Today's podcast is my exploration into using my mindbody tools and practice to approach an activity desire I have, riding my bike. This has been a tough one and I am noticing some shame and fear arising. But I'm dedicated to exploring curiosity and what an approaching vs. avoidance strategy might look like. I can't wait to bring this "problem" with me to Hypnothoughts Live and explore what hypnosis skills I can apply to make this feel easy, fun and successful to acheive. I hope you follow along and connect with an activity or desire you might have in your life. Need help, I got you!
Today's podcast is my exploration into using my mindbody tools and practice to approach an activity desire I have, riding my bike. This has been a tough one and I am noticing some shame and fear arising. But I'm dedicated to exploring curiosity and what an approaching vs. avoidance strategy might look like.
I can't wait to bring this "problem" with me to Hypnothoughts Live and explore what hypnosis skills I can apply to make this feel easy, fun and successful to acheive.
I hope you follow along and connect with an activity or desire you might have in your life.
Need help, I got you!
Here's my friend Andrea's website and instagram, please follow her!
https://www.amplemovement.com/
https://www.instagram.com/amplemovement
[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.
[00:00:56] Hello, my feelers and healers. This is Deb, the host of the curiosity cure podcast. Today I'm going to do a kind of a little wander through my own mind body practice. Cause I have a bunch of interviews that I'm doing and then I'm editing and those take time. And I am currently in the process of changing my relationship with my bicycle and I have been wanting to ride my bike for a while now.
[00:01:30] I probably even talked about this last year. This is a multi year approach. And so there's some uprooting of shame. There's definite coming in contact with fear. And what I'm trying to do is bring this mind body approach to this activity, to this desire so that not only am I doing it, doing the thing that I want to do, but I'm supporting my brain and my body and my nervous system so that it does not need to get my attention in other ways, right?
[00:02:09] When we talk about the body protecting by pain, a lot of the times that looks like pain coming along for the ride with an activity, but the pain is not related to the activity. So, you know, when you're deep in mind body work and you understand what a symptom imperative is or a flare is, and you use this approach, I now think of pain as a communication from the body, right?
[00:02:41] We, we want to listen and pay attention, get curious and start to deconstruct why is this experience happening? So one of the ways that I really want to kind of protect my future self from having negative associations with riding my bicycle is to one, to approach slowly is to let myself off the hook for having to achieve this goal in any particular period of time. For me, there is a lot of complexity in what appears to be simple, right? You think riding a bicycle, you just get on the bike and you ride. And now if I lived in a place that had like. bike paths or trails.
[00:03:31] Maybe getting on my bicycle and going for a ride would actually be a lot easier. But I live in a big city that is not designed for safe bike riding. So there's a lot of ways in which you need to be very alert, pay a lot of attention, feel safe in your body because you might have to stop short, make a course correction, pay attention and not get hit by a car.
[00:04:00] Don't run into a pedestrian, which I remember doing when I was, in college riding my bike around. Or sometimes I was skating and the people who were the worst were pedestrians, right? Cause in New York, people jaywalk, they just like, you see that the road is clear and people just go. We want to go and be in the same location at the same time.
[00:04:22] I just saw it yesterday. There was a woman on her bicycle. There was a guy looking at his phone, crossing the street, even though, uh, she had the right of way. There was not a green for him to cross on, but he's just on his phone and he's just walking and she's turning.
[00:04:39] She's thinking he's going to stop. He is not participating in the anticipation of other people's movements or activities and, you know, she runs into him. I mean, like, kind of just like bumps into him, but that was a moment. And, you know, as you're wanting to ride your bike, these are all the inputs.
[00:05:03] The other day I was getting ready to take a ride on my bike and I keep putting it on my calendar, and then I keep moving it. So there's definitely like, There's a desire and then there's a lot of things that are kicking that action down the road So I of course, you know, that's a big shame trigger for me and especially as somebody who works in this field It's very easy to get a I should be better. I should know how to do this. I have all the tools so I'm definitely watching some of that arise. And in a lot of ways that I should protective strategy just derails any curiosity.
[00:05:50] So the other day I was recovering from COVID. It was extremely hot outside. And then I noticed that my tire was low and my whole body deflated. And I was like, yeah, that was one too many things. And I really just met that moment with a lot of grace and a lot of love. And I was like, yeah, that feels like one too many things.
[00:06:16] I was noticing that I was very confused as to whether I should be wearing a mask or should not be wearing a mask while riding. And so that confusion came into the mix, you know, and I've tried to be very thoughtful about other people's health and safety. So. There were a lot of things that were like, this doesn't feel great.
[00:06:37] And I don't want to do this right now. And because I don't need my bicycle to go places. I don't rely on this bicycle for any particular reason. It's very, very easy to just put it aside and leave it for another day. And that's a theme that's come up with a number of clients, which is how do we motivate and activate ourselves when the thing that we're wanting to do is kind of not essential.
[00:07:12] It's not a have to. And sourcing that desire from a, a real genuine place of, I want to. I have this deeper desire to. That's a part of finding motivation. And it's very, very easy to kind of let that have tos run the show. And also that can very much exhaust us. So especially if you're having, what I kind of call a divided mind moment, right?
[00:07:45] Which is you have a desire to do something and you also have the desire to not do something. That's an internal conflict. And oftentimes, again, with this, like this was one too many things kind of moment, the desire to not do something will win and in some ways, because I have mixed desires, these dueling desires, I, myself, my self energy, wins no matter what, in some ways.
[00:08:17] And so, there's a whole, Kind of process of unraveling all these things. I would love to get to a place where getting on my bike feels easy or that at least I'm willing to navigate the hard for the period of time that it is hard to create and build that resource of riding my bicycle is safe or safe enough.
[00:08:44] Riding my bicycle is something I feel good at. Riding my bicycle is something that I feel empowered to do. So there's a lot of, uh, Curiosity that goes into what are the right ingredients for this particular feeling of empowerment?
[00:09:04] Some of it is, connecting with other fat bike people. My friend Andrea is a fat bike person and an outdoor enthusiast and hiking teacher and yoga teacher. And she posts a lot about biking. And so I look to her for this, like encouragement and enthusiasm, and she loves biking and I can kind of feed off of some of her enthusiasm. And bring that as an input into my mind body experience.
[00:09:36] Um, and then there's other, other people, right? So you can like fill your, your Instagram feed with people who are doing things that you want to be doing, but it has a dual edge to it, which is if you notice that all you're doing is looking at people who are doing things that you want to be doing and that kind of like.
[00:09:57] Scratches the itch then you need to get curious about, well, what is the next step for me? And oftentimes it's a much smaller step than we imagine it to be. And that gets in the way of kind of Some mythologies of doing things, right? It's, we don't often celebrate the small, small, small steps. We, like, really want that big win, the big reward, like, having done the thing.
[00:10:27] But the thing right now might mean, for me, the thing right now might mean looking at my bike and smiling. It also might mean filling up my tire with air. Like, on a day where I'm not intending to ride the bicycle, it might mean, like, I took the ferry the other day, there's a, like an uninterrupted bike path in Manhattan on the West side.
[00:10:53] And I was like, Oh, you know what? I could ride to the ferry, bring the bike on the ferry and then ride on the West side. And then I wouldn't have to ride over the bridge. So there's a lot of different ways to make small exposure experiences. And I also could just get on the bike.
[00:11:14] I could just get on the bike, ride around the block, come home. Get on the bike, ride around two blocks, and come home. Get on the bike with an open frame and just see what happens. There's some protected bike lanes and paths that I can avail myself of so there's a lot of choices But the first part is to be able to open the door and take the bike out of the house feeling secure enough to be able to try and Also knowing that I am holding my own hand in this process I can flood myself with happy memories of riding my bike.
[00:12:00] Like when I was a kid, I really enjoyed riding my bike. As I got older and when I lived in New York City, riding definitely was a mixed bag. There was definitely like times where it felt too hard to do. And there was a lot of my own relationship with my body and defeatism. So there were times where when something would feel hard to do, I would stop doing it because that was the kinder thing for my system because I only had these two modes, which was like, Push through or don't do it.
[00:12:42] There's a spectrum of ways to engage and now having this mind body approach, I can use all of that for my highest benefit to help me do the things that I want to do. And I've certainly been doing that around walking. I've been doing that around going to the pool. I've been doing that around going to the beach.
[00:13:04] I feel really good in my body. So some of that also was recovering from my most recent, knee pain experience. That needed to happen first for me before feeling comfortable getting on my bike.
[00:13:20] I'm about to go to Hypnothoughts live, which is a great hypnosis conference, and I'm bringing this desire with me. And I'm going to get really, really curious about what are the hypnosis tools and techniques. that can help me achieve this goal and maybe make it be even easier to do. I have a client when we would talk about kind of like the thing that feels really hard and then doing that mind body support to, to take that action to do the thing, like then it became a nothing burger.
[00:13:58] And so how can I make getting on my bike feel like a nothing burger and getting curious to know what are the different ways that I can use these mind, body skills and techniques to help achieve that goal, because it's very hard to just have a goal of not doing something like I want to not be afraid or not feel pain or not hate the way shame feels like it's very hard to teach your brain something is safe when really what you're trying to do is an avoidance strategy.
[00:14:35] So I am all about how do we make these approaching strategies more fun, more curious, feel safer, feel more possible, and then use the reflection tools to be able to break down like what worked, what didn't work, how can I approach this differently? What else do I need to invite into this experience to make it feel more possible for me?
[00:15:03] And really loving myself through the entire process. I think for me, I mean, not even I think, I know for me. One of the most dramatic changes in my life from doing this work has been to learn how to love myself through any experience, any difficult physical, emotional, or social experience has been about cultivating this sense of unabiding love and self friendship
[00:15:40] and so I know that I'm going to achieve this goal, and I'm really curious to discover how I'm going to do it, what's going to make it feel easy and fun and delightful, and also knowing that I need to have my awareness, attention, that sense of self protection that you need when you're riding in a complex and, you know, dangerous experience.
[00:16:05] You also need to be alert. Awake, you know, aware and all of that, bringing that in that kind of activating energy in the right dose into the experience and still having it feel fun and then, you know, making choices. Around where do I want to ride? When do I want to ride? How do I support my whole body and being, maybe that means inviting, like doing it with friends, finding other ways of external support as well.
[00:16:39] I hope that this little like journey through my mind body process is helpful. And that you can take what I've just said and maybe listen to it again and listen to it again and listen to it again, and then think, how can I apply this curiosity, gentle neuroplasticity, and self love approach to my own life and desire?
[00:17:04] Not just to your life, but to the desire of whatever it is that you might want to do or achieve, whatever it is that you want to feel more safe doing. And then the invitation, of course, is always, if you want a collaborator, a guide, if you want help applying this work to yourself, book a curiosity call and let's make that happen.
[00:17:32] Thanks so much