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Show Notes

In this holiday-season episode, I share gentle, practical ways to support your nervous system through the intensity of winter gatherings, family dynamics, and end-of-year reflection. Grounded in place, seasonality, and co-regulation, this conversation weaves together Winter Solstice wisdom, orienting practices, and simple relational tools that help the body feel safer — even when emotions run high.

We explore why the holidays can feel like “advanced-level” nervous system work, how connection nourishes us more than we realize, and how small moments of choice, pleasure, and shared rhythm can make a real difference. This episode is an invitation to slow down, let go of perfection, and move through the season with more support and self-compassion.

Timestamps

00:00 — Welcome, winter weather & orienting to place
05:00 — Why seasonality and slowing down matter
09:00 — Winter Solstice as a pause for reflection and completion
14:00 — Honoring wins, integration & making space
19:00 — Holidays as “varsity-level” nervous system work
24:00 — Normalizing activation, grief & mixed emotions
29:00 — Co-regulation basics for holiday gatherings
34:00 — ORCAS framework: simple nervous system support
40:00 — Contact nutrition & the power of connection
46:00 — Kind eyes, tone of voice & shared rhythm
52:00 — Eating together as nervous system nourishment
58:00 — Closing reflections & seasonal wishes

Resources Mentioned

• The O.R.C.A.S. Framework 
• Contact Nutrition with Carmen Spagnola 

Submit your questions for the Q&A [here]

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

Transcript: 

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Hi there. Welcome co regulation conversations. Here we go. I again, am not out on a walk because it's super windy here. We've been having these just like a pretty sustained windstorm now for a little while here and Anchorage, it doesn't, we don't usually get a ton of wind here. There are some places around anchorage that are known for their wind, but anchorage isn't usually gets to skip it, and we have not been skipping it lately, which means that the places where it's like, usually really windy have been extremely windy, like

Unknown Speaker 0:48
I saw a video of someone's airplane that was tied down to the ground by a bunch of different wires, where they like hook it up when they're not Using it, and the wind just like blew that airplane up into the air

Unknown Speaker 1:05
against the cables that was holding it down. So the cables are still holding it, but it was like flying just from the breeze.

Unknown Speaker 1:15
Yeah, lots of power outages, which is not ideal in the middle of winter when you're trying to stay warm also and keep your pipes from freezing. Yeah. So anyways, we're having a weather cycle here that involves

Unknown Speaker 1:33
some pretty intense wind and no snow. We haven't had snow in a while, and so I don't know all that means.

Unknown Speaker 1:46
For one, I'm not going to walk outside and record because that would be really unpleasant to listen to. And then, for two, just because it's fun to tell you about the things I like to do outside in the winter, it means really good ice skating, not the wind in particular, but the fact that it's been cold and no snow means that the lakes have been freezing up. The ones that

Unknown Speaker 2:10
haven't frozen yet are, like, really nice right now. And we've been like, waiting for gaps in the wind, wearing it so we can go out and and skate. And it's been just like, really, really cool, and it's shaping up for even more of the bigger lakes to freeze up here over the holiday break. So that's pretty cool, well timed for me, at least, because I'm going to take a couple break, a couple weeks off of work over the holidays, and I have a pretty open schedule, which means I can go where the ice is good and yeah, I'm pretty excited.

Unknown Speaker 2:50
Okay, okay, I gotta tell you this. So are you watching, man, on the inside, I am watching that show on Netflix right now. Just came out with the second season, it's great. I really like it. Ted. Danson plays this gentleman who gets hired to be like a Spy's assistant and like, go and be undercover. And so he sends these voice notes to his supervisor, and he starts them off with, like, a weather report. The barometric pressure is, you know, and, like, the temperature today is this with a southwesterly wind of 17 knots. He, like, really gets into it and and then she's teasing him by and being like, this is boring. I don't need a weather report before you tell me what your spy report is like, please just give me the information.

Unknown Speaker 3:44
And I just caught myself

Unknown Speaker 3:49
like giggling at myself for the way that I often start these podcasts with you with a bit of a weather report.

Unknown Speaker 3:57
And I thought I should maybe tell you about why that is because it in this context, it's intentional and, well, I mean, for one i It delights me to tell to notice and consider the weather, and I am kind of always in a relationship with What's going on outside. And I mean, some of it is, like logistically relevant to this podcast, because I'm trying to record it outside and as much as possible.

Unknown Speaker 4:30
But it also is a

Unknown Speaker 4:33
nervous system strategy. It's a way of orienting our attention to the natural world, and when we locate ourselves inside of the time and space that we are in, that is one of the aspects, one of the things that helps us, our animal body, recognize where it is in the present moment, and it achieves the feeling.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
Of safety, often through that, like, where am I? What's happening in the environment? This is how I assess whether or not I need to be worried about myself or not, whether or not my well being is at risk. You know, it's like, yeah, and we know this, right? We know this by spending time outside, and when you are outside, one of the things you're doing is you're kind of constantly in this background. Practice of watching what's happening with the weather. Is the wind picking up and now I'm getting cold and I need to put another layer on? Or

Unknown Speaker 5:40
is the temperature changing? So now I'm getting hot, and I need to drink some

Unknown Speaker 5:47
more water, you know, put a hat on or something to block the sun. Yeah, we're we, our animal bodies do that naturally when we're outside, moving through space and time. And that mechanism is one of the things that it that our animal body is using to

Unknown Speaker 6:07
establish that felt sense of safety.

Unknown Speaker 6:10
And as it does that, as it tracks what's happening with the weather and makes those adjustments so that you're comfortable it, it's also

Unknown Speaker 6:20
like assessing, okay, I think we're going to be okay. If I put on an extra puffy layer, I'm going to stay warm, and then I'm going to stay alive. It's like that existential question that it's that it's asking and answering when we're moving through space and time and tracking weather, so when we are indoors, and particularly when we're navigating, like interacting across technology, like this podcast or like being on a zoom call. You know, our bodies, right? We really haven't evolved to really understand what's happening when we're hearing someone's voice across time and space, but they're not here. You know, our animal body is like,

Unknown Speaker 7:08
it doesn't really get what's happening there. So we have to make these things that we would naturally be doing into more of a like a practice. Do them more, potentially, a little bit more intentionally, so that we can access that same thing, but in this different way. So it's actually this would be kind of an interesting question to hear,

Unknown Speaker 7:35
or an inquiry for you to see. What happens for you when you hear me tell you about what's going on with the weather where I'm where I'm at right now, when I'm recording, I'm curious if there's something that that happens in you when you connect with

Unknown Speaker 7:56
what's happening With the land and the environment where I am.

Unknown Speaker 8:02
Maybe it nudges you to also orient to the weather and the in the environment, the nature that you're closest to right now as well. I hope it does

Unknown Speaker 8:17
that little reminder of like, what is happening out my window right now, and what happens with my own body when I connect with that and notice what's happening.

Unknown Speaker 8:30
So I think, I think we naturally do this. You know, there's like that concept of small talk where it's like we're just talking about the weather, but on from a nervous system lens, that aspect of conversation has a real purpose.

Unknown Speaker 8:46
It's one of the titrated social nervous system experiences. In person, we get to enjoy it because it's a shared experience to some extent, where we might have like different values. We might have different passions or

Unknown Speaker 9:06
hobbies that we get up to, but we are often sharing the weather with the people in our immediate environment. So there might be this general, like soothing thing that happens when we're sharing a weather experience with other people and acknowledging that, and that might be one of the ways that our social nervous system can kind of start to attune to other people's nervous systems and maybe sense that there's like a little bit of shared experience here, A little bit of

Unknown Speaker 9:40
solidarity often in Alaska, it's often solidarity, because it's like, oh my gosh, that storm, you know, like, How'd you survive that the ice the other day? There's like, a bit of like, wow, we but we did that, okay?

Unknown Speaker 9:57
But all those things help us on this.

Unknown Speaker 10:00
Social nervous system level come back into relationship and connection, and they might help our social nervous systems feel into if this person feels like someone who I want to open up to more and more, and feel like I actually whether I feel safe around them or not.

Unknown Speaker 10:16
And then, you know, eventually, maybe you move into deeper conversations if you do feel like you got a good feeling for them from those opener level conversations.

Unknown Speaker 10:29
Okay, so this is actually maybe going to work as a pretty good segue. I hadn't planned this original spiel about the weather and why that's a nervous system resource to chat about, but this actually might work out pretty well, because I want to talk today about nervous system skills for navigating the holidays and

Unknown Speaker 10:54
before. So that's like my main topic for the day. But I want to before I get into that, just like spend a few moments here connecting with what it means to be arriving at Winter Solstice here in the North Winter Solstice is the moment in the annual cycle when the days get the shortest

Unknown Speaker 11:15
here in south central Alaska, where I am, will get sunrise around like 945

Unknown Speaker 11:24
and day it gets daylight more like 10 ish, and then we start to get dark. I think the sun sets around 330 and it's dark by four or so.

Unknown Speaker 11:38
So pretty short days for us, though, we are in the southern part of the state, and there's a lot of people that live further north than me that have even shorter days than that, up to the Arctic Circle, where above there, there is just no daylight at all. And so, you know, there's lots of different ways to live in in this planet. And some people have some real extremes when it comes to winter darkness this time of year.

Unknown Speaker 12:12
But the things I went Winter Solstice up here, like, it's a really big deal, because it has this quality of like,

Unknown Speaker 12:21
we made it like, we made it to Solstice,

Unknown Speaker 12:26
and it's like, just going to get easier from here on out, because now the days are going to get longer. We're on the other we're on the other side of the slope. Things are the days are going to get longer. Eventually it'll get warmer. We get this sense that, like we've, we've kind of made it over the hardest part of the annual cycle, you know, which may or may not be actually true. Because I know, for me, I sometimes feel like this time of year, I'm actually doing fine, because I still have, like, some vitamin D in reserve, maybe from the summer, and it's more like in January and February, where that stuff starts to like, really run out before it gets replenished by having the sun up at a high enough angle that it actually makes a difference.

Unknown Speaker 13:13
But but there, for sure, is something that shifts at winter solstice, when we close out one annual cycle and are like, moving into the next one. So it's just like, it's such a good time of year to

Unknown Speaker 13:31
slow down enough to be able to,

Unknown Speaker 13:35
like, really take a bit of a pause and spend some time with yourself the

Unknown Speaker 13:41
heart of the of any type of like cyclical living, whether it's a monthly menstrual cycle and the like the winter solstice, aspect of that cycle would be the menstrual cycle When there is, like, some more internal orientation and maybe, like a quieter type of energy, maybe a good time for an extra nap or just doing stuff that's a little bit quieter, slower paced, the way that we are kind of called to in winter Solstice, when it's dark and there is

Unknown Speaker 14:21
just a lot of support energetically and in the environment for for drawing your attention internally.

Unknown Speaker 14:32
So yeah, I just want to encourage you. Feels like really important inside of an annual cycle to acknowledge this moment of time. So here's some things to consider if you're going to do like a little Solstice ritual or, you know, finding a way to acknowledge this moment of the year. For one, it is really worth. Worth it to spend some time looking.

Unknown Speaker 15:00
Back at the year. And you know, whether you look like flip through your calendar or if you have a journal you've been keeping

Unknown Speaker 15:08
some some way of just like looking back over the last 12 months. And the the intention here is to

Unknown Speaker 15:17
go back through your year and just notice everything you've done. Just notice, notice the the high points and the low points and the things that you learned along the way.

Unknown Speaker 15:36
See if any of the things that you were like low points or things that were, you know, less than ideal, if now that you're at this point in time, if they look different in retrospect, and maybe there are some learnings that you want to like pull forward and acknowledge and bring with you,

Unknown Speaker 15:57
the practice of looking back so that you can acknowledge and celebrate where you have come is one that I have been in practice with inside of my business ever since I did, like, way back, one of my early business coaches had, like, set up a press, a process for quarterly planning, and this was part of it. And during that same time, when I was introduced to that quarterly planning strategy, I was also doing liberation theory, social justice work with Dr T Williams, and they both. It was really cool, because the quarterly planning thing had this process for looking back over the quarter or at the end of the year. You do it back over the whole year, and go through each month and, like, look at everything you just did.

Unknown Speaker 16:48
And it was always really once we started, like, using this strategy, it was really amazing how it worked, because we we and we still do. We look back and we're like, Oh my gosh. Like, that quarter just flew by. But look at everything that happened during it, like no wonder

Unknown Speaker 17:07
we felt busy, you know, or like no wonder like that. There was, like, a lot of good stuff that happened there, and it changes the quality of the our ability to move forward, because we are like looking back and feeling appreciation and pride and accomplishment, and all of that is like the fortification that we need then to move into another cycle of growth and effort. And as it's built,

Unknown Speaker 17:43
as we've been in practice of doing this now every quarter it it also has added this aspect of like, knowing that,

Unknown Speaker 17:55
for one, if I like breeze past something, I know I'm going to like, catch the lesson later. When we do the quarterly planning, I'm going to like notice what happened and what we learned from it, and then we're going to be able to, like, anchor that lesson and make sure it doesn't get lost, because we have this process in place for it, which I love.

Unknown Speaker 18:14
But then the other thing that happens is that you we just kind of get this, have this sense now that whatever we're getting done, if it ever feels like

Unknown Speaker 18:27
I'm not getting the accolades that I need, or I'm not getting like,

Unknown Speaker 18:32
if I'm like floundering energetically, I know that there's going to be a process there for catching it and for getting that appreciation in the kudos and the

Unknown Speaker 18:44
like, the reward socially from it at some point. So, oh yeah. And then with Dr t like, as we were implicated. Like, implicating, that's not the right word, is it, as we were using this strategy inside the business,

Unknown Speaker 19:01
he was teaching the same idea in the liberation theory work, and saying that one of the

Unknown Speaker 19:11
practices for sustainable activism in which You stay in the change making process long term

Unknown Speaker 19:23
is that you're in the practice of acknowledging and celebrating wins along the way, and it's really important that they be

Unknown Speaker 19:35
wins of any size. The small wins

Unknown Speaker 19:39
are the ones that you have to celebrate when you're in a long term change making process, because the big ones, they're very few and far between. And if you're waiting for that, then you're just going to keep waiting, because these are some like huge systems that need to change. So the practice of acknowledging and celebrating small.

Unknown Speaker 20:00
Ins and imperfect progress along the way is one of the strategies inside of liberation work as well. So you know how I love it when these different areas overlap, because that's business and liberation, and then it also is the same inside of nervous system work that when, like so much of our work inside of the nervous system is learning how to take small pieces of our activation,

Unknown Speaker 20:32
small enough size, titrated enough pieces that you can actually feel and be with, be present with and feel the wave as it moves through, and let that be

Unknown Speaker 20:45
like, be present enough with that so that it's able to complete, and then we can be with and that's essentially an acknowledgement and celebration process at the backside of a wave where it's like, Oh, good. I did it. It's done. You know, we made it through that one.

Unknown Speaker 21:00
But we do that with these little bits of of waves, rather than taking the whole thing, or, like, waiting for everything to be resolved in order to be to, like, get some experience over with the good stuff.

Unknown Speaker 21:17
Like, a lot of the work actually, is learning how to, like, feel into like a little bit of the challenge, and then taking a break, and like calling that a day, and like letting the system rest and come back into tracking the pleasure pathway. So I don't know, I it's just so cool when these things all when we're all headed toward the same concept in our different modalities, and we can see how these different modalities are are supporting each other and actually pointing toward the same concept at the heart of it, which is that when we reach a point of completion,

Unknown Speaker 21:53
we need to

Unknown Speaker 21:55
be with it, to slow down enough to notice it, and to spend some time looking back at where we've been, so we can really land the accomplishment and the lessons that we've got,

Unknown Speaker 22:11
and then we get to have a little bit of spaciousness too to see what happens in the integration time. I think, personally, I think of the time between Solstice and New Year's as a really nice kind of spacious time when there's not a lot going on work wise, hopefully, and we can just, like, let things integrate before we really, like, kick off the next cycle of the next year.

Unknown Speaker 22:40
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so I that's one of the things I would have you do for Solstice, for sure. This, like, Where have we been? And then the acknowledgement and celebration that comes with that. And then if there's any sort of, like, new intentions that you want to set for what you want to bring into your next year, that might be a space to bring that work in as well. It's

Unknown Speaker 23:08
like laying the groundwork for what the next cycle might look like.

Unknown Speaker 23:14
Okay, well,

Unknown Speaker 23:17
this really could have been two episodes, because that feels pretty complete on the solstice thing. And I, part of me wants to just wrap there, but it is like holiday week, and so I do want to spend some time here talking now about CO regulation strategies for navigating the holidays. In case. You know, like, for many of us, the holidays are a time that are like, potentially have some activation landmines in them. So, so we're gonna do a little transition here from talking about Solstice stuff to

Unknown Speaker 23:59
talking co regulation as it relates to the holidays. Okay? So

Unknown Speaker 24:05
I feel like I need a little song or something like that to transition, which I don't have for us. So let's just take a breath together and we'll make a little bit of space before we get going with this next part of the conversation. Do

Unknown Speaker 24:35
Okay, yeah, I took a drink of water, and I'm having a look around my space to

Unknown Speaker 24:43
let my body orient and slow down a little bit here, in this in between space,

Unknown Speaker 24:53
sort of a practice, what I preach, kind of moment since I was just telling you about how important that.

Unknown Speaker 25:00
Is

Unknown Speaker 25:01
as we come to completion of one cycle and then

Unknown Speaker 25:06
have a little bit of space before we move on to the next.

Unknown Speaker 25:13
Yeah, so we're in the practice of that right now, just seeing if it feels okay to let there be a little bit of

Unknown Speaker 25:22
nothing here

Unknown Speaker 25:25
as we let our bodies

Unknown Speaker 25:28
settle and, you know, maybe feel your feet or feel some back support.

Unknown Speaker 25:38
Notice your environment. Notice the weather.

Unknown Speaker 25:47
Yeah, okay. And then let's kick off this conversation part two, where I want to just start off by acknowledging moving through the holiday season. Can I mean, it's just a lot, it's just a lot period, huh? Like,

Unknown Speaker 26:08
sometimes it's a lot of beautiful things, and sometimes it's a lot of intensity, and sometimes the expectations are a lot, and then the reality is maybe a little ways from what we had hoped.

Unknown Speaker 26:27
So, one thing that is important here to acknowledge is that if holidays mean that you're going to be around family,

Unknown Speaker 26:39
family, especially like family of origin, people who you grew up with there, that's like varsity level nervous system work to be like trying to support yourself and engage with birth family dynamics. They are just

Unknown Speaker 26:59
it's like the somebody who said, I don't know who, but it's like the people who installed the buttons. So they know right where the buttons are,

Unknown Speaker 27:07
whether it's conscious or not. But very often, the our nervous systems are maybe the most reactive to people from our birth family dynamics. So it just really would make some sense, if you're here with me along this journey, and you're trying to find ways to support yourself, that when you find yourself in situations with family, that it would be a very potent place for these patterns to come to the surface. And so I want to name that, and we'll just normalize the experience of that, first off, so that, hopefully that can help, like, clean out any type of judgment that you might have for things feeling a little bit more intense during this time of year or when you're around these certain people.

Unknown Speaker 28:00
And you know, I think of that as like the second arrow in Buddhism, where it's like the first arrow is the feeling itself, and then the second arrow is maybe what you feel about the feeling. So if you're feeling activated by your family, but then you're judging yourself for feeling like that, then the judgment is the second arrow. And so we want to, like, clean that out as much as we can because this just is like human bodies doing their thing, animal bodies reacting with the people who raised them, or the dynamics that they're very familiar with, because we've lived them for many years.

Unknown Speaker 28:35
So that's one piece of it. And then the other things that I'm aware of around holidays is that they just, they just really surface a lot of

Unknown Speaker 28:47
a lot of grief, often, because very often, the reality of what we're living is different from what we hoped. Whether you know, there are people who are missing that we really wish we're here right now. Just let me just pause on that, because I

Unknown Speaker 29:07
I just want to give that some space. If that's something that you're experiencing. I

Unknown Speaker 29:14
just have a hand on my heart

Unknown Speaker 29:18
and am feeling the depth of the way that that can show up in these kind of

Unknown Speaker 29:29
moments of the year where, you know, we have these ideas about what, how they might look and feel and and often it's when we really miss People who we wish we had around right now in like human form. You know, I still tend to think that they're around in in different forms, so leaving some space for the potential for that, or for the potential feeling of connectivity with them in a different way. But.

Unknown Speaker 30:00
Like, absolutely, the grief of the it being a different reality than what we had hoped is very, very true.

Unknown Speaker 30:11
Yeah, and I mean, all the other griefs, holy cow. I mean, I just like thinking about the way that,

Unknown Speaker 30:18
yeah, these other griefs, about where the

Unknown Speaker 30:24
many complexities of the world that we're living through right now are also often a part of what we come to realize during the holiday season,

Unknown Speaker 30:36
maybe awareness of all the other people around the world who can't

Unknown Speaker 30:40
celebrate in the ways that they would also would, would want to or, and absolutely deserve to because of,

Unknown Speaker 30:50
you know, whether they're impacted by ice or and aren't able to travel or separated from family, or, you know, climate injustice stuff, there's just like, there's plenty. There's lots and lots and lots there to be,

Unknown Speaker 31:05
like, feeling our care and

Unknown Speaker 31:11
compassion and also outrage about.

Unknown Speaker 31:19
So

Unknown Speaker 31:21
with all of that, we're just surfacing the reality of the way that holidays can bring a lot of stuff up to the surface and and

Unknown Speaker 31:34
they also have a lot of potential for joy, for connection beauty and for the kinds of traditions or rituals that help us stabilize our selves and Our social groups inside of changing times, inside of systems collapse and things like that, these types of, these moments inside of our annual cycle. They also they have the function of anchoring ourselves in our resiliency and in our communities

Unknown Speaker 32:18
in a way that like has this function of helping us with our resiliency and our community

Unknown Speaker 32:28
connections, our our strength, whether it's family or community or like, all these different circles, you know,

Unknown Speaker 32:36
they all really matter and and there's a way that that happens inside of these, like holiday times as well, too. So so, you know, there's,

Unknown Speaker 32:47
there's a lot of beautiful potential here, and it also gets complicated. And so that's like, what I'm here to,

Unknown Speaker 32:54
like, help us try to make space for

Unknown Speaker 32:58
and give you some ideas of ways to use some of the strategies we've been talking about on this podcast. And if you've been in any of my containers or groups like, let's really like, bring some of that stuff up to the top of the mind, so that you have a chance that of setting yourself up for success in these situations, so you can have more of the types of engagements that lend toward resiliency and strengthened interpersonal connections, rather than the ones that leave you feeling like totally wrecked and hopeless about you know, hope just hopeless in general. So, so that's what we're headed for,

Unknown Speaker 33:46
and what the the first tool that I want to bring up is orcas.

Unknown Speaker 33:54
So orcas, you remember, this is an acronym that I came up with, and have a whole episode, and also a webinar on if you want to, like, deep dive into those, but I want to bring to mind the strategies from them because and talk about the ways I would consider using them inside of a holiday situation.

Unknown Speaker 34:19
So orienting is what we've already done here in this podcast episode a couple of times, but it's the practice of looking around, either with eyes, ears, with your sense of touch, taste or smell,

Unknown Speaker 34:37
using any of those senses, whatever comes easy to you, to help your body find itself and notice safety cues. So we're just like looking around and noticing, oh, there is no threat here.

Unknown Speaker 34:53
Oh, there might be like a discussion and argument, but, like I am also in a room where I have walls.

Unknown Speaker 35:00
Walls and a ceiling and a floor and a plant and a lamp and some art and Okay, okay, yes, as I notice my environment, my body can recognize that there is safety here, even if there is something stressful happening at the same time, there is also, like physical, actual,

Unknown Speaker 35:28
neutral or safe cues in the environment that I can also notice.

Unknown Speaker 35:35
So I, you know, I recommend this to everybody that, like we get in the practice of orienting many times throughout the day. And this is going to be an especially important one inside of like social dynamics, where things might get a little bit activating, and we can get kind of sucked away into the activation cycle and get wrapped up in what that

Unknown Speaker 36:03
what we think, either, either the way it like, takes us back in time and helps us remember, like, feel like we remember the way these conversations go. We lose ourselves, lose ourselves in the present moment. So this is a practice for coming back here we are right now, and then you can also, like, it helps you kind of remember that you have agency too.

Unknown Speaker 36:26
If I'm here right now,

Unknown Speaker 36:29
then I might also remember that I can actually move my body if I need to.

Unknown Speaker 36:33
This is a, this is a practice called bringing on arms and legs, and I just am doing it right now as I talk to you, but you can't see me, so you might not know it, but I'm moving my wrists and I'm peddling my feet, so pressing one foot into the ground and then the other, or maybe you press them both at the same time, but just really gently, bringing on arms and legs.

Unknown Speaker 37:00
Really good one for if you're, like a Freezy type of person, and when activation starts happening, you might, like your body might kind of start to go internal and lose track of the reality of arms and legs, which means mobilization potential, which means, like, if I want to move and get myself out of this situation, I can,

Unknown Speaker 37:29
and just knowing that can help soften the edges of a freeze state. So

Unknown Speaker 37:36
you might want to practice that one right now with me, because it's one thing to know these, but it's like another thing to be able to pull them up in real time. So having practiced them

Unknown Speaker 37:48
and return to them. Those are like, those will up the chances of being able to recall them when you really need them. You could also, like, make a voice, like a list in your notes app or something, if you want to keep strategies top of mind. But bringing on arms and legs is one of the ones I use a lot when I start to feel a little bit Freezy.

Unknown Speaker 38:14
So we've got orienting. I threw in bringing in arms and legs there, just because it happened. But inside the orcas acronym. The next one is resourcing. And maybe it fits, because maybe your arms and your legs could be a resource,

Unknown Speaker 38:30
and resources are anything that feels supportive and pleasant inside the body, and that that's true for me with arms and legs, it like helps my body feel like, okay, I I like,

Unknown Speaker 38:43
I feel a little bit more powerful or capable.

Unknown Speaker 38:49
And, yeah, so I kind of like that. I like bringing on arms and legs as a as a way of accessing the resource of

Unknown Speaker 38:57
mobilization.

Unknown Speaker 39:00
It's often for me, though, like, even simpler, like maybe feeling the my feet on the ground, or the support of a back support, like the chair behind me, can often be a resource, or one of the go to ones that I use when I am, like, aware I may be going into an intense situation or feeling especially vulnerable is I'll carry something with me in my pocket, maybe a favorite rock, or I have this great seashell that is really nice fit for my thumb, and it can, just like make contact with my thumb in there, in my pocket. And the idea is that that that resource gives my body a sense that it's less alone. It's got some company.

Unknown Speaker 39:47
It's like CO regulating with a seashell in my pocket.

Unknown Speaker 39:51
And that resource might just like, help my nervous system settle a couple notches. Doesn't have to come all the way down, but just enough to like.

Unknown Speaker 40:00
Recognize that we don't need to get sucked all the way into the drama right now, and I have a little bit of agency here, and I can take some space for myself when I need to.

Unknown Speaker 40:14
Then we come to co regulation, which is the C in orcas, and I, I want to, oh, I want to, like, really do some co regulation work here in the next resource. So we'll just, like, put a pin in that and come back to co regulation. But then the next two are activation and settling and these, these I find really useful inside of these, activating weekends or weeks with people.

Unknown Speaker 40:51
It's it's not always enough just to like, down regulate and like, help the body, just like, settle and feel resourced and supported and like, access a more settled state through coming down. Sometimes the energy in the system is such that it needs a way to move in order to

Unknown Speaker 41:16
move through a wave

Unknown Speaker 41:19
and then down the backside. And you know. So there's lots of different ways to play with this. Most of them will be more successful if you've done either one of those early steps beforehand. So if you've oriented yourself, resourced or CO regulated, or all of them that usually helps construct a bit of a container around the outside for the activation to take place within. But the activation is often there and needs a little bit of something before it can settle. So, you know, maybe you have practices around this already, as far as like taking yourself for a walk, going and getting some exercise.

Unknown Speaker 42:03
Also other practices, like

Unknown Speaker 42:06
squeezing your squeezing a pillow, or even just like tensing up the muscles in your body and then letting them relax. Like

Unknown Speaker 42:18
there's like, different ways I just see what it feels like to like, play with at like, letting your self, like, actually move some of that energy that's in the body.

Unknown Speaker 42:32
Vocalizing is another way of using activation to help mobilize that energy. And you know, when it's activism, I'm often using the

Unknown Speaker 42:43
phone to call my reps and vocalize in that way. But maybe you access vocalization through like talking with someone,

Unknown Speaker 42:55
or through like getting some quiet, some time to yourself, and like actually making some like ang, like, rawr sounds, growls and

Unknown Speaker 43:06
yeah, like any sort of like primal way of mobilizing that energy can be really useful. This might sound like way too weird for you to want to consider, and totally fair, if it does,

Unknown Speaker 43:20
I would love to sit with you in a session and like, find a pathway for your body to access this mobilization aspect of an activation cycle. Everyone is has their own, like, kind of different ways of accessing that. So, you know, short of being able to do that with you one on one right now, I would just say, if there's a sense that you've got like, charge in your body, see if you can drop the inquiry in of, like, what does my body want to do?

Unknown Speaker 43:55
And then let's see what it's like to follow that impulse and like, Let that energy move you, let the body move you in the direction it wants to go. And maybe you just go a little ways toward that and then pause. Sometimes it feels good to titrate the activation part. And sometimes you want to just, like, really follow it. Like, for those of us that have flight response tendencies and the impulse is to, like, get out of there and, like, go on a run, that might be a really nice way to support your system in letting some of that energy mobilize.

Unknown Speaker 44:37
Okay, so if you're mobilizing energy, that's the activation side. And then we really want to be present with and notice the settling that happens after so the activation is helping your wave come up enough that it can crest. And then the magic is like in the backside of the wave.

Unknown Speaker 45:00
After it happens. And then you just want to, like, really see what, what you can do to stay present with the down regulation that happens after the activation is has been moved, has been able to start to crest and complete. So often there's, like, some kind of relaxation, muscularly. Maybe the breath gets deeper, maybe the thoughts like, settle a little bit or slow down. We just want to, like, notice anything that's nice about that. And that's, that's where the work of tracking the pleasure pathway happens. So just like, be in anything that feels good.

Unknown Speaker 45:40
And that's honestly, this, this aspect, this, if you like, take one tool from this, the the

Unknown Speaker 45:46
tool of accessing the pleasure pathway might be the one I would send you with, huh? It'd be, maybe it's orienting, maybe it's tracking the pleasure pathway. I don't know. They're both really good, but, um, inside of a holiday experience, they're like anything you can find that you like, that your your senses like, especially those are little nuggets of nourishment for your system. And anytime you can land in like a physical experience that feels good,

Unknown Speaker 46:20
a color that your eyes like, or a sound that you're enjoying, like any of those things, and just like, really enjoy it, like get into it and and the light in it and, like, amplify the experience of it.

Unknown Speaker 46:38
But those moments are the those are the counter vortex moments that are also here alongside the parts that are hard about the holidays. So we just, we, we got to, like, get in the practice of, like, amping those up and really making the most of them and embodying the pleasure side of things. We have to do that in order for the nervous system to be able to have the capacity to

Unknown Speaker 47:06
balance out and and be with the parts that are hard. It's the it is the experience of pleasure that helps us build the container for being able to be present with the parts of life that are challenging

Unknown Speaker 47:22
and man, I think the holidays are going to just going to give us, like, opportunities for both of the sides of of the experience. And we can't usually, like, skip or miss or brush past the hard stuff, but we can if we're not paying attention, we can miss the nourishing parts. So let's not do that this year. Let's like, really try to like, land those nice ones so we don't miss them.

Unknown Speaker 47:51
Okay, now I'm going to take us to the this last piece of

Unknown Speaker 47:59
content that I want to bring forth here is around the idea of CO regulating. And this is a, this is like a strategy for CO regulation that comes from attachment style, attachment strategy.

Unknown Speaker 48:20
My teachers in this area, Carmen, spanola and Diane pool Heller, I want to get Carmen on the podcast here, because she's been a great mentor of mine for years and introduced me to this concept of contact, nutrition.

Unknown Speaker 48:38
And I love this. We're just going to like do a very quick overview here, because I think you can grab the concepts and take them into your holidays pretty easily, and then we can, like, do a deeper dive on what this means later. But what I want you to know about contact nutrition is that it has these different categories inside it, and each of these are the

Unknown Speaker 49:01
ways that your body and your attachment system understands

Unknown Speaker 49:08
like gets the nourishment it needs to feel safe and secure with other humans.

Unknown Speaker 49:15
So if we're working or for like on the pathway toward earning secure attachment and like, learn helping our bodies learn that that it's okay, it's safe to be with other humans. And like these people are safe to be with, even though other people sometimes other people aren't. Or like in this moment, I can get some co regulation from this shared experience, and get your help your nervous system. Notice that when it happens and be nourished by it. Those are like the these moments are the the

Unknown Speaker 49:50
they're like the vitamins of social connection for our nervous system, and they are kind.

Unknown Speaker 50:00
Eyes,

Unknown Speaker 50:04
vocal prosody,

Unknown Speaker 50:08
shared rhythm,

Unknown Speaker 50:11
safe touch

Unknown Speaker 50:14
and ingestion, behaviors that's eating and drinking together. So let me just go through them again and talk a little bit about each of them just again. This is just like a quick little overview, so you can take the idea, and I want you to if this is resonating with you and you want to, like, play with this over the holidays, I would just have a lens, have an eye out for moments when you experience these five one or one of these different strategies, maybe you want to look out for all of them or just one of them. But these, these experiences, are out there, and if we can become conscious of them when they're happening, that will help the nourishment of the moment land more deeply in the body, and you'll get the experience of CO regulation,

Unknown Speaker 51:04
which is a mess, it really is a muscle. So it's something we we have to be in practice of

Unknown Speaker 51:12
especially if you're someone who's like, not particularly securely attached, it's like something that you're having to work at, which is also me, by the way, this is like, something that I've been working at for a while, and have made some huge strides in. So I can, like, tell you, it's a pretty effective way to be in practice.

Unknown Speaker 51:31
So here's the first one. Is kind eyes.

Unknown Speaker 51:35
I think you get a sense for what that means. You can, like, imagine what it's like to have someone look at you with eyes that read kindness in them,

Unknown Speaker 51:47
and our nervous systems are just they're made for that. They're made for receiving co regulation through the experience of kind eyes.

Unknown Speaker 51:59
So it's very simple, but the practice here would be to notice when you are receiving kind eyes from someone, and notice the impact it has for you when you are receiving that.

Unknown Speaker 52:16
You could play with this from a giver place too, if you want to like practice giving kind eyes. I mean,

Unknown Speaker 52:23
it's really a fun thing to be on either end of

Unknown Speaker 52:27
but the

Unknown Speaker 52:30
receiving practice, the CO regulation practice here, would be to notice when someone is giving you kind eyes, and notice how it impacts you when that happens,

Unknown Speaker 52:42
okay, the next one then is vocal prosody. Vocal prosody is the experience of vocal tone that conveys warmth,

Unknown Speaker 52:56
kindness. The prosody means like, movement. So often there's like it there's like, a kind of a lower tone, and then maybe there's a higher tone when you get excited, and then, like, when something's really serious, maybe it comes like, down into like, a lower type of voice. The

Unknown Speaker 53:12
the experience of like, big range inside of the way your voice moves is something that lights our nervous system up. And again, it sends that kind of message of coherence and safety.

Unknown Speaker 53:28
When a voice is like, moving in a really small range, and somebody's like saying they're excited, but they're having, like, a really flat tone, I'm so excited. Can you believe it? This thing is happening, you know, it's like that that's a little bit concerning, and it kind of sets up nervous system red flags, because they don't actually sound that excited, and so it feels incongruent. But when the vocal prosody is matching the experience that you're having and that they're saying that they're having, that reads coherence, and it feels good and it lands well in the body. I remember when I first learned about this concept. It was right before we had a family gathering with with my nephew, when he was really little, and he was in this like phase of life when he was just like his he was like, figuring out his voice, and he would just be like

Unknown Speaker 54:22
he was like, doing all this talking, and it would and it would go up here and for a while, and then it would get, like, really, really down here and for a while. And it would be like, all over the place. And it was so cute. It was so fun to be around.

Unknown Speaker 54:42
And I was just like, oh my gosh, he's using vocal prosody, and I cannot get enough of it. It's just like, sucking me in. Like my whole body was just like, this child is adorable.

Unknown Speaker 54:57
And I like, I was.

Unknown Speaker 55:00
Feeling the impacts of vocal prosody on my body, like as this, as this, like magnetism and like this, love.

Unknown Speaker 55:09
It was pretty cool. I felt it like very palpably. So your invitation to play with this would be to notice moments when you feel that type of, like vocal tone that lands in your system with some kind of, like warmth and and like green flags. And just notice that when it's happening, because that, again, that's like another piece of nourishment. It's a It's nutrition for your attachment system for your co regulation ability.

Unknown Speaker 55:47
Oh, gosh, just thinking of my nephew like that makes me really smile. Gosh, that was so fun. He's such a sweetheart.

Unknown Speaker 56:00
Yeah, okay, so then we have shared rhythm. Ah, I love shared rhythm. Shared rhythm. I mean, it's pretty self explanatory by the title, right? But like, it's the bringing to conscious awareness, the way that when our bodies are in sync with other bodies, there is a sense of nourishment that happens. There's a sense of safety that happens,

Unknown Speaker 56:27
like, probably this started with babies inside bellies feeling the heartbeat of the of the caregiver, you know, like or rocking as an infant you know, shared rhythm there.

Unknown Speaker 56:43
But you could better bet that we access this also through, like going to a music concert together, and like feeling the beat of the music in a big group and we're all dancing together. Or, you know, maybe you're singing Christmas carols and you're in that shared rhythm, and there's just something nourishing about it. Or you're out on a hike together and you're moving with your body, with somebody who is moving at the same pace, and that feels good. Feels nourishing.

Unknown Speaker 57:14
Yeah. So notice that when you end up in a in that kind of shared rhythm experience with and see how it lands, and see if you can receive the CO regulation potential of that.

Unknown Speaker 57:31
Okay, safe touch is the next one. And I mean safe touch, right? Like that.

Unknown Speaker 57:41
It feels good when it's safe touch, not all touch, but the right kind of touch is it

Unknown Speaker 57:50
feels good again. It like comes back to those cues for our infant bodies when before we had the ability to regulate our own nervous systems. Like, touch was one of the ways that our bodies got the sense like that, okay, we're going to be okay here.

Unknown Speaker 58:08
So any type of touch that feels like the right kind for you is what counts as safe touch. It doesn't mean like, safe as in, it's not going to hurt me, but it means like, safe as in, like, this is the kind of touch that my body wants right now. So let your own system. Let you and your nervous system and your body be the

Unknown Speaker 58:30
deciding factors about, like, what that means,

Unknown Speaker 58:35
and it if this feels like two out of range, like any kind of touch can can work. It can be your own touch. Maybe touch with animals. Maybe you're experiencing touch through wrapping yourself up in a blanket.

Unknown Speaker 58:51
Yeah, if you're like, not, gosh, I,

Unknown Speaker 58:56
yeah, I didn't really think about

Unknown Speaker 59:00
if you're not around other people, because these, these contact nutrition ones, these are all about like, if you're around other people.

Unknown Speaker 59:08
So yeah, if you are experiencing more of like, the holiday situation where you're just like, don't have access to people who feel like they can give you these kinds of things.

Unknown Speaker 59:19
You can get a lot of it with animals.

Unknown Speaker 59:23
We the kind eyes are there with the animals, safe touch is often there. Shared rhythm is maybe there. Oh gosh, I'm just thinking about my friend's cat, Emmy, who I would house sit, and she would just purr on my belly and oh my gosh, there's like a real shared rhythm with with her. So nice. So yeah, maybe with animals, some of this you might be able to access with nature, as in, like the safe touch of leaning your back up against a tree or a rock.

Unknown Speaker 59:54
So there might be some, like, creative ways you could you could find for accessing some of these. You.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:00
Contact nutrition strategies

Unknown Speaker 1:00:02
through the non

Unknown Speaker 1:00:04
human more than human world,

Unknown Speaker 1:00:07
and also, a lot of this works comes from the attachment, somatic attachment world, where we are kind of looking for ways to help our body come into right relationship with other humans and figure out how to be nourished by that experience and receive the benefits of CO regulation. So, so we are, like, kind of trying to work toward being able to access this through the experience of being with other humans. And that just might be something that's like on the continuum of something that you're working toward,

Unknown Speaker 1:00:43
okay? And then the final one is ingestion behaviors, which means eating and drinking together. And you know that that like circles back to biology again, just for the basic fact of like, if we were in a life or death situation, we would probably not be like bothering to sit down and eat right now, we would be getting the heck out of there.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:04
So the the like physiological cues of the fact that we're like sitting and eating, or we're consuming food and beverages that and we're doing it together, that that has the like neuro biological message of cueing the body to the fact that we're we're safe here together. And like in traditional ways of life, those those moments of like eating and drinking, and especially like the celebration ones, they would happen, like, after something big happened. So it's another one of those kind of like markers of, like, we just went through a big wave. We just went through a big hunt, or a big, intense something, and now we're coming together, and we're gonna acknowledge what just happened, and we're gonna rest, and we're gonna celebrate, and we're gonna be together. So there's, there's, there's like a ancestral lineage knowledge too, in our bodies, about like when we sit and gather and eat food and drink and be merry together, there's like that's happening after, like, outside of moments of stress, that's happening because we just did something hard, maybe, and now we are resting. Now we're harvesting the fruits of our labors, and we get to come down and be together and receive the food nourishment and also receive the contact nutrition, nourishment of eating and drinking together. So you know the way to practice that would just be to while you're in those moments of shared ingestion behaviors to notice what it's like to be in that together. And maybe we, you know, sometimes we connect over food. Oh, this, what recipe did you use? And this is so good. And those little, those little things, there's those, like the interpersonal little webs that help our nervous systems feel connection. And read, Is this person a safe person? And then when you get the message, yes, like, right now, they're being nice or being safe. Like, green flags, okay, cool. I'm gonna, like, let down a little bit and like, I'm open up a little bit more to connection. And like, those are the little pieces, little micro moments that happen that we where we move into this possibility of CO regulation, connection and safety together.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:27
Okay, so let me just name them again, really quick, kind eyes, vocal prosody, safe touch, shared rhythm and ingestion behaviors. So keep an eye out for those this season, little co regulation strategies. And I'm really curious to hear if you notice them and if you feel nourished by them while you attend to them, and then you know you you don't have to like the what's important is that the whatever comes up for you is the information that's important. So even if, as you're playing with this, you kind of notice some things that are a little bit funky for you inside of them, that's also really good information. It doesn't mean that it has to, like, work right away when you start to play with it. So you might just have discovered an area that your nervous system is like coming into relationship with and that's good to know also. So, yeah, we'll call it a win. Whatever happens.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:28
All right, well, thanks for being here for this double sided conversation. I hope there's been some useful things for you, and I hope you have a really good Solstice. Enjoy a bit of the nourishment inside of this dark time of the year and that you get a little bit of CO regulation somewhere out there inside of the holiday season. Good luck, and I will see you next time. Okay, until then, you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai