Hello my feelers and healers. I recorded this last week and then stuck my head in the sand with some family stuff and getting my taxes done and so since I've recorded it I've cracked open the seal on managing my mind + helping my body feel more safe with what's happening. But first what I suggest here, starting with radically naming what you're feeling is a powerful step towards lowering the distress that comes with fear, uncertainty and overwhelm which are very much part of the shock and awe tactics we are being bombarded with during these first few weeks of the new administration. I've started using 5 Calls to make phone calls to my elected officials to tell them that I don't agree with what's happening. It's a very helpful app that gives you a script to read if you don't like making phone calls. Phone calls are rated much higher in as far as impact over emails or letters apparently. And I've seen statistics that Republicans call more than 4-11 times more than Democrats on issues they care about. Geting our voices heard and practicing speaking out for what we want is a part of creating increased safety and a sense of empowered actions. It's not the only thing but feeling helpless and trapped is often a subconscious trigger for pain and we are all about working with our nervous system to help quiet the pain response and lead us to see our mind body survival strategies with more clarity. So while this podcast is mostly me talking about me, I have heard from so many that this helps you feel not alone in your experiences and you are not alone at all. I promise you. If you're hurting or scared, it's understandable. Wishing you continued ease even in these scary times. I'll keep sharing and speaking and sharing recovery stories and more. Sometimes these life altering moments are the ones that can kick our healing into gear, because it's a not normal kind of moment and anything that changes our patterns can be used for good. Please book a curiosity call if you would like individual support in dealing with this moment.
Hello my feelers and healers.
I recorded this last week and then stuck my head in the sand with some family stuff and getting my taxes done and so since I've recorded it I've cracked open the seal on managing my mind + helping my body feel more safe with what's happening.
But first what I suggest here, starting with radically naming what you're feeling is a powerful step towards lowering the distress that comes with fear, uncertainty and overwhelm which are very much part of the shock and awe tactics we are being bombarded with during these first few weeks of the new administration.
I've started using 5 Calls to make phone calls to my elected officials to tell them that I don't agree with what's happening. It's a very helpful app that gives you a script to read if you don't like making phone calls. Phone calls are rated much higher in as far as impact over emails or letters apparently. And I've seen statistics that Republicans call more than 4-11 times more than Democrats on issues they care about.
Geting our voices heard and practicing speaking out for what we want is a part of creating increased safety and a sense of empowered actions. It's not the only thing but feeling helpless and trapped is often a subconscious trigger for pain and we are all about working with our nervous system to help quiet the pain response and lead us to see our mind body survival strategies with more clarity.
So while this podcast is mostly me talking about me, I have heard from so many that this helps you feel not alone in your experiences and you are not alone at all. I promise you. If you're hurting or scared, it's understandable. Wishing you continued ease even in these scary times.
I'll keep sharing and speaking and sharing recovery stories and more. Sometimes these life altering moments are the ones that can kick our healing into gear, because it's a not normal kind of moment and anything that changes our patterns can be used for good.
Please book a curiosity call if you would like individual support in dealing with this moment.
Don't forget to get a copy of Nicole Sach's new book Mind Your Body.
[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 so you can feel more better Transcribed more of the time in the body you have today and build the rich, full life that you want to live.
[00:00:39] A quick disclaimer, this podcast is not a replacement for medical care. I am here to provide insights and techniques that can complement your healthcare journey, but always consult with your healthcare provider for personalized advice.
[00:00:56] Hello, my feelers and healers, this is Deb, your host of the Curiosity Cure podcast, and I don't know about you, but I have been having a lot of different feelings this week, sometimes I feel like I woke up in a movie that I didn't ask to be a part of, and there is a supervillain running around, and now there's like, You know, a lot of super villains and, and in some ways there are always super villains and yet there is this, quality of this governmental situation that we find ourselves in.
[00:01:37] In which, really terrible, shocking, fast, bad things are happening very quickly all the time. They're designed that way. They are meant to be in that shock and awe kind of way. They're meant to be destabilizing choices. They're meant to be testing the waters of, uh, the limitations of our compassion and we do not necessarily have a society that is built to respond to this type of leadership.
[00:02:10] Um, I have so much to say, and what I know is what I've wanted to do is, lay in bed, pull the covers over my head, and pretend like it's not happening. I'm feeling that feeling really strongly in my body, or I'm like on my tiny devices like rage, texting and messaging and posting with my thumbs and just being mad into a device and trying to find other people to also have these feelings with.
[00:02:46] But I don't feel particularly effective. I don't feel like I actually even understand many things anymore. In some ways, this was reminding me of what it was like to take care of my father with dementia, because his reality, which was so real to him, didn't make sense to me. And there is a embodied experience of cognitive dissonance that I had to get used to with that situation because I knew that he was safe and he was taken care of and it and in a lot of ways, you know, his internal emotional expression did not reflect, what I knew to be true. And that was really hard because you can't kind of make somebody feel better who doesn't feel safe. And I think there is a lot of this happening for many of us because now both in Um, if you look at real life, some people's real life situations have changed radically and dramatically.
[00:03:50] If, uh, you are an undocumented immigrant, if you work with undocumented immigrants, if you have them in your family, you know, people's lives now radically are very different, uh, doesn't matter who you voted for, between one week and the next week. And then if you are a transgender person or non binary person and you have, Like, in a lot of ways for myself, I don't feel like I'm at risk.
[00:04:20] I pass as a woman. I look like a woman. I also identify as a woman and I identify also as non binary and we just contain multitudes and all of that makes sense on the inside of me. But there's not a, like externalized mismatch that threatens my life or my safety in any way, as far as I know, who knows what will happen.
[00:04:42] Um, I mean, I certainly still walking around with my pronouns of she and they, and, you know, I guess in some ways that could make me be somewhat vulnerable, but there are literally people who are now being fired from their jobs. Right. If you worked in the military and you're transgender, uh, you had a job one day and then now you don't have a job the other day. And also the government is saying that you cannot be trusted. So there is a lot of gaslighting. There is a lot of fear being built up. I mean, I think. The one thing that this president is amazing at is creating fear and fear is the foundational quality that we work with in mind body work.
[00:05:31] so I want to say, I feel kind of curious. I'm going to go with that. I don't want to say I feel ready to like, come, come into this moment and, and offer something and create some kind of way to help people because I'm having this. Battle of overwhelm. This battle inside of me of feeling like really just getting in touch with feeling incredibly helpless. And also just coming off of this time of taking care of my father and taking care of kind of wrapping all of that up and feeling kind of mad.
[00:06:06] I think I feel mad like I didn't get this kind of easy easing back into life. So there's this sense of pressure, there's this sense of feeling responsible to do something. Of value, like responsible for helping people feel better, because I have tools that I know help people feel better. And I also, of course, want to help people feel better.
[00:06:32] So, I'm really just battling on the inside of me. Like, what would be valuable, what would be beneficial to people? Would it be helping you learn how to resource a internal sense of safety. Being able to translate mind body symptoms. I mean, I know that there are people now who are having a pain flare because of the actions that are happening in the government. Because our mind and our body are not separate, but also our body, like ourselves in the world around us are also not separate. When we can start to pull back a little bit and begin to see where we have choice, agency, control, where we can, soothe and tend ourselves, where we can, express anger in a way that feels, I don't want to like healthy is maybe the wrong word, but like where we're not self harming by suppressing our emotions.
[00:07:37] That is the important piece of this. This is about reducing harm to ourselves based on the world in which we don't get to control everything. And certainly there are a lot of things that are happening that are not the way I want them to be. Tending to that vulnerable part of ourselves that actually is kind of cast about in the waves.
[00:08:05] This sense of wanting a sense of surety a sense of knowing that it's all going to turn out. Okay. Right. I see people posting like, well, it's going to be. Okay. I was like, is it it's not ever been okay for everybody all the time. And I think so many of the people that I work with are incredibly caring, loving people empathetic.
[00:08:32] And when other people are hurting, we are hurting, and there's a scientific basis for that kind of pain of empathy. The answer is not to stop caring. The answer is to figure out ways to make caring, feel more safe, feel less impactful, be able to counter the pain of the world with the joy of the world, because that joy that radical, pure existence of queer people and love and vibrancy in the face of, threat and danger is in a lot of ways a deeply felt part of many communities. So I think It's essential to be able to expand our understanding of what safety means and, be able to define for oneself also.
[00:09:28] And sometimes it is also about building, the understanding of safety in relationship to other communities, and whatever safety you have. To be able to really, really feel it, to be able to feel it and sink into it and really cherish it, because I think certainty is somewhat of an illusion as we are maybe so drastically finding, some of us are finding, oh, you didn't think the world could turn over, so quickly and yet, A lot of things have and are in the process of, and obviously there are people fighting for things and we don't know what's going to happen.
[00:10:10] We don't know the ripple effect of all of this and we're only, you know, a few days in. Like, as an example, until yesterday, wasn't afraid of flying and now today I am a little nervous. I am more nervous about flying and now there might be a lot of good information out there that will help me once again find a sense of security about flying, but I certainly do you not have the level of trust that I had before in the people whose job it is to pay attention and know what's going on when there are planes in the air?
[00:10:50] And that doesn't feel great. I really enjoy going places and I'm going to have to either bring some more radical acceptance to this situation. Or I need to, yeah, figure out what information do I need to feel safe flying, or I just need to change my behavior and do other things.
[00:11:10] I actually had this conversation with a friend of mine and he was talking about, you know, feeling angry that he may not be able to travel. And he said, 1 of the things that was helpful for him, through our conversation was to start with the radical acceptance of, I might not be able to travel for the next 4 years.
[00:11:32] And we don't know, at this moment, we do not know what is true for him around traveling, but it really helped him settle and feel kind of not peaceful, not like, oh, that's what I want to be happening. But there is something that cuts the fighting, that cuts the exhaustion of being in a situation in which you do not have control.
[00:11:58] And it is the radical acceptance of what is happening in this moment. And I think that cultivating that kind of practice is going to be really helpful for us right now. We can rage against the machine, it's a good band, right? We can, we can rage and rage and rage, but what we're actually experiencing inside of us is that constant rage and it does wear on us, does something to our nervous system, it sensitizes us.
[00:12:30] It might lead us to distance ourselves from support. And everybody's different. Every body has a different survival structure, or not even structure, but patterns. I think the first thing is just to start to notice inside of yourself, where are you spinning out?
[00:12:50] Where are you spending your time? What are you thinking about? What are you doing with your mind? What are you doing with your body? Are these getting you the results that you want to be having if you want to be feeling better, but you're constantly doom scrolling and refreshing are you feeling better?
[00:13:07] Are you getting the result that you are seeking by doing these behaviors. And there's there's no moralism here. So, in some ways, we want to feel better, but the actions that we're taking are creating us feeling worse and so we're going to need to be maybe more strict with ourselves or seek out a different kind of balance.
[00:13:32] Or let this lead you into more kinds of connection that have you feeling more of the way you want to be feeling and it's complex, right? We're going to let it unfold. I am going to let this moment lead me into action in a way that I feel like matches, my values and, and also is not me repeating an old pattern where I over give, where I am feeling over responsible for other people's feelings. That's my own internal work. I think what I want to do is meet that middle. So I'm going to try to figure that out.
[00:14:10] Certainly I'm going to be talking about the mind body connection and the social body. That's kind of what I've been calling it on this podcast some more and bringing you more information about, pain science and how all of this intersects, because for me, this is the, the intersection of being human and meeting the moment, and it's not about ascending beyond our human experience, but it is about integrating and creating for ourselves, what we would like to be seeing in the external world, which are having greater and greater systems of care. And having our needs met and being seen as whole human beings and being able to tap into these generative resources of love and, being able to create that settling feeling in our nervous system so that our bodies and our minds can support us in this incredible moment in time that we're in.
[00:15:19] We all have some real basic needs and sometimes, our anxiety, our fear, our survival strategies are the things that actually we have the greatest amount of control over. And it's really hard to change. It's hard to change a pattern and a habit and sometimes if we can do that and work on the things that we do have some greater influence over, then we can actually have a really powerful embodied shift and create less suffering for ourselves.
[00:15:58] I heard a quote, I was listening to the Hidden Brain podcast, which is a podcast I enjoy. Probably because it's about brains and one of the quotes was, we can't control everything like, or we have no control, but we have a lot of influence.
[00:16:15] So I am here not quite knowing what it is that I'm going to be offering as a way to help people navigate this particular time. This particular moment in time and space for all of my Doctor Who fans, but I'm figuring it out. If you have something That you're like, hey, this specific concept, I can really use some help with, or this is where I'm struggling in my mind body practice, or this is what I'm noticing around the news.
[00:16:47] This is what I'm noticing around the fear that I'm having for myself or my community or my friends or my extended universe please let me know. I'm sure that will match up with something I'm already thinking about and that will help give me some sense of direction and just stay tuned.
[00:17:07] So that's my promise, I guess to everybody who's listening, which is like, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm doing something. I'm gonna meet this moment. And I'm going to be here. Like I'm here with you. I am here with you all the way through this. And there's a lot of these episodes. I share a lot of resources. People are certainly invited to work with me one on one and you can book a curiosity call. I also I want you to know that I'm envisioning that sense of peace flowing through you. I'm envisioning that place when you lay your head down at night and you put the world away and you get this exquisite Loving, healing sleep, because you and your life is important. And you don't need a government to validate that.
[00:18:05] And whatever is coming, we'll navigate it. And there are a lot of people out there who are also working hard to make change in this world. And so what I have to offer is probably not going to change any laws. But it can change how a law feels inside of you. And that is also important because we cannot wait for the laws to change again.
[00:18:30] We cannot wait for the next election to create a different kind of safety in our bodies and in our beings. So I hope that this helps you feel maybe seen or maybe a sense of relief. Or I don't know, maybe it makes you feel more frustrated. Whatever it is, I want you to just notice it, right? I don't have answers, but I have lived long enough to have gotten to see things come and go and ebb and flow. In that sense, I don't know how to describe what that, what that is like. To be able to look back and see many different iterations of how the government, gets involved in our lives. I think also like leaning into, to history and what we've been through before and what people have survived can also be helpful.
[00:19:26] So that's all for today. Just wanted to reach out and tell you all that I'm thinking of you and that I am working on figuring out how to be here for you and with you. I'm not going away. And I'm not putting this work down. I will say, Nicole Sachs' book, Mind Your Body, is coming out. And that is very exciting. And I think her work gives a really powerful place to start in terms of creating a sense of safety with really big emotions. I, am going to her talk that she's doing at the 92nd Street Y, and, I'm leaning into my own journalistic speak practice because, I need that kind of radical self witnessing.
[00:20:12] And what it does is really help me create like almost a third place because my first inclination is to hide. And I can look back at my life and kind of see like where that got reinforced, where that became a behavior. And so to change any kind of behavior needs, needs some kind of like radical love and witnessing.
[00:20:37] Um, because making change and doing something that's not your usual thing can be really scary and, you know, so I'm, I'm trying to titrate this experience and journal speak allows me to be radically honest about all of my worries and fears and feelings, big feelings, full of them, and allows me to create a sense of safety and have this place within myself in which I am expressing the truth of how I am feeling. I think that that is an essential need. That is essential core need for me to be kind of heard and witnessed. So interesting. As soon as I said that I could feel this wave of emotion come up, feeling like I have a core need to be seen and witnessed. And yet I want to hide. Like that's something to notice, but I'm here and I'm speaking to you and I'm going to continue to do that and so, as I figure it out, I will let you know. And if you have ideas, please share them. Please just message me. Let me know what you need. And I love you and I'll talk to you later. Thanks. Thanks for listening.