- Speaker #0
Are you feeling overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, or burnout? Who isn't these days? I mean, the world is wild right now. But we need to find ways to calm our nervous system in a world that never stops. Where the information never stops coming, the stress and the work and anxiety never stops coming. In that world, we need to be our own North Star and find a way to find home within ourselves. And today's guest can help. She will give you simple yet effective tools for restoring balance, regulating your emotions, and healing from within. Welcome to Unleash Your Inner Creative with Lauren LaGrasso. I'm Lauren LaGrasso. I'm a Webby Award-winning podcast host and producer, singer-songwriter, public speaker, and creative coach. This show sits at the intersection of creativity, mental health, self-development, and spirituality, and it is meant to give you tools to love, trust, and know yourself enough to claim your right to creativity. take fear out of the driver's seat and pursue whatever it is that's on your heart. Today's guest is Nahid De Beljan. Known as a nervous system whisperer, she is a somatic movement educator and a breath and yoga practitioner with a passion for sharing the healing benefits of movement. Nahid operates the London-based yoga and well-being brand Good Vibes and focuses on private clients with her somatic and restorative practices called The Human Method. She's been featured in publications including Harper's Bazaar, and Elle Magazine, among others. In her new book, Soothe, Restoring Your Nervous System from Stress, Anxiety, Burnout, and Trauma, Nahid offers a comprehensive guide to understanding and healing the nervous system. As the world increasingly becomes overstimulated and honestly unhelped by quick fixes and promises of self-care that are just like a face mask, which it does help, but if you don't get to the root of the problem, nothing will change. So Nahid reintroduces the book. vital practices of self-soothing and emotional regulation. Through tools like breathwork, movement, and sensory exercises, she will teach you not just how to cope with stress, but also heal and thrive. She's going to share science-backed techniques that will help restore balance to your nervous system and bring some calm in the midst of chaos. From today's chat, you'll learn simple soothing techniques to calm your nervous system and reduce stress, the importance of the brain-body connection, and how breath, movement, and sensory exercises can positively impact your emotions. Okay, now here she is, Nahid De Beljan.
- Speaker #1
Nahid, I am so excited to have you on the podcast. Your work is so important in the world and deeply important to helping us all access our creativity. So thank you for being on Unleash Your Inner Creative.
- Speaker #2
Thank you so much for having me, Lauren. I'm super excited about it because I love your podcast. Oh,
- Speaker #1
thank you. And I loved your book. And I want to talk through, you know, all your work is in like soothing the nervous system and coming back to ourselves. But I know that there was an inciting incident or maybe multiple inciting incidents that brought you to this work. So I wonder if you could share your origin story of how you found Soothe.
- Speaker #2
Yes, of course. Exactly as you say, like many of us in this world, I was looking for solutions to my issues. And I was brought up in a very volatile household, very stressful household. And I kind of get that nobody meant it. It's just that my parents hadn't been taught how to soothe themselves. And they came to England in the 60s. And it was quite the adjustment, as you can imagine. And even though they held down middle class jobs, they were faced with quite a bit of racism and just being away from community, you know, a kind of bigger, wider community to hold you when things go a bit wrong. So not having any safety nets that one would have if you were with your kind of intergenerational support. And so they were just very, very stressy. I still feel bad about saying that because my poor mum, whenever she listens to me saying it.
- Speaker #1
Because I feel the same way. I'm Italian and like. very close family, like also a lot of secrecy within our culture, protect the family name, don't bring shame to the family. But I think it's really important for us to be able to see our parents and our ancestors in general as whole people who are beautiful, loving people who did the best they could and also made some choices, potentially unhealed choices that affected us.
- Speaker #2
Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, interesting that you say about your Italian background, because all of my friends were Italian and Greek and from all over the place. And we shared this similar trait. And I guess it's something to do with, you know, immigrants coming to a new country, wanting to put the best front on. It becomes the culture that we live in, but magnified because that shiny front end has really got to be kept up. And often, Lauren, women are the upholders of the culture. So your behaviour, how shameful you're acting or not, will have a huge influence on the rest of the family. So exactly that, you know, they were good people, but they just were never taught to soothe. And so I didn't learn how to soothe. And our house was incredibly, it was noisy, it was argumentative. And I took all of these things into the rest of my life because I thought that's how you had to be. So my relationships were fiery and arguing because I thought that meant passion. And my getting through life was about... pushing and pushing and pushing and working, working, you know, the work ethic was so drummed into us because there was no safety net. And also, you know what, the more you work, the less you have to engage and think with the people around you and with your life in the world. And all of that stuff is really messy. But when you work, work, work, people, you know, they applaud you for it. They think you're great. You know, they think you're very entrepreneurial and da da da. So you get some kind of kudos from being like that. But of course, there comes a point. Where it breaks you, you know, youth absorbs a lot, but you get to about your 40s, 50s, and you start having, you know, more responsibilities. Things get really serious, don't they? You know, maybe you have your permanent place to live, maybe you have a mortgage, and on and on. Perhaps you have children, your parents are getting older, and you just get pulled in many directions. I also think you're at an age where you're not so willing to accept bullshit. you know, in our culture, you're just like, I'm done with this crap. I don't want to work hard because it's crap. It's a load of nonsense. Do you know what I mean? I want to be smarter. I actually want to have some life and time for me. And I want to connect with my people. So I found out all of these things by a whole series of breakdowns of my system, of course. And also, you know, I was very reliant when I was very young. I used to smoke a lot of weed because that would numb me down a little bit. And you know what? Everyone around me did. We were kind of quite young. But like it was so normal. And then, you know, you move on to other things in the 90s, because that was what everyone was doing, even to get to work. Work at the time was quite exciting. I was working for, I've worked across four different industries. I've worked in fashion, textiles was my first thing. So I went to art college and I did all that, which is why I was so pleased to be on this podcast. And then I started a magazine for women that was a national magazine. It was kind of like a very frank sex magazine for women. So cool. Yeah, it was great. And then I worked in technology for a bit. And that was really interesting. That was before the internet, if anyone can ever remember that time. It was just on the cusp of it coming through. And you know what, even then, I remember thinking, this is amazing, but who's going to own it? And what are they going to use it for? I remember thinking that years and years and years ago. And then of course, wellness, I've been involved in this for over 20 years. And I have always understood innately that if I was feeling emotionally overwhelmed, I had to move. So I started running when I wanted to leave home. I started kickboxing when I wanted to leave my first husband. And I started yoga when I left the very well paid but completely soul destroying technology job, because I just thought I really got a ground. And all of those things are very good in the moment. And they do shift your baseline over time as well. But when you're stuck at your desk or something happens to you on the spot. and you are in a real kind of freeze of your nervous system, then what do you do? Because you can't always go out for a run and you can't always do the big stuff. And then I found out as well that I had studios in central London and I put everything into my shiny front end. But everything was breaking down. You know, I had chronic anxiety. I have a real tendency to burn out and have burnt out a few times. And the crunch point, I mean, there were various crunch points along the way, but the real crunch point was almost dying of a gangrenous appendix because I didn't get it seen to. I kind of thought I could breathe my way through it. I mean, ridiculous. And the doctor actually said to my husband, you nearly lost her. I went down to Sixth Stone and I couldn't, you know, I was just in bed for three months. And I just remember thinking, I need to learn how to be a different way. So I was doing all the things that look like you are soothing your system, like yoga and breath work and da da da. But they really felt like a separate thing to my life. You know, I do those and then I'd carry on in the same pattern. And of course, you can't do that. Your internal world and your external world really need to align. And I think our culture actually shames us around being human. Oh,
- Speaker #1
totally. Yeah, no, no. We're getting shamed for not being machines. I mean, it was so interesting in the part of the book where you talk about hard work and like Puritan culture, because I've been thinking about that a lot lately. Even the term work-life balance is so screwed up. Work is part of life. We don't say family life balance. We don't say joy life balance, but work is one thing and then life is another thing. I think that the way of healing is going to be... integrating all these things into just life.
- Speaker #2
It absolutely does have to be that. And I think that's why your podcast was so kind of compelling to me, because it talks about what your purpose is and the things that really make you shine. And of course, that is how we need to approach our life. It's such a desperately precious thing. And it really does go fast. I know the elders always say it goes fast so quickly and we don't really listen when we're young. And then you get to a certain age and you're like, oh, my God, it really does whiz by. And I teach lots of people actually in their 70s and their 80s. And, you know, they were all CEOs and they're sort of having to take a bit of a backseat and they're slowing down. And they all say to me, God, I wished I hadn't worked so hard. I wished I had spent more time with my people. I wished I had been there for my kids. I wished I had just sat on my porch and looked at the evening sun. And they all say that. So there's something interesting, isn't there, about what you have to do to be deemed a success. in this culture. And what I love about your podcast is that you're really asking questions around, you know, who we are, what we're here for, and how to live a fulfilling life. So my work is all about really realising your full potential in all the ways that you possibly can, because I think our idea of being a human being is really limited. And it is to be successful as in money, successful, which means that you work all hours to go and get that money. And then you You're a very good consumer, so you buy lots of stuff. And then you have, you know, private schools, private insurance, all that stuff you have to pay for, which means that you have to just work and work and work. So it makes you, it grooms you to be a very good worker, isn't it? And actually, we are so much more than that.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I mean, I have so many questions boiling in my head from what you just said. But one that came to mind is like, and something I'm always trying to figure out is, how do we not subscribe? to hustle culture and to being a good machine while we're still living in the culture? Like, how can we take this different point of view and different way of being while we're still in society?
- Speaker #2
Well, I think there's lots of ways you can. And the very first thing you can do is be in a much more intimate relationship with yourself and really get to understand who you are, not the shiny front end that you're presenting to the world. but actually who you really are. And to do that, you need to feel more. You really need to get a sense of yourself. Because often we take our, here it would be O and A levels, which is sort of round about that time that you're deciding what subjects you take. And then that's your kind of pre-stuff before you go on to a degree. But you pretty much sort out who you're going to be round about 14, 15 at school. You know, I'm going to be a teacher. I'm going to be a textile designer. This is what I want to be, an actress. And then all of your education moves you towards that. And then suddenly, you know, you might get to your 40s and think, I never really wanted to do this. It was my mum that made me do it or my dad said it would be really good if I was a doctor. And in kind of South Asian cultures, you know, doctors, lawyers and all those things are really looked upon as very good careers. And if you don't do that, you don't have a good career. You know, you've somehow failed. You haven't made the mark in some way. It's not respectable. What the work that I do really ask is it just asks you to kind of self-reflect. at different points in your life, throughout your life, all the time, just to kind of reconnect with yourself and kind of figure out who you are. Because before you know it, you might end up at 40 with kids, with a career you don't want, with a person you don't want, and kids that you quite like, or you might not like, or you wish you hadn't done it quite, you know, at that time that you did it, or you wish you hadn't done it with that person. And then you suddenly got a big mortgage. It's really difficult to untie those things as you get older. I often laugh about, it was so liberating to be in primary school because... Every week you could go, I like you. And then next week it'd be, I like you instead. And you don't have to untie your life from somebody else as you get older, you know, when your kind of allegiances and alliances and your likes and dislikes swap and change. So it's really important that you know yourself very well. And to do that, you have to feel more. You know, my kind of thing, my whole ethos is that you can't think yourself out of a feeling state. You've got to feel your way out of it and feel your way into it. And your body doesn't lie. So just as like when you were a baby, you would have used your whole self. You would have moved and crawled towards your caregiver's warm voice and you would have moved away from a loud bang. So kind of moving towards and moving away from. things that you don't like moving towards things that you do like. Well, actually, you're no different now. You're exactly the same. And we think we're really sophisticated because our kind of cognitive mind rules everything in our culture. But actually, our body gives us much more signals into the brain about how we're feeling at any given time. And if we really listen into that, I promise you will lead a much more authentic, centered, grounded life because I have done it. I have gone from extreme chronic anxiety and burnout to feeling very content on an everyday level to being very centred to managing my workload. You know, I very easily put in place things like not working weekends and the sort of work I do, I could literally work all the time because, you know, there's always a need and people want to do it in their time. But I put in lots of boundaries and it was really easy to do, whereas before putting in boundaries, I might have just thought, oh, no, then nobody will want me. If I put up boundaries, I won't be available. And when you're freelancing, you always want to be available, especially when you first start. But doing that actually saves me because I need to make sure that I'm leading by example. You know, if you don't see it in me and I'm burning myself out, what kind of educator do I become for others? How do I lead by example? So really, it starts with feeling. I was going to say to you that when I had my studios in central London, it was yoga, Pilates and fitness studios. I realised that there were so many other people just like me. So I wasn't this freak who didn't know how to self-soothe. Everyone is actually, if you talk, scratch the surface a little bit, everyone is having a really bad time trying to live in this culture, but do something that's authentic to them. So the ways that you can protect yourself, protect your heart, protect your nervous system. is to put in place some really good safeguards, things like, or gatekeeping, if you like. And it's things like making sure that you have some boundaries around the things that you do, making sure that you're connecting to yourself and you're really grounded, that you're not leaking out your energy to everyone at any given moment. You know, technology is so fast. We think we have to respond to it really fast. But of course, we don't. It's about creating space in some way. You know, what you buy has a huge influence. how you vote has an influence of sorts, what you eat, and so on and so on, all have, those are all your powers, if you like. But the greatest superpower actually is your curiosity. Getting really curious about how you are responding in any given moment is so powerful because you get to cultivate self-awareness in a way that probably you haven't done since you were a child.
- Speaker #1
Okay, so much to break down, but I think we have to set some just like standards for what certain things are. So I've done episodes, I actually had Stephen and Steph Porges on to talk about polyvagal theory. So we've talked about nervous system, but I think it's such a kind of confusing and scientific topic that I think we need to ground into like, what is the nervous system?
- Speaker #2
Yes. So the nervous system, how I like to think about it is really super easy, is your brain, your spinal cord that goes through your spine. your spinal vertebral column. And then it's the communication from that into your organs and back from your organs to spinal cord and brain. So it's this, if you think about it as this continuous looping of information all of the time. Now, if you listen to all of that information coming in, you know, you wouldn't be able to put a hand up and get on with things and one foot in front of the other. So your brain is constantly recalibrating, filtering out what's important and what isn't important. And so the what is important is quite interesting, because if you're very anxious all the time and you you carry out the same behaviors and you keep thinking about your anxiety, guess what you're doing? You are training yourself to be anxious if you are stressed the same. You know, I know so many people who say I'm so stressed. It's like, are you or do you just have a lot to do? In which case they're having a lot to do. You could order that. You could. decide what's important, what's the priority. But if you really are stressed, then let's do something about the stress. They're different things, right? It's shifting the focus of your brain from your habit to something else is quite key in changing habits.
- Speaker #1
Okay. So the nervous system for so many of us is quite bound up and unregulated. Yeah. How can we begin to calm it? And why do we want to calm it?
- Speaker #2
You want to calm it because if you live in a dysregulated state, chronic diseases start from small anxieties, small, you know, small stresses, tension, pain. This can all lead to things at a later date, you know, inflammatory responses. I see a lot of people who come to me when they have had a stroke, a heart attack, you know, they're women in their 40s, mid 40s. 50s. They've burnt out once, twice. And it seems such a shame that you wait until you break, until you do something about it. And the what you can do about it is so simple and easy, but it's quite a revelation, actually. And that's why I think it's really helpful to have a guide for the small, slow, quiet stuff, because you just won't do it on your own. I know I didn't. You know, I have my own teacher as well. So what can you do? When your nervous system is dysregulated, it's like you're overclocking the system, yeah? And what your nervous system wants, I kind of tell everyone, treat it like a toddler, it wants regular sleep and good nutritious food and it wants to have active times and rest time. You know, regularity is kind of gold for the body but your brain was not designed to be stimulated all the time. So in our modern world that we live in, it's 24-7, isn't it? You know, downtime. as well is stimulation, stimulation, be it watching, you know, streamed movies or being on our phones or often both of those things at the same time. So it's kind of allowing some real downtime and around your stimulation times, if you like. So the very first thing you can do, the easiest thing in the world is a six by six breathing, also known as coherent breath or sometimes called the breath of life. and is literally breathing in and out through your nose for six seconds on the inhale and six seconds on the exhale. And what that does is it oscillates between the go-go part of your nervous system, which is sympathetic, and the no-go part, which is parasympathetic. And notice how I always really like to simplify it for people. It's go or no-go. You don't want to be in go-go all the time, but you also don't want to be in no-go all the time. So the six-by-six breathing will oscillate between the two. And oscillation is a lovely word because actually that's what we are. We're little organisms of oscillation rather than being stuck in one, stuck in the other. That's what makes us resilient. It's like, whoa, yeah, I've got this new project on. I can really go for it. And then I need to build in some downtime to recover, to reset and to process. Because as well as go, go, go and being, you know, producing all of the time, we also want to daydream. We want to witness. We want to just kind of dwell in being and noticing and pondering and processing and having self-compassion and observing and interpreting all the information that we take in because you can't learn and do at the same time. So when I was writing this book, I put in place, it's something I've been using for quite a long time, but there's this really beautiful rhythm of sleep that you go into a 90 minutes of deep rest, cycles of deep rest and 20 minutes of kind of activity where your brain's cleaning itself and toxins are being got rid of. You have that same cycle throughout the day. We just don't notice it, these ultradian rhythms. And so how I work is 90 minutes of focus and then 20 minutes of doing something completely mindless. So the mindless might be, it could be getting on the floor and rocking. I do a lot of rocking to get rid of any alarm in my body. It could be going out to do the garden, playing with your dogs, cooking, something. that you don't have to think too much about, that just gives you some deep contentment. Could be meditating or breath work. I generally think that in our culture, we even approach wellness as another thing to do. Yeah. There's too much doing. And actually, you just want to let go of doing and thinking and engage in things that give you pleasure or wonderment. So I started working like that about 10 years. And it's been amazing. Now when I go to bed, I'm kind of a busy person as well. I'm quite creative. But now when I go to bed, instead of just thinking, oh, I'm so exhausted, I've kind of dealt with my day in a way that I was recovering and resetting all the way throughout the day. What your nervous system doesn't want to do, it doesn't want to reach this great big crescendo and crash. That's a lot of work to get there and it's a lot of work to get back up again. But actually it's like this really lovely ripple. So something happens to you and it could be something you're excited about but it's still an alarmed state for your nervous system. Just let go of it by breathing, rocking, moving, some gentle movement and then come back into what you were doing or the next thing and then let go of that. So that you've got this really lovely gentle wave throughout the day or ripple effect throughout the day. So by the time you go to bed, you've already processed, you've resolved things, you've recalibrated. You feel that you're ready to kind of lay it all down and go to rest. So there's the six by six breathing. There's the working in this bounce of 90 minutes and 20 minutes off. Even if you're in the middle of something, just let it go. Because that 20 minutes without focusing on it, you'll resolve lots of things. You'll really get to process. And that's how I wrote my book as well. I was kind of really, you know, stringent about that first thing in the morning, get on with it. And I got through it. And I got through it without actually with enjoying the whole process. I really enjoyed the process.
- Speaker #1
A lot of writers I have come on, they're like,
- Speaker #2
oh,
- Speaker #1
I wrote a book. I'm like, isn't it a good thing?
- Speaker #2
I loved it.
- Speaker #1
But most people, you're probably only the second person I've ever heard say that. Melody Beattie, who wrote Codependent No More, said she loves writing. But every other person loves having written. And it seems like the writing process was a war. It's nice to hear you say that you enjoyed it.
- Speaker #2
Do you know what? I don't want to be at war with the things I deal with myself. And I made that decision, you know, after having almost died. And that's a really good way to describe it. We are constantly at war with ourselves, aren't we? So where was I? It was the breathing, the 90 minutes, 20 minutes. And then the next time you feel alarmed, don't just sit there passively. Get up and shake it out. Because... the most appropriate thing to do with cortisol and cortisol rises when you're excited as well, don't forget. But the most appropriate thing to do with that is get it out of your body, because if it stays in your body, it's very inflammatory. Right. So you shouldn't sit still having, you know, seen horrors all around the world, 15 emails that made your heart stop and just carry on working. Get up and do something about it. I think we've forgotten.
- Speaker #0
All those rituals, because we live in this information age, we've forgotten all of those rituals that one must do to kind of let go of one thing, recover from it, reset and prepare for the next type of thing. Because there's lots of different types of activities that we're involved in, especially if you're working from home, that require a different mindset and a different energy. And I think we really need to meet it exactly in the moment and not meet it in this kind of like tornado of alarm and... yes, stress that you bring at it, because then that makes life much more enjoyable and pleasant, doesn't it? To kind of be able to prepare yourself, retreat, retract. It's really funny, Lauren, I often think that actually what people pay me to do is to teach them how to say, I don't have an answer right now. I'm going to go away. I'm going to organize myself and then I'm going to come back to you, you know, because we just don't do that, do we?
- Speaker #1
No, no. Everybody expects an answer right away. And I think Because we're trying to be perfect little machines, we just give it to them without really ever checking in with ourselves. But there's a few things from what you said that I want to break down because something you said in the beginning really resonated with me where it's like, it can't just be this like 10 minute thing you do at the top of the day and never bringing it through your whole day. And so what you just described, is that an example of how to like pull calming your nervous system throughout an entire day?
- Speaker #0
Yes, it absolutely is. I'm not saying that you should be doing this. And again, people will sort of say, well, I don't have time to do that. And it's kind of like, well, it actually doesn't take that long and you will feel good when you finish doing it. So the more you can link the what you do with how you feel, the more you're likely to do it right. How you might do that is, you know, it could be one or two minutes. Something happens. You breathe for six, six. You know, if you're somewhere safe to do it, you close your eyes, sit up on your sit bones. and breathe in and out for six seconds in, six seconds out. You could have your hand on your belly so that you've got lots of feedback, new experiences into your nervous system. The more you feed in new experience to the nervous system, the more you're pushing down the old experiences like anxiety and your, you know, whatever your default position is. It could be rocking on your pelvis. I do this a lot. It could be stroking your breastbone, you know, anything that just gives your brain a nervous system. something new to focus on so that you can get out of it. Plus movement, of course, will then help to dissipate the cortisol that's risen up in your system. And that's a really important thing to do. And if you work in an office, once upon a time, you used to have a coffee break at 11 and a tea break at three. I'm not sure if that's officially done anymore. It's been a long time since I've worked for anyone. But you can somehow, you know, do little things throughout your day without anyone knowing what you're doing. I kind of, you know, often if you work in an office, you're having to pretend to work quite a lot of the time, aren't you? Because you're tired or you're thinking or whatever, but you have to have this pretense of being productive all of the time. And actually, there was a study that showed that most people are productive for about three and a bit hours in the working day because you're not a machine and your brain can't focus for that long. So the other times, you know, they're probably on social media or, you know, doing something else. But, you know, you could do things like move away from your desk with a pad and go to another meeting room and pretend you're writing something down. But actually, you could do your breath work there or you could run up and down the stairs or do the coffee run or something just to break up what I call the fixed state. So F-I-X-E-D, fixed state. You're a dynamic moving organism. Yep. That is how you regulate. Your brain developed. not for thinking, but for complex movement and complex social organisation. So those are the things that are really regulatory to us. Community. and movement. If you can include those things in your day as much as you can, then that would be great. I know when I'm getting a bit, especially in winter, when I'm getting a bit down or a bit kind of like, oh, everything feels a bit dark in winter. And I've moved out of London to the sea. I'm not that far away, but still, you really feel winter here. And there isn't as much distraction as there is in a city. I was brought up in a city. So to do this was quite a huge thing for me. And so whenever I realise that, oh, yeah, I'm feeling a bit hemmed in or I'm feeling a bit down about winter, it's very dark now, I will really put in place some key strategies. And they are get out first thing in the morning, let some daylight into your eyes. That kick starts all of your waking up processes in your body, prepares you for the day. I make sure that at least once a day I take the dogs out for a walk in the afternoon. My husband does the morning. I do the afternoon walk. And I make sure. but I go somewhere where there's people so I can have little side of my mouth conversations with people because those those interactions with other human beings are super important they really are very regulating for your system you don't have to talk about anything deep it's just hello smiling seeing somebody else's reaction incredibly regulatory I also go out for a walk at dusk maybe just around the block so my body and my eyes get used to the light fading and that prepares me to get ready for downtime, cooking, eating, sleeping, that sort of thing. I drink no alcohol at all. I completely cut it out of my life if I'm feeling emotionally on an uneven keel. And when I do drink, I don't drink that much, but I absolutely have to cut it out. And I really up my nutrition. And then I put in place practices as well. You know, my breathing, I have a 20 minute breathing practice every single morning. It's so easy to do. It's really uncomplicated, this breath. Everything I give to people is really uncomplicated. We can get a bit more complex when I'm working one-to-one, but generally the stuff that I have in the book, it's really uncomplicated. It's all about blood flow, flow of energy through your body, flow of forces through your body, because all of that connects to the joints, to the skin, to the bones, to your brain. There's this, you know, interwoven kind of system of intelligence and communication, and that's what we're tapping into. with somatic work that I do.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, it's so great. In the book, you talk about rocking. I wasn't quite sure what way, like, is it rocking like in a ball or is it rocking your legs back and forth? Like what rocking were you talking about that helps regulate?
- Speaker #0
So you're going to lie on the floor with your heels on the ground, your legs along. And then when you press your heels into the ground, your knees come away from the ground a bit, and then you're rocking like that. And you're rocking. I'm going to pretend to do it. So I'm going to put my heels down. You're rocking like that until it comes up to your head. Oh,
- Speaker #1
okay.
- Speaker #0
You would have done that when you were a baby or you might have been rocked. It's soothing. It's regulating for the system. It's sending lots of information to your brain about where you are in space, about how all the bones connect and how you have this kind of connection through the whole of you. It really helps to take you out of your head and get you very quickly embodied. How I will use that is I used it all throughout the COVID years where I was like, oh, my brain is just going wild with everything that's going on and stories around it. So I need to embody in a quick way. I would get on the floor and I would rock a lot. I often do my breathing practice to the rocking. And that's quite an interesting challenge for your brain because you're rocking a little bit faster than you're breathing. So you're having to keep those two things. So that's an additional challenge you could bring in. I generally tend to move. to soothe myself. When COVID came along, my meditation practice of 20 years went out the window. My brain could not be still. It could not be quiet. And so I do this breath and it has the same effects for me. It's brain training. It's really deep. Eventually, when you have this practice, it harmonizes the frequencies of your brain, your lungs and your heart. And when all of those frequencies are working at the same pace, then all of the other processes in your body has that really nice, even pace. of processing. So it just becomes a place where you're cooperating with yourself. I think this is all about really understanding your biology and working with it because you have this amazing biointelligence system. And just by learning these simple tools and tapping into it, you know, you could really help yourself to not go to the deep lows or maybe even the deep highs, you know, the really high highs. Maybe there's a pleasant kind of place in the middle that just feels... content and good and you know like you've arrived like you're centered and grounded which is a very different way to live I've lived in every which way so I speak from experience I could totally speak from experience this is so nice and it's so funny Lauren because when I was young I really hated pleasant you know because I was so dysregulated I wanted wild and drama you know the men that I would go out with they were drama because I thought that's what you did and you know I wanted to be stimulated all the time so in one night i'd go to the pictures and then go to have dinner and then go out dancing and do you know what i mean it had everything had to be full color and full on and then you realize why you know that's just exhausting and it's also kind of pushing stuff out. I think it's all about pushing stuff out that you don't want to think about.
- Speaker #1
Oh, 100%. I mean, in the book, when you give the example of the lady who was constantly in motion, she had her loud TV glaring, she was buying things, running from one thing to the next, never still. I think a lot of people relate to this. I think I got into that mode during the pandemic. I had this realization at one point, I could never not be listening to something, watching something. Yeah, I had to have constant chatter. And I realized, I can't keep living that way because I have no creativity left because I'm taking in other people's work all day long to soothe myself. And I mean, I think we do that to keep ourselves from stillness or addressing a greater level of pain. So if somebody is in that state right now where they're just wound up and constantly consuming to keep themselves from whatever is underneath that chaos. What's your advice for them for how to get out of that constant distraction and running and back to themselves?
- Speaker #0
So I think I'd suggest that perhaps the very first thing they could do is if they go out for a walk is not to listen to a podcast and go out for the walk and really open their ears and notice all the sounds and kind of open your eyes and notice everything that's happening around you. You know, looking up and just kind of reconnecting back to that idea of wonderment of. a brain that can just wander because it really needs that. And doing this work, it doesn't mean to say that, you know, everything about my life and how I respond is perfect. It just means I've got really great tools to be able to kind of go, hey, I've noticed, let me recover and kind of reset back from this. Because I think it's very common, isn't it? That we want big sensations because we're a bit scared of feeling this small stuff because it might unravel us or It might remind us of something. But you know what? It's a good thing to kind of open up to what you sense and then move it out of you. Just move it out. And that helps you to shift. When you try and pack something away and kind of hold it down tight, you've always got the effort of holding it down. You know, that's always in the back of your mind. And actually, I'll tell you about somebody that I worked with quite recently because I work with one-to-ones online with people. She's a very successful content creator. But, you know, as you know, quite a big part of this job is acquiring new people all of the time, you know, and that can just go on and on and on. And because of her job and the timeline she worked across, she was on messages all of the time, you know, saying, hi, come in, do this. The acquiring, let alone the content creating, just almost sent her mad. By the time she got to me, she hadn't slept for three weeks. Wow. And even I did a sharp intake of breath. I was kind of like, OK, you know. And I said, you know, I don't know where you're going to end up. I want you to go and see the doctor and get checked out because I'm a bit worried about you. But, you know, let's try and we'll try a whole different things. By the first session, she felt a bit calmer. By three sessions, she was sleeping. I work with people over 12 weeks. And by the 12 weeks, she was a completely changed woman. She just said she couldn't have done that without me because she was in such a state at the beginning. And she has a completely different life and part of her life as well. You know, when you're content creating at home, you tend to stay at home. And part of that was like, get out. in the world and go and get a hobby that isn't your work because we are more than our work even if we love it we are so much more than just the thing that you know we work and work and work on that brings us money you need to do something that kind of fulfills you and it's really confusing I think for people in the creative industry because you're doing the thing that you love but it's work and it's kind of like how do you create some space outside of that it's really super important it might be that cooking is your thing There might be something else that you can do where you could just go, okay, my downtime, I'm going to go off and do this. Because I'm sure as you know, when you're creating things that comes from your heart, it's a completely different thing to creating things that you think this might make me money or this might make me money. That's a totally different thing, isn't it?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, no, it can be very, very messy because it's like, where do I begin and where does my work begin and end? You can't kind of tell the difference. Everything feels very integrated and not always in the healthiest way.
- Speaker #0
It's nice to kind of feed other aspects of you, you know, other parts of your soul. It's kind of nice to kind of feed that as well.
- Speaker #1
Totally. Speaking of which, I know that this work is so vital for creativity that having a calm nervous system, being able to get into a state of regulation totally revolutionizes the way you are creative. Can you explain a little bit of the connection between creativity and nervous system regulation?
- Speaker #0
Yes. Basically, on a very basic level, you can't think. from a chaotic mind. It's really difficult to make good grounded decisions from a chaotic mind. So regulating yourself and being really calm about what you're going to do, how you're going to do it, you know, what your thought process around that is, and so on. It's just very necessary to have this really nice calm foundation. But also your self-image is made up not of your thinking mind, it is made up of your physiology. And from your physiology, you feel your sensations. And from that, you make up your emotions. And from your emotions, you make up your thoughts. And from your thoughts, you make up your actions and then your long-term behaviors. Now, all the creative people that I've ever worked with, when something goes wrong, they default to, I'm shit. Not that, oh, you know, not like a scientist would, you know, they do an experiment and they wouldn't go, oh, I'm shit if it goes wrong. They would just go, okay. the next iteration I will omit something or I'll add something in and I'll kind of give it its time and then I'll look at the results. If that doesn't work, I'll carry on in this thing. That is what artists need to or creative people need to do as well. Instead of kind of thinking, oh, you know, I'm there's something wrong with me. It's kind of like, OK, well, what didn't work here? And just get a bit more curious about what they're doing. And that really helps to shift your self-image as well. You know who you are in this world and what you think about yourself. are huge influences to what you create, right? I was listening to you about your record, which I will completely support and I'll pop up my stories as well. And I loved, loved, loved, you know, how you felt vulnerable about saying what you wanted from it. That really touched my heart, Lauren. And I just thought, what an amazing thing, because when you are willing to be vulnerable, you make other people less lonely. And I don't think you can put out your vulnerability unless you're quite grounded. Unless, you know, you're feeling kind of quite confident in yourself in a funny way. So it's interesting, even though, you know, it made you cry a bit and it made me cry as well. I was like, oh, I love you for being so human. But how great, you know, we need to see more of this. We need to see us all being human. It reminded me of a story. May I tell you it?
- Speaker #1
Yes, of course.
- Speaker #0
My mother's 84 and she lives in London. And I was filming her. I just got into filming her a lot because, you know, I just want to keep them. And so I asked her how to make a prawn curry. And she was sitting there eating with her hands and talking about making a prawn curry. And then I had another friend of mine who lives in Canada who's Indian. And she sent me a message. She said, I love that you filmed your mother eating with her hands because that was so common in my house. But I never talked about it or showed anyone. And she said, I've just realized how much of my life I've shut off. She's in the corporate world. She said, how much of my life I've shut off. And it's just I've been thinking and thinking and thinking about it. Because it wasn't, you know, it didn't appear to me to be an odd thing. But that thing, actually, if you think about it, and this goes back to our culture, kind of grooming us to be inhuman, if you like. But, you know, when you eat with your hands, you're really connected to what you are doing. It's tactile. It's sensory. It's already feeding experiences into your brain, into your taste buds. And you're also being mindful about how you eat and how much you eat. It's such a connected thing. And so this thing of removing ourselves with utensils that have to be made and then they're wasted and then they have to be washed up and there's all the water that goes into that. Actually, that's a little bit dysregulated.
- Speaker #1
Totally. It's so beautiful. Like there's so many different parts of that story going on. I mean, I used to always say, though, like if I was president, I would outlaw forks.
- Speaker #0
Why forks in particular?
- Speaker #1
Because I love eating with my hands. Like I always say, like, I know I'm descended from cavemen because of how I deal with a rotisserie chicken. But yeah, like you're right. Like it's actually quite barbaric. When you think about it, it just depends on what you define.
- Speaker #0
Like it sort of removes us.
- Speaker #1
Yes. Being in touch with your food, that's holistic, like holding your food, like taking it from the plate to your mouth with your own hands. Like there's beauty in that. That's human. And I feel like this is just another way we're becoming machines. Not to say we should all throw our forks away, but I don't know. I've never, ever thought of it that way. Obviously, there's a lot of stuff going on too with assimilating to a culture and leaving your culture behind because you knew it wasn't welcome. But that's so deep.
- Speaker #0
But it wasn't welcome, probably, that needs to be looked at, doesn't it? Who tells us this? And actually, it relates to another story about there's some people that I teach who are in their 70s. And when I ask them to open their legs, like women, when I ask them to open their legs a little bit wider than sit bone distance, They have a funny sensation about that because it's thought of as impolite. Isn't that interesting? And it almost doesn't matter where they're from, but there's something about ladies opening their legs, even if they're wearing trousers and they're on the floor and they know we're going to do some work that's all about soothing their system. So our culture hugely conditions us, hugely, hugely. It programs us to be a certain way. And I think that struggle that we have is this real resistance. It's this kind of... humanity coming and meeting regulations and the system and the culture that basically grooms us to not trust our feelings. Because when you don't trust your feelings, you are easy to manipulate and to sell things to. And it's as simple as that. So that's how you resist, Lauren. You get really deep. You get really connected with yourself. You really understand yourself. When someone's talking to you, you have really good connected conversations, not conversations about what they bought. Who cares? You know, that's the kind of bane of the world, isn't it? But people buying too many things. But actually, you have deeply held conversations with them that are intimate and that they mean something. Another really important thing about this work is that when you regulate yourself, non-verbally, you're regulating everybody in your environment. And isn't that beautiful?
- Speaker #1
It is. It truly is. It's amazing. I mean, I will tell you, I feel calmer just talking to you. I'm like, just let her talk. I'm going to sit here. I don't need to say anything.
- Speaker #0
I know that's a trouble with me. You asked me one thing and off I go. But I have to say, listening to that podcast, but you talking about it, I was just like, you know what, I am going to go on Spotify and I'm going to do that. And I'm going to encourage all my listeners to do the same because I love that you asked, why wouldn't I help you? And I love that you were so open about it. So thank you, you know, for also showing people what it is to be fully human.
- Speaker #1
Oh, thank you. That really, it does mean the world to me. And you know, a big part of this podcast, because you brought up self-trust, is I believe that like in order to be fully creatively unleashed, we have to learn to love, trust, and know ourselves and be able to claim our right to creativity through those, you know, through building those qualities. If someone is deeply out of touch with themselves, they feel like they don't trust themselves anymore, what would be a first step you'd give them to start building their self-trust again?
- Speaker #0
I would probably say get on the floor, lie on the floor, breathe at this pace and put your hand on the place on your body that gives you the most pain, that your pain arises from. Mine's always the breastbone, yeah, so the heart resides under there, that's always for me. Some people it's the belly, some people it might be the shoulder, just put your hand on the place that gives you the pain, that you sense your pain and breathe into it because I promise you after a few minutes, you will have more compassion for yourself.
- Speaker #1
It's a great place to start. You know, there was this other part of the book that was really hard for me to read, but it was important you shared it because I used to do the same thing in workout classes. It was the part where you described being in the yoga class and getting into the position and then hearing something like tear. I think it was in your knee.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, it was in hot yoga.
- Speaker #1
Oh my gosh. Well, I related because when I used to do hot yoga, I never thanked God it had a tear, but like... I used to do the same thing. And then when I came to yoga again in my 30s, I was like, I'm not doing that. But when I was in my 20s, of course, the teacher said it. So I had to do it. And I wanted to make sure everybody knew I was good at yoga and that I could follow instructions. And, you know, I still have lots of areas. I don't do that in yoga anymore. But I still have lots of areas in my life where I feel tempted to do it because somebody told me to do it. And I want to follow what I'm told to do and prove that I'm good at doing whatever the... said thing is. If somebody listening right now is like, wow, that resonates. I do just like listen to authority without checking in with myself. What are the first steps to starting to like, just be like, how do I feel about this before just going in and doing whatever this person has said?
- Speaker #0
Well, your body will generally give you some sort of signal. So I actually remember that moment so well. And it was over 20 something years ago, but I remember it so, so well. Cause I remember that my whole body contracted. So she said the words, just for listeners, I was told to go, I can't even remember what that pose is called anymore. But she said those words and my whole body just went, but I still did it. So I didn't listen to my body. Have you ever had that experience, Lauren, where somebody says something to you and you know they're lying, but their face looks pleasant and their voice is pleasant, but you just know that they are lying to you? Yeah. Have you had that cognitive dissonance? Like your brain goes... I should listen to this person and they are telling me they're telling the truth, but your whole body just goes. So listen to your body. If you kind of contract, you know, and tense your buttocks when somebody talks to you, even if they're talking in a nice sing-song voice, there's something amiss. You know, listen to it. I don't know, you know, if it's wrong or if they're telling you to do something you don't want to. I don't know what it is, but there's something amiss. Listen to what is happening and then trust those sensations. And then you can do things like use your other senses. So this is living. with all of your senses, not just your cognitive mind. So then there might be other things going on in your environment. So, you know, look with your eyes, listen with your ears, kind of reiterate this information, what the person is telling you to do, something that will be harmful to you or won't help you in any way. And I think we have to learn, but the sacred no, you know, of just understanding what your boundaries are and just going, oh, yeah, actually, no, I don't really fancy doing that and having the words. to not feel that you're damning somebody with a no, but just kind of knowing yourself enough that you can just go, oh, no, I'm going to pass on that. Yeah, that doesn't feel good to me.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. You brought up boundaries. So I have to, I think we'll have to close with this because I feel like it's something that we all need to work on. And it's very difficult, at least it is and has been in my life. When you're starting to set boundaries, I think I've heard you say like boundaries are now. easy or easy-ish for you. You're at least comfortable. Yeah. So tell me how you got there because I think maybe that will give a path for me and people like me listening to get to a place where it feels easy.
- Speaker #0
Sure. Okay. So my example was to do with family who are always quite demanding and there's always a problem. There's always something going on. So much so that I actually spent a bit of time just completely not seeing any of them because I just had to save my head and my heart. So I kind of disappeared from them for a bit. And then when I came back, I had decided that I would help, but in my way. So there's things that I'm very good at. I'm really practical. I don't lose my head. I'm brilliant in a crisis. So when there's a great big crisis, I am the one that will fill in the forms, that will get the help, that will da-da-da-da. I'm really good at that. What I'm not very good at is sitting down and talking for five hours about the problem. Don't come to me for that. I'm no good for that at all. I can help you get over things. I can help you, you know, I can suggest things. I can guide you into things. I'm very good at that, but I'm no good at talking and talking and talking about the same thing and staying in the same place. Don't count on me for that. So once you know yourself, it's really easy to set your boundaries. So I just decided that I could help in the way that I can help. I can be engaged in the ways that I'm good at and the things that really drain and deplete me, I'm going to just take a step back from that. So that It doesn't mean that you don't care. It doesn't mean that you don't want to help. It's just that you're really playing to your strengths. And that's good. And I think another thing that I realised or kind of what my people needed was time. They needed me to spend time with them, not just go and go chop, chop, chop, right, done, done. Sort of this, sort of that, organise, off I go. But just to spend time, you know, spending time with people, quiet time, where you're not doing lots of things, maybe going for a walk, maybe doing some gardening with them. It's actually... quite again it's this non-verbal regulation that you're both doing you don't have to talk about the problems you could cook together you know something like that I mean I don't know about you Lauren but you know everybody I know has had girls have had funny old relationship with their mothers so actually rather than always try and go what about that time you did that what about that time you did that and on and it goes what is the point of that but actually just to you know stand side by side cooking something together for a feast or doing some gardening you know I often tell my mum packets of seeds and things. And then we'll send each other pictures of, you know, what mine looked like and what hers looked like and how they were going. And we have conversations that are outside of mothering, which I really like. And again, it's like pulling you out of your experience. That's the main thing, I think, is just decide what your strengths are and then that's what you can do. And where you don't have those strengths, just decline. Just say, that's not my thing. I'm not very good at that, but what I can do. That's kind of kinder, isn't it, as well, for you to say it and to the people, for everyone. And it's clear.
- Speaker #1
If you end up doing the thing that they're asking that you know you're not good at and that you know drains you, you end up putting your resentment on them. And they didn't ask for that. You know,
- Speaker #0
they didn't ask for that.
- Speaker #1
So I think it's such an important lesson.
- Speaker #0
And then you suffer yourself. My whole response to life now is I move towards anything that expands me and I move away from anything that retracts me. It's a challenge is great if it expands me. Brilliant. But if it's a challenge that retracts me. I'm going to try and get rid of that in my life.
- Speaker #1
So beautiful. All right, my sweet, creative cutie listening. Listen to our dear, dear Nahid and go toward anything that expands you, away from anything that detracts you and learn to soothe your nervous system. This book is so great. So many practical tools. Highly recommend it. And I appreciate you being here and spending time with me.
- Speaker #0
It was an utter pleasure. Thank you so much for having me, Lauren.
- Speaker #1
Thank you for listening. And thanks to my guest Nahid Debeljan. For more info on Nahid, follow her at TheHumanMethodUK and visit her website, TheHumanMethod.co.uk and get her book, Soothe, wherever good books are found. Unleash Your Inner Creative is hosted and executive produced by me, Lauren LaGrasso, produced by Rachel Fulton with theme music by Liz Fole. Thank you again, Creative Cutie, for listening. If you like what you heard, remember to share the show with a friend. Podcasts are really spread person to person and there is no greater influencer in your life than the people that you love, aka your friends and family. So if you liked this episode and it helped you, send it to one of them and get them to join our creative community. You can also rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We've been on the charts lately, so your ratings and reviews are helping. Please keep them coming so we can keep growing and going up the charts. You can also post about it on social media. And if you do, tag me at Lauren LaGrasso and at Unleash Your Inner Creative, and I will repost to share my gratitude. Also tag Nahid at The Human Method UK so she can share as well. And tag Rachel because she'd love to share too. My wish for you this week is that you can find a moment of calm in the midst of whatever your day and life is bringing. Take a deep breath. Check in with your body. And remind yourself that small acts of self-soothing can make a big difference. I love you. And I believe in you. Talk with you next week.
