So yeah, I feel like, I hope we've, I've at least mentioned some tools, and the practices of them are always a little bit more challenging than the idea of them. So yeah, feel free to also just be kind to yourself and recognize that these, these are actually like physiological things that our body needs to have the muscle, muscle memory and the neuro the neural pathways to execute on. So the idea of it is different than the somatic skill of it. So it does take some practice, and sometimes it takes guidance, and like the either doing it in a group or in inside of a container for a while before the muscle memory is there to access it in in more stressful and times when you're alone. And

Danyelle  59:27  

we'll put some, I mean, you've got some great stuff on your social media, your website, we'll put all of that, those resources in the show notes for folks that want to check more. Do a deeper dive.

Sarah  59:38  

Yeah, we have a really good co regulation resource that's free, so that might be a good place to start, if you're curious.

Danyelle  59:45  

Good starting point. Yeah, you've built a business around something deeply personal, which is super rad, survival, strength, healing after everything you've experienced, what does mind and mountain mean to you now? And you've spoke on it a little bit with the shifting. But

Speaker 2  1:00:03  

yeah, yeah, I

Sarah  1:00:05  

these days it feels like so Mindy Mountain is my business, and it has been a real honor and joy to be able to, like, walk through the evolution of it. It's forced me to grow a lot, to be able to put myself out there in that kind of way and share these different strategies and be willing to pivot when my when I like, felt really called to and these days it feels like this. What we're trying to do is build this community, build this, build a culture where things like strength and social justice and nervous system and taking really good care of ourselves and each other is really valued, and everyone is welcome, and it feels like We're we've got this strength side and also this nervous system side. And people can come on to either of those sides, depending on where their interests are. And so it just feels like it's kind of growing again, the container it keeps growing, just like in the nervous system. And it's it's been really fun to weave all these different areas of interest in together because they feel like they they all support each other. Yeah,

Danyelle  1:01:26  

well, you're doing really important work. I think this is wildly fascinating to me, and obviously I think to a lot of people. Um, thank you for doing this work and wanting to spread the message to people, because it's been so impactful on you, and I've learned so much from you, I feel like I'm just listening to an episode of a really cool podcast right now with a really, really special guest that's radiating like beauty and calm and all things beautiful in the world. And I can't thank you enough for coming on and taking time out of I'm sure is a very, very busy schedule for you.

Sarah  1:02:07  

Thanks. Danyelle, it's really nice of you to say it's been super fun to talk with you. I'm glad we were able to get together Connect.

Danyelle  1:02:14  

Yeah, me too. I've got some fun rapid fire questions. Do you want to do those quick before we jump off? Okay, let's do it. Okay, ready? There's 1234, favorite nature smell. This is hard. There's a lot of good ones. There's a lot of bad ones too, right?

Sarah  1:02:34  

But my favorite one these days, because it's spring, the cottonwoods up here, they have this like particular smell when they're budding, and it's so specific, and it just smells like life to me, like winter and we like are onto this new season, and it brings me so much joy. I

Danyelle  1:02:57  

grew up with a cottonwood tree in my backyard. I don't know that it smells the same, but, yeah, smells like Earth, you know, yeah, weirdest trail food that you love.

Speaker 1  1:03:12  

Okay, I'm gonna say muff balls.

Danyelle  1:03:16  

Like, what? What is that? Muff balls?

Sarah  1:03:19  

This is an invention. I take muffins, like from the store, from Costco or whatever, and take the paper off of them and then smush them down into a little ball, because on these backcountry trips, we're trying to bring, like, enough calories for multiple days in and get it all into your backpack. So volume is really important, so you squish all the air out of your muffin and it turns into like a little ball, and if you call it a muff ball, and they're really delicious

Danyelle  1:03:52  

piece of gear that you

Speaker 1  1:03:53  

can't live without. These questions are so hard. There's so many, but I will tell you about

Speaker 2  1:04:02  

lucote. Tape. Do you know about leuco tape?

Sarah  1:04:05  

I use Luco tape. It's a special kind of tape that's kind of like a fabric, and it sticks really, really well. And I it's my blister care situation. So a roll of leuco tape is pretty much always on me when I'm out on a day trip or or overnights, because it, yeah, it goes on really easy. It stays stuck on there the whole time, and it does take some work to get off once you it's

Speaker 2  1:04:36  

gonna save blisters really well, better than anything I found was

Danyelle  1:04:41  

it gonna save you, like, while you're out and you're, like, almost done with whatever you're doing, have you like, attempted to, like, try to get it off, not like, rip it off, but, like, dunk your feet in a stream, or,

Sarah  1:04:53  

yeah, something, it will come off if it's if it's soggy enough, super well. So. That'll that definitely helps. And then if once I'm home, if it's still on, coconut oil works really well to to get it off. So there's their strategies. But yeah, I usually wait till I'm home and have have some

Danyelle  1:05:13  

supplies. Yeah, good. Yeah. That's that should be, like their tagline, you got to wait until you get home and apply coconut oil to get this bad boy off where it's not coming off.

Sarah  1:05:24  

It's really designed for this. It's like, we're using it outside of its medical use. I think, yeah, like medical practices. They put, what's that, like, squishy. They put, like, a roll of something that's not sticky under

Danyelle  1:05:36  

it, yeah? Like horse tape, yeah, that's what I call it. My dad worked for a vet pharmaceutical company when I was growing up, and we had drawers of it in our garage because I was a big jock in high school, so everything was always taped. And so it was like, the horse tape and then the tape, and then you could just rip it right off, yeah, like our athletic trainers would just apply tape back then, like in early, mid, 2000s I feel like they weren't doing, like, the under layer all the time. They were just taping us, and then it would, like, rip it off and, ah, yeah,

Sarah  1:06:12  

you know exactly what you mean. It was, got taped for shin splints a lot in high school. Yeah.

Danyelle  1:06:17  

Now they're now they get the, like, their soft, delicate layer underneath that's nice for them. They can just cut it off with the scissors, easily spoiled kids these days. Dream trail or hike you haven't done yet is the final, final rapid fire.

Sarah  1:06:36  

So I want to I love Alaska. It's really hard for me to leave here, especially in the summer. So I'm I have this, this trip in the Brooks Range that I would love to do on the far eastern side, like where the where the Alaska meets Canada, that that corner of the Brooks Range is so hard to get to because it's so far away from all the roads and everything, but there is some beautiful country out there, some really nice rivers for pack rafting, and it's a section of the state that I've never been to. And so someday I'll get to do a remote trip in the way eastern end of the Brooks Range, and can't wait

Danyelle  1:07:24  

to Canada. That sounds lovely. I'm like imagining my summer vacation right now, like, let's go. Hey, it's me again. If you liked this episode, do me a solid subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss what's next. Rate it and share it with a dirtbag friend who needs it and support my work through Patreon or substack. I want to get this thing going. I really care about spreading the messages of underrepresented folks and people's voices that are just everyday humans that are doing awesome, badass dirtbag things. Also sign up for the dirtbag therapy club newsletter on substack. It drops every two weeks with five things that'll make you feel more seen, more stoked and more ready to hit the trail. The link is in the show notes. And if you're not already following me on Instagram and YouTube, what are you even doing? It's at dirtbag therapy. Come hang out.