Calling all sh*t talkers! I see you, I am you! Here's my best offer to you for feeling more better more of the time.... GENTLE NEUROPLASTICITY! Or if you want to say it like Bond, it would be neuroplasticity, gentle neuroplasticity. 🤩 Let's dive into the embodied process of inviting in gentleness to your self growth process.
Articles I'm referencing in this podcast. Dive in or not into the research :)
How to Be Less Self Punishing
https://psychcentral.com/health/how-to-stop-punishing-yourself
The Scientific Benefits of Self-Compassion
https://ccare.stanford.edu/uncategorized/the-scientific-benefits-of-self-compassion-infographic/
About 70 minutes in there's a simple explanation of neuroplasticity
https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/a-science-supported-journaling-protocol-to-improve-mental-physical-health
Self Compassion Research
https://self-compassion.org/the-research/
[00:00:00] Welcome to the curiosity cure podcast. I'm your host, Deb Malkin, master certified life coach, body worker, hypnotist trained in pain reprocessing by the pain psychology center, queer elder, fat human on planet earth here to help you evoke the power of simple neuroplasticity techniques rooted in shame free curiosity.
[00:00:29] So you can feel more better. more of the time in the body you have today and build the rich, full life that you want to live. A quick disclaimer, this podcast is not a replacement for medical care. I am here to provide insights and techniques that can compliment your healthcare journey, but always consult with your healthcare provider for personalized advice.
[00:00:58] Hello, and welcome to the Curiosity Cure. This is your host, Deb Malkin. I just want to start by saying that I have some availability to work with new clients. So if you are like this year, this is the year 2024. I really want to get into this mind body work. I read Alan Gordon's, The Way Out, I understand this stuff, but I want to embody it.
[00:01:23] I want to get back to doing the things, with my body and my life that I want to be doing. So I would love to help you. At the very least, let's just have a conversation, right? Happy to listen to your pain story, happy to listen to all the things that you've tried and help you put the pieces together and then just talk about the way that I do things or share other resources with you.
[00:01:49] There's a link, pain coach Deb on Calendly. Just book a call. Let's have a conversation.
[00:01:56] So let's get started with today's. I'm going to talk to you about gentle neuroplasticity. So we've all heard about neuroplasticity and it's the way that the brain changes itself and there's a whole bunch of cool science about it and I am not going to talk about it the science of neuroplasticity, maybe I will add some links in the show notes about neuroplasticity. There was like a recent Huberman lab podcast that talked about neuroplasticity and explained it really well. David Eagleman's got a great book. I'm not going to share with you that science right now, I am going to talk about the gentle part.
[00:02:44] And so it's for all of you, including me, anybody who is a well practiced shit talker. So 2024 we are going to learn how to be freaking gentle. Neuroplasticity, gentle neuroplasticity, calibrating your internal guidance system with kindness. And it's science backed, so I'm going to get more into that, right?
[00:03:14] It's not just like a nice idea, but let's just start. So put a hand on your heart and then one on your cheek and then feel the warmth and pause to notice what arises, when you're touching your own body in this gentle and loving way. And you might be surprised, like, I don't know, right? We're just exploring. So pause to notice what arises and then practice this randomly throughout the day. Also a nice place to do it is in the back of the head with your thumb right under that ridge and just holding there almost like the way maybe you were held as a baby and just for a few moments.
[00:04:07] Don't have to do it very long. Just touch in to your body in this way. Not even to be like, Hey buddy, what's up? How's it going? Just to be like, uh, I got you, or uh. I love you, like whatever it is, whatever the right words are for you. This is the thing, the affirmations or mantras or whatever you want to call them.
[00:04:37] It's not the words, it's the felt sense of the words. And so everybody's got a different felt sense. Everybody's got a different relationship to language and words and ideas. So it's really about for you what gives you that feeling of loving self connection and so, you know. Maybe you call yourself butthead and be like, oh, hey, butthead.
[00:05:05] Sometimes I call myself kiddo, um, which made my friend laugh. Yeah. So sometimes it'd be like, hey, kiddo, you're okay. I think actually, maybe I stole that from a client. I don't know. We get language from each other also. Right? So you might hear somebody else talk to themselves or a child or a pet or something and it invites this feeling inside of you to be felt. So just pay attention to that. There's really no wrong way to do this. I believe in you.
[00:05:40] So that is the first thing we just start right out with a practice. What I'm trying to articulate, and it's been coming up and up and up over and over with clients.
[00:05:52] And what I've seen is when we invite in this gentleness, their whole body relaxes. You know that feeling when you're like holding your breath or bracing for impact. It's the release of that. That softening that happens when we invite in gentleness into this process. And I'm always noticing, where does this come in for you?
[00:06:18] Where does this come in for me? And I'm like, yes, more of that, more, more, more of that. Because it shows us in that moment when we connect these ideas together, our body can go from tight and rigid to relax, soft and open. And if we understand what it was that helped us create that shift, then we can do that on purpose with intention.
[00:06:47] And so I want you to introduce this idea of gentle into your process, whether you're doing pain reprocessing, whether you're doing some other kind of self development work, it is really, really important to start with this quality of gentleness and self connection. I think I'm just going to fixate on this.
[00:07:10] So like you are going to hear me talk about gentle or this word gentle or gentle neuroplasticity, not just neuroplasticity. I'm going to talk about it all the time because often when we're trying to change things, we can be in a rush because we don't have. The skill or a good reason to be with what is, especially if what is, is emotionally or physically unbearable.
[00:07:39] We haven't heard yet maybe about the pain, fear, pain cycle, or how our nervous system responses can help perpetuate pain as a way of keeping us safe. So when we're in a rush. We're creating this sense of urgency. And then when we feel something urgently, that increases our perceived sense of danger.
[00:08:02] And all of that is a snowball. We want to prevent being hit by rolling snowballs and it's okay. If that's currently your experience of how your embodied experience is going. But I want to invite you to just start to practice this idea that if I bring a gentle quality to it, not only will change happen, but the whole way through, I'll be practicing feeling more, better, more of the time.
[00:08:33] With this quality of gentleness and care that in the end is one of the things that we are looking for. So that is my invitation to you. I made a post about this on Instagram and a fellow MindBody practitioner said, and let's add in slower while we're at it. Can I slow down? And you know, she asked it kind of like she was asking my permission and I said, yes.
[00:09:03] So when you give yourself permission or feel that permission being granted from the inside of you, what do you notice? And then she said, I actually notice a judgment of being slow and lazy. And this is the part where it's really important to just notice what's arising, not judge it and not try to force something, right?
[00:09:27] This is where toxic positivity is a problem because if we don't let ourselves notice that, Hey, my first hit is this judgment of being slow and lazy. One, we can't see the through line of socialization of how the patriarchy or fat phobia or any of these systems of oppression relate to how we're feeling.
[00:09:51] We just think like, Oh, Hey, I'm just feeling this stuff on the inside, but we can now see the, the through line, these little threads that have been woven into our embodied experience, you know, so we won't even know where to start to cut the threads. We just think of it as a me problem. No, we can start to see Hey, uh, when I think of slowing down, I think that it's a judgment that I'm slow or that I'm lazy.
[00:10:20] And the next thing that she said is so brilliant. Cause she's like, then I freaking sink into it and actually intentionally go slow and it kind of seems delicious and like a rebellious act in the face of society. And then she says, and slowing my body down tells my mind and my body that we're safe, right? So she's doing her own rebellious, delicious rewiring of these societal messages that being slow is bad, but also at the same time, she's You know, breaking that pain, fear, pain cycle. She's going into this experience and really giving herself permission and allowing her body to be present with what is, and all of this is about building a future self that has less fear, less pain, less overwhelm, less urgency when something comes up.
[00:11:23] Right, so that we're training the nervous system to have an expanded window of tolerance, to feel more safe, more of the time.
[00:11:33] Here's a little story. I love telling stories. I said it once on a Instagram. I was like, I want to tell you a story. And then when I listened to it, I was like, Oh my God, I do want you to tell me a story.
[00:11:47] So I'm going to tell you a story about some thought work that I've been doing and embodied practices to invite in gentleness into my self growth process. And so this isn't about pain. Well, it's maybe about emotional pain. If you listen to this podcast, you will hear me tell of being my own very harsh critic that I have a history of being a giant ruminator and all of that frothy internalizing gets experienced somatically in my body.
[00:12:26] I am a big feeler with big feelings and it isn't always comfortable. It isn't always welcomed. It wasn't seen as a beloved personality trait when I was a child or at different times in my adulthood. It has led to difficulty at work and with interpersonal relationships. It is also not the entirety of my experience, it's important to remember that when I'm telling this story. Understanding the health and wellness benefits of developing a self compassion practice, as described by researcher Kristen Neff, helped me understand how important it is as a piece of the puzzle of mind body healing.
[00:13:18] So this is a little quote from the Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, which I find fascinating that even exists. Many of us believe being self critical and hard on ourselves is a good thing. We mistakenly think that being competitive and pushing ourselves hard is required for success.
[00:13:40] Research, however, is proving these theories wrong. Most of us don't stop to consider whether our self critical and competitive attitudes are helping us achieve our goals. We don't realize that they're actually standing in our way. Scientific data shows that self criticism makes us weaker in the face of failure, more emotional and less likely to assimilate lessons from our failures.
[00:14:08] Studies are finding that there is far better alternative to self criticism and that self compassion. Though the term self compassion may sound like self indulgence or may feel like a weakness, it is actually the secret to resilience, strength in the face of failure, the ability to learn from mistakes and bounce back with greater enthusiasm.
[00:14:34] Self compassion involves treating oneself as one would a friend. Now this is me talking. Sometimes we also don't treat our friends like we might think we would treat a friend. So maybe it's also self compassion involves treating oneself as one would like to treat a friend.
[00:14:56] But also then being more mindful, understanding our situation in the context of a larger human experience.
[00:15:05] When we can be more understanding and gentler with ourselves, identify less with the emotions that surround our mistakes, and understand that failure is a normal part of the larger human experience, we become stronger and more successful in the long run. We become stronger and more resilient.
[00:15:25] And there's just, there's a lot of research out there that is very, very compelling. I know for me that when sometimes I hear something that like sounds like a good idea, I often don't apply it to myself. Sometimes I think that I am the exception to, you know, things that help other people.
[00:15:50] But what I do notice, I am very motivated by scientific research. There is one thing that I do believe, which is even though maybe I have a neuro spicy neurodivergent brain, essentially there's more things alike between us than different. And so when something has a lot of compelling research to it, I really can see myself inside of that research and think, how do I apply this to me? Right?
[00:16:21] So it's not, how do I conform to the research, but how can I take this understanding of the human condition of the mind body relationship. There's a whole thing about self compassion improving our immune system, right?
[00:16:36] So all of this really interesting research, and I think, how can I take what we know? Now, and apply that to myself. And I think that kind of curiosity really, really helps me as opposed to thinking somehow I'm an outlier or that it's not going to work for me. It's somehow I am uniquely broken, which is, uh, it's like such a deep wound.
[00:17:03] It's such a painful belief. And there's a part of me that wants to believe that's true, because of course, if that's true, then I don't know, maybe then I don't need fixing, right? It's this very um sneaky way of kind of claiming my own selfhood. And I love that, but at the same time, trying to maintain this identity of somebody who is this outlier and uniquely different than everybody else doesn't really allow me to then believe in change.
[00:17:43] And I do believe in change. I've experienced this kind of mind, body change. And so I really want to believe in this idea of gentle neuroplasticity and the gentle part comes with not being in a rush and not having it mean I need to be somebody else other than myself. It's really more of like, how can I take what we understand about how the brain works, how the mind and body are connected together, what emotions even feel like, what emotions even are, and how can I take all of that understanding, this modern day understanding and apply it to myself so I can feel better?
[00:18:24] Because I love myself and I want myself to feel better more of the time. And one of the things that I've noticed lately is the more I feel safe. In my home and in my body, the more space there is for grief and the past to show up, to be witnessed, processed, and tended to. And it's very uncomfortable, but I also know and understand that this is a part of my healing. And I use a multitude of self directed neuroplasticity tools to help create that soft landing place for myself.
[00:19:07] To grow out of old habits and patterns and ways of responding that don't serve me any longer, or at least that I can lessen my distress when they show up in a way that I judge. If I experience less distress, my thinking mind and my feeling body can stay present and not fly off into fight, flight, or freeze.
[00:19:32] I can stay safely attuned with myself. And that process isn't static. By using thought work, embodiment practices, hypnosis, and more, we can create and witness a change that we want to have.
[00:19:52] Here's an example of mine from the week. I had a date. Which just feels like a win all by itself. It's taken a lot of courage for me to start to date again, as my brain really loves to review all the worst moments of various relationships. It feels, again, very uncomfortable. But lately, I've been taking a less avoidant approach to it and asking myself, what would someone who is compassionate with themselves say right now when my brain wants to beat me up with my own history or one version of my own history?
[00:20:38] And it's definitely working, in that I'm feeling more capable of processing past hurts and holding it all loosely, not making it mean something about my future. My date had said that they are more cuddle oriented than me. It was this interesting moment to kind of poke this little old wound and they weren't wrong.
[00:21:07] So I used to be very into cuddling, but years of isolation during COVID and before that years of a relationship in which my ex and I had different needs and different desires, which there's nothing wrong with that. But we weren't successful at navigating collaborative and loving conversations about it.
[00:21:29] So only recently have I been able to be honest with myself about how hard that was for me. I see how much I sublimated my desires and needs to be with her. And it's hard to believe that the same thing won't happen again.
[00:21:50] But when I ask myself, what would someone who is compassionate with themselves say? It ends up more like feeling tender towards myself who chose to stay even though I was hurting so much.
[00:22:08] And it gives me some wiggle room. To help me believe that it can be different in the future. I mean, it already is different in the present moment. And it's been really nice to enjoy cuddling with this person. And that's been super lovely.
[00:22:28] To support myself in dating and in creating the relationship to dating that I want to have, I want to make myself an intentional practice. My thought that I want to practice is I won't self abandon to make somebody else happy.
[00:22:48] And it's really like, I won't self abandon to make me believe I'm making somebody else happy because of course, we can't really make somebody have a feeling, there's all kinds of non conscious, subliminal and energetic ways that we can relate to somebody, but generally if we hit somebody's trigger, we didn't install the trigger.
[00:23:15] We're all bumping up against each other's stuff. What I love about ThoughtWork is it helps us to really examine and understand our own stuff. That gives us more adeptness, gives you more power and agency and control. We don't always need both the circumstances and other people to be different. That's not our only option in feeling differently.
[00:23:43] It's really like a partner or it's akin to mind body healing. It's akin to the way that the brain works when we're doing pain reprocessing, right?
[00:23:53] We're kind of taking this circumstance of pain or an unpleasant sensation, and we are changing the way we relate to it. We're changing the way we understand it. We're changing our feelings about it. We're changing our actions that we're taking in relationship to that. physiological experience, which maybe we would call the circumstance. And in changing the actions, then we get different results and that is neuroplasticity. So what I love about gentle neuroplasticity is how I'm really creating this process of self loving, self compassion.
[00:24:35] My circumstance is dating. My thought is, I won't self abandon to make someone else happy. The feeling is relaxed. Like, when I think that thought, I won't self abandon.
[00:24:51] I'm just even going to say that. I won't self abandon. I feel relaxed. It feels like the emotional equivalent of self trust. And so the action lines that come out of that idea are that I take time to think about my responses about what I want. I ask more questions from curiosity on a date instead of trying to just say the right things, right?
[00:25:21] Because that's coming out of trying to make sure that somebody likes me or is happy all the time. Right?
[00:25:27] So I am really now being able to shift into, I'm in my seat. I am grounded and rooted in me. And now I want to know. This other person who I'm spending time with. Other things are learning to be comfortable saying no and being willing to have somebody else feel disappointed, uh, taking time to feel what I'm feeling.
[00:25:55] So not just jumping in with the first response, which often is maybe a little bit of panic. Really just taking time to get through that initial nervous system hit. And really just spend time. I'm worth spending time with to understand what it is that I'm experiencing, what it is that I want, that I give myself permission to enjoy what feels good in the moment without worrying about the future.
[00:26:30] And then the result or the return that I get is I create more self connection while dating. So that's my little thought work model that I'm practicing and it can change and grow over time. But what it does is it gives me a place to start. And then I can ask myself, you know, as I'm dating and as I'm going through things and I can see like, am I matching up with this model?
[00:27:01] And what are the results that I'm getting, you know, because we're going to take it from the lab almost, right? It's almost like we're running an experiment. We're taking it from this theoretical place out into the world to practice it because that is where neuroplasticity happens when we're out in the experience of change and it.
[00:27:23] One of the things I do know about neuroplasticity that I want to share with you is that we have to agitate it. We have to actually bump up to what feels uncomfortable to actually create the neurochemical process for change to happen, for learning to happen. There's a whole process that actually doesn't feel the most comfortable.
[00:27:45] So maybe that is like thoughts about the past or fear about the future coming in. But with this kind of gentle neuroplasticity process, whether it's somatic, whether it's cognitive, whether it's both, because we're both, this is the bridge to building towards change.
[00:28:04] So I wanted to share that example with you and really encourage you that whenever you hear yourself being harsh, Or judgmental or critical to bring in some gentleness into the process, even just the part of you that can witness the experience of that critic being mean.
[00:28:34] And even just using my, I notice practice, you can even just say, I notice that you're saying these mean things to yourself. And again, you could pair that with that kind of loving touch. Hey, I notice that you're saying these words to yourself. I'm just going to be here with you and notice this. Add that part, see what happens.
[00:29:04] Try it. Notice if your shoulders relax, if your belly expands that you can take a breath, like making a breath is easier. I'll link again to my self directed neuroplasticity exercises that I have on YouTube. Those are fun and easy to do. I'll often be in the car and starting to notice that I'm circling the drain of whatever kind of thought rumination habit, I'll just interrupt it in that moment.
[00:29:38] And just start tapping and sometimes it can even just be content free and I'll, I'll tap a little bit here and I'll say, I release and let this go the way my teacher, Melissa taught me, there's a little bit of dirty language in it ,which I'm not going to say on this podcast, but I believe it is on my YouTube channel.
[00:29:58] That's what I have for you today. I hope that this podcast has been helpful. I am excited to talk to you about your process, about your mind body work, about how you're applying these techniques to yourself. I would love to hear if you have any feedback about the podcast.
[00:30:18] Please share it with friends if you feel like you know exactly the person who needs to hear this episode, please share it with them.
[00:30:26] Of course, if you want a curiosity call with me, there is a link to book a free call in the show notes. Thank you very much. Bye.