Somatics on the Fireline: A Conversation with Echo Cunningham 

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Show Notes:

Episode 10: Somatics on the Fireline: A Conversation with Echo Cunningham

In this walking episode, I’m joined by my friend Echo, a wildland firefighter, somatic practitioner-in-training, and all-around nature-loving human. We’ve known each other for nearly a decade — from our early friendship in Alaska to years of studying Somatic Experiencing together — and this conversation weaves all of that history into a rich exploration of nervous system wisdom, friendship, and embodied support.

As we walk through my Anchorage neighborhood (and even pause for a moose sighting 🫎), we talk about the realities of life in a high-intensity profession, what it means to stay connected to your body under pressure, and how somatic tools can help us find steadiness in chaos. Echo shares beautiful, grounded reflections on learning to listen to their “yes” and “no,” navigating team dynamics in fire work, and recognizing when true support is present.

Toward the end, we also share what’s coming up inside The Winter Healing Circle — our five-month somatic group container — and what kind of transformation people experience there.

In this episode:

• 0:00 — Walking and catching up: friendship, fire, and somatic nerding
• 2:00 — Meet Echo: firefighter, nature lover, and “critter on planet Earth”
• 6:00 — How somatic work supports a high-intensity career
• 10:00 — Living in “ready state” and learning to come down from activation
• 13:00 — Speaking the language of your body instead of asking, “What’s wrong with me?”
• 15:30 — A wildfire story: trusting intuition, saying no, and finding support
• 23:00 — The courage to honor your “no” (and the safety that makes it possible)
• 28:00 — Unlearning fawning and learning self-trust
• 30:00 — From fixing to supporting: what somatic work really teaches us
• 34:00 — Moving at the speed of trust and building true support systems
• 36:00 — A look inside The Winter Healing Circle: who it’s for and what you can expect

Resources:

• More information about the Winter Healing Circle here!  Enrollment opens to the VIP Interest list today! 

Submit your questions for the Q&A [here]

Photos and links from this episode: www.mindandmountain.co/podcast 

Transcript:

Sarah 0:03
Today we're out for a walk, and I'm here with my friend, Echo, hi. Echo, hi. This is the first time we've done a simultaneous walking episode, so it's a little bit of an experiment, but glad to be out walking here in Anchorage neighborhood with you. Yeah, me too. Thanks. Yeah. And I want to start just by sharing how we know each other. There's, I think it probably goes back to when you were married to one of my high school friends, uh huh, the very beginning of when we got to know each other. Yeah, I think so yeah. And then you were doing ski babes for a little while, yep. And then we really started to get to know each other when we both got into the somatic experiencing training, yes. And yeah. Ended up in the same cohort here in Alaska, and, yeah, I don't know, things have progressed from there.

Speaker 1 1:10
Yeah, that is. It's kind of funny thinking about, like, all of that trajectory and how, yeah, just like, the evolution of our friendship over that, like, big course it's been, like, quite a few years now, I think, yeah, like a decade. Yeah, right. That's wild, yeah,

Sarah 1:29
I know. And it's been really fun to, like, deepen into this work together. We had the friendship beforehand, and then both started really nerding out on somatic. Yeah, totally, Yep, yeah. And then you've been joining me as a support person in the winter healing circle the last couple of years, and that's been really cool to be able to work together in that context.

Speaker 1 1:55
Yeah? Been really like, fun and meaningful for me.

Sarah 1:59
Yeah, yeah, me too. It's been really special, and we're planning to do that again this year, which we'll talk a little bit more about later. But yeah, how else can you introduce yourself a little bit more? How do you like to introduce yourself?

Speaker 1 2:15
Oh, sure, good question. I feel like it's always a little bit difficult for me because I, like, sort of feel like my I'm, like, maybe hard to define, I don't know, but yeah, sure. So, yeah, I guess I'm gonna read. I'm gonna recalibrate on that one. How do I want to introduce myself in relation to Yeah,

Sarah 2:52
let's just do a clap before you start talking. Yeah. Again. I

Unknown Speaker 3:04
One is even important to say for people.

Sarah 3:19
Okay, I got it. It's goofy, but I got it. These are some friends we'll have to say hi,

Unknown Speaker 3:23
Okay, should we say hi before we clap? Okay, perfect. Before we clap. Guys,

Sarah 3:51
are you? Sydney? Yeah, cool. I know you through your mouth. I'm Sarah. I live in the neighborhood here too. My friend echo, yeah, yeah,

Speaker 1 4:10
okay, ready, okay, yeah, yeah, great, okay, I think just to introduce myself, this is totally goofy, but I think that I relate to being just a critter on planet Earth, like you know,

Unknown Speaker 4:34
yeah. I think in many ways,

Speaker 1 4:38
yeah, definitely relate to all of all of my humanness, and also just all of the ways that I exist in, like, other than human forms and yeah, my like, deep connections with nature and stuff. Yeah, just a little critter. Yeah, on planet Earth. Who? Yeah, I've been in Alaska for 13 years now. I think seems like a long time. And yeah, I love doing all sorts of, like, stereotypically Alaskan things, being outside, cultivating, like, really deep relationships with my friends and other companions that I have, two cats very central to my life. And yeah, for work, I'm a wildland firefighter, which definitely feels like more of a calling than a profession at this point. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of, like, really deep land relationship there, which is important to me. And then, yeah, I'm just like, a multi passionate, curious human who really likes learning about nature, and humans are part of nature, so I think there's a lot there in terms of, like, my curiosities around somatic experiencing, and, yeah, all of these other modalities that I've been exploring, and you also have been exploring, like, Yeah, over the years too.

Sarah 6:25
So, yeah, yeah. Was it? Was it fire stuff that first, like, brought you into the somatic world?

Speaker 1 6:35
Yeah, interestingly, I think it was actually, I think partially, that was it. And then when my divorce started, like happening officially, that was another like point of entry for me too, just to, like, find some like stable ground to metabolize like that transition, and then, just like a bunch of other transitions in my life that I hadn't really, like, you know, dealt with necessarily on the somatic level. But yeah, certainly the nature of my work and like, the intensity of it, I think, really benefits from the support that somatics can give,

Sarah 7:29
yeah, yeah. That makes sense to me from observation on the outside, right, yeah, yeah. Could you have, can you say a little bit more about that? Like, sure, how does it support you, and how do you use it?

Unknown Speaker 7:46
Yeah, I think it's quite interesting. You know, it, it's really varied just

Speaker 1 7:54
because they're so, you know, somatics is, like, such a broad framework too. But I think, really, what I notice is that the more I'm able to like, connect with what's happening inside, like a that helps me make sense of my own experience in the world and also other people's experiences in the world has given me, like, not only, like, more compassion for myself, but like, a lot more compassion for other humans, like, struggling with normal human things, right?

Sarah 8:30
Yeah, yeah. Totally both. Yeah. I feel that too,

Speaker 1 8:35
yeah. And I think with, like, the work part in particular, there's like, just a lot of there's a lot of downtime in fire. Like, it's not like something people talk about a lot. It's not always like, go go crazy, but it's very common for, like, our nervous systems as any type of first responder, really, to be like, in this, like, elevated, sympathetic place for long periods of time, yeah, even just waiting for a fire call.

Sarah 9:07
Oh, because you're, like, it could happen any minute, you gotta be, like, alert and ready. Oh, totally, oh yeah, you gotta be ready. So, like, that is sympathetic, right? Separation, yeah. So we,

Speaker 1 9:17
like, spend this time in ready state, right? And, like, honestly, you know, there is, there is a healthy version of that, right, like, ready is a good place to be. I think it can get a little skewed when we get into, like, there's like, a little bit of anxiety that comes in there with just, like, expecting a call and then needing to orient toward something that's like, potentially dangerous, or certainly like, not common for someone to want to go into right like, so there's a little bit of like, nervous system override. Like, I'm usually going into a situation that people would retreat.

Sarah 9:59
From, oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 10:03
Or potentially going into a situation, yeah, retreat from, so, like, there is this, like overcoming in the body, and I think over time, right? Like, it's just a lot of, it's a lot of sympathetic charge to hold, and then when we're not actively responding, like, our systems can have a hard time, like coming back down out of that,

Sarah 10:27
yeah, yeah, because you've been, like, holding it for so long and and the system's been learning that it needs to be able to operate at that over time. So yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so many of us have that too. I mean first responder, maybe a very exaggerated right version of that, but I feel like a lot of people that I work with relate to that idea of being, like, stuck on, totally stuck on, yeah, and having trouble coming down, coming

Speaker 1 10:55
down, yep. So I think like, even just recognizing, like even having the language and the skill set to recognize where I'm at on that, like, nervous system spectrum, yeah, has been incredibly helpful, because it, like, Will depersonalize it for me. I'm like, okay, like, this is just where I'm at, and it's temporary. It's not always going to be like this, and it's given me, like, a skill set to be able to actually, like, have a conversation with my body, like, okay, we're doing this right now. Later, this won't be happening, you know. So, like, there's, there's, yeah, like, this interesting negotiation for me that happens around just like being with that in the moment, because there isn't really a choice for me personally in my work a lot of the time. And then I have to, like, you know, knowing what that does to my system, like, knowing that that's a tax on my system, I've been able to, like, build in ways to, like, come down from that slowly, or, like, take an extra, you know, 15 minutes before I go to sleep at night, to, like, actually check in with my body and see, like, Okay, what do you need to be able to, like, calm down enough to, like, get Good sleep and do it again the next day. So yeah, I guess, to wrap it all up, it's just feels important to name the like having the language and the skill set from training, and then also, just like getting personal Somatic Experiencing sessions from practitioners, so that I know what, like my body in particular, needs to deal with in this, in this case, sympathetic charge. But that would apply to Yeah, other nervous system states too.

Sarah 12:54
Yeah, yeah. That's also interesting. I mean, it makes me think a lot about how, the how that part of the learning process of coming to understand what's happening in your body is so important, like, the sometimes I call I say I use the language of, like, learning to speak the language of your body. Yeah, totally. But it's like, it's hard to put words around because it's, it's more of, like, a felt sense. But in the end, it is this idea of, like, once you have the framework for understanding what's happening in your nervous system, it can really help. What would you say there? It helps, like, get out of like, inner conflict with yourself or something. So I feel like, before I understood what was going on, I was like, why am I like this? Yeah? Like, 100%

Speaker 1 13:45
No, totally. That's like, exactly, yeah, exactly. The feeling that I had is like, what's what's wrong with me, what's wrong with what's wrong with, ya know, there's nothing wrong.

Sarah 13:55
It makes sense, actually, what's happening. And then, oh my gosh, what a relief that is, yes, to, like, validate your own experience through understanding it.

Speaker 1 14:04
Yes, yeah. Like, honestly for Yeah, for me, that's, like, been probably one of the most important things. It's just, like, understanding it so it so I can make it not about me directly. Oh, yeah. Like, Oh, this isn't about

Sarah 14:20
me. This isn't about me. This is not something I'm doing wrong, right. It's just like a very functional system doing what it does, yes, under stress, yep.

Speaker 1 14:29
And then, like, how can I learn to support that and myself, instead of, like, becoming hypercritical and, yeah, wondering, like, why I don't have it together, or, like, everybody else seems to have it figured out, like, none of us

Sarah 14:52
really, yeah, right, but it definitely can feel like that sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gosh, that's cool. All Okay, so we just had to take a little pause because there was a moose right off the trail that people were warning us about. But we're back, and we made it past the moose, and we love Alaska. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Are there, like, any times or examples that you've had recently where you've been grateful to have some of these skills?

Speaker 1 15:34
Yeah, definitely, I think most recently in, I guess in the work setting. This is in September. It feels like yesterday. It's hard to keep track of time, but, yeah, it was just in Oregon doing some fire work, and we basically were, like, the second people on scene of a like, emerging wildfire was a lightning strike. It had happened the night before, but of course, by the morning, had like, gotten more established. It was probably like 10 or so acres by the time we showed up, which isn't small, it's not huge, but it's not small. We didn't have, like, the resources we really needed to be able to deal with this fire so, but we couldn't get more coming because there were other more, like, higher priority, yeah, from the same lightning storm, like in the area, sure.

Sarah 16:39
I mean threatening structures, that's gotta happen, right? Because, like, when, when do you have just the right amount of resources, either over or under, yes. So, like, even in fire or in life, yeah, exactly

Unknown Speaker 16:50
right. We're never, it's never perfect.

Sarah 16:53
I mean, there's moments of perfection, but then it keeps swinging. Yeah, totally Yeah.

Speaker 1 16:57
Like, even there, you know, even they're, like, coming up to this incident, and there were a couple interesting things. Well, there's a lot of interesting things that happened on that like initial attack of that fire, but one of them that I was actually quite proud of myself for was so I was like working in this trainee role to be like the incident commander of the fire, or I was, I was hoping to work on this particular position, but the person who had command of the fire at the time that we showed up was like an out of area resource. He was like from Georgia, and this was in southwest Oregon. And like, typically speaking, that wouldn't be an issue. But this person, like, didn't have a lot of experience fighting fire like in this country. So and I didn't either. So my engine captain that I was working with at the time asked, like, Hey, do you want the would you like to take the trainee with Sam as the trainer, and immediately I said, no, like, I don't want to do that. And just, I think there was actually some real skill there applied for me, because it was a position that I've been trying to get done for multiple years.

Sarah 18:16
Yeah, so you wanted it, yeah, yeah. That's one of the impulses, yeah. One

Speaker 1 18:21
of the impulses is, I want this because it's hard to get, like, it's so hard you have to have, like, exactly the right criteria for this type of fire. And it doesn't happen very often. So, you know, there was this competing impulse, like, I want to do it, yeah? But like, I know I knew for me inside, like, I was really getting this feeling that I would feel not supported enough by this person because, like, they didn't have the depth of experience in this particular part of the country. And I was like, not willing to say yes to a circumstance where I felt like I wouldn't have enough support to be successful. Oh, yeah. So like, that alone, you know, was like, a use of my own, like, somatic skill set, checking in with myself, like, really, like, really feeling in my body, like, okay, like, where's the Yes, where's the No, and which one feels like it needs to be

Sarah 19:28
honored, right now, yeah, yeah, cuz they're both there, because they're both there, yeah,

Speaker 1 19:32
and they're both strong, like, very strong, yes. Like, the yes was like, Oh my You have to do it, because there we might not get another

Sarah 19:39
chance. Oh my gosh, yeah, the scarcity feeling, yeah, scarcity mindset, yeah, like, Okay, well, and there's some reality to it, that it's like, it really is scarce, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 19:53
So what would it be like to just, you know, honor that, and that's fine, you. Like, be okay with that? So I did, and then ended up, later, we went and did something else for a minute, came back, and then this person ended up transitioning command of the fire to the engine captain that I was working for, in which case I felt comfortable picking up the trainee role. Oh, cool. Totally different response in my body. Oh, yeah, totally different. That's neat. Like, I was like, Yeah, Pete, if Pete's running the show, like, I'm in,

Sarah 20:33
yeah, wow. So that's really neat that you were able to pick up the nuance between it's it's the same role, but it's under a different the circumstances are different, the nuances are different. So it feels, felt really different.

Speaker 1 20:46
Yep, felt totally different. Just that, like, knowing that, like, I was ready to step into that role, probably without help, honestly, and I did, like, he, like, really ended up doing, you know, making most of the decisions by myself and troubleshooting problems. But the difference was, like, I knew I had a safety net, right? Like, I was like, okay, Pete's not gonna let me fall on my face. He's not like, if I am about to make a mistake that's huge, or if something's gonna go wrong, like he's gonna tell me and we're gonna catch it. And I feel like we had enough trust built between us already, because we've known each other for probably only a week. This is one of the wild things about fire. Yeah, rapid team building, yeah. Had enough rapport built that I was like, All right, you're gonna catch me, but you're also gonna let me, like, go far enough out on a limb that I can learn by making these decisions for myself and for the fire. So, yeah, just a completely different feeling, and just, like, really leaned into that, it worked out. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, it was very hectic. And I did end up, like, doing most of it, making most of these decisions without him nearby, because he was actually, like, actively trying to contain part of the fire because we didn't have enough people. Yeah, it was just this, like, really cool situation where, like, those, yeah, like, initial decisions made a really big difference. And, like, because I felt supported, I was able to, like, extend myself a little bit and be it and be, you know, kind of stressed, like, we, yeah, we might not have caught it. Like I was thinking, like, it's kind of really hard scenario for us to catch this, but was able to, like, request the support that I needed. Got some of it in critical time. And just like, all of my decisions were affirmed along the way. But yeah, I think the real important part there is just like, because I had this the it's like, ventral vagal safety net, yeah, of knowing Yeah, that no matter what I did, like, it wasn't going to be catastrophic, because I had the support, yeah, that then I could feel comfortable to, like, push myself beyond the like, normal scope of my ability.

Sarah 23:39
Yeah, at the time, yeah, nice, yeah, yeah. Do you think that I want to come back to that support experience, because I feel a huge part of what both of our learning was inside of deepening into this work. But I'm also thinking about how when you had to, when you found yourself saying no to something, what a like, what a risk that is kind of interpersonally sometimes, yes. I mean, I feel like so many of us find ourselves in situations where we're like, well, shoot, yeah, I said yes to something that I didn't really want to uh huh because of whatever those social dynamics are, like you almost have to have some degree of safety to either whether it's interpersonally or within yourself, to be able to, like, read that cue, yes, so and fall and follow it through two different things. Oh yeah, reading the cue and then actually, like, believing in enough to follow through and say something.

Speaker 1 24:40
Yeah, yeah, I think yeah. So, I guess yeah, I'll try to, like, articulate better. What happened for me in that moment, right? It was, I think I was in, no, we were in different trucks at that point, so I was, like, driving around behind the engine. And I pulled up to the engine, and Pete rolled down the window, and immediately was like, Do you want to take it? And I just immediately, like, I didn't even think about it. I'd already, well, I'd already been thinking about it as I was rolling up, I guess, knowing that someone else was in charge of the fire. And I think I was just so rooted in my knowing with the answer to that that I wasn't concerned with, yeah, anyone else's opinion

Sarah 25:34
about it. That's really interesting. I really would you say you always had the bit like, the ability to be that rooted, or is that that's something that's been growing? Oh, it's growing.

Speaker 1 25:43
Yeah, it's definitely learned, and it's definitely, like, taken a lot to get there, yeah,

Sarah 25:49
yeah. Same for me, yeah.

Speaker 1 25:51
I was just like. I was like, I don't, I am unaffected by like, I'm secure enough in this decision,

Sarah 25:57
yeah, for me, that

Speaker 1 25:59
like, I'm not I'm not worried about if Sam is going to be offended about that. I'm not worried if Pete's going to be offended about that, because also too contextually in those emergent types of situations, it's really important to be able to be, like, 100% bought in and, like, if you're not, it's better just not to, you know, engage on that level, because there's so much at stake. You know, like, really, we're protecting firefighter and public safety

Sarah 26:39
first. Yeah, there are some really big It's just big stakes. You're

Speaker 1 26:43
putting people in the woods, in a dangerous situation, got to be 100% bare and present. And if you're not like, don't take on the responsibility or shift your responsibility to something else that's like, less consequential. Maybe is a better way to put that, but yeah, so that's what it felt like. And then, you know, with the shift to Pete taking over the fire, and then asking me if I wanted to take the training position that happened, like, right in front of Sam, like, Sam was there. Oh, when that happened? Yeah. So we Exactly, yeah, socially, yeah. Where I was like, Yeah, okay. And I said, like, yes, if you're taking the fire, I'll take

Sarah 27:28
the train. Oh, that's so brave.

Speaker 1 27:30
Yeah, it was brave. But, like, that's also just fire culture, you know? Like, okay, like, yeah, yeah, deal a lot with you've got to resolve conflict, like, ASAP, you know, or, like, find ways to work with people when things don't feel quite right. And I think that, you know, I talked with Sam about it later, like, not directly about that, but we, like, we had multiple conversations after that, he kept helping us on the fire for a few days, and I think, I think it made sense to him, you know, like, I'm not from there, he's not from there, probably not great. And he didn't take it personally at all. And I just, I just honestly trusted that it was going to be okay. I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do this. We're gonna do this all in front of each other, and I'm gonna trust that it's gonna be fine. That's awesome, yeah? And it was, but that's definitely a learned, learned skill for me, for sure,

Sarah 28:34
yeah, yeah. And for, like, so many of us, like, it's like the unlearning of the fawning, yeah, defense strategy of trying to figure out how to make everyone else happy, yes, and safe, like prioritizing that over your own. Yeah, what you your own, even like knowing what you want sometimes, yeah, like knowing what you want comes is when you have to develop,

Speaker 1 28:59
yeah, totally Yeah, definitely true there.

Sarah 29:04
Okay, so here let's Yeah, let's maybe circle back because that you were talking so much about support, and I was really resonating with that too. And yeah, I feel like that's just such a big part of what we learned to like take in in our training, oh, yeah, like, the felt sense of what it means to be supported, and like, our system started to trust that support was like an okay thing to receive versus something that could be potentially threatening or totally complex. Because, of course, maybe we've had experiences of people who said they'd support you, and then there was like something, then they felt like you owed them one, right? Some other social contract there gets complicated sometimes, but so much of what we're doing here with like somatics is i. Are trying to help support the system, because we're, like, learning that it's intelligent and, like, it's doing something for a reason, right? And so then we get out of the habit of, or get out of the practice of trying to, like, fix it and move toward figuring out what kind of support it

Speaker 1 30:20
needs. Yes, yeah, big shift from like, Yeah, from fixing to supporting for sure,

Sarah 30:32
yeah, it's like, from the outside might look the same, but the like, the place that's coming from, is completely different,

Unknown Speaker 30:41
yeah, it's completely different. It's like, yeah, it's, it's just a completely different orientation, yeah, almost like different sides, yeah, totally different sides,

Sarah 30:59
yeah, yeah, like 180 degrees approaching toward the same destiny, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're talking about, I mean, maybe this is part of fire culture too, but about how cued in you are to feeling like when the right support is around you, that you can take on something that's stretching your skill set or your nervous system capacity, because you, you have that sense of, like, the ventral vagal, there's support around you,

Speaker 1 31:28
yeah, totally, yeah. And there's, like, there's a lot of ways for me that I like discern that I think, and it's sort of, it's like, on one hand, it's highly energetic. Like, there's like something about this, the feeling of it, or like the feeling of interaction between two people or multiple people. And there's also, like, more concrete ways to arrive at that for me with work and, like, outside of work too. But for instance, like, yeah, I guess. And it's, it's, honestly, it's kind of cool that I, like have to do the rapid team building, yeah, job, because it teaches me, like, how to do that outside of that context, like in everyday life, you know, like when meeting a new person, or, yeah, something different, in like, yeah, multiple kinds of context. So there, I don't know, I think in fire, it's, like, really cultivated by, like, sometimes it's cultivated by silly things like play,

Sarah 32:49
yeah, which I love. Well, yeah, it's really, it's so very effective,

Speaker 1 32:53
yeah, and it's, yes, I think that's, like, highly applicable to like, all facets of life, right? Like, you know, when you're, like, playing games with people, or like telling jokes, or like talking about something super silly that you really love, it's completely esoteric. Like, there's a lot of really weird people in fire. We just have strange interests, yeah, so, but it bonds you really quickly. Yeah. So, like, play is a fun way. And, like, we do that by, like, in that particular circumstance, we had, like, played, like, disc golf together, you know, like, Yeah, a couple times, yeah. Like, we're also, like, working out together in the morning. You know, that's not even like, we weren't even like, doing the same exercises, you know, we're like in the space at the same time, moving around each other, like your bodies are just like, learning each other's little

Sarah 33:52
habits and stuff, sure.

Speaker 1 33:56
And then, yeah, and then just, you know, driving around in the truck, like having, like, okay, what are we? We're just gonna talk about random stuff for all day when we're driving around. It's just like, building that social bond, and knowing, like, by building the social bond, you're like, learning things about those other people that's building context for who they are, and also building context for, like, how you interact together. And like, once there's enough of that, and of course, it's hard to tell right, like, that's highly variable, dependent on people and the situation, etc. But like, once there's enough background context, it seems like that's like, when my system can really sense that, like, okay, there's a there's like, a net

Speaker 2 34:51
built here, nice that could catch me if I needed it.

Sarah 34:55
Yeah, reminds me of the Adrian Marie brown quote. Of about moving at the speed of trust, totally, it's so yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, that's cool, yeah. Gosh, I feel like we could keep talking about this for a long time. I know we want to. We were hoping to get to a couple listener questions. Yeah, so I want to make time for that, and then also, just like, open up for a little bit of talking about winter healing circle, since we're starting that up in a couple of weeks, mid November is when that's kicking off for the 2025 26 winter. And we, yeah, we're just kind of in prep mode for that container and the five months together that we'll spend with the group of folks that comes in and just kind of wanting to, wanting to open up, open the doors energetically, yeah, and see if you know, if there are people that are considering wanting to be a part of that, you know, what are? What would you say, like, what are? What kind of things are we seeing, people, what kind of shifts are we seeing? Or what kind of things would you say, people can expect? Can expect, or would would make someone a good fit for that type of work?

Speaker 1 36:29
Yeah, good question. I think there's a lot in there. It's such a supportive container, I think. And also, like, tends to be, like, pretty impactful for for people in it. I think we've had folks come back, yeah, for multiple rounds, which is, like, amazing. I love it when that happens. It's like, such a good feeling, yeah, to see folks like wanting to keep exploring, I think,

Sarah 37:01
yeah, because this round, I mean, it's like, it's not like you're gonna be, like, done, and like, yeah, it's not like you're a cake and you're like, baked in five months. Like, the nervous system work as we know it has more of like, this spiral staircase kind of experience to it, where you just keep cycling back through the material and learning it at a deeper and deeper level, as your body, yeah, gains the capacity to go there. And yeah, there's, we're like, moving at the speed of trust of the body too, yes. And there's so there's only so much that it can learn at a time on the somatic level.

Speaker 1 37:38
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. It seems like folks get what have I seen people get out of it? I've seen a lot of like, increase in self compassion, really. Like, yeah, I love that, yeah, being able to relate to oneself from like, a, like, a softer, like, more easeful place, yeah, just an understanding, kind of, you know, like just tying it back into what we talked about earlier, having an understanding of the fact that, you know, we have, like, very normal nervous system responses that are like designed for A reason. You know, they're there for a reason, and everyone experiences these things to some degree, right? We're not alone in that.

Sarah 38:30
Yeah, that's really powerful for people to be in a group and to be like, Oh, wow, wow. You too, you too. Exactly, was just me being weird,

Speaker 1 38:40
yeah? Totally, yeah. And like, I do remember seeing a lot of that, like, because it's so easy

Sarah 38:45
to, like, have compassion for someone else, experiencing Yeah. And then then, if you're experiencing that, you kind of have to have it for yourself too, because your seat, you're, you're in that experience in a group,

Speaker 1 38:56
yeah, yeah, yeah. And then also, just, like, yes, like a basic skill set around, like, okay, you know, these are, this is what's happening in the body, and these are like ways to support what's happening. You know, whether that's sympathetic or parasympathetic charge, just like ways to support those, like our different states,

Sarah 39:25
yeah, yeah, yeah. What else? Yeah, no, I think that's, that's pretty good those. There's, I think also, I mean, you named this earlier, but the way that it can be helpful to have the lens of the nervous system to understand what's going on for people around you. Yeah, two can be really something that seems to be supportive in these group experiences where you're kind of seeing the framework of the nervous system work applied to people who are like you and also people who are different than you. Yeah, I. And then get a sense of like, then I find that easy, then easier than to take out of the group container and apply it to your life too, and be like, Oh, I think I see my kids are going through a nervous system wave, yeah. And maybe, maybe there's skills to support that. There's certainly skills to understand what's happening, yeah, which is a huge part of supporting something, yeah. And then I know we, we often talk about, like, the way this concept of allostatic load and how stress responses that have been incomplete get kind of stored in the body, and then that can build up over time, and can start to weigh down your system or your I think about it as like loading rocks up in your backpack. And then I know a lot of people who come to the winter healing circle have a goal of trying to help their body start to learn how to release allostatic load. Yes, which is, is is very possible through somatic work.

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