Speaker 1 0:04
Hello, co-regulation conversations. Welcome back. Good to be here with you today. I'm walking here by a little stream that I'm not sure if you'll be able to hear, but it's here alongside us while we start this conversation time together. I wanted to share about the topic of co-regulation today, specifically, and a way of accessing it that I've been playing with lately, having a lot of fun with, and I think is accessible to all of us. So, kind of excited. Let's see where this goes. All right. So, this Story begins a couple weeks ago when I was on Instagram and came across the story of Sophie Grant, who is this ultra runner, mountain runner from New Zealand, and is a to do this really impressive athletic thing in Europe right now, crossing through the Alps on the they call it the Via Alpina, and she's trying to break the record for it, and it's just very impressive thing to be doing, and something about the way Sophie is showing up-at least the people who are helping her like post photos and videos while she's doing it-are she's coming across just really genuine and like she's having a good time, even while she's doing this really challenging thing that's physically. Oh my gosh! Okay, I mean, just physically, she's doing something like 50 to 80 or more kilometers a day, which is I think somewhere like between 40 and 70 miles a day on like trails and off trail even routes without trail, and it's very impressive. And she's the current record. I think it was 38 days for women and 35 for men, and she's trying to do it in 30. When I'm recording this, she's actually did it. Like, she made it in 29, and I'm just so amazed that her body held together for that, and her mind held together. And what a incredible accomplishment! And okay, so I started to get really into following her each day getting updates, and I was so inspired. It was just really fun to follow along with, and I don't know. This is not something I do all that often. Follow along with races, and there's often people doing very impressive things all around, but for some reason this one really caught. I really got caught up in it, and I noticed that it changed my state. It changed my nervous system state, being following along and getting excited for these updates, I would check in on her in the morning before I'd get started with my day, and every day I was like, "Oh my gosh, he did another 60 miles! What the heck? What a badass! and feel uplifted by that, and then want to do something with that energy that was in my body, and that in its like essentially what's happening there is a form of co-regulation through the experience Of inspiration, isn't that neat? When we're feeling inspired by others, we end up sharing. I mean, co-regulation is essentially sharing of a nervous system state, or being having your nervous system state be influenced by others, or maybe you're influencing the other people. If you're the grandmother clock that other people are co-regulating too, but essentially, we're we all have this potential to meet and match others, gravitate toward or. Away from other people's rhythms, and my my being influenced in a good way, being by Sophie's endeavors, was a very positive form of co-regulation for me, an uplifting one too, which is actually important to name because I think there's a way that sometimes we think of co-regulation as helping our bodies, and maybe I I mostly talk about it here in this forum, but helping our bodies feel safe and settled and kind of downregulate. But yeah, just as important is to have access to upregulation, and especially the experience of upregulation in safety when we're feeling good or through positive sensation channels, like the things that we call joy and being inspired.
Speaker 1 5:59
So yeah, basically, like where that went for me is that I was talking with a girlfriend about going on the hike, and we, like, with this kind of inspired state that I was enjoying, I was inspired to propose a more challenging hike than I've done, longer, longer, more challenging hike than I've done in a day before, and so we we took off on this big hike, and even while I was out there, I was feeding off of this energy, remembering how what it was like to watch, and to know that a human body could even do that, like 40 mile days on repeat for 29. I mean, most of a month. It's really impressive. So I could feel the way that, like, when I'd recall the her like the photos and the stories that were coming out of this time, that my own energy would shift again to while I was out there, and it was fun to share it with Hannah and tell her some of the stories and the that. that energy that we were sharing was had some contagion to it, and and helped us. It felt like I don't know. I mean, of course, I don't think that like if we are inspired enough, we can get our bodies to like. That also helped that we are trained, you know, and like have been hiking through the summers. It's like it's not going to make us like do Olympic level feats out of nowhere, but to like be able to stretch into a new expanded place, and it ended up being The longest backcountry hike that I've done in a day, and most miles in a day at 44 to have a new PR at this age, you know, I hadn't known that that was necessarily going to be possible. So that was pretty fun, so fun, actually. I'm still I'm still riding the high of that experience, and it's now been yeah a little while, and it's so I I'm recognizing what I'm seeing through this is the way that inspire inspiration, being inspired, and then sharing that with others can be a co-regulating experience of that has this uplifting potential to it, and this expansiveness, and I think that's really neat. I'm really having a great time with it, and it's fun to think about, and also fun to think about how to do it well, how to notice it when it's around, and intentionally enjoy it. Be like, I'm feeling inspired, and like, oh, this. What does it feel like in my body, and what does my body want to do when it's feeling like this? Like, what does it? What do I want to do with this energy? And maybe, right now, you also just want to take a moment and either recall a time when you're you felt inspired, or maybe you're feeling some of it now through my sharing of Sophie's story and my own, and might be a chance to, yeah. Notice for a moment what it feels like in you right now. Do you notice anything sensation-wise? Maybe in your chest or your face. Yeah, belly. You know, could be anywhere, really. No right answers, and we're just looking for what information you might notice, and maybe it comes through, like images or thoughts or memories. Yeah, and then you know, another of my questions or invitations here would be to see what wants to happen with that Inspiration, and you can just let that question even just sit around in your awareness and see if anything sparks with it over the next few days and beyond. Yeah, I mean, I'm also thinking about like what it takes to keep to like feed fan this flame, and what it's like to move in and out of inspiration, like be uninspired for a time, and then kind of wait for the inspiration to come back around. There's like a. It almost feels to me like a, like there's a flirtiness or like a.
Speaker 1 11:58
Like turn on, maybe you have to like kind of coax inspiration sometimes, and also maybe there's something about letting there be times when we're feeling the lack of inspiration and letting that be okay too, and know that that'll come back around, and that maybe there are ways we can we can seek it out or nudge it along by seeking out experiences or people or Media or experiences, generally, yeah, that bring that light back out to the surface. Possibility of being inspired. Oh, and then there's the other side of it too about thinking about how we might also be passing that on, and maybe there's a co-regulation potential through the sharing of inspiration or the or the being of something to think about. I've been thinking about being what it means to be a good influence, and that feels related here. I feel positively influenced by this experience, watching Sophie Grant and her team and all their accomplishments recently. Go team, and yeah, maybe there's something about the way that we're already kind of offering back this potential for co-regulation just through living our life in ways that are positively influential, being a good influence. Okay. Thanks for being here for this conversation. It's a fun one for me. I look forward to continuing to nerd out on this and experiment with it, and to hearing from you as well what you are noticing as you play with these ideas. Okay, until next time. Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
