Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You are listening to episode number 265 of Better Blood Sugars with Delane, Md. Welcome to Better Blood Sugars with Delane MD, where you can learn strategies to lower your blood sugars and improve your overall health. I'm your host, Doctor Delane Vaughn. Ladies, if you know you're capable of doing badass things at work and for your family, but you're confused and frustrated with why you can't seem to stop eating the chocolate cake, this podcast is for you. Let's talk.
Hey there. Welcome to the podcast. I have Eva Whitmer. She is a licensed therapist on the podcast. Today we're having a great conversation about stress and the stress response in the body. We talk about polyvagal theory and the window of tolerance within that theory. Eva does a great job of walking you through a meditative practice so that you can start to tune into your body and really understand what you're actually feeling in your body and start to see where stress is showing up and how it's showing up. We talk about a great strategy for determining what we actually do when we're emotionally eating, what we're feeling and what we're reaching for. Great strategy that I think is going to be really effective for determining that. And then another thing that Eva dives into is a great explanation of why it's important to manage stress. This episode is amazing. I think it's going to be really helpful.
This month, we've talked about stress on the podcast, and I think that hopefully I have planted a seed in your brain about why it really, truly is so important to learn to manage stress. Eva is going to walk you through the how to of it. So I hope you enjoy this podcast immensely. And if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to me. Delanemd.com. i will be back next week. Bye bye.
Hey there. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad that you're taking time to devote to your health today and that you're choosing to spend it with me. Today we have a special episode. I have a guest, Eva Whitmer. She's joining me to discuss the science of stress and strategies to manage stress effectively. I'm going to let her introduce herself here in just a moment. But before we get started, I want to give you my typical warning about medications. If you have been medicated for your type two diabetes and you implement some of the changes that I talk about in these podcast episodes, you will find that you do not need as many medications you've been medicated because of the way you've eaten in the past, and if you change the way you eat, you're going to need to change your meds. If you don't do this, you can get very sick, the kind of sick that looks like getting hospitalized, and we don't want that. So I need you to get a line of communication open with your medical provider. Find out how they want you to share your blood sugar readings with them and how they intend to share medication changes with you. If you don't do that, you can get real sick, and I don't want that for you. So I want to encourage you to do that. Let's get started with the interview today. I want to welcome Eva Whitmer, my good friend. But in addition, just a great source of information about stress and all of the, you know, tech techniques that we can use to manage our stress. So, Eva, welcome, and thank you for joining me.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: Hi, Delane. Thank you so much. The, um, feelings are mutual.
My name is Eva Whitmer. I'm a licensed professional counselor. I specialize in trauma therapy.
So I'm helping people overcome big stressors in their life.
But I'm also a certified yoga instructor, a certified reiki practitioner. I also have been, a long time ago, certified crossfit instructor. So kind of have a broad base of how the body and mind connect.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Yes. That's why you are such a great wealth of information, and I just appreciate that so much. And the way that you can integrate so many different aspects is just incredible. So that's kind of what we're going to talk about today. This month on the podcast, I've been talking about stress and stress management and my very, very shallow, superficial understanding of it. And really, I appreciate you coming on today. So we can guide, kind of dive deeper into not only the physiology of stress and how it impacts our bodies and our blood sugar and our health, but also strategies that we can use to do it differently, like techniques that we can use to manage this. One of the things that you and I have spoken about when we were prepping for this was the polyvagal therapy. So I understand. Oh, no, that's not true. Know of the polyvagal theory, but I don't. I don't know that I have a deep understanding. So I was hoping that you could give us kind of some information about that and clarification about what is the polyvagal theory.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: Yeah, it can be rather confusing, and it is based on the function of the vagus nerve, which is one of the twelve major or twelve main nerves that connect the body and brain. It's how the information moves from brain to body. We tend to see body and brain as being disconnected, but they are so connected and integrated, oftentimes we approach one without approaching the other.
This is really the theory that the vagus nerve has holly many functions.
The vagus nerve is what helps us stay regulated in this window of tolerance. And then when we are dysregulated, we either go into fight or flight, or we shut down and go into, like, a freeze. And oftentimes that freeze can be a functional freeze. And more people than we realize live in this functional freeze, this chronic low level stress, or sometimes a chronic high level of stress. And it affects the body, not just the emotions. So that dysregulation really is affecting your quality of life.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: One question. So I've heard, you know, we were always taught in medical school, fight or flight. You know, that's kind of the. And then after medical school, they started adding this third, fight. Fight or feign, which I really, because I'm a feigner, right? Like, I know one of my responses to stress is to just appease, just.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: To, like, shut down.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Let's. Let's avoid the situation at all. I don't want to fight you. I don't want to run from you. Let's just appease you.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's also known as Fawn, where we tend to go into that people.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Maybe that's the word I'm thinking of, is fawn. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Fight, flight, or fawn.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: There's a. They've added a fifth one, too. So it's fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and then I can't remember the other one. It's another f. Of course. But it is. It's very pertinent. Like, it's like it's real. So.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So, um, I think that that's to see kind of where this shows up, like, for everybody to think about. Are you a fighter? Are you a flight? Or are you a fawner? Are you. What's the other one? Freeze? Are you. You know, do you freeze? Do you not do anything? Where are you? Where is it showing up? Where is your. What is your response to stress and dysregulation? Curiously, do we, within this polyvagal theory, do they, do most people fall into one category? I mean, I'm sure in different scenarios, maybe we could be pushed into another response. But do we typically have a pretty standard response?
[00:07:35] Speaker B: Yeah, there usually tends to be an overarching theme in a person's life, but then in different situations or different relationships, you'll find yourself responding in different ways based on the circumstances or the relationship. Sure.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm a. I'm a fawner. Like, that is my thing. I like, I'm just like, okay, let's.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: So you don't like conflict, you don't like to confront people. You just want to keep things status quo and everybody be happy.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: I don't want to fight. I don't want to run. Yeah. Except for me. I'm going to get around.
My capacity for suffering is deep.
I'm just kidding. I mean, life is good, but. Yeah, absolutely. And it's so interesting. I love my mom and dad. So much of this comes from, you know, family of origin and childhood and just where we learn to manage our experience. I love my parents dearly, and they have a lot of redeeming qualities, but certainly there were a lot of things growing up that weren't perfect with them. My brother and I are both fawners. We are both, like, both of us. Like, there was so much. My parents bicker. To this day, they've been married 52 years. You know, they love each other immensely and deeply. Part of the dynamics of their relationship is this constant bickering. And for my brother and I, that created a lot of friction and discomfort.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: Dysregulation.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: And so he and I like, it could be something petty, like, I don't like that candle. And he and I will like, we will fawn that, we will press that down. We will not acknowledge, we will not talk about it. We don't care how much we have to suffer for the rest of our life with that stinking candle. Like, we're not going to talk about it. So I think that's really interesting. And then seeing where it comes up. So I think that that is one part is to kind of, for everybody, as they're listening to this, to think about where, like, what is their typical response? And maybe they do have a very neat, you know, even response across all different, all the five different options. But most of us find that we fall into one category, and seeing that, so we can start to see where it's showing up and then tell, I want you to maybe explain deeper about dysregulation. What does that look like?
[00:09:45] Speaker B: So dysregulation can be different for everybody. And I want to especially talk about the window of tolerance, because the window of tolerance is where we're in that mostly regulated state. It's where we're able to function, where we think clearly, we make wise decisions, our emotions are regulated, we're able to articulate and communicate well.
But when you have now, and I want to say, too, that this window of tolerance, like I said, can be different for everybody. My window of tolerance might be that chaos is very familiar to me. So having calm and peace might feel dysregulating to me. Person might be used to living, and that goes back to family of origin, too. Another person may be very regulated in a calm, you know, peaceful state where things are not disruptive, and then they get into a situation where things are very chaotic, and then they are out of. Outside of their window of tolerance. So it's about what you know and what you've learned to function in. And like I said, a lot of us can be in that functional freeze where we're shut down, but this is where we function best. So anytime we try to broaden that window of tolerance, we need to do it in very small, incremental steps.
And it's when we have those.
I'll just give this example. Let's say, you know, you overslept and your kid melted down before you left this morning, and the traffic was horrible, and then you got rear ended in the parking lot. You know, you put one of those things, you can handle it, but you layering all of those little stresses, by the time you walk into work, if there's a box of donuts, you're going to freaking eat the donut because you're just, you're stressed and you're outside of your window of tolerance. Does that make sense?
[00:11:41] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: Especially when we're talking about food and blood sugars and when we're trying to make these changes, changes, even though they're good, can push you outside of that window of tolerance. So it's those small incremental steps to build that window of tolerance to be able to make those lasting changes.
So looking at the indicators that we've gone outside of the window of tolerance, maybe it is just noticing when I'm stressed, I'm eating or I'm going through the drive through, you know, anything, it is like that, or I'm stuffing my emotions and I'm not talking about how I'm feeling, like that's a clue that there's some dysregulation going on. We can, we can look, like I said, we can look to those habits as indicators that something is off and we're outside of that window. So how do we get back into that window of tolerance? Is what we're going to talk more about here shortly. Does that answer your question. I think I kind of went off on a tangent.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: No, I love it, I love it, I love it. That's so good. And it's so interesting because we have this conversation. Most women are not coming to me going at 08:00 in the morning, I lost my marbles and ate the bag of candy. Right? Like that's never. It's that accumulation of those small stressors by the end of the day they push you to this threshold that suddenly at night you're like, screw, let's have pizza and popcorn for dinner instead of taking care of ourselves in the way we want to. So that's really.
It's interesting to hear that scenario which we talk about. I talk about it as an accumulation of stressors, but to hear it spoken of in that whole window of tolerance and when we get outside of that, so that's really interesting.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: So, well, in the piece of the. When we're outside of that window of tolerance, the cortisol goes up, the adrenaline goes up, which like you've spoken about affects your blood sugar. So it's, it's a chemistry, it's a physical reaction to the emotions. There again, there's that connection between mind and body.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny, it's like this big thing called our neck. It has all this important structures, it connects the body to the mind, but surely there's not a major connection between.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: It seems so obvious.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: I know, it's so funny. In medicine, I mean we are like medical practitioners are of notorious for ignoring, for separating the two. And I'm like, do you remember this thing? We all learned about it. It's a neck, nerves, arteries, veins, all the important things.
I guess let's dive into more of this, you know, window of tolerance and how we bring ourselves back into that and how we manage being outside of that.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: Yeah, and the first thing is being able to create awareness that there is something off. And that I think is a lot, a lot of the time. The hardest part is just the awareness piece of noticing.
How is my body feeling? Am I feeling tense or am I feeling relaxed? Am I feeling constricted or do I feel expansive? These are a lot of the words that I use in the body based therapy that I do with my clients. It's just bringing that awareness back to your body. Because our inner workings, our intuition is always speaking to us through all of our senses. We're taking information in through our eyes, our ears, our nose, our taste, everything.
And that's the initial information that then goes to the brain and then we make up a story about it.
So it's learning to cue into those clues early before we get to the point where we've made a story that, well, now I'm just going to stop for pizza on the way home.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:26] Speaker A: This is what I describe it as. The brain being this incredible prediction model, this prediction machine. Computer. And that we take the things in through the sensory, and then that that's our circumstance and that our brain gives us the thought, which is our prediction about what those sensory inputs are going to mean. And then that feeling that we need to become aware of this. I talk to people, I talk to clients about this in my group all the time. The brain, the way I see it, is the brain tells the body about that prediction through a feeling that you feel in your body and learning, like, what is it? Like, what is that feeling? So, I think this is great. You and I have never actually spoken about this before, but that you describe it this way and that I describe it this way, and you've studied it so much deeper than me, so I think that that just adds creed to it, so. But, yeah, well, and we talk about.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: The connection between the body and the brain being either afferent or efferent. So 20% of it is efferent, meaning it's from the brain to the body, meaning our thoughts translate into our bodily reactions. And that's. That's solid. It really does. It really is there, but 80% is from the body to the brain.
So you can see how working with the body is going to give you much bigger results much faster because it has a much bigger load of influence in that connection.
So when we, when we're tuning into the body, we're catching it earlier so that we're able to change that narrative and change the story and rewrite, you know, reprogram, create new neural pathways.
That's exciting. Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of times, you know, old psychology is, is from top down instead of bottom up. So we think that, oh, well, if I just change my thoughts, if I just say a positive thought over and over and over again, then it will stick eventually, right? Well, I mean, yeah, eventually it does work, but it takes a whole lot more effort. But if we're working with the body to change the way that the brain works, it's much more effective.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. I love that. So, yeah, so part of it is that aware. I mean, a big part of it.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: And I think that's the key is the awareness.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: It is because we're not taught like nobody taught it teaches us, like, in fact, when we're kids, we are taught to suppress those feelings.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Clean your plates, finish your meal. Yes.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: No questioning of any of it. Be nice to everybody. This is a big one, you know, that I'm trying to overcome, like, being polite.
There is a difference between not saying whatever rude thing floats out of my brain into, you know, not letting it out of my mouth. That is one thing. And then there is another thing. When we are choosing to try to see the best in people, when maybe the best isn't there, and we need to acknowledge, like, that person does not match my value system. Right, right. But we're taught this whole, suppress what your brain is telling you, suppress that feeling, don't acknowledge it, ignore it, move forward. Behaving in these socially accepted ways.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: Yeah, well, even in the medical community, for all the, you know, I'm not against the medical community, but for everything that they give us, they also teach us that we don't really know our bodies, that we can't listen to our intuition, that they know better than we do, how we should feel or what medication we need or how we should be eating or how much we should be moving or what's normal. Yes. Yeah, exactly. And those are good guidelines, but they don't fit everybody.
[00:19:10] Speaker A: They don't. And sometimes, like, I'm always like, your patient spends more time with their body than you ever will, so, like, they've got to know something a little bit more than trusting that.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: I agree.
[00:19:22] Speaker A: Yeah. So, um, can you talk a little bit more about the dysregulation component? How, you know, you're, I mean, and maybe you've covered it as much as there is to cover, but how do you know when you're in this dysregulation?
[00:19:35] Speaker B: Um, the clues. And I would love to walk you through a short exercise to kind of bring some awareness to your body. Is that okay?
[00:19:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:45] Speaker B: Okay, so if you're driving, obviously I'm not going to ask you to close your eyes, but you can still practice this. But if you're in a place where you can, um, kind of tune out and close your eyes for a minute, that would be great. Um, just.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: I'm going to work through the exercise, so. Okay.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: So take out of that trans. You need to call me out.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: So this, this won't put you in a trance? No hypnosis here. Although I do. I do love me some hypnosis. That stuff works.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it does.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: Um, so we're just going to check in with the body. So if you're able to close your eyes, go for it. If not, then, you know, just kind of zone out a little bit on the car in front of you or whatever you're doing, and take a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.
And notice that the air is cool coming in.
Just continue to take those breaths and notice on your exhale how that air is warm, how we've metabolized and changed what came in.
And try to use your belly to breathe just a little bit. We tend to be chest breathers, so we're just going to switch to using your belly to breathe, which engages your diaphragm.
And your vagus nerve is directly connected to that diaphragm. So we're just working on some vagal toning here, which just means that we have a ability to be resilient and move in and out of those regulated and dysregulated states. We're just breathing here, just noticing, without judging, without making any meaning out of what you notice.
And maybe draw your attention to your right hand, and then your right elbow, and then your right shoulder, and your left shoulder, and your left elbow and your left hand.
And then from here, I'm going to ask you to clench your fists as tight as you can, and then release them and just notice the difference, maybe taking a couple more breaths.
And then from here, when you clench your hands, clench your arms and your chest and your belly and your legs and your toes, and maybe your face, clench everything that you can get as tight as you can, and then release it.
And just notice, observe without making meaning out of it, without taking inventory of filing things away as good or bad.
It's just there.
And let's do that one more time. We're just going to do a whole body clenching as tight as you can.
And since you're not on a screen, you can just clench up as tight as you can into a little ball.
Notice how your breath changes when you're clenched and then release.
So we're just looking at the contrast, the difference there.
We're kind of eliciting that wider pendulum of what it feels like to be really clenched and then really relaxed.
And most of the time, we're not all the way to that full clench, that full tense feeling. We tend to start with, you know, just a tight jaw or clenched teeth or tight shoulders, or maybe your belly gets engaged a little bit more.
These are those clues that something feels off, something speaking to me. There's information here that doesn't feel quite what I like. It's not in my window of tolerance. Okay. So go ahead and open your eyes. We'll just come back to our little talk here and tell me what you noticed for me.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: I noticed that I stopped breathing.
Like, I couldn't wait to stop clenching because it's like, then I get to breathe again.
That was the biggest thing. I did notice that even the clenching, like, even after I relaxed, like, my hands were sore, even after the relaxation set in, which I don't know that I would have appreciated that before.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. When we're stressed, we tend to breathe shallow. We tend to not fully use our lungs.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: I definitely, like, you know, again, the shallower. And of course, then, like, it is really hard to make really great decisions in life whenever we're not breathing.
[00:25:23] Speaker B: When you're not getting enough oxygen. Yeah.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: So that totally makes sense. But, yeah, those. The other thing that's kind of interesting is there were areas that I clearly, I carry that tension and stress I know in my upper body and my core, because the idea of stressing and, like, contracting my legs like that was.
It was. It felt foreign where the rest of it felt pretty common.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
And it's amazing how long we can live in that tense and constricted state without even realizing it.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
So some of the things that I suggest to make, to make sure that you're staying aware is having a regular practice of maybe just taking a few breaths in the morning, taking a few breaths when you're laying down to go to bed, just to start increasing that awareness of, am I clenched? Am I. Am I. Am I holding on to things that I. That aren't serving me?
Am I dysregulated?
Yeah. And oftentimes the answer is yeah.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So on that note, how, like, is it possible, or is this, like, idea of the polyvagal theory and this dysregulation and that window of tolerance, is there any time that that's not happening in the human? I mean, is there, like, does Buddha live outside of that? You know, is there any place where, like, the human being does not have to implement this? Or is this just kind of, like, we breathe oxygen in and our lungs do this, you know, ventilation thing, and it just is part of our human existence?
[00:27:10] Speaker B: That's. That's an amazing question, because we tend to see dysregulation as something we want to avoid, and that's not at all, um, appropriate, because we need to have those responses. We need to have fight, flight, freeze. That's how we survive. That's how we respond to stress. Um, so it's not so much about avoiding dysregulation. It's be being able to create that resilience that when I am dysregulated, I'm able to bring myself back to the regulation.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: See the difference?
[00:27:41] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I. Yeah. It's kind of like you don't want to breathe when you're underwater, so you avoid breathing, but you need to bring yourself back to breathe. I mean, like, really? Like, that's just part of the human existence. How interesting. Yes, because. Yes, absolutely. Well, one, I mean, nobody took us in, you know, third grade and taught us about polyvagal theory, and, like, sometimes we're dysregulated and sometimes we're regulated, and we need to figure out the difference between those and how to kind of, like, move between those. Kind of like somebody took us to a swimming pool, though, and said, hold your breath underwater. Swim. And then when you come back up, breathe. Right. It's so interesting. So nobody really taught us that.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I think that I would say I can speak for the majority of people, and at least the majority of my clients do not have a language for their emotions.
I use something very often with clients. It's called the emotional wheel. I highly recommend everybody look it up because it gives you names, it gives you a way to describe what you're feeling. You know, my parents never sat down and said, oh, you're feeling really frustrated right now, or you're feeling angry. You're feeling disappointed. It was just a yucky feeling or a good feeling. It wasn't. There were no words. And there's so many nuances with emotions and the things that we feel that we need that language, we need that ability to articulate what we're feeling, and if not to anybody else, but to ourself, because we can self validate and realize, oh, I'm feeling really frustrated or I'm feeling really overwhelmed, therefore, I'm clenching my shoulders, or I'm holding a lot of tension in, you know, in my jaw. And the more I do that, I realize that I'm reaching for the candy, you know, that's stashed away in the back of the cabinet. Like, it's just noticing all those little clues and cues to be able to bring yourself back to a state where you can make the decision you want to make.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that that's really great. We talk about it in the group about our feelings and how. I read a statistic somewhere, and you'll know whether this is a real statistic or whether it's been changed. But, like, the average human, the average american at least can name three emotions that they have, and it's usually happy, sad, mad. Those are usually the three. And anything more descriptive than that is not part of their typical vocabulary. Yeah. And the feelings wheel is. So I call it a feelings wheel, but an emotion wheel. And you can. There's a. I mean, I'm, you know, this, but just for the audience, like, there's a thousand different versions of these out here. I love it, though, because on the inner part of the wheel, you do have those real basic, sad, mad, glad, you know, neutral. Yeah. And then on this, concentric rings, they break each of those down into a more specific emotion. So if, you know, you're on the sad side, then you can get more specific. And I think it is really, you.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Know, this acknowledges on the back, on the refrigerator, like, before you put the refrigerator, name an emotion, and then start to realize, like, there's a correlation here. When I'm feeling this way, this is what I'm reaching for.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. On whatever feelings real. On whatever food choice, you know, that is your problem child's food choice or whatever. I think it's also important for me, at least, you know, I know I don't reach. I mean, I understand that my intent and, like, you know, maybe my baseline would be to reach for food, but that's just not on the table. No more than reaching for wine or anything else. I mean, it's just not on the table for me as a management strategy. But what I do notice is I actually notice the tension in my body long. I'm at this point where I noticed the tension in my body long before I actually name the emotion that I experienced, experience.
And so. And it usually it's my. My shoulders are up by my ears, and, you know, I just am like, oh, what is going on? Oh, I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'm feeling rushed, whatever it is. So I think it is possible, but it takes these baby steps backwards from the brink of whatever it is that you're doing that you're, you know, that's leading to bad health. Like, whatever that is. You're gonna have to take baby steps back and kind of deconstruct it to where you get back to that naming.
[00:31:59] Speaker B: That emotion, and let's reframe that and say, let's not say. Let's not say we're taking baby steps back. Let's saying we're getting down to the core. Yeah, we're boiling it. We're making it much more simple. Instead, we're simplifying it because it's complicated. It's this tangled up mess, this web that we live in. And let's get down to the core and let's simplify that.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: I love that. I was going to say, you know, this acknowledgement of emotions, when we, you know, we want, there is something to simplifying a source, and then there is something to having a complex experience and trying to pigeonhole it into a few categories and how much is lost in doing that. And I feel like our emotions, it's like, oh, this is one of those negative emotions that I don't have time to deal with, or this is a positive emotion that I would love to create more of versus. I mean, it's the equivalent of, like, defining all humans as male or female and calling that enough acknowledgement. Like, that's acknowledgement of all the humans. It's, every human just needs to be acknowledged as either me or.
[00:33:09] Speaker B: It's very binary.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: Yeah, and it's that binary. I mean, it's.
It's almost like it's black and white. Yeah.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And there's so many, like, there's so many more nuances to it. And that's a really good, I love that you brought that up. Because the making meaning out of our emotions and labeling them as good or bad, positive or negative, can be such a hindrance to actually letting ourselves feel them, because we tend, we avoid the bad or the uncomfortable feelings, and we give ourselves permission to feel the good ones. You know, typically not, that's not across the board, but typically.
And there's such a big piece to emotions that is missing in our society, and that is compassion, self compassion.
When we're noticing, the key is to have compassion and not label things as good or bad, positive or negative, you know, and making meaning out of it. If I'm thinking, you know, this thought, it doesn't mean I'm a bad person. It just means that this is how I'm feeling right now.
That compassion piece, I come back to that with every single client, every single situation. It's. That's the piece that makes the shift, because we can so easily, you know, berate ourselves for, oh, I can't believe I did it again. I ate the donut at work. You know, even though I recognize that I was feeling dysregulated, even if I was recognizing the feelings in my body, even if I knew it was just a momentary emotion, I still, I still turned to it and I ate it. It's being able to catch that the next time and realize, okay, I see what I did. Okay, I see how I got there. Noted. Next time I catch myself in the same thing, I can make a different decision. Because if we continue in that narrative of I'm never going to get this right. Oh, yeah, look at what I did. This is awful. It's just, it's just perpetuating the same cycle, and then you repeat the same patterns over and over again. Compassion is the piece that changes the cycle.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I like to use the phrase with clients, I'm a human being and human beings feel this way. Yeah. I'm a human being and I'm angry. Human beings angry, or I'm a human being. And I just thought this really horrible thought because human beings do this. It's just part of human experience.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: Normalizing it. Yes.
[00:35:44] Speaker A: Yeah. So that's so. And I do, you know, there is also the element of when. I love this neutrality idea, right? When we are neutral in the things that we're experiencing, when we, you know, understand that all of it is part of the human experience, um, there's no need to strive to create more of one thing, and there's no need to, you know, limit and try to diminish another thing. And I think that that is what gets us. Like, that is what leads to the reaching for food. I have a quote unquote bad feeling. I've identified this as a bad feeling, and I don't want to have it anymore. How can I resolve this feeling? Donuts, help. Let's do that. And we're taught this at a very young age. Right. Like a bad day at school. Let's go out and get ice cream.
[00:36:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: You deserve it. Yeah. On the converse, right. Is I'm having this great experience. I don't want it to end.
Having a good day at school. Having a great day, having good grades. Let's go get ice cream. You know what I mean? Ice cream is the answer to all the things, right? And it's, you know, the lack of neutrality, the either striving to keep one emotion that you think you want forever, or the, you know, interest in avoiding an emotion you never want to feel again because one's good and one's bad and the neutrality of it. And this is the human experience. And this is part of our, you know, robust experience of human beings and embracing the, even the uncomfortable part with the, with the knowledge that they'll come and go, just like the good stuff. Come and go, you know?
[00:37:16] Speaker B: Yeah. An exercise that I often do with clients is to, I walk them through a meditation to where they're able to just observe the thoughts as they come in and go out, and they give me a. A cue or raise their hand or something to tell me every time they notice a new thought. And there's usually about 90 seconds in between. Thoughts changing, emotions, feelings changing.
We tend to feel like emotions last forever, you know, especially when it's a strong emotion. It feels like it envelops us and it just consumes us.
But if we let the emotion just be there, instead of attaching to it and making meaning out of it, it will come in and it will go out.
[00:37:59] Speaker A: I think that that's almost one of the. I mean, like, mystical for. I don't know. Magical is the other word. The way that our brain can convince us that an emotion is permanent.
It's like the closest thing to a sorcerer's magic I have ever seen, truly. And we all know, like, logically, we're like, no, that doesn't happen. None of the emotions. We know that logically, but our feeling is truly that it is a yemenite permanent experience, and it truly is like a mystical, magical potion or spell that's cast upon us, even though logically, we know that's not true. So, back to this polyvagal theory, I guess, in the literature, and the actual studying of the theory of this, is self compassion actually a key point of that window of tolerance?
Is it spoken of in the literature? Because it makes sense that it would be.
[00:38:56] Speaker B: You know, I don't know that it is, and at least in my studies, I haven't found that, but I haven't looked for it. So that's a really good question, but I don't know how it couldn't be.
[00:39:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Right.
[00:39:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:06] Speaker A: This should be the pillar of the window of tolerance. Is that self compassion component of it? So that's interesting.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:15] Speaker A: So I wonder, you and I have studied this idea of stress from two different perspectives, although not totally opposite perspectives by any stretch. But I'd love to hear your understanding and kind of what you understand in the literature as far as the effect that even this low level stress has on our biology.
[00:39:41] Speaker B: I mean, it's just that, like we said, that low level, chronic stress, when we're not.
When we're not allowing ourselves to work through the emotions and we're just pushing them away, that's just increasing the levels of stress. You know, if you think about.
Oh, I'm trying to think of a good example.
If you spill something and you clean it up, then you no longer have a spill but if you spill something and you don't clean it up and then you have another spill, and then you have another spill, you know, it comes a mess. Yes. Then it becomes an overwhelming amount of mess to clean up. It's deciding to address everything as it comes up in the moment instead of just pushing it off to the side of. Even if that's just in that momentary noticing or realizing, being able to articulate to yourself, to validate your own emotion. Oh, I'm feeling really overwhelmed right now, or I'm feeling disempowered right now.
Just having that validation is going to acknowledge the feeling. When you acknowledge a feeling, it will immediately decrease. Emotions get loud because we haven't noticed them.
When your kid, you know, if you have a kid or your dog, if you want to look at it that way, anything that's coming to you and asking for something, asking for a response from you, if you continue to ignore it, it will keep getting louder to get your attention. That's the same thing emotions do. They just want to be heard. They just want to be acknowledged. And so taking that time to just acknowledge, okay, this is how I'm feeling right now. It makes sense. Having compassion with yourself, it will quiet that emotion down because it just. It just wants to be recognized.
[00:41:38] Speaker A: I love that women always are. Like, how do I just process emotion? Now? Tell me, what do I do with it?
[00:41:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The whole sit with your feelings. Like, how do you sit with, like.
[00:41:48] Speaker A: Tell me more about this. This is a strange world you live in. Yeah.
[00:41:51] Speaker B: Literally, just listening to it and acknowledging, oh, okay, I see you. Yeah. And you're allowed to be here. That's an exercise I do with my clients a lot, is just tuning. It's honestly, it's that inner child. The inner child wants to be seen. They want to be acknowledged. It's something they didn't get in childhood or in the past. And you can give it that now, and you can say, I see you, and you're allowed to be here. And thank you for what you're communicating to me, because our emotions are just data. They're just trying to tell us what we should do to be safe.
[00:42:26] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. I love that you use the animal as an example, the pet, because my cat currently wants my attention, and it is weaseled its way between the back of my chair and my back. It's laying right here. It wants me to pet it. It wants my attention. And if I would give it, what would the cat do? The cat would allow me to pet it for a few minutes. And then it would go away.
[00:42:47] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:42:49] Speaker A: Eva, this has been wonderful. I appreciate so deeply that you have taken the time to share your knowledge and your experience and the work that you do because it's important work. I think, again, like, had somebody, had we been raised in preschool with this information, I think as a whole, our society would be more whole and less impacted by some of these negative. I mean, the human experience is, you know, the feeling, the emotion, the stress, the trauma, the big t, the little t. Like, that's a human experience. We all have that realizing that we're not broken, that the feelings that we have are just this information from our brain. If somebody would have just taught us all this in preschool, I think that, you know, there would be a lot less disease, there would be a lot less cortisol impacted diseases out there. And so much of these chronic diseases are really revolving around that. So I deeply appreciate you coming onto the podcast and sharing this. Before we hop off, I do want you to share with everybody where they can find out more information about you if they're interested.
[00:43:51] Speaker B: Yeah, you can go to my website. It's www. Dot the risingsoul. It's therisingsol.com.
[00:44:02] Speaker A: Awesome. And I will put that in the show notes. And there is a handout that I'm going to try to get tagged to the show notes. If it's not in the podcast itself, you can find it at DelaneMD, the YouTube channel. It will be in those show notes. So for everybody listening, remember, keep listening, keep making the choices for your health and your vitality and your longevity. And I will be back next week. Bye.
