My Journey to Somatics

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Show Notes:

Episode 3: My Journey to Somatics

This episode of Coregulation Conversations weaves together personal story, nervous system science, and practical tools for resourcing in everyday life. Recorded while walking through the fall forest in Anchorage, it offers both reflection and practice in real time. 🍂🌲

Highlights include:
✨ Why all regulation is coregulation—and why regulation doesn’t always mean calm
🌊 Understanding activation and deactivation as natural wave patterns
🕰 The “grandmother clock” metaphor for how our steadiness can help regulate those around us
💪 The origins of Ski Babes and the bridge between fitness, mental health, and outdoor adventure
🌿 How somatic practices shifted a lifelong pattern of anxiety and created new space for resilience
🤍 Listener Q&A: navigating fear and nervous system strain during the fertility journey

Resources:

Link to Twig Wheelers sugesstions for pre and post surgical events

This episode blends personal story with broader nervous system teachings, offering both context and tools for practicing co-regulation in challenging times.

🎧 Listen now to explore what it means to resource yourself, share steadiness with others, and expand capacity for the full range of nervous system states.

Transcript:

Sarah 0:22
Hi there. Welcome back to another co regulation conversation. Today, I am out on a walk on one of my favorite trails here, inside of Anchorage. It is a gray fall day, but it hasn't been raining, so that's kind of a big deal, because it's been pretty wet here recently. This trail is close to town, so there might be some other folks around that you might hear from just a biker that passed me by, and we're gonna see how this goes to walk and talk and enjoy the experience of being here in This forest. It's one of the most resourcing places for me in the fall forest, watching the leaves start to turn and just in this nice, slow paced place, this being the third episode that I've recorded for you, I am just starting to kind of figure out what it is that we're doing here, which is very emergent, meaning that I am really trying to not control the process and to be in trust that whatever happens here is the right thing. I've been wanting to start a podcast for years. This has been on my to do list inside of my business, just for years and years, and I've always been like, waiting for the right time, waiting to feel ready, waiting for, like, something to just, like, push me over the edge, like, actually make this happen. And this spring, a couple things came together. For one, it felt like the times that we're living through with the way politics is going inside of the United States right now and the world, and just like we're living through really challenging times, felt like the time is now for this nervous system skill set to be something that more and more people have access to outside of the traditional therapy settings. It's like the time is now, and then my friend Shantay ran a podcast class that I signed up for to get the accountability and support to actually, like, make this happen, get past all of the little hurdles along the way. And then also, I just started to realize that this just there was not going to be a time when I felt ready, and I needed to figure out a way to just move forward with it and put it out there and let it be messy. You know, I'm really learning a new communication style here, a new way of sharing with you that feels pretty vulnerable in some ways. It feels like I, you know, I'm doing this in one take. I am preparing some notes ahead of time about what I want to speak to, but then I'm just like, really letting what comes out be what turns into the episode and without editing. You know, there are podcasts that do, like, a really edited version that's not this here. It's just like, walk and talk very it's like Voice Note vibes. It's, we're just gonna be go with what happens, and I'm gonna work through my own discomfort around, you know, wishing I'd said something different or whatever. And trust that the process of doing it, in the process of doing it, I will refine the craft of it, and that the vision that I have for it is out there, and the way to get there is just to be in the process of doing it. So. So for those of you who are like with me from the beginning, if you're here for being a part of this emergent creative process, I'm super grateful to you, and I'm excited for what's going to come of it, because I think the potential for this is huge. And I'm hoping that we're like, shooting for the stars landing somewhere up there in the sky, getting getting close. And you know, that's how creative processes go sometimes. So, yeah, just feeling my own excitement over that a little bit of activation coming up inside my own system over this idea of both sharing vulnerably with you in very like unedited ways. There's some nervousness around that, and excitement. And those two things have a very similar quality inside my body. They feel like that charge of energy and activation. And when I'm, like, really connected with safety and the way I'm resourced. I'm just like, right now coming across a tree that has some really cool mushrooms growing on it. So like when I'm noticing the environment around me, and I'll take a picture of it for you able to realize how safe and resourced I really am, I can really lean into the excitement part of this and be practicing these tools in real time as I am here sharing with you. You know that actually reminds me of one thing I have been wanting to say here, and I'm realizing, as I record these conversations, and then come back and realize there's things I wish I had said that, that I like could have explained something more thoroughly or differently for you. But then the cool thing is, is that, like, here's here it is again, and I need to record another episode, so maybe there's a chance to circle back and, like, clear things up or add something else to the conversation. And one of the things I have been wanting to say is very clearly state that, for one thing, all CO, all regulation, is CO regulation. I think I made the argument for that pretty strongly in the previous episode, but the thing that I didn't say is that regulation doesn't mean calm. There's a way that that gets misconstrued inside of like online, social, online, nervous system places that like the idea ideal nervous system state is a calm one, but actually what we want, when with a nervous system that has lots of capacity and is well regulated, is the ability to access The whole range of your nervous system responses from deactivated, calm relaxation to activation and charge. And like full full excitement or full charge, you know, like we need energy inside of our body to respond to stressful things, to respond to things that require movement, to go climb a mountain, to get ourselves out of bed, up in the morning, in the morning, to play with our kids. We need activation for those things. So the idea isn't just to be like blissed out and calm all the time. The idea is to have access to the full range of emotions and nervous system states and to, ideally, you know, have like about the right amount of activation show up for the situation that you find yourself in. So you know, if you have a nervous system that like shows up with like way more activation than you needed when you open your email or something. There might be some regulation work to do there, and so, so about the right amount of activation for the situation that's ideal, and then also the ability to recognize when something stressful or activating is over, so that you can move into deactivation and down the I think of these as wave patterns. Activation curves follow like a wave pattern. So we want to be able to realize on the body level, we. When we're out of an activating moment, and be able to ride that backside of the wave and the body be able to deactivate

Sarah 10:11
and settle. So, yeah, those are all things that I think about inside of what I want like, quote, unquote, regulated nervous system to be able to do but you know, modern life is inherently very activating our systems. The stimulus that we're living with, like these are all things that our bodies are really having to evolve quickly to catch up to, if you think about the amount of stimulus that you receive when you're on, when you're out in nature, on a walk and disconnected from the internet, especially if you're on, like, a backpacking trip that's out of service, so you're not receiving texts, you can't log on to the internet. You're just like, fully disconnected, and the way you're forced to slow down and just take in the experience of moving your body, attuning to nature, watching the environment around you like that's the level of stimulus that our nervous systems evolved to cope with. So we're just like really living in a very different nervous system place these days because of the amount of stimulus that we're expected to receive and then respond to daily. So that's like modern life is very activating. So we might need to, because of that, emphasize the deactivation side of things, just to be able to like, come into balance and have that full access to the full range. But it doesn't mean that deactivation is always the goal. It just means sometimes inside of our modern life, we might need to like, overemphasize that a bit.

Sarah 12:07
Okay, taking a pause. Catch my breath. A runner just ran by one thing that I'll be like actively working on here inside of this project is taking care of my own nervous system. And I would there's this idea of, like a grandmother clock. I think it's actually grandfather, but I like grandmother personally, the idea that when we had clocks that had that like, what is that thing called a bell? Is it that like, does the Tick Tock thing from side to side? Like a pendulum? Tick tock? So apparently, when clock repair people that worked with those clocks would get a bunch of clocks together inside of their spaces, they would all be like tiktoking on their own cadence, and then eventually they would all sync up to the rhythm of the grandmother clock In the room. They would all come into a shared cadence with that one grandmother clock and our nervous systems work with that kind of potential. We're always tracking the other systems around us, whether it's like below the level of conscious awareness, mostly, our bodies are always like, what's happening with those around us. When it's out in nature, it's with the trees and the forest, like what's happening here, and then we're able to, like, co regulate into the rhythm of the woods, let's say, or, you know, with other humans, where we're sort of tracking through what we see and what we observe, what we sense in the field. How, how stressed are we? How much threat Are we under here? And and then we're, we co regulate. We sometimes co dysregulate if we feel like everybody here is stressed, so I probably should be too. So it's not a conscious thing much. Most of the time. It's like a way our body responds the way a group of caribou would respond if they sense that there might be a wolf close by. So they might, one might take off running, and then the others are like, Oh, we better all run. So our human bodies are doing that on a subtle level all the time, co regulating with the group. And this concept of the grandmother clock brings us to the. Idea that if one is steady enough inside of your own nervous system, and you have enough capacity and a sense of safety that's solid and internal, and you your body actually knows that it's safe, that other people can co regulate to you, and you can be the grandmother clock in the room, and if there's stress going on in other people's lives, and you stay in your safety that their system will sense that And realize that their stressors maybe isn't as true as doesn't need as much of their attention, and they might be able to feel your groundedness, your steadiness and kind of land their nervous system in your in your rhythm. So I'm hoping that if I'm able to tend to my own nervous system here as we share this podcast space, that we'll be able to ride some waves together, and that you'll your nervous system will be able to sense what's happening in mine. And we'll be able to maybe come into rhythm together, and maybe I'll be able to be your grandmother clock sometimes. So through that practice, I I will be, like, really actively tracking what's happening in my own system. Some of that means, like checking with my breath, I'm realizing because as I'm walking, of course, like there's potential to get out of breath. And I imagine that if I'm able to walk at a pace that lets me keep my breath calm, trying to be able to, like, breathe through the nose, I might have to take some pauses and slow down in order to make that happen. And also, there's some like, breath practices that I might speak to in another time that I'm engaging with to like help that become easier to actually walk and talk and help my body stay calm at the same time. And maybe this is an idea that you want to carry forward too. Maybe this is a big part of why you're interested in this work, so that you can become the grandmother clock for the people in your life without over giving right and like, without being also like the caretaker who like, needs everybody to be okay in order for you To be okay. There's like a nuance there, especially for women and people in like female conditioning, we sometimes like take on that emotional experience of and the responsibility for the emotions of other people. So I don't want to get into that, but there is a way that we can, by taking care of our own nervous systems, have a ripple effect. It's pretty cool. It's actually through, like, not through doing a bunch of external caregiving. It's just like a lot of internal caregiving, actually, which has a really nourishing feeling for me personally, when I'm just like, let's just take care of me here and trust that that'll have the impact it needs to Okay. This preliminary portion is wrapping up now, because I want to get into talking a little bit today about my story and how I came to somatics. So let's transition in that direction. I feel like many of you who are here have likely come to me through my fitness business, the fitness wing of the work that I do, the mind and mountain, which like the first iteration of my work online and in person, which has been Ski babes and summer strong and balanced training. And the platform that I've built over the past 10 years, actually, we've been online for 10 years, which is wild, combining. In body weight training and mental health strategies and preparation for outdoor adventures and recreation, like those kind of three worlds come together in that space. And I'm guessing many of you have heard the story of how that part of my business got started. But that's where I want to start. In case there's people here who are new to my work, or you just want to, like, hear that story again and put it in context of where this next iteration of the business, the somatic part, like, where it came from, and where I want us to go together, for those of you that are continuing on with me into this next iteration of my work, so just trying to figure out where to start the story, because we could go way back into like Growing up here in Alaska and having a religious family with Mennonite roots and my childhood pressures around being a high performer, perfectionist, valedictorian, Type I loved to learn and have continued that, but also felt put a lot of pressure on myself to like be a high achiever. But you know, there's been unlearning along that. Those of you that are inside of ski babes and summer strong know how much of we work with the way that perfectionism and those same kind of pressures can show up inside of our movement practice. So these threads, they all, they all tie together. But where I want to start the story is when I was living in Valdez, Alaska, this little town of about 4000 people, and I had moved there to take a job running the gym in town,

Sarah 22:07
and it was great job. I loved it. I was working to, like, get that gym running smoothly, and then teaching a bunch of fitness classes. And I was also in grad school at that time for my social work degree. And the other thing about Valdez is that it's known. It has really extreme weather. It has it's one of the snowiest, maybe the snowiest town in the States, it gets dumped on, and it has these beautiful mountains that rise like right up out of the ocean. So it's just super pretty. Should definitely visit if you haven't. I had lived in Alaska all my life, but I had never been to Valdez before I got this job offer and then moved there, and I love it there. It was a really potent time in my life, and I lived there for about five years. And so I'm running this gym and working on grad school. I had to do a practicum, so I was doing my day job of the fitness side of things, and then doing mental health practicum where I'd go over to therapy the Counseling Center in town and give some therapy to folks. And I was also learning to back country ski at the same time, because it was like, that's a amazing place to back country ski in Valdez. So the confluence of these, all of these worlds, is basically where ski babes was born, because I was teaching these fitness classes and seeing how much they helped me replicate the muscles and the movement patterns that I was using when I was learning to back entry ski. So I was like, this is helping me a ton. Thank goodness. You know, I'm still crashing a lot, but at least I can kind of keep up on the uphills. And then also, I was learning all of these mental health strategies inside of my grad school practice and realizing how helpful they were for that learning curve. Because I, like, really wanted to keep up with everybody. I was, like, in that perfectionism trap, feeling like, you know, the way to know I belong here is to be able to, like, keep up with everybody. But I couldn't, because I was really still learning following all the time, and so the mental health strategies I was learning in grad school were really helping me be like, okay, it's okay to be bad at this. It's, you know, I'm like, using all these mantras that we have brought into ski babes now around. And moving is winning. And I've been training for this, and you've got this, like, lots of lots of strategies to help my self, help my body. Remember that like, it's okay to be bad at this, I'm still safe. And then I would be in sessions with clients in the therapy world and realize that many of them weren't moving very much. And there's a lot of research out there about how supportive exercise can be for some types of depression, not all, but like, you know, like many of us know, being able to move can be really supportive for mental health. So I'd go back and forth between the gym where I was talking with, like personal training clients, for example, and many of them would end up in tears over like their relationship with their body, or their frustration with where their fitness was, and I'd realize how deep these deeply emotional, these experiences we were having with our bodies really are, and be like, You know what? This would be helpful to bring over to therapy, and then I'd be with therapy clients and be like, You know what this would be helpful to bring over to the gym? And so really felt like this bridge between these worlds were really needed to happen, and all all supported each other, the recreation, the fitness training and the mental health side. There's also a piece of the story that I'm going to just tell really quickly where I was also like my brother and I, we'd both gone through really hard breakups around the same time and lost our adventure partners. So we got together and decided to do this really challenging ski race called the wilderness classic, which we were, like, super intimidated by, and, like, didn't even know if we could finish, and we just decided to give it a try. And were able to that first year was just like, so brutal and like, the hardest thing I'd ever done, physically and emotionally, but we were able to finish it, which was very brutal, but also very confidence inspiring to realize that I could actually do this thing. And then we went back the next year after my feet healed and my brain forgot the most painful parts of it. Then I went back and put a bunch of good training in, both on skis and through the ski babes work, and went back the next year, had really great ski conditions, and we took the first year, we finished in seven days, but this next year, we finished in five days. It's all self supported. You're carrying everything, and you just have to, like it's a point to point, so without a trail, so you have to, you pick your route. So we went the same route, but finished in way faster time, and it went way better. And it was so fun, and we actually finished at the front of the pack. We finished with a couple other groups, but we, like, quote, unquote, won, even though it's not a race, but we were at the front of the pack, which was like, mind blowing, like, completely blew away this glass ceiling that I had had over myself about, like, what I was capable of, because just the year before, I had thought I wasn't even going to be able to finish this thing, and then the next year, I was winning it, and I was like, holy cow. Like, this is amazing. What What training and what my body can do. Just super impressive. I was like, really, totally surprised by the possibility and the impact of doing all this work. So you know that's honestly coming out of that high of learning of like, having won that event, and realizing that like I was capable of, that was a big part of what, like gave me the confidence to start this business. Because I was like, gosh, if I can do that, like, what can't I do? And also, these tools, these resources were so helpful, they cracked open my whole world. And if that's like something that could change my life in such a big way, that's something I want more people, especially more women, non binary folks. I want them to have access to these tools too, so they can have their own version. Version of this kind of impact. So I built ski babe, started filming myself doing workouts in my living room, figured out how to do the tech learned so much like went through the vulnerability of putting these videos of myself out there on the internet, and you all received it, and we're here for it, and it grew really fast, and I was thrilled. It's super fun. Yeah, just we had a great time and continued to because that I've continued filming workouts and building that body of work over the last 10 years, and it's been awesome. And so here's where the story starts to transition, because that that's the story of the founding of the fitness wing of the business. But as somewhere in like the middle of those 10 years, I started to find uh, find out about somatic therapy. I was really drawn to the idea of it, the this bridge that I'd been trying to build between the physical fitness world and the mental health world. That's like I was kind of creating that inside of ski babes, you know where we were, and some are strong, where we're tracking our nervous systems and learning mental health strategies and applying them inside of movement spaces and then outside in your recreation as well. But the work of somatics also fills, like fills in that gap between body,

Sarah 32:05
what's happening in the soma and what's happening in your mind. And so I was really drawn to that from the beginning, and decide, like when I moved to Anchorage. So my husband and I were dating long distance, I eventually moved over to Anchorage to move in with him, and then when I moved to town, realized that I could actually maybe access some of this Somatic Experiencing therapy from Anchorage. So I started receiving this, and it was very impactful right away my body was has always been speaking to me. It's like a lot of how I teach those fitness classes, too, is through tracking my own body and feeling, watching and feeling the bodies of the rest of the room. So that's always been an access point that's been really strong for me, and somatic work speaks right to that. And my body was like, let's this. Is it? Like, this is this? Is what I want after I had, you know, I haven't said yet, but I for much of my life have been navigating living with anxiety and depression and managing that through, you know, therapy, talk therapy, to some extent, and like so I have a lot of insight. Have a lot of tools. I was weaving those in to, you know, what I taught inside of ski babes, and it's all helping, which is amazing. And inside of that time when I started working with myself somatically, with this therapist, I was realizing that I might actually be able to move out of the mode of, like, always needing tools, because I might actually be able to change my nervous system patterns from the bottom up, which is, like, hugely exciting. And, yeah, so, so, yeah. The other thing that happened for me around that time is that once, once Luke and I got married and we started trying to have kids, that was not a smooth process for us. We were on a fertility journey for maybe seven years, of like, actively trying and not having success. It was really intense, yeah, really kind of the very first time that I had had an experience with my body where I wasn't able to get the results that I wanted out of my body, which is something that I now consider. Or athletic privilege that I had a lot of I had been used to being able to, like, train and work hard and get what I wanted, and that was a really like, something I really needed for a while. It's a lot of what gave me the confidence, you know, to like, start this business. But I now was seeing that that wasn't always possible. You can't just, like, train your way or work your way through a fertility journey, believe me, like it's wild out there on the internet, like there will be people who can tell you that there's fixes for everything. So for a while, I was, like, really stressing myself out and trying all the things and feeling like it was something I was doing wrong, even that I wasn't getting the results that I wanted, that I wasn't like getting my body to make this happen. But you know, as I'm sure many of you have had experiences with your body where things just didn't work out the way you wanted them to. You know, from injuries to aging, there's so many chronic illness No, there's just, like, so many examples of times when we can't necessarily make our bodies do what we want them to. That's part of the human experience in a lot of ways, despite you know, all your best efforts, they won't, we're still living in a human body that doesn't function like a machine does. There's we can't just, like, fix all the parts and get, pull the lever and get the result. So that really cracked open this, like, this way I had of seeing the world that again, it wasn't very It wasn't conscious. I can see it in retrospect, but it was really kind of shattering to me of realizing that I was wasn't going to be able to, like, make my body do exactly what I wanted to. You know, I had to slow down physically. And as part of that, I was, like, started to realize how much I was depending on exercise for like, first off, for taking like the edge off of all of the nervous system activation that I was having. I was, like, always running on high and taking the edge off with exercise and recreation, and then also depending on my athletic accomplishments, to some extent, for my sense of enoughness and well being, which, in nervous system terms, we would say depending on them for safety. It's kind of like, like, I feel like, what? What now I now, I see that as a time in which I was, like my nervous system was like a like a volcano, or like a pot of water that was like on a hot stove about to boil over, and it was just like, always on the edge of boiling and the strategies, exercise and self talk and like all of these strategies, they were all keeping the thing from boiling over, keeping the volcano from exploding. It's like they were, they were like a cold breeze, just like barely keeping this thing at bay. But I needed to be, like, constantly in management because of all of this activation that was in my system. And the work of somatic therapy has actually helped the pot. Has helped me take the pot off the burner. Like, take the burner. Like, get control of the knob on the stove and like, turn that pot down, turn off the pot, take it down to a simmer so it's not boiling over. Or, like, reduce the pressure inside the volcano, which I gotta say, is incredible. My nervous system has changed so much that the activation that used to just kind of chronically be there, is now not there. My set point has changed, and so now I have space for activation without boiling over, and I can move through activation waves a lot more smoothly. And it's feels great. So you know, the times that we're living in, like I mentioned the very beginning of this episode, like, I don't know how I would be navigating these times, because there is so much stress in our world right now, and it feels like a lot to cope with in my nervous system and the way it is. Now, but at least now I have space for it. And if I was in a place where I would had been previously, I'm like, I don't know what I would be doing, how I would be navigating it probably a lot of freeze and shut down and overwhelm. So thank goodness that those skills came in time, and it makes me, like, extremely passionate about the need to get these somatic skills, these nervous system like the foundational skills, out to more broadly, so that more people can have access to this skill set to help navigate what we are living through right now. The world needs us to have these skills. I mean, I can't wait for a world. I feel like there's a world in a generation or two where this is stuff that we're we learn as kids, something we learn in school even, and we're just like, how come we're not taught this stuff? I can't believe it. You know, a lot of it is, there's amazing work that happens inside of therapy, and I definitely don't think that like a podcast or even like a group space will completely replicate the work that's possible inside of therapy with, like, a perfectly attuned nervous system that is able to like really precisely, see and mirror you and validate your experience and help you see things that you're the subtle aspects that you're not able to catch yourself. But it's also true that a lot of the skills are the foundation. Foundational skills are happen in the body, in the soma, and are things that we can practice together, either in group spaces or asynchronously through here, something like this podcast. So that's feels like, what is the emergent body of work that I am looking to build now and that we're trying to

Sarah 42:08
do here together. Because, you know, the other like, I invested so much money in the, like, nervous system re patterning that I was have been in in the last handful of years, the somatic experiencing training in itself, costs, like, something like $10,000 and then my own therapy has, I've been, like, really investing heavily in that. So it's just not accessible to everyone. And there needs to be like another way to do this. So I look forward to being in this like creative process and and I really do look forward to hearing your like, how this is landing for you inside your own nervous system, and what kind of like, what pathways are being shown to you that like might be supportive for bringing this work into your life and your your world. I think there's a way to use technology and the power of groups to teach and practice somatics differently. Okay? Wow, so there's my story, and I thank you for listening. I'm really wanted, I want to take a minute here as we transition to feel into the your own experience, to notice our bodies. See what pieces of that resonated with you and when you connect with the pieces that felt resonant, notice what happens in your own system? Is there any softening anywhere, any part of your body that like comes in resonance? If there were any parts that didn't resonate or felt like they weren't for you. We can notice where they land, too, or you can just feel what it's like to just like, let them exist and not need to resonate with everything in order to be in connection. Big part of this work is building enough capacity to be able to be in relationship across difference, recognizing that we don't have to be in agreement or always the same in order to be connected.

Sarah 44:58
Maybe seeing if there's anything your body. Body wants to do at this point, just as we're giving it some attention, maybe there's some energy that wants to move, or maybe it wants to shift a bit to get more comfortable.

Sarah 45:21
I know I'm feeling really satisfied with having shared these aspects of my story with you, and I hope that they landed in a way that was helpful and bring some context to what we're trying to do here. I

Sarah 45:55
Okay. Now this is an idea that I've been having, and I put it up on Instagram that I wanted to potentially have a listener question segment of the podcast, and a bunch of you came In with questions. So here's our first listener question segment. This is a question from James, which I picked to do to start us off today because of having mentioned my experience with my fertility journey, my husband and I, we did not end up with a baby after our fertility journey. You know, not every journey ends up with the at the destination that you wanted. And you know, though, there's lots more to say about that at some point, but the the experience of trying and going through IVF and miscarriage and all the things is just really, really intense. So this question from James resonated with me, and I want to speak briefly. Well, we'll see. Still trying to figure out how long these podcasts want to be. Maybe you can let me know that too. If the shorter ones you like, the shorter ones or this one might land somewhere around an hour. We'll see. I want to spend some time speaking to James's question. Let me read what she wrote here. First, IVF, really everything, but just now struggling with fear leading up to embryo transfer. Oh, yeah, this is big, no doubt about it, yep. Just really feeling the everything that comes along with being on this ride. And I imagine that this, you know, going through fertility processes in general, tends to, like, really stretch our nervous system capacity. So just wanting to really name that most likely you're in a situation here where your capacity is pretty maxed out. I mean, oh my gosh, anytime we throw in hormone changes, like whenever you did the egg retrieval, like, holy cow, there's just a lot that that does to our bodies and our nervous systems. So just like wanting you to recognize that if you're if you're feeling like you're stretched, your capacity is full, your rubber band is stretched without much more space in it. That's probably a pretty normal experience of going through fertility. And many, maybe others who are listening can like, resonate with not the fertility part, but the experience of feeling really stretched to the edges of your capacity, maybe beyond. So in those times, that's okay, that's our nervous system is designed to do that. We're designed to, like, hold a lot, and to move through activating times. And then the work of those times is to help, is to like, load on all as much resource and support. And we're talking about like getting, like, asking friends to help you with meals or help you mow the lawn, or like, like, pulling on your community for you. Any kind of support that might help just get a little bit of space inside of your nervous system capacity so your you can your nervous system can settle a little bit, and then and inside of that as well, like recognizing micro moments of reprieve. So we're in inside of that. We're looking for, like, any glimmers, any moments when there's something that's pleasant, or something that's a little bit of a relief, and really noticing it, like trying to, like, stay with the experience enough that your body is able to realize that, like, Oh, we're having a moment here of, like, a little bit of pleasure, little bit of okayness. And those moments when we're able to take them in, they really impact the nervous system when it, especially when it's in that stretch to capacity place, excuse me,

Sarah 51:10
Maybe you're hearing that helicopter that just flew overhead. I

Sarah 51:32
so we'll try to like, layer on support. Notice the notice the micro moments of reprieve or deactivation, and let them land as much as you can. And then, when you're speaking to the fear, gosh, that's so real and valid. We put so much into each of these little embryos, and so much hope and love goes toward them, so much desire for the outcome that you want. One thing I want to link you to. I'll put this in the show notes, but the the there's a resource that Somatic Experiencing practitioner named twig Wheeler, made for preparing for surgical events through a nervous system lens. And if you look that up, there's a whole bunch of different recommendations there. Some may resonate and some won't, but I'd encourage you to, just like, look for a few of those that feel like they might be ones that would feel supportive for you. Like I remember I brought in a favorite blanket and a stuffed animal with me for my embryo transfer. We're just looking for ways for the nervous system to be able to attune to resource and support while you're going through this the experience of a surgical procedure. So that's one resource, and then I wonder about just taking care of this part of you that's that feels afraid, wondering if there's a way that you notice it in your body, and if there's a like a place that you can kind of locate any of that. And if you can maybe bringing a hand there, or maybe putting a pillow on that spot and giving it a little bit of light accompaniment through touch, because it really makes sense to have part of us feel afraid when we're working on something that matters so much.

Sarah 54:20
So we might want to see what it's like to just bring a little bit of presence, maybe with our own body there, to the area that's really noticing and holding that for the Body. I also a lot of nervous system work happens in what we call the image channel, which is working through the imagination. And not everyone resonates with this. Like some people don't have strong access to an image channel, and they might work a little bit differently, but if you are someone. Who has access to like, imagining things, visuals or, yeah, you know, some of what happens when we're afraid is that we're using the image channel, probably again, subconsciously, but we're like using it to imagine the worst outcome. And so there's a way that we might potentially be able to imagine, on purpose, that embryo having protection like, I love using protection bubbles. I will have to talk more about this sometime, but imagining that, like that embryo has, like a bubble of protection around it, we're doing things like intentionally to help the nervous system, because the nervous system will always default to imagining the the threat to like, trying to identify and perceive what could go wrong here, so that you can be prepared for it. Okay, great, so that will survive. Okay, great. That's helpful for survival, but it also often stresses us out. And so here in this work, we're often looking to like, yes, identify that it's helpful to know and then, but we don't want to get stuck there if we if it's not an actual survival situation, and we might be able to like, also imagine other possible outcomes. So maybe you, I mean, maybe you're imagining the best possible outcome. But I, what I find is often the thing that feels the most useful for people is to help imagine the thing that you're worried about, having some protection around it, and some support, some just thinking about, like, what kind of support that embryo might benefit from. And you can bring that in, you know, like whether it's superheroes or angels or the support of the forest or the moss, you know, we can kind of anything's possible in the image channel. So you can pull in any kind of magical thinking that you want. And you know, if this resonates with you, take it and run with it, and then notice the way your body responds. Hi. Just passing a couple other walkers. Notice, though, notice the way that your body responds when you're in that aspect of the image channel, because that's the way that that experience is impacting the nervous system is if your body starts to, like, feel a little bit more open, maybe you like, notice your back body a little bit more. We're just kind of looking for clues that the nervous system is able to deactivate a bit. And you might want to carry those images in to the experience with you. And then the last piece here, I want to say, is that there is this. This really can feel isolating and like you're doing a lot of it alone. But there, there is also the experience of infertility, of IVF, of navigating our human bodies that is has a universal quality to it. And I know inside of the infertility community, there are networks. There's just a lot of people, something like 10% of people trying to have families, navigate infertility. So there's, like, a lot of people worldwide who have walked this path. I Yeah, and speaking, you know, here inside of a co regulation conversation, I think there might be a resource in feeling into the way that you're not alone, and that there, there are, like, sometimes I like to imagine little like spider web threads connecting all of us who have navigated this and who who really relate to the fear and the uncertainty and the challenge here and. Yeah, and just feel into the way that there are connections between us, even if they're not in the same room, but like we are, the weight of this can kind of land on the web of the spider web that connects us all, and you don't have to hold it all yourself. So again, you know, if that feels useful, take it and play with it. You know, adjust it in a way that, like actually makes it work for you. It's another image channel offering that might help your body sense into the potential to co regulate with others inside of the infertility community, the fertility journey community. And of course, if it doesn't resonate, you can just let that one go. Okay, best of luck. I'm definitely feeling into the spider web connection here that we have as people who have shared, you know, our experiences are different, certainly, and there is a way that we're connected in them as well. Okay, ah, feeling my breath, feeling my feet and noticing the forest around me. Thank you for being here for this CO regulation conversation. I hope that it's been useful, and I look forward to next time. Until then, take really good care of yourself and each other, and I'll see you then you.